While governments and mainstream media still equate privacy with only “bad things” as demonstrated by Europol’s recent report, the Particl Project has over delivered on its roadmap and quietly made big leaps in building apps for its decentralized privacy platform. Particl’s most recent advancements include the release of a new multi-signature wallet, user interface updates and security upgrade with the latest Bitcoin protocol.

GUI Enhancements

From a usability perspective, Particl is evolving quickly. Particl developers are in the midst of building a series of new Graphical User Interface (GUI) features for the platform. Built on Electron, Particl has added GUI functionality for tasks such as importing wallets, configuring daemons and managing transactions, among others. The Particl team is also close to releasing GUI tools for managing API services via widget panels.

Aptly named “Particl Wallet,” this application is the straightforward, central interface for users to work with all parts of the Particl Platform — from wallet management, to transaction processing, to configuring the Particl software for any device on which a user chooses to run it. Future updates will include apps such as the Marketplace and End-to-End Encrypted Messaging. Particl Core Updates

The Marketplace, the component of the Particl Platform where users can buy and sell goods and services in total anonymity among peers while using the cryptocurrency of their choice, is also undergoing rapid advancement. As part of Particl’s commitment to transparency, the project regularly publishes updates about project status and feature releases to a dedicated Status Report page on its website. Last week, Particl rolled out integration with Bitcoin 0.15.0.1, the current “main release” of the protocol. The update makes the latest mainline Bitcoin features — such as multi-wallet support and performance enhancements — available to Particl users. Particl becomes one of the first Bitcoin projects to be protected by the 0.15 security fixes. While being in step with the Bitcoin Core development team, Particl Core has also been enhanced with yet another privacy feature, complementing Confidential Transactions (CT) and RingCT. The team has developed what it terms “Cold Staking,” which allows stakers to operate joint wallets on different devices and assign one as a stake-only node and the other as a flexible spending account. This is a major security upgrade of all other Proof-of-Stake (PoS) projects that only offer an option to unlock their encrypted wallet for staking only. Typically, these staking machines are dedicated nodes not tied to a mobile app like Particl Copay, which gives freedom to use PART anywhere it is accepted.

New Wallet App

Alongside the expansion of codebase for the Particl platform and Marketplace, the project recently issued a major app release with the debut of Particl Copay.

Particl Copay is an HD wallet that supports multi-signature addresses for greater privacy and allows for shared wallets and multiple wallets. Particl’s PART token is paired with about 150 other fiat currencies.

The wallet is currently compatible with Android, Windows, macOS and Linux. Particl expects to add iOS and Chrome support in the near future. Particl Copay is an open source app that is derived from the codebase for Copay, a popular Bitcoin wallet from BitPay.