Anonymity, Security and Privacy: Anonymous Cryptocurrency Enhancement Comparsion

[EleanorZ]

Don't think anyone's chimed in about PIVX yet (most of the PIVX community is on Discord/Reddit/Twitter). There may well be other info I'm missing, but here are some things I noticed:

PIVX has had multisig for a while but recently improved the GUI to make it more user-friendly, so you definitely need a green 'yes' in that column. (Source: release notes for wallet v. 3.0.5 onwards)
Like some other coins on this list, PIVX can be run as a Tor hidden service if desired...so, maybe an orange 'optional' there? (Source: various, but e.g. https://github.com/PIVX-Project/PIVX/blob/master/doc/tor.md)

If you're going to include future additions based on the roadmap, as you have for Verge Atomic Swaps, then you should include Dandelion Protocol under 'hiding' for PIVX (https://www.reddit.com/r/pivx/comments/7iw1fq/when_is_pivx_implementing_dandelion_protocol_to/).

And, as a more general comment, you might want to consider including a column for decentralized exchange integration, which is an important consideration for any privacy coin. PIVX has its own decentralized exchange in the roadmap (zDEX; various sources, but e.g. https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@valderrama/pivx-mandatory-wallet-upgrade-and-even-more-privacy-with-zdex), which will allow zPIV (i.e., zero-piv) to be traded in-wallet. I'm assuming some other privacy coins have similar plans as well.

Good luck with your list.

[Pinstripe]

Thank you SafeCoins. Your reference table is an interesting and valuable resource.

I'm not very technically proficient when it comes to crypto, but when I saw Byteball on the list, I wanted to add a couple of
Byteball Blackbytes resources that may be helpful to you and the community:

Byteball: Blackbytes FAQ:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2020882.0

Hiding entire content of on-chain transactions (by Byteball dev Tonych):
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1574508

and
Byteball Wiki on Blackbytes
https://byteroll.com/blackbytes

Hope it`s helpful.

[SafeCoins]

You might also want to have a look at the following:

Hcash (HSR): https://h.cash
StealthCoin (XST): https://www.stealthcoin.com/
Crave Project (CRAVE): https://craveproject.net
Bulwark (BWK): https://bulwarkcrypto.com
InnovaCoin (INN): https://innovacoin.info
Phore (PHR): https://phore.io
Pura (PUR): https://pura.one/
Sumokoin (SUMO): https://www.sumokoin.org/
Grin (http://grin-tech.org/)
Aeon (AEON): http://www.aeon.cash/
SolarisCoin (XLR): https://solariscoin.com/
Pure (PURE): https://purealt.org/
Enigma (ENG): https://www.enigma.co/
Aion (AION): https://aion.network/
Obsidian (ODN): https://obsidianplatform.com/

Wow, thank you carap!

This will take some time lol.  Here is a brief summary of my first glance.   I will have to whittle away at this with everyone's help:

Hcash (HSR): https://h.cash      Decred and Dash fork...Adding Super, super dodgy ICO here, even for an overseas coins, but a lot of promises made
StealthCoin (XST): https://www.stealthcoin.com/    Added as you were posting
Crave Project (CRAVE): https://craveproject.net      Blackcoin fork, adding
Bulwark (BWK): https://bulwarkcrypto.com             Dash/PIVX fork, adding
InnovaCoin (INN): https://innovacoin.info               Another Dash fork......um..., ok...adding?
Phore (PHR): https://phore.io                                 PIVX fork....adding maybe?
Pura (PUR): https://pura.one/                                Another Dash fork......um..., ok...adding?  Maybe?
Sumokoin (SUMO): https://www.sumokoin.org/       Already added, was in wrong alphabetical order, fixed in next publication
Grin (http://grin-tech.org/)                                    Looks interesting!  Adding.  Will mostly be roadmaps
Aeon (AEON): http://www.aeon.cash/                     Early Monero fork, I had mentioned it earlier.  I may ask the community if it has any new privacy enhancements
SolarisCoin (XLR): https://solariscoin.com/              PIVX fork....adding maybe?
Pure (PURE): https://purealt.org/                            Dash fork....recent scam claims....adding...... maybe?........
Enigma (ENG): https://www.enigma.co/                 Talks about privacy but doesn't describe any privacy features? ICO Hacked  https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/24/enigma-refund/
Aion (AION): https://aion.network/                         Interesting coin, can't find any privacy features in whitepaper
Obsidian (ODN): https://obsidianplatform.com/        Interesting software, private messenger, can't find any privacy features in whitepaper that relate to cryptocurrency


I might also have to look at ColossusCoinXT

[SafeCoins]

Thank you SafeCoins. Your reference table is an interesting and valuable resource.

