Maybe it’s just my “Filter Bubble” but lately everywhere I look cryptocurrencies, and block-chain fill the news. Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency launched back in 2009 gets the majority of the headlines mainly because of its soaring price.
Originally Bitcoin promised anonymous and easy peer to peer transactions, but as it turns out that all the transactions carried out on its block-chain are not truly anonymous but pseudonymous.
The distinction is important. With a pseudonymous currency such as Bitcoin it is possible to link transactions together and ultimately to build a complete picture of what someone is doing with their wallet. While the wallet address is not automatically linked to the wallet owner, it only takes a single transaction using your real identity and wallet address to make this information permanently and publicly available.
You might think, that I don’t do anything nefarious so why would I worry? But this would be like having your banking and credit card information published publicly on the internet.
What is the solution?
There is a new cryptocurrency that addresses these challenges head-on called DeepOnion. DeepOnion uses the TOR network to obfuscate your IP address as well as a series of advanced measures to ensure that all of your Onion (The DeepOnion currency) transactions are untraceable.
The DeepOnion project itself is nascent, and I believe that it has a very bright future. Not only is there a tremendous need for increased privacy in out transactions, but this project is also tackling other issues that some of the first generation cryptocurrencies are struggling to deal with.
Specifically, transaction speed and cost.
Sometimes, if you send a small amount of Bitcoin to someone, the transaction fee can, in fact, be more than the amount sent.
The Gazette yesterday reported that Bitcoin transaction costs had increased 19-fold in a year.
“Fees for sending money over the distributed-ledger network have risen nearly 19-fold, from 13 cents per average transaction in the second quarter of 2016 to $2.40 in the same quarter of this year, according to researcher CoinDesk.”
Again DeepOnion wins here, providing transaction costs that hardly register (usually a tiny fraction of a cent).
If you want to get involved in the future of cryptocurrency and get in on the ground floor, come and join us over at https://deeponion.org
