Battle of the Privacy Coins: Eight Month Update
For the One Month update, please click this link.
For the Two Month update, please click this link.
For the Three Month update, please click this link.
For the Four Month update, please click this link.
For the Fifth Month update, please click this link.
For the Sixth Month update, please click this link.
For the Seventh Month update, please click this link.
Biggest Gain
This month, Zcash saw a roughly 43%, increasing from $69.14 to $99.1
Smallest Gain
This month, Horizen saw a gain of about 4%, dropping from $119.75 to $124.44
Current Standings:
By percentage gain/loss between for the month of March.
- $ZEC: Zcash — Started at $100, last month was at $69.14 — is now at $99.12 (43%)
- $BCN: Bytecoin — Started at $100, last month was at $33.89 — is now at $45.12 (33%)
- $XMR: Monero — Started at $100, last month was at $68.23 — is now at $87.53 (28%)
- $XZC: Zcoin — Started at $100, last month was at $54.54 — is now at $69.03 (27%)
- $DASH: Dash — Started at $100, last month was at $82.89 — is now at $101.71 (23%)
- $XVG: Verge — Started at $100, last month was at $54.60 — is now at $65.88 (21%)
- $BEAM: Beam — Started at $100, last month was at $23.61 — is now at $28.18 (19%)
- $DUSK: Dusk — Started at $100, last month was at $13.71 — is now at $15.99 (17%)
- $GRIN: Grin — Started at $100, last month was at $24.51 — is now at $28.17 (15%)
- $LOKI: Loki — Started at $100, last month was at $197.40 — is now at $225.40 (14%)
- $ZEN: Horizen — Started at $100, last month was at $119.75 — is now at $124.44 (4%)
Interesting Notes:
- April saw gains made across the board in Fiat markets thanks to Bitcoin’s upward move, however most posted losses vs BTC
- Bytecoin went from the Biggest Gain in February to the Biggest Loss in March, to the second largest gain in April — which is awfully volatile for a coin with no development
- Our wildcard entrants are still holding up either end of the competition, with the Loki Network sitting in first place and the Dusk Network bringing it up the rear in eleventh
News & Updates
In order of overall standings…
Loki Network
Continuing with last month’s trend, the Loki team are still pushing out lots of content — this time from the Loki Foundation arm — covering remote work and study platforms, Facebook Messenger for kids, and contact tracing, which also had a follow up piece.
The Loki team held a Community Round Table this month, which is when the team get together on a live stream to answer questions from community members.
Kee Jefferys, Loki CTO, was interviewed on the Privacy, Security & OSINT Show with Michael Bazzell.
Lokinet got its first GUI! Still no exit nodes so you’ll only be able to visit the Loki hidden services addresses at this stage. In other GUI news, Loki’s desktop GUI wallet received an update enabling use of the Loki Name Service, so you can register Session usernames from the comfort of your GUI wallet — instead of the CLI wallet.
Speaking of Session, the first in a series of Release Roundups has appeared, covering the v1.1.0 mobile release and v1.0.7 on desktop. Some of the updates included auto-update and @mentions in the side menu on desktop, as well as push notification updates on mobile which allow you to toggle between background polling or Apple Push Notification service for iOS & Firebase Cloud Messaging for Android.
When you’re downloading privacy focused software, you want to be sure that the file you’re downloading is authentic — but how do you do that? The Loki team have put together a blog on how to verify software downloads on Linux, Windows, and macOS.
In more lighthearted news, the ASIC resistant Loki Network came under attack this month. You can play the CryptUnit’s ASIC Defence game here to help keep the Loki Network safe.
Loki’s Weekly Dev Updates for April:
Horizen
In an interview with the CryptoCoinShow, Horizen cofounder Rob Viglione discusses the Horizen project, sidechains and decentralization.
If you missed the Horizen Q1 2020 livestream in early April, you can watch it here. Some more information was given on Ginger-lib — the toolset to enable the implementation of sk-SNARKs that support full recursive proof composition — as well as a live Q&A session. For more on the Q1 review, you can read the write up here.