I'm not very technically proficient when it comes to crypto, but when I saw Byteball on the list, I wanted to add a couple of
Byteball Blackbytes resources that may be helpful to you and the community:

Byteball: Blackbytes FAQ:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2020882.0

Hiding entire content of on-chain transactions (by Byteball dev Tonych):
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1574508

and
Byteball Wiki on Blackbytes
https://byteroll.com/blackbytes

Hope it`s helpful.

Thank you Pinstripe!  I really appreciate it and I think Blackbytes are incredibly interesting.   I have read all the above previously and they are good links.  If you feel the matrix needs to be adjusted just let me know and I'll look into it.   

One thing that I think would be very useful to get an update on...how is Byteball doing with regards to decentralizing their network?   DAG has received a lot of Flack for this.  IOTA was even caught withdrawing money out of users accounts.   Obviously a security concern.   That said, if we are to be honest, even Bitcoin was originally centralized, and even now...has some centralization issues.    I understand Byteball has been working to address their DAG-related centralization issues.   Any idea how that's going?
http://byteballjp.info/2017/11/24/interview-with-mr-churyumov-and-how-he-thinks-about-witness-and-distribution-of-byteball/

[SafeCoins]

Don't think anyone's chimed in about PIVX yet (most of the PIVX community is on Discord/Reddit/Twitter). There may well be other info I'm missing, but here are some things I noticed:

PIVX has had multisig for a while but recently improved the GUI to make it more user-friendly, so you definitely need a green 'yes' in that column. (Source: release notes for wallet v. 3.0.5 onwards)
Like some other coins on this list, PIVX can be run as a Tor hidden service if desired...so, maybe an orange 'optional' there? (Source: various, but e.g. https://github.com/PIVX-Project/PIVX/blob/master/doc/tor.md)

If you're going to include future additions based on the roadmap, as you have for Verge Atomic Swaps, then you should include Dandelion Protocol under 'hiding' for PIVX (https://www.reddit.com/r/pivx/comments/7iw1fq/when_is_pivx_implementing_dandelion_protocol_to/).

And, as a more general comment, you might want to consider including a column for decentralized exchange integration, which is an important consideration for any privacy coin. PIVX has its own decentralized exchange in the roadmap (zDEX; various sources, but e.g. https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@valderrama/pivx-mandatory-wallet-upgrade-and-even-more-privacy-with-zdex), which will allow zPIV (i.e., zero-piv) to be traded in-wallet. I'm assuming some other privacy coins have similar plans as well.

Good luck with your list.

Thank you Eleanor!  Great news on the Multisig addition!     I've added that and the Atomic Swap Roadmap to the matrix.

Yes, a lot of the privacy coins do have exchange related plans.  Unfortunately, some of them abandoned their privacy goals in the process.   So I am mixed on that one.  Any others?    Thoughts?

What if I make a column for decentralized Private, Secure, exchanges?

[pvk444]

One other small correction for XSPEC : encrypted messaging is on the roadmap for an upcoming release.

Great work, btw. Really useful to have.

[crypki]

DSR might be a good mention. It's got high POS reward. Don't know if they have their own tech, but they call it InstantX and PrivateSend.
Btw, how can I get Blackbytes? I've always wanted a coin with DAG tech and privacy feature.

Thanks cryptki,

Appears to be a Dash fork which is currently stuck on a block and nobody can get past it.  Perhaps this message will help, I don't know.   But seeing as it has no new features and may be a dead coin at this point, I'll use a wait-and-see approach, if that's ok.

