[ANN][CLOAK] Private, Secure, Untraceable & Decentralized Digital Currency

[jamespastagueule]

Sound is very good thanks lazaruski

https://github.com/CloakProject/codename-phoenix/issues/34

The majority of cryptocurrency trading is conducted on centralised exchanges that provide hackers with a broad attack surface and are susceptible to a single point of failure. Trading privately and securely is increasingly difficult due to reliance on trusting a third party.

Centralised platforms are vulnerable to security threats and a single breach can compromise the assets of every user on an exchange. Many projects within the crypto space have attempted to address security and privacy issues with the implementation of a decentralised exchange (DEX).

Unfortunately, the majority of these DEX projects are not deployed to a decentralised network comprising enough individually distributed nodes. Nor do they implement any form of decentralised distribution of the user interface, the critical risk component when it comes to hacking attempts.

Despite widespread focus on the need for decentralised exchanges, efforts are wrought with profit seeking, centralisation, the unnecessary introduction of further cryptocurrencies, and of course, fees.

Introduction
While the value of privacy coins is dependent almost wholly on their ability to be privately spent, there are also many problems to be solved regarding how they are privately acquired.

Careful consideration has been given to Cloak’s current technology, upcoming developments and ongoing value proposition to both the wider cryptocurrency and general consumer markets.

Decentralised Exchange Overview
The proposed implementation of CloakX is a decentralised exchange network built atop proof of stake nodes, that reserve a fraction of machine resources to facilitate peer to peer trading. Considering Cloak already has over 100 staking nodes and migration to the new BTC codebase is approaching completion, the network is well positioned to accommodate a DEX interface embedded directly in the new hierarchical deterministic (HD) wallet.

Through each wallet connected to the network, a fraction of the exchange interface would be encrypted and stored in a distributed manner on each machine participating as a staking node. As CloakCoin does not incorporate masternodes, it naturally favours the decentralisation of the user interface, as well as the APIs of all supported cryptocurrencies.

CloakCoin Network Utilisation
The decentralised exchange would be supported by the existing CloakCoin network. In order to access and trade using CloakX, users need to hold a certain amount of $CLOAK within their wallet, as a specified percentage (TBA) of their total trading portfolio.

This encourages the acquisition and holding of CloakCoins. It is also inherently aligned with the inflationary properties of the coin, as the staking rewards of 6% per year provide the ‘gas’ required to incentivise further peer to peer trading on the network.

$CLOAK Cryptocurrency Innovation
One might consider $CLOAK serving a similar utility to CloakX, as exchange utility tokens to their respective exchanges, and in future their DEX implementations.

The upcoming release of the HD wallet and new BTC codebase, will very likely welcome integration with popular hardware wallets such as those offered by Ledger, Trezor and KeepKey. These will be a critical component for secure access to CloakX and the primary means of storage for assets traded on the network.

Unlike other decentralised exchanges, CloakX will not require the creation of an additional token and there will be no trading fees on the DEX whatsoever.

CloakX Development Summary
The first implementation of CloakX could welcome trading of most of the top 100 crypto assets as a Cloak-Ethereum client. To expedite development, scale quickly with demand and access IPFS without the need to manage infrastructure, Infura is the recommended solution.

Immediately enabling access to trading of ERC-20 tokens opens up the market for user adoption greatly and best of all, Infura is free. Also, as a truly private and decentralised implementation of a DEX, such as this on the CloakCoin network, legislative risks faced by centralised exchanges are mitigated.

The function of CloakX is absolutely peer to peer.

Reference: CIPs (Cloak Improvement Proposals) > cip-001.md
https://github.com/lazaruski/CIPs

[1714192787]

1714192787

[1714192787]

1714192787

[exslave]

Dear Cloak Community,

We need your support! Recomend CloakCoin and let's get listed on KuCoin!



How does it work?

1- Sign-up on http://KuCoin.com

2- Fill in the form https://bit.ly/2XKvyMb

Peace & Love

[Meta_Report]

Cloakcoin Features

Once you see the features that Cloakcoin brings to the table you might agree that it has been
somewhat overlooked. Or you might see why it is being overlooked. Let’s get an idea of what
advantages you might get from using Cloakcoin.

Faster Transactions – Cloakcoin was designed with 60 second block times, making it ten times
faster than Bitcoin in processing transactions. Of course it doesn’t have the volumes of major
coins yet, so we have to wait to see how it would perform under much heavier transaction
volumes.

Completely Anonymous and Private – This is where Cloakcoin shines. User identity is never
revealed when transacting with Cloakcoin, making it one of the most secure of the privacy coins.
It achieves this through its proprietary Enigma technology, which will be discussed in more
depth later.

Safe and Secure – The combination of open-source blockchain technology guarantees the
security and safety of Cloakcoin.

Decentralization – Cloakcoin is fully decentralized, using proof-of-stake mining to secure the
network. This decentralization and PoS system also provides an incentive for users to hold
coins in their wallets in a process called staking.

Staking Rewards – Any user who chooses to hold CLOAK in their wallet can stake those coins
and receive a reward for doing so. Staking rewards amount to 6% annual return, which is the
incentive for users to help secure the network. Users can also elect to process Enigma
transactions to get additional rewards.

