Is Monero the most anonymous cryptocurrency in the world?

[Abiky]

I've been curious to know which is the most anonymous cryptocurrency in the world. Many people say it's Monero, yet there are other privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies with a different approach towards anonymity on the market. For instance, the "Mimblewimble" privacy technique is used by some privacy coins to achieve anonymity just like Monero. Whenever the technique is as strong as those used on the Monero blockchain is yet to be seen.

I'd be willing to know if there's some sort of research or tests conducted that would determine the strongest, most anonymous cryptocurrency in the world. A side-by-side comparison of each privacy coin with their own anonymity techniques would be preferable. So far, I haven't encountered rigorous testing of privacy-based coins in order to determine their level of strength when it comes to obfuscating transactions from prying eyes. With countries taking action against Monero (especially the US), it's imperative that transactions remain as anonymous as possible.

Is Monero the most anonymous cryptocurrency in the world? If not, which privacy coins are better? Your input will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[VolkoB]

I think you should explore ZEC (Zcash) https://coinmarketcap.com/ru/currencies/zcash/
Your selection criteria indicate that you will not give information about Zcash.

[New_order]

Probably but not sure because I don't use Monero and other privacy coins for their main purposes, I invested in some to make more money out of them only, I don't have any reasons to hide my transactions on the blockchain, I guess the right answers can only come from those who have put the anonymous capability to test

[lumierre]

The level of high confidentiality is obtained through the use of cryptographic protocols with no tracking or with complicated tracking of transfers in the blockchain. Monero is truly the leader of anonymous coins. A special algorithm masks user data, addresses, and the number of coins.

[Lordhermes]

Right now there are many private cryptocurrencies in the crypto space but Monero is the first one with end-to-end tight security and privacy policy, although the idea isn't bad meanwhile it gives rise and opportunity to fraudsters to perform their criminal activities via Monero and also had been an alternative way to use coin mixers platforms. Maybe this could be the reason Monero is mostly chosen and more preferable over other privacy coins.
https://www.investopedia.com/tech/five-most-private-cryptocurrencies/

Monero transactions are much more difficult to trace because they use ring signatures and stealth addresses. These methods help to hide the identities of the sender and the receiver. Additionally, Ring Confidential Transactions, or RingCT, helps to conceal the transaction amount, providing more privacy.

Other private coins include:
1. Zcash.
2. Dash.
3. Verge.
4. Horizen.

[GreatArkansas]

(....)

https://www.investopedia.com/tech/five-most-private-cryptocurrencies/
Monero transactions are much more difficult to trace because they use ring signatures and stealth addresses. These methods help to hide the identities of the sender and the receiver. Additionally, Ring Confidential Transactions, or RingCT, helps to conceal the transaction amount, providing more privacy.

Others includes
1. Zcash.
2. Dash.
3. Verge.
4. Horizen.

If so, we can say that Monero is kinda Bitcoin, and other privacy coins can be considered an altcoin.
But if you just want to use some privacy coin without any reasons to use, or you just want to transfer funds with privacy, I think these some alternatives to privacy is good to go.
I already tried to research privacy coins before and I can admit the Monero is the best for me, there are still a lot of them.

[qwizzie]

Is Monero the most anonymous cryptocurrency in the world?

Not if you are one of these 'lucky' 100 users...

Monero "BADCACA" - XMR Tracking Project (with user's porn preferences)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5286887.0

Monero was never a real privacy coin. Multiple problems that Ciphertrace is currently exploiting were reported to Monero project in 2016 and remain unfixed since.
To draw attention to the issue I will publish transactions, IP addresses and porn preferences of 100 "lucky" Monero users every day.

''I have been logging Monero transactions for over a year now. Main reason why I decided to go public are blatant lies that there is nothing to worry about Chiphertrace and that Monero is private.
If you are prepared to sit though an 8 hour lecture on how broken Monero is, you will see that even they admit it. However that's obviously a small percentage of people they sell Monero to.''

[Abiky]

Not if you are one of these 'lucky' 100 users...