If anyone wants to take a chance on mining the stuck block (others have tried and failed):  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2198958.220

Thanks for that info. Don't know how you manage to gather these infos. I thought DSR would be good. Is Zoin a safe bet? Can it also become a dead coin? What makes a coin vulnerable to becoming dead? Also, coins with high POS rewards(Xios), is that a red flag? seeing something giving over 700% annual rewards seems too good to be true.

[BrianH]

For clarification sake, Cloak's ENIGMA is used to perform off-chain P2P mixing, which is potentially better than on-chain RingCT, because there is not even a blockchain group to tie the identity of the transaction to. Cloak also does not use masternodes, however a user needs to hold a minimum 100 CLOAK to obtain the reward from PoSA 3.0.

[SafeCoins]

For clarification sake, Cloak's ENIGMA is used to perform off-chain P2P mixing, which is potentially better than on-chain RingCT, because there is not even a blockchain group to tie the identity of the transaction to. Cloak also does not use masternodes, however a user needs to hold a minimum 100 CLOAK to obtain the reward from PoSA 3.0.

Perfect, thank you very much Brian, that's really helpful.   "Offchain Mixing" is something people can google to educate themselves.  Thus, Cloakcoin has their own "Offchain Mixing" column now

And thank you to TSVHoff as well for getting the developer comments, I really appreciate it.

My apologies for any confusion, I really hope this helps.  Please have a look and let me know what you think.

[cryptoguard]

Hey SafeCoins!

I am lead community manager and writer at the Particl Project. We are aware information about our project currently is all over the place. We are redesigning our website from scratch to include all the information about the project and it should be ready in a just a few weeks. In the meantime, I can fill you in with the information as it relates to the image you posted in your OP (the spreadsheet):

Mixing/Ring Signatures: RingCT + CT
Mixing/Multisignature Transactions: Yes
Mixing/Atomic Swaps: Yes
Hiding/Tor Integration: Optional
Hiding/Stealth Address: Yes
Hiding/Encrypted Messaging: Yes
Protection/Quantum Resistance: Yes
Protetion/POS: PPoS (improved from PoS3)

If you want more in-depth information about the nature of our privacy coin and platform, you can either read my Particl articles at decentralize.today/@cryptoguard or contact me and I will be happy to help you in any way I can.

Particl In A Nutshell (9min read) https://decentralize.today/particl-in-a-nutshell-6dd9ecc97d27
In-Depth Presentation (55min read)  https://decentralize.today/in-depth-presentation-of-the-particl-project-b3a41923a07e
Cold Staking (8min read) https://decentralize.today/particls-10th-of-november-hardfork-cold-staking-quantum-resistance-a083ef3913cc

For the purpose of this thread, here is a quick crash course about the privacy features of our project (sorry for the bold words, I just want to make it easy for people to quickly read through):

Our vision:
We strongly believe that the best way to make a coin valuable is to have a strong ecosytem and economy built around it so that users can easily use and spend their coins without having to cash out back to fiat. This is why we are building the Particl platform; a full-blown decentralized and privacy ecosystem built directly into our GUI wallet which also works with almost any other cryptocurrency while still preserving total anonymity. This privacy platform will provide many services to all crypto communities such as a marketplace, a messaging system, and in the future many other privacy Dapps that furthers our mission of creating an entire ecosystem/economy (i.e. could be a privacy DEX, or Twitter-style communication apps...).

We are an inclusive project and want to work with other crypto communities by building an economy and privacy ecosystem that anyone can use with their favorite coin on!

