It’s clear that the core Bitcoin protocol lacks privacy and anonymity. Though the government likes to refer to Bitcoin as anonymous, it is far from it. To an extent, users have disguised identities, when using the Bitcoin. There have been proposals by different developers to borrow elements from the Monero protocol to achieve an utterly untraceable platform in future. Until that happens, there probably will be more forks which will offer more upgrades as regarding security and anonymously.

What is Bitcoin Private?

Bitcoin Private (BTCP), a privacy-focused bitcoin it’s a fork of ZClassic (ZCL), combining the Unspent Transaction Output (UXTO) of ZCL with that of Bitcoin (BTC).

Bitcoin Private forked from Bitcoin on the 28th of February, 2018. ZClassic and Bitcoin holders get Bitcoin Private for coins held before the snapshot. Those who are privileged to claim Bitcoin Private coins are those who have held ZClassic in a ZClassic wallet.

Bitcoin Private is meant to serve as a peer-to-peer form of digital currency in which no third-party is involved. Transactions would be broadcasted and verified by nodes before they are passed to miners for approvals. The Bitcoin Private has a more significant block size compared to Bitcoin; this is undoubted of interest to users all over the world, as this translates to lesser transaction confirmation times.

About the Fork

On the 28th of February, the snapshot of both ZClassic and Bitcoin blockchain was taken, and holders of each cryptocurrency are eligible for Bitcoin Private (BTCP) cryptocurrencies. Distribution is at 1:1 ratio, which means holders of ZCL and BTC will get 1 BTCP for every 1 ZCL or BTC tokens they hold. The BTCP main net launched approximately two days after the snapshot was taken. A total of 21 million coins would be created as a result of combining the circulating supply of BTC and ZCL.

At the announcement of Bitcoin Private fork towards the end of 2017, it caused a price appreciation of the ZCL coins from about $4 to over $90 in few weeks.

How Bitcoin Private Works?

The Bitcoin Private protocol has a shorter block time of fewer than 3 minutes and a much more extensive blocksize of 2MB than that of Bitcoin core. Its proof of work algorithm is ASIC resistant, but GPU friendly for mining.

In general, one of the benefits of Bitcoin Private over all other versions/forks is its privacy. It is the same technology as that used for ZClassic, the zk-snarks (zero knowledge snarks). Payments published on technologies like this passes through the public blockchain for transparency, but details of each transaction which includes the recipient, transaction sender remain hidden and untraceable.

Like other cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin Private’s decentralized nature provides another advantage like Bitcoin. Transactions on the network are peer-to-peer (sender to receiver) without any need to include intermediaries. Network nodes verify transactions on its blockchain using cryptography, and they are recorded on the public ledger. Its slightly larger block size, on the other hand, makes it quicker to deliver more security and anonymity than different Bitcoin versions.

How To Claim Your Bitcoin Private Cryptocurrencies

Note that only those who have Bitcoin or ZClassic cryptocurrencies stored in their wallets before the blockchain snapshot are eligible to claim the BTCP coins.

Claiming your BTCP also depends on the wallet you use. Bitcoin Private team recommends that BTC or ZCL coins be moved to a new address before you use the private keys to claim tokens for the fork for security reasons.

Using the Electrum Wallet

You can download, extract and run the Electrum executable on your PC. Then create a new wallet. Enter wallet and private keys, then click the sweep button. There’ll be a prompt to enter your private keys and then sweep the Bitcoin Private coins to your new address.

Using Full Node Wallets

Using the full-node wallet requires you to have your java updated. Download, unzip and run the BitcoinPrivateDesktopWallet.jar file. Start and let the blockchain sync. Click on “wallet” then “import one private key.” When prompted to sweep, click “yes” and wait for the blockchain headers to download.

Wallets To Hold Bitcoin Private Cryptocurrencies

There are some wallets available for the Bitcoin Private coins, with more and more third-party multi-cryptocurrencies wallet vendors adding up support for the BTCP coins.

You have the option of using the Full-Node desktop wallet that can be downloaded for all versions of Operating System available from the Bitcoin Private GitHub page.

There is also an option of using the Electrum wallet. This wallet is also available to be downloaded on GitHub.

An option of a paper wallet is available for those comfortable with it. The Paper Wallet page by the Bitcoin Private team makes users generate Single, Multi-Signature, and Bulk Wallet addresses easily.

As announced by Coinomi about supporting the Bitcoin Private coin, they have since added that to the list of coins on Coinomi. Users who have updated versions of the Coinomi application for their Android devices can receive and send Bitcoin Private tokens from their mobiles.

Where To Buy BTCP

Bitcoin Private (BTCP) got listed on Trade Satoshi early March 2017.Besides this, trading it’s also live on Nanex, a well known exchange in the NANO community. Bitcoin Private also have an application to be listed on Binance and HitBTC declared that they will also list BTCP.

Bitcoin Private is currently being exchanged on TradeSatoshi for Bitcoin, Litecoin, Tether, Doge, and Bitcoin Cash.

Price Analysis

BTCP starting price was at $65.82. The lowest value that was recorded until now was at $60.39 and the higest was of $85,68 – according to CoinCodex. The price is still quite low according to the community expectations – which hopes that a top 10 exchange will list BTCP and they could trade their coins without major risks.

How Bitcoin Private Mining Works

Bitcoin Private uses Equihash. This means that miners can make use of any Zcash miner to mine Bitcoin Private. You should remember to set the pool URL alongside the port number.

There is also an official mining pool you can join. It’s built and operated by the Bitcoin Private developers themselves. There are also some other pools that you can mine the BTCP coins, the list of pools can be found on the Bitcoin Private’s official site.

To make choosing what pool to mine easier, it divides the list of community sponsored pools which has been verified by those that have not been confirmed yet. It’s important to be cautious before joining unverified mining pools.

The Team Behind Bitcoin Private

There is a team behind the Bitcoin Private project. Because the Bitcoin Private is community driven, there had been more than 200 contributors, and over 20 engineers who joined the development of Bitcoin Private protocol development within 30 days and the list keeps growing as more people are welcomed to the team.

Conclusion

The BTCP combines the best of the two protocols; Bitcoin and ZClassic. It implements the private nature of ZClassic while extending the functionality of Bitcoin.

To learn more about the project, visit the links below:

Official Website

Whitepaper

Fork FAQ Page

GitHub

Twitter

Facebook

Reddit

Discord

Telegram

Wikipedia