Horizen is now on Metal Pay! Which means you can send $ZEN instantly and for free, and for Americans this means Android and iOS users can buy and sell on an FDIC-insured marketplace. Missed the AMA with the Metal Pay team? No worries, you can catch up here.
Blockfyre — a blockchain/cryptocurrency market and fundamental analysis firm — produced a report on Horizen. Horizen scored an A4 rating which means it scored high on the fundamental analysis but below average on the upside potential in BTC value.
In this episode of Horizen Leadership Insights, Rob Viglione discusses the coming releases like the Sidechains Beta and accompanying libraries. For those who don’t know, Horizen Leadership Insights give you a clear look into the hottest topics of the Weekly Insider content by the Horizen Leadership team.
Horizen’s Weekly Insider Podcasts for April:
Dash
Dash Core Group has announced changes to how they approach future releases for the Dash Platform. These changes aim to make their releases more predictable, reliable, and transparent.
Dash Platform v0.12 has been deployed to Evonet. Dash Platform v0.12 brings with it better performance and more ease of use for developers.
Dash have completed their yearly emission reduction of 7.14%. Similar to Bitcoin’s halving every four years, Dash too has an reduction in emissions.
Votes for the Dash Trust Protectors have closed. Election results can be expected in early May. If you’re unfamiliar with the Dash Trust Protectors Election, you can read more about it here.
Top Venezuelan exchange, Criptolago, has rolled out offline support for Dash transactions.
Huobi have added Dash to the Huobi Wallet. Also, you can now trade DASH/USD perpetual swaps as it has been added to Huobi Futures.
Utrust have acquired Middle Eastern real estate company Arms & McGregor, which means their clients can now purchase real estate in the Middle East using Dash!
Brazilian cryptocurrency exchange CoinTrade have listed DASH. Users can instantly send DASH to and from the exchange without KYC.
Stay up-to-date with DASH on Hive! Hive is a blockchain content sharing platform like Steem, but without Justin Sun.
Dash Core Updates for April:
- Added populate balance in applyIdentityStateTransition
- Bug Implemented and rolled out crash fixes on Dash Wallet for Android
- Newspaper Updated Dash SDK with a new DAPI-Client
- Implemented UI and backend components on DashPay for iOS
- Bug Multiple bug fixes on Dash Wallet for Android
- Credit card Finished remaining work on the first version of the credit system
- Finalized DashPay designs for Profile Pics/Settings
- Personal computer Finished coding of Register Username for DashPay iOS
- Up pointing index Updated mn-bootstrap to Platform v0.12
- Writing hand Implemented “concentrated recovery” of LLMQ signatures
- Deployed Dash Platform v0.12 to Evonet
- Ant Released bug fixes & BIP70 Payment Protocol for Dash Wallet on Android (v7.0.5)
- Left-pointing magnifying glass Completed coding for Search Blockchain User for DashPay on iOS
Zcash
International Medical Corps is accepting Zcash donations. International Medical Corps is working to relieve the suffering of those affected by war, natural disaster and disease. They deliver vital healthcare services that focus on training and help devastated populations return to self-reliance.
Announcing Zbay, a social marketplace for physical goods, information, and ideas using the Zcash blockchain, and it’s owned by no one. In other news, developers have revived to project looking to decentralize and anonymize news. The Zboard project will use Zcash’s privacy-centric blockchain to protect the identity of authors and secure their articles.
The Zcash Gardening Club is an open monthly meeting for open source contributors to share about their project’s status, connect with each other, find new contributors, and answer questions.
New release 2.1.2 supports the activation of Heartwood on testnet. In addition, the release includes new features like shielded viewing key support. As part of the Heartwood network upgrade, Zcash miners and mining pools will have the option to mine directly to a shielded coinbase.
The zECC Wallet for iOS and Android will be open-sourced this quarter. ECC has no current plans to deploy zECC wallets to an app store.