Particl Coin (PART):
- PART is always updated to the latest BTC Core codebase within days. It is currently on Bitcoin Core 0.15.1.1. Particl does it faster than any other project, including Litecoin.
- PART has three states of privacy: public (same privacy as Bitcoin), blinded (uses CT to hide transacting amounts) and anon (uses RingCT to hide transacting amounts and participants). It is the first project to ever implement both CT and RingCT on the BTC codebase (instead of Cryptonote)
- 100% of blocks and transactions are Segwit. Particl is the first native segwit blockchain ever
- 100% PoS, no PoW period ever. Particl is the first "pure PoS" blockchain ever
- Lightning Network-ready

Particl Proof-of-Stake:
- Improved from PoS3 (more secure and private)
- Passive income of minimum 5% on year 1, declining 1% per year and stabilizing at 2%
- Quantum-Resistant
- Cold and hardware staking
- Protocol support for staking pools and staking reward management tool
- Decentralized voting & governance
- Self-Funding of the project (the Particl Foundation (non-profit Swiss Foundation registered by MME, the same legal firm as the Ethereum Foundation) receives 10% of all block rewards)

Privacy Platform:
- This platform is included in our beautiful GUI wallet. This is from the same team who designed SDC/XSPEC wallet but now uses better and more secure GUI technologies (all sandboxed as well)
- First ever 100% anonymous and decentralized marketplace (eBay-style, with no-fee decentralized escrow system)
- The marketplace will only be the first privacy Dapp of the platform. Any privacy Dapp can be developed through smart-contracts. Any contract can use PART's native CT and RingCT privacy protocols
- The platform accepts almost all crypto-currencies either through third-party or atomic swaps, however, whenever a PART transaction occurs, coins are automatically transferred into PART so that the platform can use CT/RingCT. That means all transactions, even from other coins, generate demand for the PART coin.
- Storage is stored off-chain on DSNs (off-chain data storage networks) to greatly increase scalability. Particl uses SMSG, its own P2P data storage network embedded into each blockchain node, but can very easily integrate any other DSN such as IPFS. This allow the platform to always include the latest tech.
- Messaging system
- Tor-enabled
- No metadata leak possible, every metadata is constantly stripped off any piece of data


These are just a couple of key points to help you further your research on Particl and how it compares to other privacy projects. If you are interested by what was above, then please do read my articles as they go into more details or contact me and I'll be more than happy to help you in your research.

Cheers mate!

P.S. We have started an imgur image folder which includes some infographics on some of our stuff such as privacy protocols, cold staking, etc. You can follow the link here: https://imgur.com/a/J9MsU

[BrianH]

For clarification sake, Cloak's ENIGMA is used to perform off-chain P2P mixing, which is potentially better than on-chain RingCT, because there is not even a blockchain group to tie the identity of the transaction to. Cloak also does not use masternodes, however a user needs to hold a minimum 100 CLOAK to obtain the reward from PoSA 3.0.

Perfect, thank you very much Brian, that's really helpful.   "Offchain Mixing" is something people can google to educate themselves.  Thus, Cloakcoin has their own "Offchain Mixing" column now

And thank you to TSVHoff as well for getting the developer comments, I really appreciate it.

My apologies for any confusion, I really hope this helps.  Please have a look and let me know what you think.

Sure. Thanks again for doing the legwork on all of this. I've wanted to do a summary on all the major coins for a long time, but never had the time. Hear about "new" privacy coins everyday, but had no idea there were so many. This helps separate the winners from the losers. Will keep checking this to see where things stand.

[SafeCoins]

Hey SafeCoins!

I am lead community manager and writer at the Particl Project. We are aware information about our project currently is all over the place. We are redesigning our website from scratch to include all the information about the project and it should be ready in a just a few weeks. In the meantime, I can fill you in with the information as it relates to the image you posted in your OP (the spreadsheet):

Mixing/Ring Signatures: RingCT + CT
Mixing/Multisignature Transactions: Yes
Mixing/Atomic Swaps: Yes
Hiding/Tor Integration: Optional
Hiding/Stealth Address: Yes
Hiding/Encrypted Messaging: Yes
Protection/Quantum Resistance: Yes
Protetion/POS: PPoS (improved from PoS3)

If you want more in-depth information about the nature of our privacy coin and platform, you can either read my Particl articles at decentralize.today/@cryptoguard or contact me and I will be happy to help you in any way I can.

