Why Hide Transactions on Blockchain?
The ideal of bitcoin and several other cryptocurrencies is to serve as a peer-to-peer payment means that totally excludes intermediaries, especially centralized institutions like banks and government agencies. It promises economic freedom for all however, the government as we know it anywhere in the world, monitors the activities of its citizens and even outsiders with the aim of controlling and keeping them in check, most time unduly. Cryptocurrency entered the space with the promise to liberate the masses from such unauthorized intrusion into our private lives by making transactions untraceable (privacy) and user identity concealed (anonymity). Bitcoin and other conventional cryptocurrencies are not privacy-focused, as they offer pseudonymity which can be unmasked.
However, with escalating threat posed by government regulations and hackers, the privacy of crypto users are at risk. Even though transactions are encrypted by topnotch cryptographic solutions, there are certain loopholes and new software tools that can be used to unmask the identity of senders and recipients of cryptocurrencies.
For instance despite the decentralized nature of blockchain, most transactions still take place on centralized exchanges. Due to regulations, these trading platforms require customers to submit their information for KYC before they can use exchange services. This is point of risk that could jeopardize user identity as government can easily obtain customers' information by citing laws and regulation provisions.
There are also a number of analytic tools that can be used to to match transactions to users, and these tools are already in use even by government agencies.
Another risk posed by the transparency of crypto transaction, even to those who are not parties to the transaction, is via hack of user wallet. While the user has total control over his private key (which unlocks and authorizes transactions in the wallet), the availability in plain sight of the size of funds stored in any wallet (accessible with the public key/address) attracts hackers to such wallet. If by chance a third party gains access to the private key to such wallet, they can easily move out the funds stored in it. This explains why centralized exchanges suffer damaging hacks over the years.
These risks show that transaction transparency on public blockchains could be deleterious. Users should be able to choose if they want their transactions to be viewable on the network or not. This calls for blockchain and cryptocurrency that fully guarantees privacy and anonymity of transactions.
Privacy coins enhance the encryption and obfuscation features of cryptocurrency beyond Bitcoin and the likes, but many of them do not provide full-time privacy or even privacy by default. So these privacy solutions are not private so to speak; they would be unfit for the future as technology continues to advance beyond what’s currently obtainable.
For users that prioritize privacy and anonymity of their digital trail, new privacy solutions like Veil are needed.
Veil Project
Veil Project is a full-time privacy-focused project based on the most advanced and secure bitcoin blockchain (version 0.17.1) and a mixture of cutting-edge privacy protocols. By creating a highly improved anonymous cryptocurrency that provides complete privacy called Veil, the Veil Project is further advancing the state of technology of privacy coins towards maturation. The aim is to make Veil become the first crypto that is completely untraceable and unlinkable at all times.
Veil leverages a combination of high encryption technology with privacy and obfuscation protocols such as Zerocoin protocol Particl’s RingCT solution to provide full-time anonymity, and the Dandelion protocol to obfuscate IP. These protocols ensure that it is almost impossible to track or trace the movement of transactions and link it to users.
Competition Analysis
Although there are a handful of privacy-focused cryptocurrencies in existence, among which are Monero, Zcash, Dash, PIVX, Apollo and a few others, Veil has demonstrated pragmatic potentials to be the most reliable, stable and always-on decentralized privacy cryptocurrency that completely masks user transactions on the blockchain.
Monero is a private by default crypto that utilizes Ring signatures, RingCT and Stealth addresses as its primary privacy features for masking the ledger of transactions while transaction mixing provides further anonymization and recent updates like Bulletproofs help to reduce transaction cost and time. Monero is however not scalable due to the additional data that has to be stored during operation. Recently, a team of academic researchers also discovered that Monero transactions may not be as private as they are portrayed.
Zcash on the other hand employs zero-knowledge proof technology called ZK-SNARK to provide transaction anonymity. Zcash is not a private by default crypto as it offers privacy as an option, and most exchanges today support the public or unshielded (t) transaction type than the private (z) type. Apart from this, the implementation of ZK-SNARK is such that it requires a special key which if known can cause a serious security breach to the network.
Dash utilizes mixing technique to anonymize transactions and its privacy feature known as PrivateSend is only available on request, showing that it is not a privacy-focused crypto. This is the same downside with Zcash.
Veil combines the best of the privacy features such as RingCT and Bulletproofs in Monero, Zerocoin (now to be replaced with Zerocash) and Dandelion protocols to extend its privacy capabilities beyond what is currently obtainable in existing privacy coins. And unlike Zcash and Dash that are partially centralized and optionally private, Veil is fully decentralized, private and anonymous. By harnessing latest proven privacy protocols and technologies with a hybrid Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus model, the end result is a custom system that guarantees complete privacy.
In terms of block time, the average block time for Veil is 60 seconds while for Monero and Dash, it is 120 seconds and 150 seconds respectively. This means that Veil is faster than these privacy coins.
Looking into the future, plans are underway to implement new best-in-class privacy protocols such as Zerocash and Sonic proofs for the Veil Project. The goal is unchanged — to deliver a full-time cryptographic private coin that shields the transaction of user accounts.
Conclusion
Being a new privacy-focused project, Veil’s entry into the privacy niche will further enhance the state of technology of privacy solutions. As the cryptocurrency industry evolves in the coming years, the importance of privacy coins as means of transactions will become more prominent, and Veil is already positioning itself as a high-tech cryptographic solution with full privacy features ready to push the frontiers to a more advanced level than it met it.
Click the links below for more information on Veil Project:
WEBSITE
(VEIL DISCORD](https://discord.veil-project.com/)
VEIL ADDRESS: bv1q9vmuc53d8qqas5ypy23zg0t6l98jvydkgtw3nx
