It might not even be 2 years old but DeepOnion has already gained much notoriety, enough to be mentioned by French government officials. Recently, Eric Woerth, the head of the Finance Committee of France's National Assembly, mentioned DeepOnion in a report in which he proposed banning anonymous cryptocurrencies. The rest of the coins mentioned were Monero, Zcash, and PIVX.

Woerth stated: "It would also have been appropriate to propose a ban on the dissemination and trade in [cryptocurrencies built] to ensure complete anonymity by preventing any identification procedure by design. [...] This is the case for a certain number of [cryptocurrencies] (Monero, PIVX, DeepOnion, Zcash...) whose purpose is to bypass any possibility of identifying the holders. To date, regulation has not gone that far."

A Justified Moment of Recognition for DeepOnion or Cause for Concern?

More than a few people have been sceptical on whether this is good news for DeepOnion, given the context of this report. However, two facts must be noted:

1) This report is nothing more than a suggestion. In reality, making a law that effectively bans any kind of cryptocurrencies is not as easy as it sounds, especially when we are talking about a country that is part of the European Union, like France. As of now, the EU has passed no specific regulations regarding cryptocurrencies, much less about anonymous cryptocurrencies.

Even in the event that the EU would decide to ban anonymous cryptocurrencies, a rather extreme scenario, a lot of them already have the necessary obfuscating tools built in their wallets to help users operate without any third party knowing. DeepOnion, for example, is operating by using Tor exclusively, and on top of that it is using ISP obfuscating protocols (the irony that these protocols were initially created to help people living in countries with authoritarian regimes have unrestricted access, including Tor access, to the internet would be inescapable if such a ban actually occurs). DeepOnion's planned feature, DeepSend, would further help with that, making DeepOnion transactions even harder to trace.

2) For an up-and-coming coin, to be mentioned along privacy pioneers like Monero, this is quite an achievement. It is a recognition given by a government official that, yes, DeepOnion can be a potential foe that could possibly stand against a government's plan to spy on every transaction made by their citizens. As some people are scrambling to find out information on DeepOnion, some others are working hard to be deserving of this "fear" governments are having of them.

Interesting times are coming for cryptocurrencies, that much is certain.