Particl In A Nutshell (9min read) https://decentralize.today/particl-in-a-nutshell-6dd9ecc97d27
In-Depth Presentation (55min read)  https://decentralize.today/in-depth-presentation-of-the-particl-project-b3a41923a07e
Cold Staking (8min read) https://decentralize.today/particls-10th-of-november-hardfork-cold-staking-quantum-resistance-a083ef3913cc

For the purpose of this thread, here is a quick crash course about the privacy features of our project (sorry for the bold words, I just want to make it easy for people to quickly read through):

Our vision:
We strongly believe that the best way to make a coin valuable is to have a strong ecosytem and economy built around it so that users can easily use and spend their coins without having to cash out back to fiat. This is why we are building the Particl platform; a full-blown decentralized and privacy ecosystem built directly into our GUI wallet which also works with almost any other cryptocurrency while still preserving total anonymity. This privacy platform will provide many services to all crypto communities such as a marketplace, a messaging system, and in the future many other privacy Dapps that furthers our mission of creating an entire ecosystem/economy (i.e. could be a privacy DEX, or Twitter-style communication apps...).

We are an inclusive project and want to work with other crypto communities by building an economy and privacy ecosystem that anyone can use with their favorite coin on!

Particl Coin (PART):
- PART is always updated to the latest BTC Core codebase within days. It is currently on Bitcoin Core 0.15.1.1. Particl does it faster than any other project, including Litecoin.
- PART has three states of privacy: public (same privacy as Bitcoin), blinded (uses CT to hide transacting amounts) and anon (uses RingCT to hide transacting amounts and participants). It is the first project to ever implement both CT and RingCT on the BTC codebase (instead of Cryptonote)
- 100% of blocks and transactions are Segwit. Particl is the first native segwit blockchain ever
- 100% PoS, no PoW period ever. Particl is the first "pure PoS" blockchain ever
- Lightning Network-ready

Particl Proof-of-Stake:
- Improved from PoS3 (more secure and private)
- Passive income of minimum 5% on year 1, declining 1% per year and stabilizing at 2%
- Quantum-Resistant
- Cold and hardware staking
- Protocol support for staking pools and staking reward management tool
- Decentralized voting & governance
- Self-Funding of the project (the Particl Foundation (non-profit Swiss Foundation registered by MME, the same legal firm as the Ethereum Foundation) receives 10% of all block rewards)

Privacy Platform:
- This platform is included in our beautiful GUI wallet. This is from the same team who designed SDC/XSPEC wallet but now uses better and more secure GUI technologies (all sandboxed as well)
- First ever 100% anonymous and decentralized marketplace (eBay-style, with no-fee decentralized escrow system)
- The marketplace will only be the first privacy Dapp of the platform. Any privacy Dapp can be developed through smart-contracts. Any contract can use PART's native CT and RingCT privacy protocols
- The platform accepts almost all crypto-currencies either through third-party or atomic swaps, however, whenever a PART transaction occurs, coins are automatically transferred into PART so that the platform can use CT/RingCT. That means all transactions, even from other coins, generate demand for the PART coin.
- Storage is stored off-chain on DSNs (off-chain data storage networks) to greatly increase scalability. Particl uses SMSG, its own P2P data storage network embedded into each blockchain node, but can very easily integrate any other DSN such as IPFS. This allow the platform to always include the latest tech.
- Messaging system
- Tor-enabled
- No metadata leak possible, every metadata is constantly stripped off any piece of data


These are just a couple of key points to help you further your research on Particl and how it compares to other privacy projects. If you are interested by what was above, then please do read my articles as they go into more details or contact me and I'll be more than happy to help you in your research.

Cheers mate!

P.S. We have started an imgur image folder which includes some infographics on some of our stuff such as privacy protocols, cold staking, etc. You can follow the link here: https://imgur.com/a/J9MsU

Thank you very much cryptoguard, I really appreciate it and I've updated the matrix accordingly.   I suspect you have additional features which could mean more columns as well, but...babysteps
I will stay tuned on Particl as the website and documentation gets updated, and congrats on Segwit and your still very new exchange plaftform


I have always considered Particl (formerly SDC) to be one of the top Privacy contributors to cryptocurrency.   That said, this also means I hold Particl to a higher standard as well.   With that said, I do have two quick questions which I think clarity on them could be useful to those looking for privacy solutions.

