8 Crypto Privacy Projects
These crypto projects are designed to keep your transactions private.
I wanted to write out a list of current cryptocurrency privacy projects. I did not go too far in-depth on any one project but gave a breif overview of what they hope to accomplish. There is a lot of issues surroiunding privacy and blockchains. From what type of algorithm is used, to building private dapps on chain. Which algorithm is immune to 51% attacks or not, and so on. I hope this gives you enough information to become curious about cryptocurrency and privacy. Also, for each project I provided a link to either a wiki page or the project website.
Monero
One of the first blockchain projects to feature privacy as a core feature. Designed to overcome the privacy weaknesses of Bitcoin. With a Bitcoin transaction the amount sent and both the sender and received addresses are reavealed on the blockchain. So Bitcoin transactions can be traced. Something that is not possible with Monero. So Monero has been labelled as a privacy coin.
Another feature of Monero is the mining process. The Monero team has decided to create a mining algorithm that is inefficient on mining rigs such as ASIC miner that cost hundreds or maybe a few thousand dollars. This keeps the mining of Monero tokens in the hands of smaller miners who either cannot afford the larger rigs or do not have the space. You can mine Monero on your laptop with just a CPU.
Beam
The Beam protocol is another crypto currency that is mined better with a CPU or general laptop than a specialized ASIC rig. The Beam team has created a mining algorithm that works best on a CPU. You can download and mine Beam on your computer.
Beam creates private transactions utilizing the Mimblewimble protocol. Mimblewimble protocol also helps make Beam scalable. It is also deflationary which means the number of Beam tokens is set and does not grow.
Zcash
There are two types of transactions on the Zcash blockchain. Those being shielded and transparent. A transparent transaction the addresses involved and amounts transacted are revealed. The shileded transactions are not revealed.
Zcash makes transactions private by shielding the memo lines of a blockchian transaction. The trasnaction appears on the blockchain but the addresses involved and the amount of the transaction is encrypted. This makes it impossible to know who exactly was involved in the transaction.
The shielded transaction can be revealed by the member receiving. The memo field can be unshielded but the sending address cannot be revealed.
Dash
In 2018 some merchants started using Dash as a means to make payments in Venezuela. It is still being used there.
Dash was a fork from Bitcoin and has gone through several name changes. It started as Xcoin, then Darkcoin and now just Dash. Dash creates anonymity or privacy with transactions by mixing transactions together. The Dash team has decided to use the Conjoin algorithm.
The Dash team disputed the assertion they are a privacy coin when they were delisted from many exchanges following the SEC suite against XRP.
Panther
This is a very new project in the blockchain world. It was started in 2021 with the understanding that privacy was a human right. They utilize zero-knowledge proofs for transactions, or zkSNARKS. Offering a means for privacy in the Web3 and defi applications.
Due to the immutable and transparent nature of public blockchains, DeFi users are unknowingly and unwillingly subject to surveillance and economic espionage. There is no privacy on-chain. Panther solves this when users mint z-assets.
Grin
Another project using the Mimblewimble algorithm is Grin. Again this makes for private and scalable transactions on blockchain.
Horizen
Works much the same way as zcash with private shielded addresses and transparent or public on chain addresses. Let’s just call this elective privacy. You are private when you want it. Like Zcash it uses zkSNARKS technology that allows for shielded and non-shielded on chain transactions.
Horizen is also open source. A project that any developer can join and make contributions to. It is also an ecosystem for building dapps.
Phala
A privacy preserving Polkadot sidechain. Dapps can be deployed on the Phala ecosystem and then these dapps run in TEE(Trusted Execution Environment). Confidential defi and dapps will be built upon this Polkadot side-chain ecosystem.
Thank for reading. I know there is. uch more to be said about each project. I could make a post about each in turn. Hope this gives you enough to become curious.
Cheers
My article on why you should learn Solidity. https://chester-beard.medium.com/why-learn-solidity-a0f719e7b83a