User Friendly – This is an often overlooked aspect of many blockchains and cryptocurrencies,
but the truth is most people aren’t going to use overly-complicated systems. Cloakcoin is userfriendly and simple to grasp. There are no detailed technical instructions, and users can be sending and receiving CLOAK anonymously within minutes of installing their wallet.




Cloakcoin from the Beginning

As was mentioned earlier Cloakcoin was developed and released in 2014, although it has undergone major improvements since that initial release. One thing that hasn’t changed over the years though is the decentralized and distributed nature of Cloakcoin.
Even more importantly is the evolution of the privacy function of Cloakcoin. With the upgrade to Enigma, Cloakcoin became a complete and total anonymous privacy coin. Unlike other coins there is no way to follow a trail on the blockchain to determine where CLOAK tokens may have come from. User privacy is always protected and the fungibility of the currency is maintained.


The implementation of a hybrid Proof-of-Work / Proof of Stake consensus system ensures users have an incentive to hold CLOAK coins, helping to lift the value of the cryptocurrency, and to help secure the network by processing Enigma transactions. Adding to the ease of use for Cloakcoin users is a native wallet that allows users to easily send, receive, store and stake their CLOAK. Staking CLOAK yields a 6% annual return. Like other forms of digital currency CLOAK can be exchanged easily on the open market and can be used a means of payment for those that accept CLOAK tokens. These payments allow users to “cloak” the transaction, hiding any association between buyers and sellers. This is accomplished via an inventive coin mixing system dubbed “Enigma



ENIGMA Technology and Privacy

Cloakcoin has CloakShield, which is an onion type protocol, enabled by default to provide endto-end encryption and secure communications for every transaction. This technology alone allows nodes to avoid any analysis of the traffic routed through them. However at the next level of privacy and anonymity is ENIGMA. This technology uses as many as 25 hops with symmetric RSA encryption and an ECDH key exchange. ENIGMA was created by the Cloakcoin team and provides a secure and private means for conducting transactions on the blockchain.

By using the unique ENIGMA technology uses can be sure their coins are sent completely anonymously, without the need to trust the nodes involved from stealing their funds or leaking their private data.

The Cloakcoin team has also emphasized that they do not support or condone the use of their technology to conduct any type of illegal transaction or activity.



Cloakcoin Team

Cloakcoin seems to have a pretty big team comprised of members with a wide variety of experience. Taking a look at the tech talent, we have the two lead devs which are “Deepend” and “anorak” whose real names are William Danielson and Ante Beslic. William is the Tech lead and is a C++ developer with two decades of experience in software engineering. Ante is the wallet developer who has extensive experience in front end development. He worked extensively with William in order to shape Cloakcoin into what it is today.


The Cloakcoin project manager is “lasvegas89” who’s real name is Steven Kendar. He joined the Cloak project back in 2014 and was the right hand man of the then project manager. He took over that role recently and is trying to push the Cloak project forward. There are a number of other team members which we wont go into here.

What is interesting to note is that the Cloak project has focused a lot of attention on local community co-ordinators and marketing professionals. Hopefully this could increase awareness above the current levels.



Cloakcoin Roadmap

This further development has been laid out in the Cloakcoin whitepaper https://www.cloakcoin.com/user/themes/g5_cloak/resources/CloakCoin_Whitepaper_v2.1.pdf where they plan to work on three main features of the protocol. These include three main components, two of which relate to the PoS algorithm whereas the third is to do with the way enigma transactions are split and combined.



Combining & Splitting of Transactions

As mentioned, the current Enigma protocol will allow for one single cloaked transaction. The developers say that they are currently busy working on an update that would allow multiple transactions to be combined into a single “super transaction”. This transaction will then contain multiple cloaked transactions which would have the affect of obfuscating any one particular transaction through safety in numbers. The developers want to give the user the ability to choose the number of co-operative transactions that will be required for the transaction.

You can think of it as analogues as the “Mixin level” that is applied on the Monero network when it comes to the number of decoy outputs. Finally, the developers also want to provide users with the ability to cloak a large number of CLOAK as a series of smaller transactions. You can think of this as order batching of the Enigma and CloakCoin transactions. The developers would like to make this compatible with combined Enigma transactions.



under development Adding anonymous decentralized exchanges (DEX) integrated BYOB

The Cloak coin  Blockchain carries within it an ideal: to allow users to keep control of their funds in complete discretion. The decentralized exchange will be based on the Cloak Chain and will allow operators to issue and exchange digital assets without having to deposit in a central exchange.

Being auditable and at the same time Trustless without any necessary trust; you will be able to buy, sell and exchange cryptocurrencies 24/7 from anywhere in the world without having to disclose your identity while maintaining full control of your funds and private keys.

Scalability
First of all, the Cloak DEX, by allowing to pass on-chain exchanges. More scalable with its hybrid consensus Cloak Chain network is created to avoid congestion and bottlenecks in transactions.

Cost per transaction
The cost is an advantage for each transaction because it represents an extension to allow a more global adoption.

Interoperability
Computer interoperability or interworking is the ability of Cloak DEX to work and interact with other blockchains is also integrated and allows this possibility.



