Privacy-Centric Coins: Rapidly Gaining Popularity

A Better Alternative for Zero-Knowledge, Untraceable Transactions

The growing resentment and distrust of Big Brother's blanket surveillance, fiat slight of hand and strong-arm legal maneuvering is resulting in more and more users turning toward transactional methods that can efficiently and effectively retain a superior degree of anonymity.

Pseudo-Anonymity is Not Enough

Without effective means to obtain zero-knowledge, untraceable transactions, Bitcoin's pseudo-anonymity makes it possible for any knowledgeable and diligent cybersleuth to trace a Bitcoin's transactional path - all the way back to its origin.

This is not a very comforting thought; especially if one desires to engage in geographically illegal gambling.

(IMHO, akin to the anti-drinking laws of The Prohibition Era, anti-gambling laws are moronic notions based on unrealistic and unenforceable edicts.)

Maybe a person wishes to make Dark/Deep Web purchases?

What if someone wants to give a gift anonymously or perform some benevolent, unnamed philanthropy?

From the early "mixers" and "shuffling schemes" to the Dark Wallet and Samurai - Decoder, Encoder, Solver, Translator (dCode) - of today, cryptocurrency users have always wanted more privacy than Bitcoin's pseudo-anonymity.

But until now, the only viable options were third party services that were inherently time-consuming, inconvenient and cumbersome. Furthermore, these measures were routinely confusing and difficult to easily utilize.

Enter Privacy-Centric coins

The top ones being (for now) Zcash, Monero and Dash (formerly Darkcoin).

Zcash

Zcash is currently the focus of much attention from many users in the cryptocurrency world. It boasts an impressive pedigree of investors, engineers and a vibrant community.

Zcash's cryptographic technology has been hailed as "groundbreaking, light years ahead of the pack" by top cryptographers in the space.

"The encryption scheme used by zcash - called zk-SNARK - may well be THE MOST effective encryption method that I have ever come across." - Vtalik Buterin (paraphrased)

Monero

Monero is another popular anonymous altcoin; especially with the mining community since it is one of the most profitable cryptocoins to mine.

Monero's anonymous encryption method is called CryptoNote. Monero is not another crude, "dime a dozen" knockoff of Bitcoin. It has its roots in Bytecoin - another anonymous cryptocurrency with egalitarian CPU and GPU mining properties.

Monero's anonymizing magic comes from the daemon employed in the CryptoNote technology - stealth addresses intertwined with one-time ring signatures; effectively putting Harry Potter's "Invisible Cloak" on the transaction.

This was the brainchild of Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Yael Tauman; spawning a new line of robust, advanced cryptographic processing.

Dash

Dash (formerly Darkcoin) employs a mixing process called Darksend. Aside from a few tweaks, the Darksend anonymizing scheme is very similar to the processes used in Coinjoin - Dash's predecessor.

Dash has a great community and excellent support. Their consensus and voting mechanism is unique; giving Dash the ability to fund projects internally.

Dash pundits are quickly to point out that their InstantX protocol enables Dash to achieve blazing transaction speeds; winning over many Bitcoiners who are frustrated with Bitcoin's traditionally lethargic transaction speed.

For more details, please visit:

https://z.cash (Zcash)

https://getmonero.org (Monero)

https://www.dash.org (Dash)

By JaiChai

About the Author, Not!

JaiChai has been in the cryptocurrency space for over 6 years. He is an enigma, regarded by his cohorts as sarcastic, funny, intuitive - but most of all, elusive. JaiChai alternates long dormant periods with concentrated episodes of frenzied commentary - only to go silent again. He’s known for randomly submitting philosophical and contrarian posts on most cryptocoin forums.

When asked about his vanishing acts, he says, "I’m just somebody who enjoys being nobody because I look like everybody. Besides, time checking things off my 'bucket list’ - sans notoriety - is time well spent.”