A new Zecwallet Fullnode is out! v0.9.8 fixes some minor annoyances, improves error messages and fixes some UI performance bugs.
Development continues on the fully independent Zcash app for Ledger hardware wallets, and it looks like Shielded Addresses are in the pipeline.
Kraken posted a blog about getting to know Zcash, a privacy cryptocurrency with a bitcoin-like monetary policy.
Monero
Monero turned 6 in April! Check out the Moneroversary celebration stream here.
The second edition of Zero To Monero has been published! Zero To Monero is a technical guide to a private digital currency; for beginners amateurs and expert.
Monero Means Money is now available to stream online. What is it? Monero Means Money is a documentary film that explains the origins and purpose of Monero. Dr. Daniel Kim gives a deep-dive summary of the technical, economic, and social aspects of fiat, Bitcoin, and Monero from 2008 to the present day.
Justin Ehrenhofer was featured on the Crypto Vigilanti Show where he talked compliance, privacy, Monero, Dandelion++ and Triptych. Justin also made the #2 movie in America, and he did it for only $1000. The movie is Monero Means Money, and is now available to stream online. What is it? Monero Means Money is a documentary film that explains the origins and purpose of Monero. Dr. Daniel Kim gives a deep-dive summary of the technical, economic, and social aspects of fiat, Bitcoin, and Monero from 2008 to the present day.
Privacy-enhancing technology Dandelion++ has been added to Monero. You can read more about it here or here, and on Github too.
Sarang from the Monero Research Lab stumbled upon another bulletproof optimization to speed up verification by up to another 25%. It’s already reviewed and can make it in the next point update. In other Sarang news, here’s the Monthly Report for April.
Testnet for Tari is now live. For those who don’t know, Tari is a Rust-based digital assets blockchain protocol that is open-source, private by default, and being developed as a merge-mined sidechain for Monero.
HTC will allow Monero mining on its Exodus blockchain phone.
Revuo Monero for April:
Verge
You can now find the Verge QT Wallet on FlatpakApps. Flatpak changes app distribution for the better. You can create one app and distribute it to the entire Linux desktop market.
A Verge explainer video has surfaced on Tokentuber. Check it out to see what Verge is all about.
The Verge marketing team have posted their marketing update for March and April. Key takeaways include:
- An upcoming interview with Amelia Tomasicchio from Cryptonomist
- Work also continues on the back end to move their support/help pages to a new platform that’s prettier and easier to use than the current setup
- As a result, many of the articles are also being updated in the process
- Dev updates delayed due to COVID-19, however things are still progressing along
Verge is now integrated at Play Royal and available to trade on their integrated exchange as well as play on in-house casino games. Read more here.
Zcoin
Check out Reuben Yap‘s interview with David Nage on the BaseLayer podcast where the impact of the digital dollar, lasting privacy risks from the COVID-19 crisis and the latest updates from Zcoin were discussed.
Reuben was also interviewed on The Blockchain Show, where he discussed the merits of untraceable transactions, Zcoin, privacy has a fundamental human right and related use cases such as verifying elections on the blockchain.
Altcoin Buzz interviewed Reuben Yap where they discussed privacy, Bitcoin/Monero/Zcash and how it all works. Reuben also gave a briefing on what has been happening behind the scenes at the Zcoin project.
Reuben also contributed to Nasdaq, where he discussed balancing individual rights and privacy with the greater good during a pandemic.
Binance added a new $XZC pairing, you can now trade $XZC in the $USDT market.
Vertbase have also launched USD, GPB and EUR pairings for $XZC. Vertbase is non-custodial and cryptocurrencies bought are directly transferred to your wallet, you can also link your bank account directly to Vertbase to trade the new $XZC vs Fait markets.
The Zcoin team have published a new paper on hierarchical one-out-of-many proofs (HOOOMP) which improves proving time. One-out-of-many proofs forms the basic building block for Zcoin’s privacy protocols. You can read more about it here.
In other development news, there’s a new Rich GUI wallet (v1.0.6). Core upgrades, Evo znodes and LLMQ testnet were launched. Read more about the Zcoin development updates for April here.
