Battle of the Privacy Coins

By Contrast Crypto on Altcoin Academy

We’ve placed 10 Privacy Coins listed on CoinGecko (plus 2 wildcards) against each other to see who comes out on top. It’s like a low effort index fund focused specifically on blockchain and cryptocurrency projects tackling the issue of privacy.

The Game Plan

We will choose the Top 10 Privacy Coins by their ranking on CoinGecko, as well as 2 wildcard or high-risk options…in a battle of the irony, which privacy coin will be known as the best performer.

It’s important to note that market capitalization (token price x circulating supply) is not a true indicator of a cryptocurrency project’s success. Success should be measured in each project’s rate of adoption, which for privacy projects is difficult to quantify.

Between March and December 2017, Verge ($XVG) was seen to increase from 1sat in value (0.00000001BTC) up to 1972sat (0.00001972BTC), largely thanks to a glowing recommendation from John McAfee — but if you were to ask blockchain experts which privacy coin was the best, most would say Monero ($XMR) who haven’t always been the highest ranked privacy coin.

Top 10 Privacy Coins on CoinGecko

Wildcards

Dusk Network

Loki Network

The Rules

— The Privacy Coins chosen will remain as contenders in this competition regardless of where they stand on CoinGecko after the commencement date.

— Coins will be removed if the project becomes inactive. Inactive coins will not be replaced.

— Prices will be recorded on a weekly basis from September 1st onward.

— No trading the coins.

The Distribution

Monero— $100

Dash — $100

Zcash — $100

Bytecoin — $100

Komodo — $100

Verge — $100

Zcoin — $100

Beam — $100

Grin — $100

Horizen — $100

Dusk Network — $100

Loki Network — $100

About The Contenders

Price September 1st: $70.96

Monero is a decentralized cryptocurrency, meaning it is secure digital cash operated by a network of users. Transactions are confirmed by distributed consensus and then immutably recorded on the blockchain. Third-parties do not need to be trusted to keep your Monero safe.

Monero uses ring signatures, ring confidential transactions, and stealth addresses to obfuscate the origins, amounts, and destinations of all transactions. Monero provides all the benefits of a decentralized cryptocurrency, without any of the typical privacy concessions.

Sending and receiving addresses as well as transacted amounts are obfuscated by default. Transactions on the Monero blockchain cannot be linked to a particular user or real-world identity.

Monero is fungible because it is private by default. Units of Monero cannot be blacklisted by vendors or exchanges due to their association in previous transactions.

Price September 1st: $79.63

Dash offers users instant, private and secure transactions that are so simple, you won’t even know you are transacting on a blockchain. Anyone can participate in the network, and Dash is widely available for purchase around the world.

Dash uses a hybrid Proof of Work and Proof of Service staking consensus mechanism to facilitate the instant and private transaction services.

The ingenious masternode network means sending any sum of money around the world is as simple as tapping your phone at your local store to buy groceries. Say goodbye to slow transactions, complex international account numbers and high transaction fees — Dash is digital cash!

Price September 1st: $45.15

Zcash is a privacy-protecting, digital currency built on strong science. Transact efficiently and safely with low fees while ensuring digital transactions remain private. Selectively share address and transaction information for auditing or regulatory compliance.

Zcash offers two types of addresses: shielded and transparent. Shielded addresses are not visible and transactions between shielded addresses do not reveal either address, the transaction amount or the contents of the encrypted memo field. Transparent addresses and transactions between them are publicly viewable on the Zcash blockchain, in the same way that Bitcoin addresses are viewable.

Price September 1st: $0.00057694

Bytecoin is a private, decentralized cryptocurrency with an open source code that allows everyone to take part in the network development of Bytecoin. Privacy and security are naturally proponents of Bytecoin and it’s the best solution for those who want to keep their finances private.

Bytecoin uses Ring signatures to mix different outputs of similar value into one transaction, making it nearly impossible to deduce where the money came from. On the Bytecoin blockchain all addresses are obscured.

Bytecoin allows users to generate numerous unlinkable one-time addresses from a single set of keys. This makes it nearly impossible to establish a connection between transactions or addresses.

Price September 1st: $0.647957

Using a multi-chain architecture, Komodo’s Antara Framework gives every project a fully customizable Smart Chain that can natively support games, contracts, and apps.

With Komodo, Smart Chains provide the resource pool from which all blockchain-based apps, games, and software draw. Every Smart Chain is completely independent of all other blockchains. There is no vendor lock-in and no dependence on the Komodo chain or coin.

Komodo’s technology provides the means to build a feature rich KMD. Convert your coins to another form of $KMD living on sidechains, unlocking additional features, like ZK-Snark backed privacy.

Price September 1st: $0.00456757

Verge is a cryptocurrency designed for people and for everyday use. It improves upon the original Bitcoin blockchain and aims to fulfill its initial purpose of providing individuals and businesses with a fast, efficient and decentralized way of making direct transactions while maintaining your privacy.

