Can someone really explain which coins are truly anonymous?

[dinofelis]

I asked this several times: can someone who knows, explain whether Zcash has *obligatory* anonymity (with or without optional disclosure), or just *optional* anonymity ?

due to the amount of recources it needs to create such a zcash transaction i dont think we will see a system where it is mandatory that soon.

This I also understood, and then when I tried to read the white paper, this doesn't occur in the text as far as I can see.  I only see transactions with "notes" (which are anonymous) and "in the clear" coin transactions, in such a way, that you cannot have an "in the clear" input and an "in the clear" output at the same time, which makes me think, that after all, it is mandatory.

So I'm kind of confused between "it is too complex to do for every transaction" on one hand, and in the white paper, there is no other way than to do it that way.  But maybe the white paper is ONLY describing the optional, heavy, anonymous transactions, and maybe there are simple "in the clear" transactions next to it.  But I couldn't find that information on the zerocoin site (I may simply not be looking in the right place).

[dinofelis]

Another good crypto note to look out for is DigitalNote since it offers the same ring signature transactions as monero as well as anonymous encrypted messaging.

Although I must say that it is ridiculous to expect a coin to be 100% anonymous. That is impossible and anything close to it would need tools that have nothing to do with crypto currencies.

Amen.

[disconnectme]

Anonymous is just a market branding, as technology improve all these anonymous noise will be proven wrong

[dinofelis]

Anon coins like dash and monero are not 100% anon? I thought they are all 100% anon.

As I tried to explain, both systems leak some entropy about previous transactions, but there's much less leakage in monero than in DASH (that, under the assumption that the dark nodes are not keeping the information that *totally* exposes the link).

The amount of information that can be extracted depends essentially on the anonymity set.  In as much that being member of the anonymity set is mandatory (as far as I understand, ONLY monero (as a representative of cryptonote) has this property - I'm not sure about ZCASH), this has the advantage that the anonymity set grows over time even if you do nothing.  With an optional anonymity, such as in DASH, it depends on how many users actually use it.   But both in monero and DASH, the anonymity set is (initially) finite and even rather small.  In DASH, the anonymity set is guaranteed to contain only other people wanting anonymity explicitly ; in Monero, the anonymity set is random and growing.  But both sets are small in the beginning.

In ZCASH, for anonymous transactions, the anonymity set is much larger, and essentially equal to all people ever having done at least one anonymous transaction.   However, in as far as ZCASH has no mandatory anonymity, that set can in practice turn out to be much smaller than the anonymity set in Monero after a long time, where this will tend to include all users of the block chain.  In as much as ZCASH would have mandatory anonymous transactions, it would be the only system with TOTAL anonymity instantaneously (that is, the transaction can be just ANY person on the block chain).

This is why this question of mandatory anonymity for ZCASH is so important: if it *is* mandatory, it is the only system that is FULLY anonymous right away.  If it isn't mandatory it has a similar problem as DASH.  It would be a pity.  (it would still be better than DASH because of the lack of need for master nodes)

[dinofelis]

Anonymous is just a market branding, as technology improve all these anonymous noise will be proven wrong

It depends what you understand by "anonymous".  One should actually read "fungible coins", not "anonymous coins".  If you understand by "anonymous" that "whatever happens, nobody will ever find out that I paid you a sum of money", then this is only partly true, depending on the effort that your enemy and you put into this battle.

However, if by anonymity, one means: "if I pay you with this coin, nobody can know that 20 transactions before, this coin belonged to Jack the Ripper", then yes, monero comes close to that ideal.  If you think about it, it means actually *fungible* coins, just like cash or gold.

Gold is not "guaranteed anonymous", in that one can follow you transporting gold to the other person, take pictures of you when you hand over the gold and so on.  However, one will have a hard time showing that this piece of gold actually belonged to the prime minister of Kazakhstan 2 years ago.  This is the kind of fungible nature that many coins are missing, and which coins like DASH, monero and Zcash try to implement ; calling it "anonymous coins".

