The 4 Most Private and Secure Cryptocurrencies
Written by
John Csiszar
Edited by
Melanie Grafil
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Even though crypto started over a decade ago, many investors who had never thought of buying it are now taking a closer look at the asset class. As the financial press mainly focuses on the most popular coins, it’s good to know that there are hundreds of alternative options in the cryptocurrency space. Many of these coins have advantages over names like Ethereum or Bitcoin, particularly concerning privacy.
Quick Take: What Is Private Crypto?
Although the blockchain technology that coins like bitcoin use is meant to be secure and anonymous, some coins manage to keep transactions even more private. These untraceable and private cryptocurrency coins are digital currencies designed to enhance user anonymity and financial confidentiality.
This is done by concealing transaction details and using technologies like ring signatures and stealth addresses to hide transaction amounts and transaction senders and receivers. This can make transactions untraceable. Read on to see how some of these alternative coins achieve this level of security.
Monero (XMR)
- Coin price: $224.56
- Privacy method: Ring signatures, stealth addresses
Monero is a private digital currency that allows users to be their own bank. Monero’s security technology hides transactions and users so that no one can see any individual user’s wallet balance or activity. This is what separates it from more mainstream coins with transparent blockchains, like Ethereum or Bitcoin.
Monero’s creators state that their coin is the only cryptocurrency that makes every user anonymous by default. The amount of every transaction, in addition to the identity of the sender and receiver, is hidden through three specific technologies: Ring Signatures, RingCT and Stealth Addresses. As every transaction is private, it can’t be traced.
Horizen (ZEN)
- Coin price: $10.25
- Privacy method: zk-SNARKs.
Zen is the native cryptocurrency of Horizen, which uses Zendoo technology to allow developers or businesses to create their own public or private blockchains. Zen is a proof-of-work, Equihash-based cryptocurrency that offers two different types of addresses: Z-Addresses and T-Addresses.
Z-Addresses are completely private and anonymous and are known as shielded transactions. T-Addresses are public and transparent, used for making bitcoin-like transactions on the blockchain. Users can choose which type of address they prefer if they want to control their privacy.
DASH (DASH)
- Coin price: $23.98
- Privacy method: CoinJoin (PrivateSend)
Dash is a payment cryptocurrency that, as the name suggests, is meant to be a nearly immediate form of transfer. Dash is what’s known as a “fork” of the Bitcoin protocol, except it provides additional privacy features and has negligible transaction fees. Dash uses a two-tier blockchain network that includes both miners and masternodes.
The purpose of the masternodes is to functionalities such as PrivateSend and InstantSend, which provide both untraceable and anonymous transactions. Dash, created in 2014, was the first private cryptocurrency.
ZCash (ZEC)
- Coin price: $37.63
- Privacy method: zk-SNARKs (Zero-Knowledge Proofs)
If you regard privacy, you might want to take a look at zcash as it’s one of the more interesting alternatives to bitcoin. As with some other coins, zcash offers two types of transactions: shielded and transparent.
Today, Zcash still offers enhanced privacy via “zk-SNARKS,” which stands for “zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge.” Although complicated, what matters to the average user is that zcash tries to improve the Bitcoin blockchain with enhanced security measures and supports fast block times, low fees and large block sizes.
Final Take To GO
The bottom line is that if you are concerned with privacy when it comes to your investments, it might be time to switch your crypto over to more secure and anonymous options. Keep in mind that the crypto market is extremely volatile as of late and you should conduct thorough research before making your investment.
Caitlyn Moorhead contributed to the reporting for this article.
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