Monero "BADCACA" - XMR Tracking Project (with user's porn preferences)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5286887.0

Monero was never a real privacy coin. Multiple problems that Ciphertrace is currently exploiting were reported to Monero project in 2016 and remain unfixed since.
To draw attention to the issue I will publish transactions, IP addresses and porn preferences of 100 "lucky" Monero users every day.

''I have been logging Monero transactions for over a year now. Main reason why I decided to go public are blatant lies that there is nothing to worry about Chiphertrace and that Monero is private.
If you are prepared to sit though an 8 hour lecture on how broken Monero is, you will see that even they admit it. However that's obviously a small percentage of people they sell Monero to.''

I would handle this kind of information with skepticism. There's no research conducted by a reputable authority, that's able to sustain these claims. If Monero was indeed de-anonymized, wouldn't you think developers would've taken quick action by now? Even Ciphertrace is unable to provide hard evidence that will back its claims of tracing every Monero user on the Blockchain. An IP address will only disclose the identity of the node operator/owner, but not the user itself. Nodes don't necessarily have to perform transactions directly on the XMR blockchain. People connecting to those same nodes can perform their own transactions, without getting ever disclosing their IPs. Using both VPN and Tor to interact with Monero will do the trick.

Nonetheless, it's yet to be seen whenever Monero is the most anonymous cryptocurrency in the world. Security researchers are going to need to battle-test different privacy coins in order to determine which one is the best. Each project has their own claims when it comes to achieving true anonymity. For what I know, nothing is perfect. There will be advantages/disadvantages from one coin to another. As long as you follow necessary precautions to secure your anonymity, it'll be nearly impossible to track you down. Just my opinion

[coinsolidation.org]

Hi,

I think that anonymity has its advantages and disadvantages, for example in some countries this property creates that it prevents the currency from entering circulation and the currency is prohibited .... example:

The “privacy coins” that add an extra layer of anonymity to crypto transactions are no longer welcome in South Korea. Coin brands such as Monero, ZCash and Dash will soon be unavailable at the country’s exchanges, with the government citing crypto anti-money laundering (crypto AML) measures as the reason for the ban.

https://www.cpomagazine.com/data-privacy/south-koreas-new-crypto-aml-law-bans-trading-of-privacy-coins-monero-zcash/

Regards,

[Tipstar]

Monero is all messed up now. With it's ultimate success in darkweb, US government funded projects have been able to crack the transaction and find the receiving and sending party. And if you are into some illegal trade, you'd rather use something else. But if you are legal and abiding by law (which you should), any other popular coin works as well. There are still no taxes on bitcoin transactions.

[pedrillo0]

Monero is anonymous, and it is not the only one.

In fact the police have problems with various anonymous currencies. As are DASH or Zcash.

But as the media says, MONERO has Proof-of-work from CryptoNight. Which is one of the most advanced privacy options on the market.

It may be the most anonymous cryptocurrency...

[NeuroticFish]

There are plenty of anonymous altcoins. Is Monero the best? It's debatable. But this thread can easily become a honeypot for all those into shilling privacy altcoins.

There used to be debates on ZCash privacy = iirc you have to trust that some individual(s) will keep I-don't-know-what private and never touch it. (I never knew more exactly and never cared, by I hope it rang some bells to those who know).

There used to be debates on Dash privacy = iirc part of the discussion was that those masternodes are probably all in AWS and one entity can have more of them and may be able to correlate information into break the privacy.

Is Monero perfect? I don't know. But the fact it's delisted from certain Asian markets tells it's not bad.
Are others better? Hard to tell, hence they're also probably not that bad.
All in all it's hard to tell which is "more private" in the day-to-day use unless we get to code reading and academic debates, which may be of no use for the average Joe.

[Febo]

Monero is and was most your best chance to anonymously transact with crypto currencies from 2014. Becaue of big research I believe it will stay that way for the next decade.

I think you should explore ZEC (Zcash) https://coinmarketcap.com/ru/currencies/zcash/
Your selection criteria indicate that you will not give information about Zcash.

