Or how I learned to love the bullet(proofs)!
I am just like the next guy when it comes to personal space and my privacy but accept that you have to work hard to preserve both....... you need to be aware of what’s going on around you and in the world and gravitate towards the best places and adopt the best processes to accommodate you and your lifestyle.
For a long time now (it’s all relative in Cryptoworld) I’ve been keeping an eye on Particl (PART) as a likely candidate coin for transacting and transferring without having to divulge too much personal information, (disclaimer: small hodler here!).
So imagine my delight when it was confirmed this week that amongst their upcoming technical innovations are both Ring CT but also the legendary so-called ‘Bulletproofs’!. All of this will be introduced when the coin next hard forks in mid July..... you have been warned!
Let’s backtrack a little and review the situation before looking at the solution:
Privacy is an integral part of cryptocurrencies and whilst Bitcoin is regarded as providing privacy this isn’t even close to true. The ledger is transparent and although identities are masked there are ways of tracking and matching identities and addresses. And due to the nature of blockchain authentication the amounts being transferred or transacted cannot be hidden..... so there goes privacy!
One solution that has been developed and adopted by some cryptos is Confidential Transactions or CTs which mask the amount being transferred but ensure their validity by using range proofs which verify that the amount transacted in exceeds the amount transacted out and that all transaction totals are positive.
Ring Signatures, within which the identity of the sender can also be hidden, when combined with CTs produce RingCTs (short version).
However, range proofs are attached to each and every individual transaction which in turn increases their size and leads to transactions with multiple outputs needing multiple range proofs. This only serves to significantly degrade verification and operational efficiency.
So where now?
Enter Bulletproofs!
These are described as “a new zero-knowledge argument of knowledge system, to prove that a secret committed value lies in a given interval.”....(so now you know) but in terms of their executional impact, this leads to bulletproofs increasing in size logarithmically dependant on the number of outputs and the size of the range’s proof so typically, the size of the transactions utilizing CTs can thereby be reduced by up to 80+ %. And just to complete the overall picture, “a zero-knowledge proof is a method in cryptography where one party can prove to another party that they know the value of a variable y without conveying any other information “.
So if what we are reading now about the innovations due to happen within the Particl eco-system are correct and deliverable we are looking at a more secure, higher volume transactional system with massively enhanced privacy capabilities.....which all ties in very nicely with the much anticipated launch of it’s Open Market Place (OPM) which we are assured is due any day now!!!
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