Cognosec Security Audit

The security audit carried out by Cognosec found that security for the blockchain, network and wallet were quite robust. The primary focus for remediation was in the Enigma code, and several recommendations were made by Cognosec in their audit report https://www.cloakcoin.com/user/themes/g5_cloak/resources/CloakCoin_Audit_Report.pdf. Since the security audit this past January 2018 changes have been made to improve the security of Cloakcoin even further. The next audit come in 2019.


You will have understood that the future belongs to you, adopt and use Cloak can be a smart choice.

This way you keep control over your own funds and personal data. Everyone is solely responsible for their own portfolio, as Satoshi Nakamoto originally imagined when he created the Bitcoin protocol.

[CookyCook72]

Cloakcoin Features

Once you see the features that Cloakcoin brings to the table you might agree that it has been
somewhat overlooked. Or you might see why it is being overlooked. Let’s get an idea of what
advantages you might get from using Cloakcoin.

Faster Transactions – Cloakcoin was designed with 60 second block times, making it ten times
faster than Bitcoin in processing transactions. Of course it doesn’t have the volumes of major
coins yet, so we have to wait to see how it would perform under much heavier transaction
volumes.

Completely Anonymous and Private – This is where Cloakcoin shines. User identity is never
revealed when transacting with Cloakcoin, making it one of the most secure of the privacy coins.
It achieves this through its proprietary Enigma technology, which will be discussed in more
depth later.

Safe and Secure – The combination of open-source blockchain technology guarantees the
security and safety of Cloakcoin.

Decentralization – Cloakcoin is fully decentralized, using proof-of-stake mining to secure the
network. This decentralization and PoS system also provides an incentive for users to hold
coins in their wallets in a process called staking.

Staking Rewards – Any user who chooses to hold CLOAK in their wallet can stake those coins
and receive a reward for doing so. Staking rewards amount to 6% annual return, which is the
incentive for users to help secure the network. Users can also elect to process Enigma
transactions to get additional rewards.

User Friendly – This is an often overlooked aspect of many blockchains and cryptocurrencies,
but the truth is most people aren’t going to use overly-complicated systems. Cloakcoin is userfriendly and simple to grasp. There are no detailed technical instructions, and users can be sending and receiving CLOAK anonymously within minutes of installing their wallet.




Cloakcoin from the Beginning

As was mentioned earlier Cloakcoin was developed and released in 2014, although it has undergone major improvements since that initial release. One thing that hasn’t changed over the years though is the decentralized and distributed nature of Cloakcoin.
Even more importantly is the evolution of the privacy function of Cloakcoin. With the upgrade to Enigma, Cloakcoin became a complete and total anonymous privacy coin. Unlike other coins there is no way to follow a trail on the blockchain to determine where CLOAK tokens may have come from. User privacy is always protected and the fungibility of the currency is maintained.


The implementation of a hybrid Proof-of-Work / Proof of Stake consensus system ensures users have an incentive to hold CLOAK coins, helping to lift the value of the cryptocurrency, and to help secure the network by processing Enigma transactions. Adding to the ease of use for Cloakcoin users is a native wallet that allows users to easily send, receive, store and stake their CLOAK. Staking CLOAK yields a 6% annual return. Like other forms of digital currency CLOAK can be exchanged easily on the open market and can be used a means of payment for those that accept CLOAK tokens. These payments allow users to “cloak” the transaction, hiding any association between buyers and sellers. This is accomplished via an inventive coin mixing system dubbed “Enigma



ENIGMA Technology and Privacy

Cloakcoin has CloakShield, which is an onion type protocol, enabled by default to provide endto-end encryption and secure communications for every transaction. This technology alone allows nodes to avoid any analysis of the traffic routed through them. However at the next level of privacy and anonymity is ENIGMA. This technology uses as many as 25 hops with symmetric RSA encryption and an ECDH key exchange. ENIGMA was created by the Cloakcoin team and provides a secure and private means for conducting transactions on the blockchain.

By using the unique ENIGMA technology uses can be sure their coins are sent completely anonymously, without the need to trust the nodes involved from stealing their funds or leaking their private data.

The Cloakcoin team has also emphasized that they do not support or condone the use of their technology to conduct any type of illegal transaction or activity.



Cloakcoin Team

Cloakcoin seems to have a pretty big team comprised of members with a wide variety of experience. Taking a look at the tech talent, we have the two lead devs which are “Deepend” and “anorak” whose real names are William Danielson and Ante Beslic. William is the Tech lead and is a C++ developer with two decades of experience in software engineering. Ante is the wallet developer who has extensive experience in front end development. He worked extensively with William in order to shape Cloakcoin into what it is today.


The Cloakcoin project manager is “lasvegas89” who’s real name is Steven Kendar. He joined the Cloak project back in 2014 and was the right hand man of the then project manager. He took over that role recently and is trying to push the Cloak project forward. There are a number of other team members which we wont go into here.

What is interesting to note is that the Cloak project has focused a lot of attention on local community co-ordinators and marketing professionals. Hopefully this could increase awareness above the current levels.