It somehow comes together, in the sense that if the money you have, is not traceable to who gave it to you, the person that gave it to you is anonymous (unless you reveal his identity) ; and for sure, the person that paid the person that pays you, is totally unknown and hence anonymous.

[traumschiff]

Zcoin and Zcash should win the race in terms of transactional privacy. Zcoin uses the Zerocoin protocol (older more researched) while Zcash uses the Zerocash protocol (newer, more complex, but less research behind it, more risk).

You can always only go for 99% anonymity, but these project go as close to it as you can imho, while other projects have some or more protocol level weaknesses and will result in tainted coins on exchanges if used for some form of illegal activity.

Difference between the 2: http://blog.zcoin.tech/zcoin-and-zcash/

[funkenstein]

As plenty of others pointed out here, anonymity is relative. 


One thing you could try is privately issued coins, such as the toilet paper funbuck aka the US dollar.  There is no public nature to this coin so it can be quite untraceable.  So untraceable that anyone can issue it in arbitrary amounts and nobody else will notice. 

Now there's some anonymity for yo ass. 

[dinofelis]

Zcoin and Zcash should win the race in terms of transactional privacy. Zcoin uses the Zerocoin protocol (older more researched) while Zcash uses the Zerocash protocol (newer, more complex, but less research behind it, more risk).

You can always only go for 99% anonymity, but these project go as close to it as you can imho, while other projects have some or more protocol level weaknesses and will result in tainted coins on exchanges if used for some form of illegal activity.

Difference between the 2: http://blog.zcoin.tech/zcoin-and-zcash/

Point is, zcash leaks about 94% of the information currently, because in 94% of the transactions, the anonymity features are not used (clear transactions).   As such, as a user of anonymity, you clearly stand out, and you only "mix" with others wanting to be anonymous.

The very first rule of anonymity is that all members use it.  If you are the only one wearing a mask on the street, you will be noticed, which is exactly what you didn't want.  OK, one cannot directly see your face, but you stand out.

For instance, you can very easily taint ZEC that have been anonymous.  You could for instance decide only to accept ZEC that have been in the clear since their block reward origin.

[digaran]

If you are trying to use a regular account and IP address on a daily basis and doing lots of transactions?
A big NO.
But if you find a hard drive with coins in it then you can use TOR and exchanging them to all the supposedly anon cryptos  and after all of that you'll still need the person paying you in cash to maintain the confidentiality of the trade between yourselves.
However only way possible to make sure whether or not a coin is really as anonymous as they claim is for you to check the code and all comes back to tech knowledge and knowing the internet in it's core.

[maxfunky]

I think that Zcoin and of course good OPSEC practice will achieve pretty good privacy !

[Oilacris]

Bitcoin is  the  first  crypto  with have this  feature since  hes the father of all cryptos and  other   altcoin do  pop out just try  to create  the same thing   on bitcoin and  even  try  to make  it  more  anonymous than  bitcoin. I do  know some  altcoins  which  do  have  this  features too like XMR which do  say that  they  have better  anonymity than  bitcoin and  also to the  new coin zcash,.

[HCLivess]

anonymity defies the blockchain principles because it defies general knowledge of transaction

[dawnasor]

So many coins now claim they are anonymous with many different ones saying they are the first ones to do so. What are the real anonymous coins we have now. Are any 100% anonymous and untraceable?

Yeah bitcoins and others coin have a features like anonymity but anonymity features dont help because like in our country you need to reveal your personal details in the exchanger to get convert bitcoin into usd or others currency.Thats my opinion only

[traumschiff]

So many coins now claim they are anonymous with many different ones saying they are the first ones to do so. What are the real anonymous coins we have now. Are any 100% anonymous and untraceable?

Yeah bitcoins and others coin have a features like anonymity but anonymity features dont help because like in our country you need to reveal your personal details in the exchanger to get convert bitcoin into usd or others currency.Thats my opinion only

You can always buy coins on places like localbitcoins or similar and we are on the edge of decentralized exchanges becomming popular, thus it's not too early to invest into the best anon tech out there, like zcoin or zcash.