1.  zkSnarks....   What's the status on these?  Certainly not looking to create an issue here, just wondering if these, or some other zero knowledge solution is on the roadmap.  I was under the impression SDC at one time had zkSnarks.  Like you say, there is a lot of misinformation so I could have been mistaken.

2.   If, in the future, Particl must choose between:

        -A  timely platform or bitcoin core upgrade (of Segwit proportions) and temporary disabling their privacy/anon features
         OR
        -Delaying the upgrade, until it is 100% compatible with existing privacy/anon features

   Which choice do you believe Particl will be more committed to going forward?    

   I ask, because an uninterupted and long-term commitment to privacy is an absolute requirement to many who value these features
    (otherwise there is little or no point to them at all, and they could even contribute to dangerous or harmful situations).



Thank you kindly cryptoguard, I really appreciate the info and the update!

[SafeCoins]

Wow, thank you carap!

This will take some time lol.  Here is a brief summary of my first glance.   I will have to whittle away at this with everyone's help:

Hcash (HSR): https://h.cash      Decred and Dash fork...Adding Super, super dodgy ICO here, even for an overseas coins, but a lot of promises made
StealthCoin (XST): https://www.stealthcoin.com/    Added as you were posting
Crave Project (CRAVE): https://craveproject.net      Blackcoin fork, adding
Bulwark (BWK): https://bulwarkcrypto.com             Dash/PIVX fork, adding
InnovaCoin (INN): https://innovacoin.info               Another Dash fork......um..., ok...adding?
Phore (PHR): https://phore.io                                 PIVX fork....adding maybe?
Pura (PUR): https://pura.one/                                Another Dash fork......um..., ok...adding?  Maybe?
Sumokoin (SUMO): https://www.sumokoin.org/       Already added, was in wrong alphabetical order, fixed in next publication
Grin (http://grin-tech.org/)                                    Looks interesting!  Adding.  Will mostly be roadmaps
Aeon (AEON): http://www.aeon.cash/                     Early Monero fork, I had mentioned it earlier.  I may ask the community if it has any new privacy enhancements
SolarisCoin (XLR): https://solariscoin.com/              PIVX fork....adding maybe?
Pure (PURE): https://purealt.org/                            Dash fork....recent scam claims....adding...... maybe?........
Enigma (ENG): https://www.enigma.co/                 Talks about privacy but doesn't describe any privacy features? ICO Hacked  https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/24/enigma-refund/
Aion (AION): https://aion.network/                         Interesting coin, can't find any privacy features in whitepaper
Obsidian (ODN): https://obsidianplatform.com/        Interesting software, private messenger, can't find any privacy features in whitepaper that relate to cryptocurrency


I might also have to look at ColossusCoinXT

I have added everything in green, and I will send a message out to all threads related to green and orange.

Those in red I've opted not to pursue at this time, but I am always open to feedback on that.

And ColossusCoinXT (PIVX fork).  I need to look at that one.

[cryptoguard]

Hey SafeCoins!

I am lead community manager and writer at the Particl Project. We are aware information about our project currently is all over the place. We are redesigning our website from scratch to include all the information about the project and it should be ready in a just a few weeks. In the meantime, I can fill you in with the information as it relates to the image you posted in your OP (the spreadsheet):

Mixing/Ring Signatures: RingCT + CT
Mixing/Multisignature Transactions: Yes
Mixing/Atomic Swaps: Yes
Hiding/Tor Integration: Optional
Hiding/Stealth Address: Yes
Hiding/Encrypted Messaging: Yes
Protection/Quantum Resistance: Yes
Protetion/POS: PPoS (improved from PoS3)

If you want more in-depth information about the nature of our privacy coin and platform, you can either read my Particl articles at decentralize.today/@cryptoguard or contact me and I will be happy to help you in any way I can.

