STEEMIT CRYPTO ACADEMY SEASON 2: PRIVACY COIN BY @levycore

Hi friends, i am delighted to participate in this weeks class by @levycore who lectured on Privacy Coins. It was well understood and I will be doing my best to respond to the homework task appropriately.

Source

Question1: Choose a Privacy Coin and Perform a fundamental analysis of the coin in detail.

The cryptocurrency world has witness some series of emergence and also mutated and enhanced in different form. It was first seen with its ability to be the first decentralized platform with high security architecture, Low fee charges during transaction when compared to the traditional financial system, open source feature which guarantees trust and confidence in the investor etc. But due the insatiable needs of man, some set got agitated in respect to the open source which makes an account account wallet and transactions initiated and IP address all freely viewable by the public. Though the real names seen in most cryptocurrency blockchain are always anonymous, but other features like IP address, balances and transactions are exposed and traceable, hence this was why the creation of *Privacy Coin came into existence.

Privacy Coins were launched due to its specialty in enhancing anonymity and traceability of users wallet accounts, transaction details and IP addresses. There are several privacy coins which have evolved ever since the quest to instill privacy in account transaction and wallet balances. They are namely; Monero, Verge, Dash, Zcash, Bytecoin, Bitcoin Private , Private Instant Verified Transaction , Navcoin, Horizen, Zcoin etc. I will be discussing one of this Privacy Coins in my post to give us an overview of this coin and its fundamental analysis.

The Dash Coin

The Dash privacy coin which was formerly XCoin and Darkcoin was created after a Bitcoin fork in 2014 or what we know as using the Bitcoin source code which happens to use its features and technology while floating its new coin. This Privacy coin uses the the PrivateSend feature which ensures that users gets exactly what want which is privacy in all transactions done and account cover. This invariably means that user account now enjoys the anonymity and non-traceability of all what that happens in their accounts.

Just to know how Dash privacy coin works in achieving this fit by covering up all form of traceability and anonymity, it mixes your coins during transaction process with other coins in the Master-Nodes which makes it impossible to distinguishes which belongs to the user using the PrivateSend feature. Not forgetting its extra and distinguished feature which runs a dual consensus algorithm. The Dash is seen to run on PoW for all its transactions and also on the PoS for its Master-Nodes which guarantees a more speed and scalability when compared to other coins.

In 2017 when this coin received all the hype and attention, it was traded for $10 in the early days of the year but this same coin was traded for $800 at end of the year. This was a whooping percentage rise in value which almost turned all its coin holders to millionaires. One can buy Dash from the different Exchange platforms like the Binance, Quidax, Blockvila, CEX.IO, Changelly and CoinCola. Currently Dash ranks #52 in the CoinMarketCap with a market cap of $2,088,318,947.60 and daily trading volume of $562,332,466.04. It is valued $205 currently as that the time of this post with market Dominance of 0.12%.

Question2: Describe the steps in creating a wallet for the Privacy Coin of your choice (Screenshot required)

STEP BY STEP PROCESS IN CREATING A DASH WALLET

• Goto your Google Playstore and download/Install the Dash wallet
• Swipe to the end and click on "Get Started"

• Click on the "Create a New wallet" icon (since I don't have any existing account or restoring from anywhere).
  There other options for existing account users like;
  i. Restore wallet from recovery phrase
  ii. Restore wallet from file.

• Set up your 4 digit pin
• Confirm your 4 digit pin
  It is advisable we use numbers we can always remember as this would guide us when exploring the wallet account.

• Click on the "Secure Now" icon
• There would be need for Recovery phrase, so click on the "Show recovery Phrase"

• You're at the displayed recovery phrase interface, copy it down and click on the box below ("I wrote it down")
• Verify By selecting the recovery phrase sequentially
• then input the already created 4 digit pin

Question3: Explain the reason you chose the Privacy Coin. (State the advantages and disadvantages)

Why I choose the Dash Privacy Coin
The Dash coin has since gained some great potentials both in value and features. Just as earlier discussed, In January 2017 the Dash Value was seen to be valued at $10 and in same year in December, it was valued at $800. That gives a great sense of potentials and future investment opportunities to investors. Notwithstanding, there are other features seen in the Dash that makes it great and hence my Choice of Privacy Coin.

• The Presence of the PrivateSend feature: This feature in Dash is seen and known to give the user preferential and optional usage at every point in time. With this feature (PrivateSend), the users transaction, wallet and IP address are all kept in the private and without third party access. Just as said, transaction coin sent mixes up in the pool of other transaction in the Master-Nodes which makes it difficult to trace.
• The availability of the InstantSend Feature: The Dash guarantees speed of transaction and with the InstantSend feature, transactions are known to be completed between 1-2 seconds. This leverages on the Master-Nodes networks which ensures top-most speed in transaction activities. This feature costs 0.01DASH or $0.15 to execute a transaction.
• The presence of Master-Nodes: Aside the use of the PoW which usually earn rewards for mining the DASH coin, users are also earn rewards for maintaining the master-node which drives the additional features like the InstantSend and PrivateSend.
• The presence of Dash Evolution: This is a decentralized system that is built on the Dash protocol to make it more scalable and if need give room for expansion with user friendly interface.

Advantages of the Dash Privacy Coin

• Security: The Dash is known for its highly secured protocol. It operates the X11 cryptography algorithm which is known as the strongest in the series with capacity of not breaking through it network. Breaking through the simply means that the hacker succeeded in getting all the 11 nodes malicious at once which is usually not obtainable and possible.
• Decentralized in Nature:It offers all decentralized services as seen in other cryptocurrency having seen that it was borne from a Bitcoin forks and also having its features and technology in use.
• Speed: The Dash protocol is one the fastest in terms of transaction execution. With the InstantSend feature which is seen to get transaction done within the 1-2 seconds and presence of the Master-nodes which are special nodes reserved for such an activity in the protocol.
• Scalability: The Dash is also highly scalable with ability to also expand scalability. It has the capacity of attending to 10,000 transaction per second which is also rated as highly scalable compared to the Bitcoin with 5 Transaction Per second.

Disadvantages of the Dash Privacy Coin

• This could promote illicit activities like money laundering and terrorism financing when abused.
• Doubts of been partially centralized: During the reward process 45% each goes to the PoW miners and Master-node maintainers/Owners respectively while 10% are left for the development of Dash, it is seen that there are decision making platform which seem to likened it to a centralized system. This has also affected the rate of its adoption as a fully decentralized system. Currently it is ranked #52 in the CoinMarketCap in its cryptocurrency listing.
• There are likelihood of breach in its master-nodes which may compromise the privacy feature of the entire process.

Conclusion

The presence of the Privacy coin has greatly added some unique feature to the existing cryptocurrency space where users can now privately have transactions done without third party spy and IP addresses not traceable also. This became evident in the Dash Privacy coin where the PrivateSend features works out the privacy processes. Other features like the InstantSend has boosted the Speed of transaction while the Master-nodes did not only open a reward system for the maintainers but also helped in maintaining special severs seen to power some of its great features.

Thank you Prof @levycore, this is my submission for your homework task.