[ad_1]
Advances in cryptography haven’t met with user enthusiasm, suggesting a disconnect between the cryptocurrency community and its cypherpunk ancestors.
According to Coin Metrics, privacy-focused cryptocurrency transactions zcash (ZEC), monero (XMR), and grin add only 6% of bitcoin transactions. Zcash’s privacy feature is significantly underused, with less than 2% of transactions fully shielded.
Although coins offer more privacy than bitcoin (BTC), their reception is still disappointing. “For every transaction on any of these privacy assets, there are 16 performed on Bitcoin and countless others on assets that offer even less privacy,” detailed Coin Metrics, in its Sept. 1 report entitled “Network Status: number 66 “.
Coin Metrics, a crypto market data provider, is concerned that these statistics mark a move away from anonymity, a fundamental principle in the initial design of virtual assets. The authors pointed out:
As cryptocurrencies continue to be adopted by the wider public, its original privacy-oriented (sic) ethics must be conveyed in order for it to survive. If not, the original idea of anonymous transaction systems could fade and be replaced by other conceptions of what cryptocurrencies are useful for.
ZEC has a privacy feature which does not reveal any information about who is transacting or the amount traded. However, the recent cryptographic breakthrough it incorporates, known as zk-SNARKs (Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments of Knowledge), is optional so that users can still use transparent transactions. According to Coin Metrics, only around 5% of all ZEC issued are currently shielded and only 2% fully shielded.
Grin uses the Mimblewimble protocol to aggregate transactions, obfuscating native transaction inputs and outputs. XMR aggregates a sender’s real coins with ring signatures. Outside of these coins, a privacy feature for bitcoin, Coinjoin, allows users to “shuffle” their coins to obscure individual transaction records.
With statistics leaning towards the dominant use of bitcoin, increased cryptocurrency cryptography, thanks to new innovations such as Bulletproofs and Mimblewimble, is cause for optimism.
“We can also see renewed interest in Coinjoin with suppliers such as Wasabi and Samourai’s Whirlpool which, despite representing a very small percentage of bitcoin’s transaction volume, are growing rapidly,” the Coin Metrics report said.
What do you think of cryptocurrency users’ apathy towards privacy? Let us know in the comments section below.
Image credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons
[ad_2]Source link