Particl In A Nutshell (9min read) https://decentralize.today/particl-in-a-nutshell-6dd9ecc97d27
In-Depth Presentation (55min read)  https://decentralize.today/in-depth-presentation-of-the-particl-project-b3a41923a07e
Cold Staking (8min read) https://decentralize.today/particls-10th-of-november-hardfork-cold-staking-quantum-resistance-a083ef3913cc

For the purpose of this thread, here is a quick crash course about the privacy features of our project (sorry for the bold words, I just want to make it easy for people to quickly read through):

Our vision:
We strongly believe that the best way to make a coin valuable is to have a strong ecosytem and economy built around it so that users can easily use and spend their coins without having to cash out back to fiat. This is why we are building the Particl platform; a full-blown decentralized and privacy ecosystem built directly into our GUI wallet which also works with almost any other cryptocurrency while still preserving total anonymity. This privacy platform will provide many services to all crypto communities such as a marketplace, a messaging system, and in the future many other privacy Dapps that furthers our mission of creating an entire ecosystem/economy (i.e. could be a privacy DEX, or Twitter-style communication apps...).

We are an inclusive project and want to work with other crypto communities by building an economy and privacy ecosystem that anyone can use with their favorite coin on!

Particl Coin (PART):
- PART is always updated to the latest BTC Core codebase within days. It is currently on Bitcoin Core 0.15.1.1. Particl does it faster than any other project, including Litecoin.
- PART has three states of privacy: public (same privacy as Bitcoin), blinded (uses CT to hide transacting amounts) and anon (uses RingCT to hide transacting amounts and participants). It is the first project to ever implement both CT and RingCT on the BTC codebase (instead of Cryptonote)
- 100% of blocks and transactions are Segwit. Particl is the first native segwit blockchain ever
- 100% PoS, no PoW period ever. Particl is the first "pure PoS" blockchain ever
- Lightning Network-ready

Particl Proof-of-Stake:
- Improved from PoS3 (more secure and private)
- Passive income of minimum 5% on year 1, declining 1% per year and stabilizing at 2%
- Quantum-Resistant
- Cold and hardware staking
- Protocol support for staking pools and staking reward management tool
- Decentralized voting & governance
- Self-Funding of the project (the Particl Foundation (non-profit Swiss Foundation registered by MME, the same legal firm as the Ethereum Foundation) receives 10% of all block rewards)

Privacy Platform:
- This platform is included in our beautiful GUI wallet. This is from the same team who designed SDC/XSPEC wallet but now uses better and more secure GUI technologies (all sandboxed as well)
- First ever 100% anonymous and decentralized marketplace (eBay-style, with no-fee decentralized escrow system)
- The marketplace will only be the first privacy Dapp of the platform. Any privacy Dapp can be developed through smart-contracts. Any contract can use PART's native CT and RingCT privacy protocols
- The platform accepts almost all crypto-currencies either through third-party or atomic swaps, however, whenever a PART transaction occurs, coins are automatically transferred into PART so that the platform can use CT/RingCT. That means all transactions, even from other coins, generate demand for the PART coin.
- Storage is stored off-chain on DSNs (off-chain data storage networks) to greatly increase scalability. Particl uses SMSG, its own P2P data storage network embedded into each blockchain node, but can very easily integrate any other DSN such as IPFS. This allow the platform to always include the latest tech.
- Messaging system
- Tor-enabled
- No metadata leak possible, every metadata is constantly stripped off any piece of data


These are just a couple of key points to help you further your research on Particl and how it compares to other privacy projects. If you are interested by what was above, then please do read my articles as they go into more details or contact me and I'll be more than happy to help you in your research.

Cheers mate!

P.S. We have started an imgur image folder which includes some infographics on some of our stuff such as privacy protocols, cold staking, etc. You can follow the link here: https://imgur.com/a/J9MsU

Thank you very much cryptoguard, I really appreciate it and I've updated the matrix accordingly.   I suspect you have additional features which could mean more columns as well, but...babysteps
I will stay tuned on Particl as the website and documentation gets updated, and congrats on Segwit and your still very new exchange plaftform


I have always considered Particl (formerly SDC) to be one of the top Privacy contributors to cryptocurrency.   That said, this also means I hold Particl to a higher standard as well.   With that said, I do have two quick questions which I think clarity on them could be useful to those looking for privacy solutions.

1.  zkSnarks....   What's the status on these?  Certainly not looking to create an issue here, just wondering if these, or some other zero knowledge solution is on the roadmap.  I was under the impression SDC at one time had zkSnarks.  Like you say, there is a lot of misinformation so I could have been mistaken.

