Cryptonote: More Bitcoin Than Bitcoin

[GTO911]

We need a review of this technology. Something brilliant and clever like this should not be ignored. Even satoshi made some comments on the essence of Cryptonote. Maybe he contributed in some way or another towards its development

Apparently it was in development since a few years and was intended to be a step ahead in the right direction, that is transaction privacy. Cryptonote is the tech which should have been bitcoin in the first place.

This is a very interesting topic.  If a solution was found, a much better, easier, more convenient implementation of Bitcoin would be possible.

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[coinpr0n]

Care to share a little about what it is? Am I right guessing it's a coin with anonymous send features like DRK and a few others?

[GTO911]

Care to share a little about what it is? Am I right guessing it's a coin with anonymous send features like DRK and a few others?

Its not a coin, its a protocol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoNote

[Black Arrow]

I don't know enough about it to be able to meaningfully contribute to the discussion, but there is quite a bit of discussion about it in the Alt Coin Discussion forum, especially in some of the Monero threads.

[coinpr0n]

Care to share a little about what it is? Am I right guessing it's a coin with anonymous send features like DRK and a few others?

Its not a coin, its a protocol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoNote

Ok, that's interesting. I don't know how I feel about it as part of what I like about Bitcoin is the transparency of the blockchain. If it was somehow an option that could be turned on and off...

[runpaint]

The first cryptonote coin was announced in 2014, but if Satoshi actually discussed it then that would lend it a lot of credibility.  Of course, he didn't.

But Monero already has a strong case for being the #2 most important coin after Bitcoin, since Cryptonote coins are the only ones that aren't based on Bitcoin.  I also like Dashcoin, because you can get a million of them for about 50 cents.

[BillyBobZorton]

We need a review of this technology. Something brilliant and clever like this should not be ignored. Even satoshi made some comments on the essence of Cryptonote. Maybe he contributed in some way or another towards its development

Apparently it was in development since a few years and was intended to be a step ahead in the right direction, that is transaction privacy. Cryptonote is the tech which should have been bitcoin in the first place. If it had surfaced a year later after bitcoin, things could have been different

I think anyone running "dark markets" is mentally insane by not accepting Monero as teh official coin. Even Andreas himself said in his latest speech in MIT (you can search the video in youtube) that Bitcoin is impossible to be effectively anonymous and you are better off using other coins (basically Monero)

[darlidada]

The first cryptonote coin was announced in 2014, but if Satoshi actually discussed it then that would lend it a lot of credibility.  Of course, he didn't.

But Monero already has a strong case for being the #2 most important coin after Bitcoin, since Cryptonote coins are the only ones that aren't based on Bitcoin.  I also like Dashcoin, because you can get a million of them for about 50 cents.

I wouldnt be so sure if I were you. Because in the following post, Satoshi describes the essence of cryptonote :

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=770.msg9074#msg9074

[tacotime]

We need a review of this technology. Something brilliant and clever like this should not be ignored. Even satoshi made some comments on the essence of Cryptonote. Maybe he contributed in some way or another towards its development

Apparently it was in development since a few years and was intended to be a step ahead in the right direction, that is transaction privacy. Cryptonote is the tech which should have been bitcoin in the first place. If it had surfaced a year later after bitcoin, things could have been different

Um. What do you want to know? I'll talk about Monero since that's the CN chain I've worked on the most.

(1) It uses a different elliptic curve than Bitcoin for signing (EdDSA, which uses Schnorr signatures on a Twisted Edwards curve).
(2) It uses a different hashing algorithm than Bitcoin for PoW, which is AES heavy and currently performs similarly on GPUs and CPUs. One of the main downsides to this is that sidechains are currently impossible (validation takes too long), however as sidechains don't actually exist right now we've been ignoring this. If we want to add sidechain support in the future, the hashing algorithm can be change to something simple. In the meantime, the algorithm is relatively "egalitarian" in that no specialized hardware is required.
(3) One time use addresses ("stealth addressing") is mandatory for all transactions. This makes light clients very difficult to secure or create in general, but it dramatically enhances privacy because it's impossible to ever reuse an address.
(4) All transactions are denominated in base 10, and fractionated by mantissa.
(5) Ring signatures obfuscate spending of outputs by allowing you to do a 1-of-N input for a transaction where you spend funds from Bob OR Alice OR Michael OR Claire OR et cetera. Like one time use addresses, this is a passive privacy technology that doesn't require any active participation of anyone in the network (unlike DarkCoin, CoinJoin, and so on).
(6) A single pair of private keys is used for the recovery of all outputs owned by a wallet, but with a different type of data structure than BIP32 has (viewkey/secretkey).
(7) An implicit, silent multisig implementation centered around Schnorr signatures is being researched and developed (thanks andytoshi/gmaxwell).
(8) Research is ongoing into ways to break our privacy technology and improve it. See: https://lab.monero.cc/
(9) Monero is readily auditable from a regulatory perspective (you can easily prove your ownership of funds if you need to, for example to tax agencies).
(10) It has a much faster emissions (subsidy/reward) curve than Bitcoin. 80% is mined within 4 years. The emissions curve is also much smoother than for Bitcoin, with reward decreasing every block.
(11) Unlike Bitcoin, Monero will have long term perpetual inflation. Subsidy will become fixed in about 10 years time at a flat rate of less than 1%, to keep the chain from becoming fully deflationary and to better incentivize miners. This makes it more likely to be useful as a currency than Bitcoin, in my opinion.

