An Interview with the Pirate Chain Development Team
I decided to learn more about Pirate Chain (ARRR). This is an interview with the Developer of Pirate Chain. Enjoy reading and share on social media if you like or learn from this interview.
Could you briefly describe what ARRR is?
Pirate (ARRR) is a zcash fork launched on Komodo. We use ZEC parameters and we are the only other crypto aside from XMR with forced private sends. This creates a privacy protocol that rivals XMR.
To understand, In short, ZEC privacy gets stronger with each z tx and with the largest possible shielded pool of funds. Since ARRR only has private sends possible, this makes the shielded pool on Pirate equal to 99.99% of all funds in existence.
In addition to utilizing ZEC to the best of it’s abilities, Pirate also has dPoW, delayed proof of work from Komodo. This makes pirate reistant to damage from 51% attacks.
Every 10 minutes a hash record of the Pirate blockchain is recorded on the Bitcoin blockchain via Komodo’s dPoW. If you are unfamiliar with dPoW you should definitely look into it more.
In short, we are one of the most private and definitely one of the most secure privacy coins in existence based on these parameters. Once sapling arrives on Komodo Platform, we feel we will be one of, if not the most versatile privacy coin on the market.
The tech is solid and people have quickly come to realize this. Here is a hashrate from around week 8 of the coins existence. At this time, the hashrate was 1/2 of Horizen (ZEN).
We are really looking forward to sharing more about the project and it’s adoption process.
Could you describe the vision for ARRR?
ARRR was not started as a vision but rather a question during a discussion of privacy coins. The main takeaway was “Why hasn’t anyone done this before? We don’t know, let’s try.”
So over the next few days a handful of Developers from the KMD project and discord started testing and before they knew it, they had a live chain.
The immediate next step was to figure out how to apply dPoW. The solution was to code in the notaries with the ability to have public sends, so their hash on bitcoin could be visible.
Now that the product has been created and the realization of how powerful the tool can be has sunk in, there has been no shortage of development on many levels.
We have been showing that we are willing to work hard and innovate.
- We had the first z tx tip bot in crypto created for the KMD discord. So people can tip and rain in ARRR. Each time they do, the privacy pool gets stronger as the bot works on chain. This was done with intention.
- The developers have created the first 100% ztx private mining pools. All of our mining pools only pay out to z addresses.
- Pirate is the first coin that we know of to have z address support on an exchange. We have been live on DigitalPrice.io for a few weeks (please use ref link below, the funds earned go towards pirate development). We should be on Crex24 within 2 weeks.
- We have the first z tx shop plugin under development right now for supporting online merchant exchanges with a trusted interface so you can shop online with your Pirate. We will have more news on the expansion of this in the near future.
- While this isn’t a vision, in another z tx first, we will soon be releasing a lottery bot that should work across any discord channel that wants to install the bot. Stay tuned for more on that.
Sapling will be a game changer and will put ARRR at the forefront of privacy, security and utility for people to conduct commerce in a private fashion, much as you can now with Credit, debit or cash.
What value will ARRR bring to users?
Many of the value propositions have been focused around privacy. Pirate is Fundamentals complete. The product is ready for use and ready to provide privacy.
When the blockchain explorer only records a timestamp and a bunch of zeros… there is not much better way to hide that data.
Now that we have privacy and security on lock down, our next main goals are to get sapling integrated.
This is going to open a lot of doors, from mobile and point of sale exposure, as well as being able to ease the onboarding process to pirate so that it is almost invisible to the customer.
Again, more on that as we are privy to share. Some of that is under wraps for a reason and Sapling is going to be a game changer after pirate itself has already changed the game.
With what strengths and features does it bring this value?
Security — dPoW from Komodo is the way that we provide 51% resistance against malicious attacks, takeovers and double spends. The Komodo team has perfected this ingenious way to timestamp a record of your blockchain to Bitcoins.
Every ten minutes, you essentially have an immutable copy of your chain stored on each BTC block. This is a really fascinating use for Bitcoin outside it’s intended purpose and I think Satoshi Nakamoto would be very proud of the projects idea and implementation
Privacy — ZEC privacy works best when used the most. Each transaction reshuffles the funds and the entire 99.99% shielded pool of funds is not discernable from the rest. Only you know your wallet balance and transaction details, unless you wish to share them, which you can.
Zooko wants to ban unshielded transactions because it’s the best route to maximum privacy for ZEC, but that may prove difficult this far into the chain.
Well, I didn’t show the barista my bank statement today when I bought coffee, why should crypto be any different?
Zcash devs know that that a fully shielded fund pool is the strongest possible use for Zcash privacy tech, link provided by Daira Hopwood via Twitter.
Even Fluffy Pony acknowledges that the protocol is stronger with tradeoffs, albeit in this post, he was talking about zcash with optional privacy and hadn’t likely heard of Pirate yet.
What kind of projects do you see as competitors and how do you differentiate from them?
We really feel that XMR is our only competitor from a privacy and tech standpoint. The forced send protocol is a must in our eyes.
XMR was forked from Bytecoin in 2016 and has since become quite a well developed product. Their team is great and always spending consistent time on the project it seems.
