Bitcoin Forum

Hey there,

let's say we have a company willing to introduce an own coin. The coin is blockchain based (for example ETH).
The coin will be used in smart contract processes to pay goods.

One usecase might be, that machines that are located at the customers place can order supplies by themselves if the amount of supplies undercuts a limit. The order then will be paied with the coins automatically.


The problem / challange now is, that customers and competitors are now able to analyse the blockchain and extrapolate prices, margins, amount of used supplies and other user data.


Do you guys see a chance to bypass this issue?

Up

What if the blockchain has just a big number, that for customers and competitors means nothing, but it encrypts all the information that can be used only by the company?

I think the whole point of using the blockchain is that it is open and transparent and cannot be tampered with. It is not suitable for all purposes so for anonymous transactions it would be better to use a privacy coin with direct transfer of payment. XSPEC and Deeponion use TOR to anonymise the sender so that is one option but it won't hide the transaction.

I guess the blockchain should stay open and not private to keep trust in the system.

To be "safe" enough for the company the payment flows have to be mixed or splitted like the tor network, so that it is not possible to analyze it.

The coin will be sended and goes to many other clients before it "exits" to the recipent.

But I don't know if such an algorithm is viable and even possible.

As long as the coin is blockchain based there will be tx fees for every step from one client to anoher.

It would not be economic.

I feel transparency is of utmost importance, let the customers know what they are in for.

Yes, but in competition with your competitors it is very bad if they know your margins and all the data from your customers.

The competitors must not know how often customers order special goods, when they order it, and maybe even what they order.

This is confidential information that must not be publicly accessible

Is this a clear indicator of markets not meant for blockchain technology, the arguable kinks not in the tech, but in the implementation and end use.

You are absolutely right, but I suppose that this blockchain number could contain two different kinds of information, one for the client and one hidden for the company.
So the competitors could see just one part of the information, which couldn't be useful to them.
About the fees that you have mentioned, what if the fees were included in the coin price so they were already paid.
Sorry, I am not an expert, but sometimes the brainstorming can bring brilliant ideas.

One of the ways to make transactions anonymous is creating the process of transaction a new address or account for receiving funds. Then the destination of transactions will be different and it strengthens anonymity.