Cloakcoin Roadmap

This further development has been laid out in the Cloakcoin whitepaper https://www.cloakcoin.com/user/themes/g5_cloak/resources/CloakCoin_Whitepaper_v2.1.pdf where they plan to work on three main features of the protocol. These include three main components, two of which relate to the PoS algorithm whereas the third is to do with the way enigma transactions are split and combined.



Combining & Splitting of Transactions

As mentioned, the current Enigma protocol will allow for one single cloaked transaction. The developers say that they are currently busy working on an update that would allow multiple transactions to be combined into a single “super transaction”. This transaction will then contain multiple cloaked transactions which would have the affect of obfuscating any one particular transaction through safety in numbers. The developers want to give the user the ability to choose the number of co-operative transactions that will be required for the transaction.

You can think of it as analogues as the “Mixin level” that is applied on the Monero network when it comes to the number of decoy outputs. Finally, the developers also want to provide users with the ability to cloak a large number of CLOAK as a series of smaller transactions. You can think of this as order batching of the Enigma and CloakCoin transactions. The developers would like to make this compatible with combined Enigma transactions.



under development Adding anonymous decentralized exchanges (DEX) integrated BYOB

The Cloak coin  Blockchain carries within it an ideal: to allow users to keep control of their funds in complete discretion. The decentralized exchange will be based on the Cloak Chain and will allow operators to issue and exchange digital assets without having to deposit in a central exchange.

Being auditable and at the same time Trustless without any necessary trust; you will be able to buy, sell and exchange cryptocurrencies 24/7 from anywhere in the world without having to disclose your identity while maintaining full control of your funds and private keys.

Scalability
First of all, the Cloak DEX, by allowing to pass on-chain exchanges. More scalable with its hybrid consensus Cloak Chain network is created to avoid congestion and bottlenecks in transactions.

Cost per transaction
The cost is an advantage for each transaction because it represents an extension to allow a more global adoption.

Interoperability
Computer interoperability or interworking is the ability of Cloak DEX to work and interact with other blockchains is also integrated and allows this possibility.



Cognosec Security Audit

The security audit carried out by Cognosec found that security for the blockchain, network and wallet were quite robust. The primary focus for remediation was in the Enigma code, and several recommendations were made by Cognosec in their audit report https://www.cloakcoin.com/user/themes/g5_cloak/resources/CloakCoin_Audit_Report.pdf. Since the security audit this past January 2018 changes have been made to improve the security of Cloakcoin even further. The next audit come in 2019.


You will have understood that the future belongs to you, adopt and use Cloak can be a smart choice.

This way you keep control over your own funds and personal data. Everyone is solely responsible for their own portfolio, as Satoshi Nakamoto originally imagined when he created the Bitcoin protocol.

Wow very nice review !! I think Cloak have very Big potential. Privacy is futur

[cloakteam]

DEVELOPER UPDATE JULY 2019 – RISE OF THE PHOENIX

The monthly dev update series will inform users about the progress of the development from CloakCoin

It’s been silent in terms of development, but we are back with the development updates and we have a lot to share. June was the first introduction of the partnership with Chainsulting and since then, a lot of progress regards preparation for the next milestones was made. 

First of all, the team now comprises around six developers, who are working actively on CloakCoin. Team Chainsulting will focus on the work for the wallet, codebase and the BYOB Exchange. The Cloak developer r3rcloak will also focus on the codebase and anorakthagreat on ENIGMA. 


NEXT DEVELOPMENT MILESTONES:

1. Wallet Upgrade from QT/C++ to ElectronJS/React, which will improve the loading time, simplify further development and sets the foundation for the BYOB Exchange. ElectronJS is a cross platform desktop framework, which uses JavaScript, HTML and CSS. Cloak is not the first coin to port the old QT Wallet to ElectronJS, there are several big names like VeChain, Lisk, Particl and OpenBazaar, and we will follow, very soon. (Q3)     

For everyone who is interested in looking into this cool fancy framework,  have a look at https://electronjs.org

Small sneak peek of the new frontend (made by Christian Dittmann)



2. As you know, most of CloakCoin’s current Codebase is based on Bitcoin and right now similar to Bitcoin Core 0.11, with parts of NovaCoin and Peercoin. Since 2018 the core developers r3rcloak and anorakthagreat have been working actively on the merge to a new codebase and committed a lot of code changes. Based on the amazing work from the past development and research, during the merging to bitcoin codebase 0.17, they discovered issues and problems which we will address in our further work. Right now, we focus on the wallet upgrade to build the frontend in order to support new features, which comes with the new codebase.  In the last month we done the research for possible implementation of Bitcoin-Core 0.17, BCH Codebase, PoS3 and governance functions. More about the codebase update in the next article. 

3. I think most of us read the CIP-001 (Cloak Improvement Proposal) about CloakX, from the mysterious person lazaruski, which is reminiscent of the first proposal by Satoshi Nakamoto. Anyway, even if the person wants to stay anonymous, he/she had a reason for it and lazaruski definitely choose the right coin for it, because CloakCoin cares about privacy and untraceable decentralized transactions since 2014. The idea of BYOB Exchange, short for Be Your Own Bank, was born based on the proposal. According to the plan, it will use our staking wallet structure and on it build a real decentralized exchange. We’ve arrived at a possible solution, to fix problems with current DEX and build a true one. 