2.   If, in the future, Particl must choose between:

        -A  timely platform or bitcoin core upgrade (of Segwit proportions) and temporary disabling their privacy/anon features
         OR
        -Delaying the upgrade, until it is 100% compatible with existing privacy/anon features

   Which choice do you believe Particl will be more committed to going forward?     

   I ask, because an uninterupted and long-term commitment to privacy is an absolute requirement to many who value these features
    (otherwise there is little or no point to them at all, and they could even contribute to dangerous or harmful situations).



Thank you kindly cryptoguard, I really appreciate the info and the update!

Glad to be of help! As for your 2 questions:

1) ZkSnarks are not on the roadmap for the foreseeable future, but not necessarily thrown out of the window neither. Our agnostic approach to development means the Particl platform is easy to upgrade and integrate various protocols to it. But to be short, not on the roadmap.

2) If a situation happens where we must choose between delaying the release of a product or temporarily disable privacy features (or establish temporary measures that reduce decentralization), we would never hesitate and we would delay the product. We have in our mission to never make any compromise in terms of privacy and decentralization. These two values are at the absolute core of our project, and is the reason why our RingCT protocol and platform code is currently under review and testing at the NJIT University Department of Technology. Everyone in the team is on the same beat on this one, privacy and decentralization is in our DNA and is the most important aspect of our project bar none! I guess we could say that in that regards, we are privacy and crypto purists.

EDIT: As for being contributors in the privacy space, we are discussing ways we could help projects like the EFF, Tor Project, TAILS, Qubes, and etc using our Proof-of-Stake mechanism/incentivized nodes. We also have a community that cares a lot about these issues, so going forward we hope to use our platform to help better the security and privacy world

[SafeCoins]

Glad to be of help! As for your 2 questions:

1) ZkSnarks are not on the roadmap for the foreseeable future, but not necessarily thrown out of the window neither. Our agnostic approach to development means the Particl platform is easy to upgrade and integrate various protocols to it. But to be short, not on the roadmap.

2) If a situation happens where we must choose between delaying the release of a product or temporarily disable privacy features (or establish temporary measures that reduce decentralization), we would never hesitate and we would delay the product. We have in our mission to never make any compromise in terms of privacy and decentralization. These two values are at the absolute core of our project, and is the reason why our RingCT protocol and platform code is currently under review and testing at the NJIT University Department of Technology. Everyone in the team is on the same beat on this one, privacy and decentralization is in our DNA and is the most important aspect of our project bar none! I guess we could say that in that regards, we are privacy and crypto purists.

EDIT: As for being contributors in the privacy space, we are discussing ways we could help projects like the EFF, Tor Project, TAILS, Qubes, and etc using our Proof-of-Stake mechanism/incentivized nodes. We also have a community that cares a lot about these issues, so going forward we hope to use our platform to help better the security and privacy world

Great answers, and very helpful cryptoguard.   Thank you very much for the contributions and insight, I really appreciate it!

[cryptoguard]

No problem and thank you for your research! Makes me learn a couple of things about other coins as well 

[ausbob]

SafeCoin, Lux (https://luxcore.io/features.php) uses Coinjoin, just like Dash. An easy add to your list.

Good work on this, really useful to have a complete list of anon coins.

[oaks05]

For clarification sake, Cloak's ENIGMA is used to perform off-chain P2P mixing, which is potentially better than on-chain RingCT, because there is not even a blockchain group to tie the identity of the transaction to. Cloak also does not use masternodes, however a user needs to hold a minimum 100 CLOAK to obtain the reward from PoSA 3.0.

unless i missed something i could have swore there was no minimum requirement of cloak you need to hold to get the 6% annually.

[SafeCoins]

SafeCoin, Lux (https://luxcore.io/features.php) uses Coinjoin, just like Dash. An easy add to your list.

Good work on this, really useful to have a complete list of anon coins.

Added!  Interesting new coin, thank you

[matsusomoto]

XSPEC is my new bet to the new privacy coins,it is a good project to invest in and the developers are active.