They are constantly working to make their protocol better and increase the privacy protections it provides with constant upgrades.
That said, there are strengths to the ZEC privacy protocol that even FluffyPony admits are stronger than XMR albeit with tradeoffs as mentioned above.
Complete anonymity and financial privacy is what we BOTH aim to provide and ARRR does a great job of it right alongside XMR.
In short, it’s tough to classify us as superior because both protocols have pros and cons, so I will summarize why we are different and why that may be better to some users.
The pirate explorer is empty… just zeros. Zero Knowledge proofs have been developed, studied and worked with for nearly 40 years, winning awards for it’s innovation along the way.
Zero Knowledge proofs are wonderful for hiding data and therefore preventing analysis on that chain data.
You can’t analyze the zeros for anything relevant and there are no public sends to try and associate to z addresses or weaken the shielding pool.
With XMR, the obfuscation and mixing are high quality top notch protocols to confuse, and rearrange the data present. But there is data still present.
They provide other features to their users as well as optional privacy strength to facilitate faster transactions, but overall but the privacy remains strong regardless.
To compare the two, or any similar coins for that matter, I like to use real estate analogies, which is easy for me as it’s my normal background.
Most competitors in the privacy coin space are tract houses hammered out in 30 days a piece and each one flawed just like the last one.
One fork after the other using the same boring ideas with a new logo and maybe a masternode.
XMR and ARRR are like custom beachfront houses, with VERY solid frames and foundations, built to withstand typhoons and hurricanes, but they are in different stages of completion.
XMR is landscaped with vineyards and a pond, they added an extra garage 2 weeks ago (bulletproofs) and repainted. The sauna they added last May was a great touch. It’s beautiful.
The sprawling driveway up to the fountain in the front is breathtaking and when you walk through the front door, you see the ocean.
Pirate is the house next door, purchased incomplete. The house is standing and in immaculate condition, able to withstand any hurricane or tropical storm… but there’s no grass.
There’s no driveway paving. The fountain hasn’t arrived yet. Our stairway down to the beach is being built.
But we also have an underground bunker, a watchtower and a guarded gate with 8 foot fences.
Once the rest of the amenities, paint and hardwood gets laid, this house will be comparable to it’s next door neighbor in many ways, with features they do not have.
Likewise, they will have features that we do not have, like a boat dock ;)
As you may or may not know in real estate, value is measured in comparables and I see XMR and ARR being very comparable in technological value.
When sapling is integrated into Komodo and available to Pirate, which will be April at the very latest, we feel that it will be a short while thereafter when we are the easier coin to transact with therefore being able to provide more value to users through adoption.
Time and efforts will dictate how soon we can start this process. Some of the KMD devs as well as ecosystem devs from OTHER KMD projects are working diligently to help out Pirate and the implementation of Sapling.
Can you tell us about important developments yet to come and why they are important?
I have three really great things I am working on but I can’t really comment on them IN TOO MUCH DETAIL
They are mainly focused on three things for now.
- One is adoption. We want to find a way to make the onboarding process nearly invisible if possible.
The team really feels like there are some good ideas and opportunities to capitalize on in the discussions had and plans we have laid out so they are ready to help make something like this happen.
We have considered a collaboration with another new project in the KMD ecosystem to get this part accomplished faster that it would be if we tried to do it ourselves.
- Another is a way to reward crypto referrals. Currently, the best hopes you have when you refer people to a coin you like, is that they pump your bags.
We will we have a new method to help ensure we are onboarding new pirates at a steady rate, while rewarding those captains who continue to bring in fresh meat on the boat.
- The last thing is my personal favorite and while it’s not really top secret, the Pirate Trading post, a place for people to go and spend pirate, is something that will coincide with what I have done on my day job for 20 years so I am personally excited to see this project start.
I have 2 webdevs I spoke with the other day and they are ready to see how this can best be accomplished!
To Conclude
In closing, we really appreciate the publics generally positive response to everything we are doing. We hope to bring more to light that privacy is important and you are not nefarious for wanting it.
If you want to Mine ARRR, now is a great time. There is still more than half the time remaining with 256 ARRR block rewards. You can find a list of current pools on our site.
If you want to trade ARRR — PLEASE, consider using our referral links below. If you are already on the exchange, consider using a 2nd account. The funds earned through ref links, while meager, will go along way with a project like ours that has no premine and had no ICO.
Thank you very much for your time. IF you or your readers have any questions, please feel free to reach out in the Komodo Discord and any of our friendly pirates in the channels down low will be able to help you out.
Komodo Discord — Home of Pirate
— -ALL REFERAL FEES GO TO PIRATE DEVELOPMENT — -
Exchanges Pirate Chain is trading:
Transparency: https://twitter.com/LordCatoshi/status/1061598572293038081
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Tip Catoshi ARRR here: zcQ9v3atMHnmU1zZjyTM9Drxte8buJgt3awXRmdpVysimsqbMZUi9tLpKLGuqsYRo8z1us7QhP2GY3gY8gmcCcAYTJBuMjU
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