TRON Foundation CEO Justin Sun revealed this week that TRON (TRX) is currently exploring the adoption of the zk-SNARK technology made popular by privacy coin Zcash (ZEC) — with plans to implement the zero-knowledge proofs in Q1.

These ideas and more were briefly discussed on The Bad Crypto Podcast with Rachel Wolf earlier this week.

Thanks @Rachelwolf00 and @badcrypto for this fun interview. It was my pleasure to share some stories on how I got into #blockchain, what motivated me to create @Tronfoundation, and how I think #ProjectAtlas will revolutionize content distribution! $TRX https://t.co/R0WT5EvOBC — Justin Sun (@justinsuntron) November 29, 2018

“I think privacy is also important for the network. So that’s why I think next year, Q1, we will adopt the zk-SNARKs into our network. So zero-knowledge proof into our network. This is how we can improve the privacy of the whole network,” Sun said. “The transaction can be untraceable. We provide a different solution, and depending on your preference, you can choose the different one.”

The zero-knowledge proof technology ultimately works to guarantee the validity of transactions without revealing additional information about them.

Similar ideas were expressed by Charlie Lee, the founder of Litecoin (LTC), when he took to Twitter to reveal that he was considering adding privacy functionality to bring true fungibility to the popular altcoin.

In an effort to bring in the community, Lee opened up a Twitter poll to see whether Litecoin investors and users would like to see privacy features added, and if so, what their preference would be in the underlying technology.

The community eventually voted to adopt Confidential Transactions (CTs) over zk-SNARKs/zk-STARKs. CTs, which were originally conceived by Bitcoin developer Gregory Maxwell, would work by homomorphically encrypting the inputs and outputs of Litecoin transactions by using a blinding factor, which is a string of numbers that encrypts the identifiable information associated with addresses.

The adoption of privacy functionality (should it happen) in these large-cap altcoins will likely change the makeup of the privacy coin landscape, which can be tracked using the AltDex Privacy Coin Index (ALTPRV).

Disclaimer: This article’s author has cryptocurrency holdings that can be tracked here. This article is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Always conduct your own due diligence before making investments.