The following summaries are a part of our research, which we want to share with you.


DOA/ GOVERNANCE

There will be different roles of nodes in the new Cloak ecosystem. Escrow Nodes, Validator Nodes and Trading Nodes, which are balanced, assigned and rewarded with the same amount of Cloak. This means every node has the same functions but gets different roles balanced to the need of the network. The node owner can’t see which role he has and also the data are full encrypted between the nodes. These Nodes will be able to participate in voting and can enforce changes and improvements through direct participation in CIPs (Cloak Improvement Proposals). The code is managed by a team of core developers, of course, but in reality, they are indirectly owned by the network. They are continuously maintaining a bond of trust by acting in the community’s duty. If developers wish to propose code changes, each node has to vote on whether to accept or reject the proposed change. You don’t need to stake a specific amount but instead separate a fraction of your storage and computing power. Staking profit will be the same as before and you are able to participate on trading fees as well. Normal Wallets to trade and store cloak will be not able to participate in voting or processing fees but will be able to use the ecosystem itself.


ESCROW / DEPOSIT GUARANTEE

Escrow-Nodes ensure the integrity of a trade between parties (buyer and seller) and give a deposit guarantee. The trade will be done via atomic-swap technology, while the escrow nodes perform a distributed key generation (DKG). DKG is an encryption process in which multiple escrow nodes compute a common public key and a distributed private key. Every node that contributes to the computation of the private key knows only a part of the key, a secret share, which guarantees that the private key can only be reconstructed with the help of more than one escrow node. The process ensures the possibility of real time trades and prevent access to the funds by any 3rd party.


TRADING NODES, VALIDATOR NODES

Trading nodes store the order books, facilitate match making, secure the process of trades and process the trading fees (transaction fee for escrow release to the buyer). A validation node maps a public blockchain address to its value and confirmed in the last step, the trade and escrow process, to ensure several details such as prevention of double spending.

If you do not hold your private keys, then you do not own your coins!


DECENTRALIZATION OF BACKEND/FRONTEND

A real decentralized exchange needs a backend and frontend stored in the same way, ensuring that only via governance can changes be made. Therefore we have to implement client-side fractions reserved from the storage and computing power. Nothing of it is totally new. There are projects which have successfully done parts of it, like storj or freenet (Storage) and golem (CPU). Different coins will be possible to implement using modules (modules include: block explorer, coin id, DKG algorithm, json rpc wallet calls etc.) and need to get listed via voting.  To access the exchange you hold your own keys, with implementation of hardware wallets and as well as locally stored encrypted keystore files, with a risk assessment for beginner.

Source: https://github.com/CloakProject/codename-phoenix/issues/34


CONCLUSION

A lot of work is in front of us but these problems are possible to solve. We will be the first project to build a real decentralized exchange, with real time trading and a focus on privacy. In the future you will see a monthly development update and we’ll try to keep it as simple as possible, because most of the audience are not experts in programming and need to understand what we build. If you are a C++ Ninja, Java native speaker or you need some deeper insights into our work, follow us on Github or feel free to reach out via dev@cloakcoin.com

[cloakteam]

Crypto & Privacy Education:

How CloakX Solves the Problems Plaguing Centralized Exchanges — BYOB = Private & Secure Crypto Trading



Peace & Love

Team Cloak

Crypto & Privacy Education Blog: http://bit.ly/2Ke2WX4

[Meta_Report]

https://i.imgur.com/8JgXMpk.png



https://i.imgur.com/Eo20qmv.png

DEVELOPER UPDATE JULY 2019 – RISE OF THE PHOENIX

The monthly dev update series will inform users about the progress of the development from CloakCoin

It’s been silent in terms of development, but we are back with the development updates and we have a lot to share. June was the first introduction of the partnership with Chainsulting and since then, a lot of progress regards preparation for the next milestones was made. 

First of all, the team now comprises around six developers, who are working actively on CloakCoin. Team Chainsulting will focus on the work for the wallet, codebase and the BYOB Exchange. The Cloak developer r3rcloak will also focus on the codebase and anorakthagreat on ENIGMA. 


NEXT DEVELOPMENT MILESTONES:

1. Wallet Upgrade from QT/C++ to ElectronJS/React, which will improve the loading time, simplify further development and sets the foundation for the BYOB Exchange. ElectronJS is a cross platform desktop framework, which uses JavaScript, HTML and CSS. Cloak is not the first coin to port the old QT Wallet to ElectronJS, there are several big names like VeChain, Lisk, Particl and OpenBazaar, and we will follow, very soon. (Q3)     

For everyone who is interested in looking into this cool fancy framework,  have a look at https://electronjs.org

Small sneak peek of the new frontend (made by Christian Dittmann)

https://i.imgur.com/yLZsTnO.png

2. As you know, most of CloakCoin’s current Codebase is based on Bitcoin and right now similar to Bitcoin Core 0.11, with parts of NovaCoin and Peercoin. Since 2018 the core developers r3rcloak and anorakthagreat have been working actively on the merge to a new codebase and committed a lot of code changes. Based on the amazing work from the past development and research, during the merging to bitcoin codebase 0.17, they discovered issues and problems which we will address in our further work. Right now, we focus on the wallet upgrade to build the frontend in order to support new features, which comes with the new codebase.  In the last month we done the research for possible implementation of Bitcoin-Core 0.17, BCH Codebase, PoS3 and governance functions. More about the codebase update in the next article. 