Zcash can troubles to be money since you need to trust trusted setup. With Bitcoin and Monero you dont need to trust anyone but math. But lets say we forget it is bad money and we focus on anonymity. Anonimity with Zcash is very low since there are very litre private transactions so any chain analysis agency can easily weed them out.

Monero is all messed up now. With it's ultimate success in darkweb, US government funded projects have been able to crack the transaction and find the receiving and sending party.

LOL, good luck to them. But at least the fact that they are trying is a clear sign they are unsuccessful so far.  No one pays bounties to crack ZCash or Dash or Bitcoin, or whatever.

For instance, the "Mimblewimble" privacy technique is used by some privacy coins to achieve anonymity just like Monero.

You should research Mimblewimble. If you dont want to I can tel you it is like stripped Monero. Biggest advantage of Mimblewimble is scalability and not privacy.

[Abiky]

There are plenty of anonymous altcoins. Is Monero the best? It's debatable. But this thread can easily become a honeypot for all those into shilling privacy altcoins.

There used to be debates on ZCash privacy = iirc you have to trust that some individual(s) will keep I-don't-know-what private and never touch it. (I never knew more exactly and never cared, by I hope it rang some bells to those who know).

There used to be debates on Dash privacy = iirc part of the discussion was that those masternodes are probably all in AWS and one entity can have more of them and may be able to correlate information into break the privacy.

Is Monero perfect? I don't know. But the fact it's delisted from certain Asian markets tells it's not bad.
Are others better? Hard to tell, hence they're also probably not that bad.
All in all it's hard to tell which is "more private" in the day-to-day use unless we get to code reading and academic debates, which may be of no use for the average Joe.

That's certainly true, mate. Each cryptocurrency has their own advantages/disadvantages. There's no perfect system that would help you achieve complete anonymity. Depending on your needs, will be the type of Blockchain to use for daily payments. Monero's greatest strength is its built-in privacy mechanism for transaction obfuscation. But its greatest weakness is lack of scalability. Dash is much more scalable than Monero, but its privacy mechanism is not as good as one would thought it would be.

At least, we have a plethora of privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies to choose from. Thanks to the decentralized and open source nature of crypto/Blockchain tech, anyone can improve existing privacy mechanisms in order to strengthen anonymity. In a world where governments are constantly increasing their surveillance strategies, it's important for privacy coins to remain as anonymous as possible by upgrading themselves over time. The recent CipherTrace announcement of being capable of tracing Monero transactions will have little to no effect over Monero's prominence in the mainstream world. I bet developers are already working on a solution to strengthen Monero's privacy in order to make governments' efforts worthless. Whenever Monero is the most anonymous cryptocurrency in the world or not, will be greatly determined by security researchers and academics themselves. Just my opinion

[Febo]

But its greatest weakness is lack of scalability.

Best is to apply picture to your claim. Here is size of Bitcoin and Monero transaction. It is not that much bigger as some people want you to believe. Not to mention that Monero works very hard to make transactions even smaller. Scalability is more wide subject and adaptive block size and tail emission makes Monero more scalable as the current Bitcoin protocol makes Bitcoin.

https://twitter.com/binaryFate/status/1328113393329377280


Size or most common Monero and Bitcoin transaction:

[Abiky]

Best is to apply picture to your claim. Here is size of Bitcoin and Monero transaction. It is not that much bigger as some people want you to believe. Not to mention that Monero works very hard to make transactions even smaller. Scalability is more wide subject and adaptive block size and tail emission makes Monero more scalable as the current Bitcoin protocol makes Bitcoin.

https://twitter.com/binaryFate/status/1328113393329377280


Size or most common Monero and Bitcoin transaction:

<<snip>>

Honestly, I didn't know about that. I've always thought the Monero blockchain had less transaction throughput than Bitcoin as its privacy mechanism was complex. I guess I have a lot of research to do on Monero's technical aspects. Based on what I've read recently, Mimblewimble-based privacy coins are much "lighter" than Monero itself. This means privacy coins like Grin and Beam have better transaction capacity than Monero.

