Cuprate is an alternative and independent Monero node implementation that is focused on being fast, user-friendly, and backwards compatible with monerod.

This project is currently a work-in-progress; the cuprated node can be ran by users although it is not yet ready for production. This book contains brief sections documenting cuprated usage, however, be aware that it is incomplete and missing sections.

To get started, see: Getting started.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions about Cuprate.

Who?

Cuprate was started by SyntheticBird45 in early 2023 and was later joined by boog900, hinto-janai, and other contributors.

A few Cuprate contributors are funded by Monero's Community Crowdfunding System to work on Cuprate and occasionally monerod.

What is cuprated?

monerod is the daemon of the Monero project, the Monero node.

cuprated is the daemon of the Cuprate project, the Cuprate node.

Both operate on the same network, the Monero network, and are responsible for roughly the same tasks.

For more information on the role of alternative node implementations, see:

Does cuprated replace monerod?

No.

cuprated cannot currently replace monerod in production environments. With that said, there will be practical performance benefits for users to use cuprated eventually.

Is it safe to run cuprated?

⚠️ This project is still in development; do NOT use cuprated for any serious purposes ⚠️

cuprated is fine to run for casual purposes and has a similar attack surface to other network connected services.

See Resources for information on what system resources cuprated will use.

What files does cuprated create?

See Resources/Disk.

What can cuprated currently do?

Cuprate's node (cuprated) can currently:

  • Sync the blockchain and transaction pool
  • Broadcast and relay blocks and transactions
  • Help other peers sync their blockchain

How fast does cuprated sync?

The current full verification sync timings are around ~7.5x faster than monerod.

In real terms, 16 hour full verification syncs and 4 hour fast-sync syncs have been reported on consumer grade hardware. On faster hardware (14 threads, 10Gbps networking), sub 2 hour fast-syncs have been reported.

Various testing results can be found here.

How to see status of cuprated?

In the terminal running cuprated, type status.

Use the help command to see the full list of commands.

How to tell cuprated is fully synced?

cuprated emits a message when it is fully synced: synchronised with the network.

It also logs its block height status when syncing, for example:

2025-03-01T22:15:52.516944Z  INFO incoming_block_batch{start_height=3362022 len=29}: Successfully added block batch
  • start_height is the height cuprated was previously at
  • len is how many blocks have been added to the blockchain

start_height can be compared to a block height from monerod or a block explorer to see if cuprated is near synced.

How big is the database?

As of March 4th 2025, cuprated's database is ~240GB in size.

For reference, monerod's database is ~200GB in size.

This is planned to be improved in the future.

Is the database compatible with monerod?

No.

The database cuprated generates and uses cannot directly be used by monerod and vice-versa. Supporting this is possible but there are no current plans to do so.

Can I connect a wallet to cuprated?

Not yet.

Wallets require the daemon RPC API. This is actively being worked on to be backwards compatible with monerod, although this is not yet available.

Can cuprated be used with an anonymity network like Tor?

Not yet (directly).

Tor is planned to be integrated into cuprated via arti, although this is not yet available.

In the meanwhile, solutions like torsocks can redirect any program's networking through Tor, including cuprated. Note that this will slow down syncing speeds heavily.

cuprated won't start because of a "killswitch", why?

The current alpha builds of cuprated contain killswitches that activate 1 week after the next release is out. If the killswitch activates, you must upgrade to the latest release.

The reasoning for why this exists can be found here: https://github.com/Cuprate/cuprate/pull/365.

What is the release schedule?

New versions of cuprated are planned to release every 4 weeks.

See this GitHub issue for more details.

What is the versioning scheme?

cuprated is currently in alpha (0.0.x).

After sufficient testing and development, cuprated will enter beta (0.x.y) then stable (x.y.z) releases.

See this GitHub issue for more details.

What is the current progress?

See this Reddit thread for a brief report on Cuprate's progress throughout 2024.

Things are always changing so feel free to join our Matrix channel and ask questions.

What is the current roadmap?

See this GitHub issue for Cuprate's rough 2025 roadmap.