🔒 Is Bitcoin really private?
Bitcoins vision is split in two, half Public Ledger, half User Privacy. A public ledger has it's benefits, in terms of traceability and making BlockChain transactions queryable.
Let's look at a Business use case. You buy a new graphics card on Newegg with Bitcoin, for some reason the payment verification on the website failed and your Bitcoin has already left your Wallet. In this case Newegg Customer Service would be able to query your Blockchain transaction on the public ledger confirming the arrival of your BTC, manually verifying the payment and shipping your new graphics card.
But the public traceability of transactions has also it's drawbacks which can be even larger than it's benefits. Just think about your personal life, imagine you get your salary in Bitcoin, your Boss would be able to track every single output from your wallet.
![](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmYCUJBFnfi2uZwJkbck6TNcFZK2x7LK7X6PBvNkAVxRLz/me.gif)
A bigger nightmare than your boss would be your girlfriend finding out that you spent your hard earned crypto money on loot boxes and collectables that only exist on the blockchain, all thanks to the public ledger.
Attempts have been made to make Bitcoin more private, but the recent focus is on pumping the most amount of transactions through their chains. As we all know, high transactions fees and slow speeds have been plaguing Bitcoin for quiet a while now.
What makes MoneroV Private?
MoneroV has no public ledger and utilizes several privacy features like stealth addresses and ring signatures.
Stealth Addresses
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmTLgoSkrxikLhdBUy1RzPP1avb8bdoKzG7sM5j5hGBuSC/stealthaddresses.png)
Thanks to stealth addresses, a random one-time address is automatically created for each transaction being made by the sender. All payments sent to the recipient are routed to unique addresses on the blockchain, masking the recipient and providing no way to see if anybody else has sent coins to the recipient.
Ring Signatures
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQma78ZoixCoxoyrWNcMBfm8F8FzKqZayEWRrQiWEF5mKtT/ringsignatures.png)
Stealth addresses prevent link ability of transactions on the blockchain. But with stealth addresses alone a sender would be capable of tracing when and where coins are moved by the recipient.
That's why MoneroV uses ring signatures, which masks outputs, making it impossible for anyone to trace transactions. Ring Confidential Transactions assure that the sum of the input amounts is the same as the sum of the output amounts, without exposing actual numbers.
“The main feature of cryptocurrencies is their anonymity.”
- Bill Gates, February 2018
The baby gif was perfect 😆
Thanks @ragglu I am always trying to make articles entertaining & informative.
It might be pretty privat to an every day person. But its absolutely not privat to companies. Just imagine you use it every day to purchase stuff from Amazon and whatnot. They know from which address the money cam and where they deliver the goods. Govs will know who you are in no time.
Thanks for your comment @c0wtschpotato! Totally agree with you, I am sure also a lot of scammers and thieves are attracted to public ledgers, combined with social engineering it is a recipe for disaster. Many have been scammed that way already. With privacy coins like MoneroV this can be avoided.
I thought that all blockchains have a public ledger?!
Hi @streetfood, even some Privacy Coins like Verge use a public ledger 🙂
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