Now the real deal would be determining which privacy technique is best for achieving full-fledged privacy. Many claim Monero to be the best anonymous cryptocurrency in the world. Yet, there's no research conducted that would sustain such claims. If different privacy coins are put up to the test by security researchers, academics, etc., then we'll be able to find which one is best.

Nonetheless, there's no doubt that Monero is the most popular privacy-based cryptocurrency in the world. It's one of the oldest coins out there with attractive anonymity features like RingCT and Dandelion. The project's team is always very active by providing constant development and innovation. With the blockchain upgrading itself every 6 months, Monero will be able to become resilient against anything that's thrown at it. Time will tell us whenever Monero will stay in the lead or not. Just my thoughts

[jrrsparkles]

Monero is the most popular privacy crypto currency which is something like bitcoin on its genre so more people familiar with Monero as the privacy coin so there is some talk that is the the only privacy crypto currencies available in the market. There are different and better privacy coins are available in the market right now so people need to educate them to know what are those coins.

[Husires]

Monero is the only serious privacy project that has implemented it realistically. Many currencies claim to be concerned with privacy, but most of them are entirely centralized or controlled by developers.

yu can thk about Zcash,Dash and other, most of them for investment purposes, some developers may even have access to your coins, so the only competitor to Monero is Green.

[Febo]

Honestly, I didn't know about that. I've always thought the Monero blockchain had less transaction throughput than Bitcoin as its privacy mechanism was complex. I guess I have a lot of research to do on Monero's technical aspects. Based on what I've read recently, Mimblewimble-based privacy coins are much "lighter" than Monero itself. This means privacy coins like Grin and Beam have better transaction capacity than Monero.

Bitcoin have more transactions than Monero. Monero now have about 650k transactions a month and Bitcoin have about 10 million transactions a month. What I showed on that picture is size of one single transaction. How big is one Monero and how big is one Bitcoin transaction. There is a false impression that Monero transaction is huge compared to Bitcoins transaction. Showing you a picture to compare is best to compare.

Grin have smaller transactions as Bitcoin and Monero. And will scale better then both coins. But Grins anonymity is way worse than of Monero. To me Grin is a crypto currency with scaling capabilities and not a privacy coin as so many like to name it.

[Abiky]

Bitcoin have more transactions than Monero. Monero now have about 650k transactions a month and Bitcoin have about 10 million transactions a month. What I showed on that picture is size of one single transaction. How big is one Monero and how big is one Bitcoin transaction. There is a false impression that Monero transaction is huge compared to Bitcoins transaction. Showing you a picture to compare is best to compare.

Grin have smaller transactions as Bitcoin and Monero. And will scale better then both coins. But Grins anonymity is way worse than of Monero. To me Grin is a crypto currency with scaling capabilities and not a privacy coin as so many like to name it.

That's certainly true, mate. There's a huge difference between Bitcoin and Monero in terms of transaction activity on the network. As far as other privacy coins are concerned, it seems to me that they'll be unable to outperform Monero in the future. They may be faster and cheaper to use than XMR, but their level of privacy/anonymity is not so good. I'm surprised to know that Grin's privacy level is somewhat poor, compared to Monero. Even DASH is not as private as its proponents claim it to be. The only privacy coin that's close to Monero is Bytecoin (BCN). The rest have a long way to go before they become as rock solid as Monero is right now.

It's still the time where security researchers haven't conducted an analysis of Monero's privacy strength compared to other privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies. A throughout research will bring investor's confidence into Monero. At least, XMR is self-adapting as the network experiences an upgrade (hard fork) every 6 months. If this keeps up, Monero could remain ASIC-resistant and privacy-centric forever. Past efforts of cracking down Monero transactions have eventually failed. CipherTrace has admitted it, as well as, other surveillance/analytics companies and mainstream governments. With no privacy coin being close to Monero privacy-wise, it seems to me that it's the most anonymous cryptocurrency in the world. Just my thoughts