Verge’s mission is to empower people around the world by bringing blockchain transactions into everyday life. Verge Currency makes it possible to engage in direct transactions quickly, efficiently and privately. With Verge Currency, businesses and individuals have flexible options for sending and receiving payments. With the flip of a switch, we offer helpful integrations and tools that enable them to handle large scale transactions between merchants and small scale private payments.

Price September 1st: $5.66

The anonymity set in formerly proposed solutions is limited by the size of the mixing cycle or ring signature. Each mixing cycle or ring signature is limited by the number of transactions per cycle, which is transitively limited by the block size of the cryptocurrency. Thus, the anonymity set in previous attempts at privacy tends to only be a few hundred transactions.

With Zcoin, the anonymity set is on a dramatically higher magnitude. Instead of having anonymity set limited to the few dozen, Zcoin has an anonymity set that encompasses all minted coins in a particular RSA accumulator that can scale to many thousands and unlike other solutions is not subject to transaction graph analysis.

Price September 1st: $1.15

All transactions are private. No information about transaction participants is stored in the blockchain. Beam’s “Scriptless Script” technology allows the implementation of a wide variety of transaction types beyond simple transmissions of value; for example, atomic swapping, escrow, and time-locked transactions. Мultiple asset types — real estate tokens, corporate debts and simply new currencies — can be created and exchanged via BEAM confidential transactions mechanisms.

To comply with relevant regulations, a wallet can be configured to attach digitally signed documentation — invoices or contracts — to all transactions in a cryptographically unforgable way. In turn, specific auditors can be granted permission to inspect the complete list of transactions along with all the attached documeents.

The “cut-through” feature of MimbleWimble helps to avoid excessive computational overhead, making the BEAM blockchain orders of magnitude smaller than any other blockchain implementation. Open source, implemented from scratch, community-governed, and backed by the Beam Growth Pool: 20% of block mining rewards goes to this pool to incentivize development and promotion of BEAM.

Price September 1st: $1.85

Electronic transactions for all. Without censorship or restrictions.

Grin empowers anyone to transact or save modern money without the fear of external control or oppression. Grin is designed for the decades to come, not just tomorrow. Grin wants to be usable by everyone, regardless of borders, culture, skills or access.

Grin has no amounts and no addresses. Transactions can be trivially aggregated. To hide where a newly created transaction comes from, it gets relayed privately (a “random walk”) among peers before it is publicly announced.

MimbleWimble leverages cryptography to allow most of the past transaction data to be removed. This guarantees Grin won’t collapse under its own weight in the long term.

Grin is developed openly, by developers distributed all over the world. It’s not controlled by any company, foundation or individual. The coin distribution is designed to be as fair (but not gratis) as is known to be possible.

Price September 1st: $4.71

Horizen is building a technology platform with optional privacy features that aims to enable an application-rich and inclusive ecosystem to provide people with freedom and everyday usability.

Horizen is a privacy platform built on zero-knowledge Succinct Non-interactive ARguments of Knowledge (zk-SNARKs) technology with a decentralized secure node architecture. Shielded transactions are fully encrypted, yet can be verified as valid under the network’s consensus. The sender, recipient, and amount are hidden on the blockchain, making Horizen completely untraceable.

Launched in May 2017, the platform enables real-life uses beyond its cryptocurrency — ZEN, including the ability to deploy sidechains and integrate third party technologies.

Price September 1st: $0.131026

Dusk streamlines the issuance of digital securities and automates trading compliance with the world’s first programmable and confidential securities. Dusk Network is an unrestricted, unsurveilled and fully distributed system designed for high-rate voice and data communications, enforcing the utmost level of privacy to the partaking peers.

Dusk radically departs from any other blockchain by employing an adaptive consensus mechanism, called Segregated Byzantine Agreement (or SBA⋆), which does not require the computational intensity of proof-of-work and is a fairer alternative to proof-of-stake.

Dusk Network is a cryptographically transparent digital ledger. A high-throughput and scalable permissionless blockchain that provides confidential proofs of ownership, compliance, and funds. It satisfies global privacy requirements yet enables audits by the public and the regulator.

Price September 1st: $0.117653

Loki is a decentralized privacy network which will allow users to transact and communicate privately over the internet, providing a suite of tools to help maintain the maximum amount of anonymity possible while browsing, transacting and communicating online.

Loki Messenger is a decentralized private messaging application for all platforms. Have peace of mind with anonymity and an unstoppable messaging app. Lokinet is a unique, blockchain enforced and incentivized mixnet, where you can browse the internet anonymously, visit and host private websites all without exposing your identity or IP address.

Service Nodes do the heavy lifting on the Loki network and get a significant financial reward for their efforts. With Service Nodes you can host services, run SNApps, and browse the Lokinet.

SNApps (Service Node Applications) allows you to host hidden private web applications inside of Lokinet. With SNApps you can build censorship-resistant social media platforms, news sites, marketplaces, and other communities. The possibilities are endless.

What To Expect

We’ll be posting weekly updates to track the progress of each of the privacy coins, including highs, lows, weekly change, and any announcements that pop up along the way.