3. I think most of us read the CIP-001 (Cloak Improvement Proposal) about CloakX, from the mysterious person lazaruski, which is reminiscent of the first proposal by Satoshi Nakamoto. Anyway, even if the person wants to stay anonymous, he/she had a reason for it and lazaruski definitely choose the right coin for it, because CloakCoin cares about privacy and untraceable decentralized transactions since 2014. The idea of BYOB Exchange, short for Be Your Own Bank, was born based on the proposal. According to the plan, it will use our staking wallet structure and on it build a real decentralized exchange. We’ve arrived at a possible solution, to fix problems with current DEX and build a true one. 

https://i.imgur.com/14DklZ6.jpg

The following summaries are a part of our research, which we want to share with you.


DOA/ GOVERNANCE

There will be different roles of nodes in the new Cloak ecosystem. Escrow Nodes, Validator Nodes and Trading Nodes, which are balanced, assigned and rewarded with the same amount of Cloak. This means every node has the same functions but gets different roles balanced to the need of the network. The node owner can’t see which role he has and also the data are full encrypted between the nodes. These Nodes will be able to participate in voting and can enforce changes and improvements through direct participation in CIPs (Cloak Improvement Proposals). The code is managed by a team of core developers, of course, but in reality, they are indirectly owned by the network. They are continuously maintaining a bond of trust by acting in the community’s duty. If developers wish to propose code changes, each node has to vote on whether to accept or reject the proposed change. You don’t need to stake a specific amount but instead separate a fraction of your storage and computing power. Staking profit will be the same as before and you are able to participate on trading fees as well. Normal Wallets to trade and store cloak will be not able to participate in voting or processing fees but will be able to use the ecosystem itself.


ESCROW / DEPOSIT GUARANTEE

Escrow-Nodes ensure the integrity of a trade between parties (buyer and seller) and give a deposit guarantee. The trade will be done via atomic-swap technology, while the escrow nodes perform a distributed key generation (DKG). DKG is an encryption process in which multiple escrow nodes compute a common public key and a distributed private key. Every node that contributes to the computation of the private key knows only a part of the key, a secret share, which guarantees that the private key can only be reconstructed with the help of more than one escrow node. The process ensures the possibility of real time trades and prevent access to the funds by any 3rd party.


TRADING NODES, VALIDATOR NODES

Trading nodes store the order books, facilitate match making, secure the process of trades and process the trading fees (transaction fee for escrow release to the buyer). A validation node maps a public blockchain address to its value and confirmed in the last step, the trade and escrow process, to ensure several details such as prevention of double spending.

If you do not hold your private keys, then you do not own your coins!


DECENTRALIZATION OF BACKEND/FRONTEND

A real decentralized exchange needs a backend and frontend stored in the same way, ensuring that only via governance can changes be made. Therefore we have to implement client-side fractions reserved from the storage and computing power. Nothing of it is totally new. There are projects which have successfully done parts of it, like storj or freenet (Storage) and golem (CPU). Different coins will be possible to implement using modules (modules include: block explorer, coin id, DKG algorithm, json rpc wallet calls etc.) and need to get listed via voting.  To access the exchange you hold your own keys, with implementation of hardware wallets and as well as locally stored encrypted keystore files, with a risk assessment for beginner.

Source: https://github.com/CloakProject/codename-phoenix/issues/34


CONCLUSION

A lot of work is in front of us but these problems are possible to solve. We will be the first project to build a real decentralized exchange, with real time trading and a focus on privacy. In the future you will see a monthly development update and we’ll try to keep it as simple as possible, because most of the audience are not experts in programming and need to understand what we build. If you are a C++ Ninja, Java native speaker or you need some deeper insights into our work, follow us on Github or feel free to reach out via dev@cloakcoin.com

 Seems great this great idea of DEX but how are you going to manage the bottleneck of transactions for example by deny attacks or saturation of sales orders? Will there be the possibility of millions of transactions in foreign currencies anonymously without KYC? Will there be a risk of being in a situation of illegal users if the global framework (laws and others) becomes more widespread?

[cloakteam]

Dear Cloak Community,

The second round of the CloakCoin ENIGMA Competition is still unhacked!

We extend for another 42 days 🔥

10,000 $CLOAK - #Giveaway

🔐 http://bit.ly/2J9UF8w



Peace & Love

[Meta_Report]

https://i.imgur.com/8JgXMpk.png



https://i.imgur.com/Eo20qmv.png

DEVELOPER UPDATE JULY 2019 – RISE OF THE PHOENIX

The monthly dev update series will inform users about the progress of the development from CloakCoin

It’s been silent in terms of development, but we are back with the development updates and we have a lot to share. June was the first introduction of the partnership with Chainsulting and since then, a lot of progress regards preparation for the next milestones was made.  

