Everyone is hyped up about Vote Central right now, which is nice, but the most important feature to me on the DeepOnion road map is Zero Knowledge Protocol. This is the real game changer that will make people give a cryptocurrency with a weird name about onions that they don't understand a second look.
Not many projects are currently using this technology, and with the large community surrounding DeepOnion, I see this as an opportunity for it to squeeze through the noise and into a space where competitors may have become a little lax in their innovations. This bodes especially well with their plans to market the coin heavily to merchants for adoption for private purchases. In cryptocurrency, complacency is dangerous.
What is Zero Knowledge Protocol?
Cryptocurrencies utilize a ledger. This ledger records all the transactions for that currency. All of these transactions are public, and that makes it easy for users to trace where coins have come and gone. While this is all very convenient, it is also troubling from a privacy perspective. Most privacy coins get around this by obscuring the data associated with these transactions. Usually this means that transfers of money can still be seen, but it's harder to tell who sent it and who received it. However, that means someone can still track when and where you sent money. In the future this could create a problem, as I'm sure people are already working on ways to unmask this information.
By utilizing a Zero Knowledge approach these transactions can be verified without actually sharing the information which we want to remain private. This is a far more powerful tool than simply obscuring the data associated with transactions. I've already been quite opposed to actually sharing my payment addresses with others. It makes me nervous that anyone can see exactly how much money I have in an address. In light of the recent cryptocurrency thefts that have been reported, it seems that fear is not unwarranted.
I use the Coinomi app for many of my holds as they have a feature that will anonymize your requests using multiple addresses. While it's not impossible for someone to figure out what you have where, it does make it a little more difficult when you need to use a coin that does not have any inherent privacy protections such as Bitcoin. Fortunately, in their most recent update, DeepOnion has enabled stealth addresses to help facilitate this in their native wallets. If they could implement atomic swaps for other currencies without leaving the wallet it might be a perfect solution, because let's face it, nobody is going to ever accept every single cryptocurrency, and you're still going to need to do some trading to buy stuff.
While stealth addresses are great, let's get back into Zero Knowledge. When and how exactly it will be implemented for the DeepOnion network is unknown. However, the basic idea surrounding this technology is that instead of publishing the transaction itself to the chain, you can instead publish the proof that it happened by verifying it. This process maintains the integrity of the blockchain, but it also protects the privacy of participants.
I find this approach far better than something that uses ring signatures. A ring signature is essentially a fancy, automated mixing service. Your money gets bounced around to different addresses in order to make your payments. These efforts are an attempt to obscure the trail left that can lead back to you. They also throw in some decoy outputs to confuse anyone who may be trying to unravel your trail. However, the same problem arises. That information is still there. While it is distorted, it is still being sent, and the best way to keep a secret is to not tell anyone at all.
That being said, there are some downfalls to Zero knowledge, mainly being that they require higher computing power. This means it can be impossible for them to run on devices like Ledger or possibly even mobile phones. There is an option to offer transactions which would be private, and those which would be public. This could lower some of the bloat caused by these more intensive transactions. There is also on going development happening to make lighter and faster alternatives for the purpose of lightening the load. However, even at the present level of functionality, I feel the trade off is worth it for the increased security that this system would offer the DeepOnion community.
Even Monero fan boys will begrudgingly admit that Zero Knowledge is superior to Ring Signatures. While they will also claim that implementing this will give no noticeable difference in privacy protections, I'm not so sure. The battle for privacy is an on going one, and I find it hard to believe that government agencies are not working hard to unmask these transactions. Even Edward Snowden has vouched for the defense capabilities of Zero Knowledge implementations over other popular privacy choices.
Could a Zero Knowledge Protocol enhanced DeepOnion overtake Monero as the must have privacy coin? A privacy coin that can also provide you with fully anonymous income via Proof Of Stake? It all sounds very promising to me, and I'm waiting to see what will happen with this advancement. I hope the DeepOnion team will focus on this now rather than later, and if it comes up for a vote in the upcoming DeepCentral program, I'll be sure to cast mine where it belongs. I know this will be an important feature for DeepOnion, and it's also an opportunity to step into the fray offering something fresh to privacy advocates.
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