BITCOIN PRIVATE AND PRIVACY ORIENTED CRYPTOCURRENCIES
One of the main issues that bitcoin has been facing since its inception in 2008 is the issue of anonymity.
Bitcoin has failed to provide absolute anonymity to its users that can account for the privacy as per the trader’s requirement.
As a result of that, more and more currencies are trying to fix the privacy/anonymity/fungibility issues with different approaches.
Currently, there are more than 10 cryptocurrencies trying or at least claiming to be anonymous.
Unlike other bitcoin hard forks, BTCP cites a perfect example of how the cryptocurrency should evolve in future with the successful implementation of ZClassic or similar technologies to attain unmitigated anonymity.
One of the features of this protocol is that it allows the users of this cryptocurrency to remain completely anonymous during transactions. Consequently, the amount of transaction between the payer and the payee remains hidden in case of bitcoin private along with both of their specific blockchain addresses.
This anonymity irrefutably makes the process of transaction much safer.
Monero is undoubthedly the best cryptocurrency out there if privacy is your main concern.
It is so secure/anonymous and private that you can’t even see the amount transacted between the different parties. Even law enforcement people weren’t able to find how much Monero the Alphabay owner had at the time of shutdown.
Monero uses complex on-chain cryptographic methods such as Ring signatures, RingCT, Kovri, and Stealth addresses to protect the privacy of its users.
Monero also had a very clean beginning in the cryptosphere as there was no pre-mine or instamine at the very launch of this crypto. The only downside to it, however, is its complicated cryptography, which results in the transaction sizes being 50 times bigger than that of Bitcoin.
However, for a crypto like Monero, such super privacy is worth it and the developers of Monero are very well aware of their strengths and weaknesses.
Zcash works on a zk-SNARK protocol (same as ZCLASSIC or BTCP), also known as zero-knowledge proofs. Zcash, however, have not implemented it yet as a default which means they still have an open blockchain/ledger similar to Bitcoin.
Also, to use this privacy feature on Zcash, you will need at least 4 gigabytes of RAM which is a serious barrier for Zcash’s mainstream adoption.
Also, unlike BTCP, their is a 20 % founders tax,that miner have to pay in order to mine on the network.
PIVX is the first proof of stake cryptocurrency to implement Zerocoin protocol on it which gives them an edge in anonymity/privacy segment when compared to other POS coins.
Komodo is a fork of Zcash.
Komodo also uses zk-SNARK protocol, inherited from Zcash/Zclassic/BTCP.
That’s why Komodo also has similar limitations like Zcash in terms of private transactions.
Zcoin is another unique anonymous cryptocurrency that has implemented the Zerocoin Protocol.
The downside is their ‘trusted setup’ which was made at the start of the project. This trusted set-up is like trusting a certain group of people to set the initial parameters for the launch of cryptocurrency. If this type of a trusted set-up gets corrupted in any way, those trusted people will be able to mint as much as coins they want ‘out of just thin air’, just like the Zcash.
NAV Coin doesn’t use cryptography to become private. Instead, they use complicated obfuscation techniques with a sub-blockchain in parallel to the main blockchain to become private. The obfuscation is achieved by NavTech servers which yet not distributed enough.
And that’s why it becomes a centralized technique which can be attacked anytime to compromise user’s privacy.
ZenCash is another fork of Zcash that uses zk-SNARK protocol also known as zero-knowledge proofs to achieve its anonymity.
Similar to Zcash, they also have minimum dedicated RAM requirements for sending a shielded transaction. As of today, the requirement is 3.2 gigabytes when used on a 64-bit processor with a 64-bit operating system.
Unlike its many peers, VERGE doesn’t use cryptography as much to become an « anonymous » cryptocurrency. Instead, they use Tor and I2P network to achieve their goals.
It is so because they believe that an open ledger is something that is required by the users to verify and see where their transactions are getting received/used.
DASH is not as private as its competitors.
DASH’s privacy feature is basically in its simplest form a coin-mixing service performed by its master nodes and called PirvateSend. This form of privacy provides an analyzable meta-data to find out the real sender/receiver.
Also, they have openly implemented KYC/AML compliance of the whole DASH’s blockchain. That’s contradictory to what privacy and anonymity means!