First of all, the team now comprises around six developers, who are working actively on CloakCoin. Team Chainsulting will focus on the work for the wallet, codebase and the BYOB Exchange. The Cloak developer r3rcloak will also focus on the codebase and anorakthagreat on ENIGMA.  


NEXT DEVELOPMENT MILESTONES:

1. Wallet Upgrade from QT/C++ to ElectronJS/React, which will improve the loading time, simplify further development and sets the foundation for the BYOB Exchange. ElectronJS is a cross platform desktop framework, which uses JavaScript, HTML and CSS. Cloak is not the first coin to port the old QT Wallet to ElectronJS, there are several big names like VeChain, Lisk, Particl and OpenBazaar, and we will follow, very soon. (Q3)    

For everyone who is interested in looking into this cool fancy framework,  have a look at https://electronjs.org

Small sneak peek of the new frontend (made by Christian Dittmann)

https://i.imgur.com/yLZsTnO.png

2. As you know, most of CloakCoin’s current Codebase is based on Bitcoin and right now similar to Bitcoin Core 0.11, with parts of NovaCoin and Peercoin. Since 2018 the core developers r3rcloak and anorakthagreat have been working actively on the merge to a new codebase and committed a lot of code changes. Based on the amazing work from the past development and research, during the merging to bitcoin codebase 0.17, they discovered issues and problems which we will address in our further work. Right now, we focus on the wallet upgrade to build the frontend in order to support new features, which comes with the new codebase.  In the last month we done the research for possible implementation of Bitcoin-Core 0.17, BCH Codebase, PoS3 and governance functions. More about the codebase update in the next article.  

3. I think most of us read the CIP-001 (Cloak Improvement Proposal) about CloakX, from the mysterious person lazaruski, which is reminiscent of the first proposal by Satoshi Nakamoto. Anyway, even if the person wants to stay anonymous, he/she had a reason for it and lazaruski definitely choose the right coin for it, because CloakCoin cares about privacy and untraceable decentralized transactions since 2014. The idea of BYOB Exchange, short for Be Your Own Bank, was born based on the proposal. According to the plan, it will use our staking wallet structure and on it build a real decentralized exchange. We’ve arrived at a possible solution, to fix problems with current DEX and build a true one.  

https://i.imgur.com/14DklZ6.jpg

The following summaries are a part of our research, which we want to share with you.


DOA/ GOVERNANCE

There will be different roles of nodes in the new Cloak ecosystem. Escrow Nodes, Validator Nodes and Trading Nodes, which are balanced, assigned and rewarded with the same amount of Cloak. This means every node has the same functions but gets different roles balanced to the need of the network. The node owner can’t see which role he has and also the data are full encrypted between the nodes. These Nodes will be able to participate in voting and can enforce changes and improvements through direct participation in CIPs (Cloak Improvement Proposals). The code is managed by a team of core developers, of course, but in reality, they are indirectly owned by the network. They are continuously maintaining a bond of trust by acting in the community’s duty. If developers wish to propose code changes, each node has to vote on whether to accept or reject the proposed change. You don’t need to stake a specific amount but instead separate a fraction of your storage and computing power. Staking profit will be the same as before and you are able to participate on trading fees as well. Normal Wallets to trade and store cloak will be not able to participate in voting or processing fees but will be able to use the ecosystem itself.


ESCROW / DEPOSIT GUARANTEE

Escrow-Nodes ensure the integrity of a trade between parties (buyer and seller) and give a deposit guarantee. The trade will be done via atomic-swap technology, while the escrow nodes perform a distributed key generation (DKG). DKG is an encryption process in which multiple escrow nodes compute a common public key and a distributed private key. Every node that contributes to the computation of the private key knows only a part of the key, a secret share, which guarantees that the private key can only be reconstructed with the help of more than one escrow node. The process ensures the possibility of real time trades and prevent access to the funds by any 3rd party.


TRADING NODES, VALIDATOR NODES

Trading nodes store the order books, facilitate match making, secure the process of trades and process the trading fees (transaction fee for escrow release to the buyer). A validation node maps a public blockchain address to its value and confirmed in the last step, the trade and escrow process, to ensure several details such as prevention of double spending.

If you do not hold your private keys, then you do not own your coins!


DECENTRALIZATION OF BACKEND/FRONTEND

A real decentralized exchange needs a backend and frontend stored in the same way, ensuring that only via governance can changes be made. Therefore we have to implement client-side fractions reserved from the storage and computing power. Nothing of it is totally new. There are projects which have successfully done parts of it, like storj or freenet (Storage) and golem (CPU). Different coins will be possible to implement using modules (modules include: block explorer, coin id, DKG algorithm, json rpc wallet calls etc.) and need to get listed via voting.  To access the exchange you hold your own keys, with implementation of hardware wallets and as well as locally stored encrypted keystore files, with a risk assessment for beginner.