[Lorenzo]

Care to share a little about what it is? Am I right guessing it's a coin with anonymous send features like DRK and a few others?

It's a protocol that uses ring signatures to provide anonymity. There are many different Cryptonote coins including Bytecoin (BCN) and Monero (XMR) which are the two major ones, as well as Quazarcoin, Boolberry, Fantomcoin, Darknote, Monetaverde, Dashcoin, Aeoncoin, Infinium-8, and more. In practice, it's similar to Darkcoin which I'm sure you're familiar with but the anonymity provided is stronger. Unlike Darkcoin, these coins share no code with Bitcoin as the Cryptonote protocol was written from the ground up. The use of ring signatures has a few downsides though, such as blockchain bloating. For example, Monero's blockchain grew by 1 GB barely a month after it was launched.

[GTO911]

Ok, that's interesting. I don't know how I feel about it as part of what I like about Bitcoin is the transparency of the blockchain. If it was somehow an option that could be turned on and off...

Cryptonote allows you to be completely anonymous or public by giving out your view key IIRC

[GTO911]

Um. What do you want to know? I'll talk about Monero since that's the CN chain I've worked on the most.

(1) It uses a different elliptic curve than Bitcoin for signing (EdDSA, which uses Schnorr signatures on a Twisted Edwards curve).
(2) It uses a different hashing algorithm than Bitcoin for PoW, which is AES heavy and currently performs similarly on GPUs and CPUs. One of the main downsides to this is that sidechains are currently impossible (validation takes too long), however as sidechains don't actually exist right now we've been ignoring this. If we want to add sidechain support in the future, the hashing algorithm can be change to something simple. In the meantime, the algorithm is relatively "egalitarian" in that no specialized hardware is required....................................

Thanks for the detailed reply tacotime. Apparently Monero seems to be the best implementation of this technology at the time

[Xian_XDN]

Even satoshi made some comments on the essence of Cryptonote.

This is a very interesting topic.  If a solution was found, a much better, easier, more convenient implementation of Bitcoin would be possible.

And now he works with DarkNote as it's the most advanced CryptoNote inspired project  

[fluffypony]

Even satoshi made some comments on the essence of Cryptonote.

This is a very interesting topic.  If a solution was found, a much better, easier, more convenient implementation of Bitcoin would be possible.

And now he works with DarkNote as it's the most advanced CryptoNote inspired project  

That can't be true, when him and his wife were round for supper on Tuesday night he didn't mention that at all.

[tacotime]

That can't be true, when him and his wife were round for supper on Tuesday night he didn't mention that at all.

IS IT TRUE

[Jakesy]

What about this thread? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=740112.0

And what about the NSA speculations behind Cryptonote? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoNote#NSA_involvement

[kitarohotono]

is it going to the moon? should I buy It? 

[Xian_XDN]

Even satoshi made some comments on the essence of Cryptonote.

This is a very interesting topic.  If a solution was found, a much better, easier, more convenient implementation of Bitcoin would be possible.

And now he works with DarkNote as it's the most advanced CryptoNote inspired project  

That can't be true, when him and his wife were round for supper on Tuesday night he didn't mention that at all.

Your satoshi is fake, guys! He said he is not married.

[GTO911]

And now he works with DarkNote as it's the most advanced CryptoNote inspired project  

Sorry, but only comments about the 'protocol' have been invited. So please stop shilling activities here. I hope you understand. Thanks

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

We need a review of this technology. Something brilliant and clever like this should not be ignored. Even satoshi made some comments on the essence of Cryptonote. Maybe he contributed in some way or another towards its development

Apparently it was in development since a few years and was intended to be a step ahead in the right direction, that is transaction privacy. Cryptonote is the tech which should have been bitcoin in the first place. If it had surfaced a year later after bitcoin, things could have been different

I think anyone running "dark markets" is mentally insane by not accepting Monero as teh official coin. Even Andreas himself said in his latest speech in MIT (you can search the video in youtube) that Bitcoin is impossible to be effectively anonymous and you are better off using other coins (basically Monero)

If I want to buy some dodgy stuff from some dodgy market no way I would use Bitcoin. Monero seems indeed the ideal solution there. I don't trust the DRK system when the nodes can be subjected to attack.