[funkenstein]

anonymity defies the blockchain principles because it defies general knowledge of transaction

It took the release of recent coins to teach me the lesson that HCLivess gives us here.  Very true. 

[Top2016]

dont think that will be a coins can resiste  anonymously

[Bitcoinsummoner]

I think almost all crypto currency are the same anonymous. because you can be still trace the transactions if they are using mixers..
There is no ip from your place like in bitcoin blockchain you can check the details of your transaction the ip is from other places.
So almost all crypto for me are anonymous.

[dinofelis]

anonymity defies the blockchain principles because it defies general knowledge of transaction

You don't need to know the transaction details (like on bitcoin).  You only need to know that the transaction is legit.  The legitimity of the transaction can come from direct verification, like on bitcoin, or from cryptographic proof, like with ZCASH and cryptonote.  In as much as the cryptography itself is legit, the cryptographic proof of the legitimity of the transaction is just as credible as the direct verification.

This is in fact the same principle as a digital signature, or a hash.

Consider the following situation: Joe has a document, and Jack claims that he has that document too.  For Mary it is important to know whether Jack's claim is right.  But Mary is not supposed to be able to read said document.  Joe wants Mary to find out whether Jack has the document, as he claims, but doesn't want to give the document to Mary (nor does Jack).

Joe can give a hash of the document to Mary, and Mary can ask Jack to provide her with that hash too.  If Jack can produce the hash of the document, then that's proof enough to Mary that Jack has the same document as Joe.

This is a way of cryptographically verifying the validity of a claim, without being able to verify the claim directly.  The direct verification would be that Mary asks Joe and Jack to produce the document so that she can compare.  But Joe doesn't want this document to get in Jack's (if he's lying) or Mary's hands.  He only wants to verify the claim of Jack that he has the document without showing the document.

One could do more sophisticated tests. 
Joe could give a random string to Mary and Jack, and Jack could give another random string to Mary and Joe, so that everyone has both random strings.  They could mix them, say, by XORing them.  This would then be a "public" key of which nobody has a private key.

Joe could now encrypt the document with this public key, and Jack could do the same.  Both could give their encrypted copy to Mary, who can verify that they are identical, but without being able to read them.

There are ways to prove cryptographically that something is true/valid/legit without being able to verify it directly.

[Zadicar]

I think almost all crypto currency are the same anonymous. because you can be still trace the transactions if they are using mixers..
There is no ip from your place like in bitcoin blockchain you can check the details of your transaction the ip is from other places.
So almost all crypto for me are anonymous.

Your  sentences are  contradicting which  really  gives confusion to OP and to other  members. Do  you  know   what  is anonymous?  You mentioned  that  all cryptos are  anonymous  but  they could able  to  track . too Contradicting. Maybe  you mean  its  not  fully anonymous  hence you could still  trace bitcoin transactions via blocktrail but   with  the use  of mixers  it would   already be  hard for sure.

[adamvp]

Zcoin and Zcash should win the race in terms of transactional privacy. Zcoin uses the Zerocoin protocol (older more researched) while Zcash uses the Zerocash protocol (newer, more complex, but less research behind it, more risk).

You can always only go for 99% anonymity, but these project go as close to it as you can imho, while other projects have some or more protocol level weaknesses and will result in tainted coins on exchanges if used for some form of illegal activity.

Difference between the 2: http://blog.zcoin.tech/zcoin-and-zcash/

Point is, zcash leaks about 94% of the information currently, because in 94% of the transactions, the anonymity features are not used (clear transactions).   As such, as a user of anonymity, you clearly stand out, and you only "mix" with others wanting to be anonymous.

The very first rule of anonymity is that all members use it.  If you are the only one wearing a mask on the street, you will be noticed, which is exactly what you didn't want.  OK, one cannot directly see your face, but you stand out.

For instance, you can very easily taint ZEC that have been anonymous.  You could for instance decide only to accept ZEC that have been in the clear since their block reward origin.

I am agree, but if you are alone or one of the few.. If f.e 50% have mask there is high level of anonimity..