Community Meetings:
Bytecoin
Is Bytecoin dead?
- No blog posts in 2020 — the most recent being December 17, 2019
- No Twitter posts in 2020 — the most recent being December 26, 2019
- No GitHub commits in 2020 — the most recent being July, 2019
Bytecoin will remain a participant in the Battle of the Privacy Coins purely out of curiosity. How will a dead coin perform against the more active projects?
Grin
Grin++ developer David Burkett talks Grin and other privacy coins in an interview with privacy advocate Naomi Brockwell. You can watch the interview here.
Community discussions surfaced regarding concerns about the centralization of the Grin project around the Grin core team. You can read the forum discussion here.
Key takeaways:
- Grin v4.0.0 network upgrade expected around July 15th 2020
Key takeaways:
- Feature requests are open for v5.0.0 (due January 2021)
- Experiments with armored slates are underway, a potential improvement to file-based transaction building
Key takeaways:
- Q1 transparency report published
- New burn-rate & runway report published
Key takeaways:
- PayJoins might be very suitable for graph obfuscation in Grin
Beam
Security Services Group has released a special Beam version of their Kryptos Private Laptop, with patented hardware protection, no hard disk, and a preinstalled Beam wallet.
You can instant swap $BEAM at BitToro!
The Beam team have produced a short video on why privacy matters. This is only Part 1, but I’m looking forward to seeing what the rest of the series has to offer.
The work towards Beamhash III and other consensus upgrades has been ongoing, but the Beam team have been able to announce the block height for the next hard fork — it’ll be block 777,777.
Key takeaways:
- More testing for the Double Doppler 4.2 release, which will bring with it the Atomic Swap Market Maker API, Wallet Channels, and Laser Beam for bi-directional payment channels
- Beam Confidential DeFi Infrastructure with Tech Lead Alex Romanov
Key takeaways:
- Did you know you could use BEAM to subscribe to PIA? PIA (Private Internet Access) is a VPN, or Virtual Private Network, which allows you to browse the internet using alternate IP addresses
- Work is in progress for Eager Electron 5.0
Key takeaways:
- Decentralized notifications for your BEAM transactions
- The Atomic Swap Market Maker API allows anyone to easily get information to take part in decentralized atomic swaps. Note that the swaps are still in their Beta development phase
Key takeaways:
- You’ll need to download the Eager Electron 5.0 wallet before the scheduled hard fork in June
- The hard fork will bring with it a mining algorithm change from BeamHash II to BeamHash II, so miners will need to update their wallets and nodes before the fork
- Confidential Assets are coming! That means issuance of Confidential Synthetics like gold and stable coins, as well as Confidential Wrapped Assets similar to wBTC but with the privacy and scalability of Beam
- Lelantus Mimblewimble will be implemented in the hard fork to bring an additional layer of privacy to increase the fungibility of BEAM. In a nice bonus, there will be no more requirement to interactively construct a payment with the receiver — making transactions more similar to that of Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies
Dusk
The Dusk team have published their Q1 2020 Business Report, which covers Financial Disclosure, Progress on ZK-technology, Business Development, Client Onboarding, Node Program, and Market Outlook.
Demonstrating the Dusk Fee Contract, one of their four Genesis Contracts. Watch and learn how the contract handles the distribution of block rewards among consensus participants in a smart way.
Demonstrating the Dusk Staking Contract, another of the Dusk Genesis Contracts. Read more about how the staking contract handles two functions in their consensus mechanism: Staking and Slashing.
Continuing with the demonstrations, we have two PLONK demonstrations:
- The first PLONK demonstration takes a closer look at the technical framework
- The second PLONK demonstration shows how easy it is to build PLONK circuits with the help of Dusk’s PLONK TurboComposer.
In exchange news, Dusk has been listed on DeversiFi. DeversiFi is the relaunched version of Ethfinex. Dusk is among the first coins to be listed on the ETH-based exchange with trading enabled for the DUSK/USDT pairing.
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