Source: https://github.com/CloakProject/codename-phoenix/issues/34


CONCLUSION

A lot of work is in front of us but these problems are possible to solve. We will be the first project to build a real decentralized exchange, with real time trading and a focus on privacy. In the future you will see a monthly development update and we’ll try to keep it as simple as possible, because most of the audience are not experts in programming and need to understand what we build. If you are a C++ Ninja, Java native speaker or you need some deeper insights into our work, follow us on Github or feel free to reach out via dev@cloakcoin.com

 Seems great this great idea of DEX but how are you going to manage the bottleneck of transactions for example by deny attacks or saturation of sales orders? Will there be the possibility of millions of transactions in foreign currencies anonymously without KYC? Will there be a risk of being in a situation of illegal users if the global framework (laws and others) becomes more widespread?

Question update :
Do you know when the Rich Communication Services (RCS) protocol, also referred to as the trade name and (technically, RCS is based on the IP protocol) will be integrated into the new CLOAK anonymous wallets?

[Buchi-88]

Any plan to list CLOAK at the new BitPanda global Exchange?

https://www.bitpanda.com/de/exchange

The make a very succesful IEO with there new Exchange Token:

https://www.bitpanda.com/en/best

[cuttie018]

I want to know who the owners are before I invest anything. Do you have real names?

[bokieie]

Do Windows users can mine? If we can then how? I dont see it in docs.

[Ferdo]

Do Windows users can mine? If we can then how? I dont see it in docs.

Cloak is not POW so it has no mining. It's a POS coin so you can stake your coins. Annual ROI is 6%. All you need to do is send your Cloak to your wallet and unlock the wallet for staking.

Here's the link to the wallet
https://www.cloakcoin.com/en/wallets

[cloakteam]

Dear Cloak Community,

We’re very proud to announce that CloakCoin is listed on Folgory exchange!

Trade BTC / EUR / USDC now!

📈 https://folgory.com



Peace & Love

[cloakteam]

Dear Cloak Community,

Good tech alone won’t cut it. People need to know that we exist in the first place. There are projects out there that are surprisingly higher ranked and have a bigger community. Why? Obviously it can´t be the tech behind those projects that in many cases has been proven worse than ours.

That's why, in addition to, of course, continuously improving our technology, we focused and worked hard on our new marketing strategy, also considering the feedback of our community.

The result of our extended research is a 30-page marketing plan. We are in the process of making changes, such as internal structure improvements, social media engagements and many more, with the goal to push this project forward and finally get the recognition it deserves.

We need to expand the reach of our brand in order to bring Cloak to the masses. But how can we reach that goal? That was one of the biggest questions we dealt with. We established our target group and looked at a lot of variables in order to form a base of their characteristics. This valuable data gives us the opportunity to reach more people and to empower them.

What to expect:

- Increase of social media engagement. The content that we share will address more specifically our target group.
- Website improvements
- Overview of crypto meetups worldwide. Community members who want to attend, will receive promo material and our social media support.
- Enrollment of an ambassadorship plan.
- Dev updates.
- Ecosystem report every two months, released on a fixed date.
- Surveys
- Community feedback will be better addressed and/or delegated
- Video content (instructional, promotional etc.)
- Giveaways to increase brand awareness and involvement in our project and use of our products.
- Articles that increase our authority.
- Increase utility (vendors, partnerships etc.)
- Keep in mind that our plan forms a base and will be reviewed, adjusted, fine tuned. Data will be analyzed and acted on accordingly.

We keep focusing on getting listed on exchanges, of course. This will remain one of our main tasks but, like you all noticed, this is not something we can always control. However, what we can control is improving our tech, growing our brand and community to increase our chances to get listed.



Make no mistake: We are motivated to the bone, we stand by and believe in our mission.

Thank you for sticking with us, your contribution is crucial.

Together we are #CloakStrong

Be free Be Cloak - BYOB

Peace & Love

     

[Flex2222]

market cap 1 million.
resulting in 20 cent per coin which is ridiculousy low in my eyes.
Big buy opportunity for me.
Just my 3 satoshis

[Duderino123]

A really interesting project. However, I've invested in the past several times. And they all screewd me. Now I don't really know if this is a real project or not:(Give us more real-world information about you guys.

Cloak has been around since 2014. What else do you need to prove that it's a "real project"? It's a fully functional coin, not just a white paper...

[AlUz]

It looks like Cloak is waking up... Buyers have some interest 

[cloakteam]

Dear Cloak Community,

The CloakCoin project made tremendous forward progress during the past couple of months!

The core team decided that our Dutch Coordinator — Iwidepiwi — is best suited to move into the role of PR & Marketing Lead. Please join us in celebrating his achievement. You can always reach out to Iwidepiwi on Twitter to offer your congratulations. 

Coordinator Report — August 2019



Peace & Love

Team Cloak

Cloak Blog: http://bit.ly/2Zz0La4

[R-J-F]

Dear Cloak Community,

The CloakCoin project made tremendous forward progress during the past couple of months!

The core team decided that our Dutch Coordinator — Iwidepiwi — is best suited to move into the role of PR & Marketing Lead. Please join us in celebrating his achievement. You can always reach out to Iwidepiwi on Twitter to offer your congratulations. 

Coordinator Report — August 2019



Peace & Love

Team Cloak

Cloak Blog: http://bit.ly/2Zz0La4

Excellent decision!