The upgrade, unlike other major updates will not affect the mining algorithms of Monero due to the fact that the upgrade which had occurred back in October 2019 had come with a RandomX, a protocol that made it possible for upgrades to occur without changing the mining algorithms for ASIC-resistance.

These last upgrade has been marked as the most important improvements in Monero with regards to it’s scalability since the inception of bulletproofs, a protocol that allowed for transactions to be verifiably published to the XMR blockchain without revealing their size in 2018.

Other Developments

Among other things, Monero has been working on Atomic-Swaps which will enable it’s users to quickly and almost instantly exchange for other CryptoCurrency and Vice-Versa. They have also raised the funding required which is about 2727 XMR currently worth $361409.31.

Monero is one of the best privacy coin out there, we can also see Beam, Zcash etc.

MimbleWimble Protocol

This is a privacy protocol or technology that allows users or individuals to transact privately without revealing key information about the transaction to third parties . it is gotten from a tongue–tying curse or spell which ties a person tongue, thereby preventing them from revealing secrets.

Litecoin And The MimbeWimble

The new implementation will allow LTC users to transact privately thereby hiding users identity. The idea and implementation of this protocol was first announced in 2019 but developments did not commence until David Burkett, Grintt developer came into the picture. Burkett took over in December 2019 and have  just successfully laughed the Github code .for review and contribution

FROST was created by Zcash in collaboration with the University of Waterloo and is currently awaiting academic review. 

“The motivation to design FROST is simple. Because the mission of the Zcash Foundation is to build and deploy privacy-enhancing technologies for the public good, we work to ensure that using Zcash is as private and secure as possible. As part of this goal, Zcash transactions should be publicly indistinguishable- i.e, an adversary observing the blockchain should not be able to gain any information about who the payment is for, how much the payment is, or who authorized the payment.”

Initially, Zcash was utilizing the ZK-SNARKs protocol but it required either undesirable implementation complexity, high network overheads to perform signing operations, the inability to support threshold number of signers and many more. 

To eradicate all those challenges, the team started developing and implementing FROST, it will help ensure that performing multi-party signing operations could be both performant, secured and indistinguishable from the transactions signed by only a single party. 

Ghost coin is built off a Forked Codebase from Particl, a decentralized privacy and open-source platform built on the blockchain specifically designed to work with any cryptocurrency. They began as a fork of BTC and also continued adding more features to make it more private.

Tokenomics

NAME – GHOST

TOTAL SUPPLY – 55M

CIRCULATING SUPPLY – 13.5M

CONSENSUS – POS

FEATURES 

PRIVACY AND DECENTRALIZATION 

GHOST utilizes “Stealth Address” to help hide receivers’ addresses. The Stealth address is a privacy enhancing technology that requires that the sender of a transaction create a random, one-time address for every transaction, this will help prevent people from tracking or linking payments to a particular recipient. 

Ghost employs the Ring-signature protocol in order to hide a sender’s address. The ring-signature is a type of digital signature that allows for the usage of a single private key to sign a transaction, but this time around with different public keys. The transaction will involve a set of randomly picked involuntary individuals from the blockchain (they are called Decoys) who would potentially sign the transaction. So in a ring-size of 10 participants, it would be extremely hard to identify the one who initiated the ring-signature transaction. Through the RingCT (Ring Confidential Transaction) amounts transacted are kept private and only viewable by the two parties involved in the transaction. 

The Ghost team plan on developing more privacy infrastructures such as Triptych ring-signatures, this will help reduce the amount of disk space consumed in order to store ring-signatures. They also plan on implementing Dandelion ++ protocol, this is a light weighted and straight forward network layer solution with formally guaranteed anonymity that can be implemented into existing cryptocurrency. Read more on it here. 

STAKERS

Ghost has basically stakers in 2 groups, those who create blocks (Stakers) and those who earn through fees and help secure the network (Ghost Veteran) . 

Stakers can earn by creating blocks and earn a portion from the fees generated per block. You can choose the amount of tokens you want for staking. 

The Ghost Veteran Help secure the GHOST network and earn a share of the transaction fees using the staking features for GHOST. They are those who have conducted a public transaction of at least 20,000 GHOST and funds are not to be moved in any way during the period of 30 days. The Ghost Veterans get 50% of total Coins created in a block while the normal stayers who create blocks earn 33%. To join them, you have to fulfill the 2 criteria above.

GHOST REWARDS ( Emission) 

Blocks are created every 120 seconds (2 minutes) on the network and produce 12 Ghost coins.

6 Ghost goes toGhost Veteran 

4 Ghost goes to Stakers who create block 

2 Ghost is distributed as Dev funds for the development of the project. 

The production of 12 Ghost coins will continue for 2 years and then will continually drop by 5% until it gets to 10% (estimated to happen in 45 years) and it will stop dropping. 

TeleGhost

This is a decentralized private network where individuals can communicate anonymously. It will serve like a chat platform but will still retain the privacy and decentralization offered by Ghost network. Ghost plans on working with Telegram chat network, this would allow existing users of Telegram to easily log-into the new Teleghost platform with those details. Once in, your contacts and other chats on the previous platform can be found on the new one, this helps prevent the hurdle of trying to build friendships and communities  from the scratch. They plan on adding more features to it such as allowing users access private chats, send and receive Ghost, start private groups etc. 

MetaGhost

This feature will allow investors spend Ghost directly from their wallets through MetaMask compatible websites (using Wrapped ERC-20 Ghost token) while maintaining it’s anonymous state. Team plans on developing an Ethereum based Wrapped GHOST token which will be paired with Atomic Swaps on the network. This will also make it possible for the Token (GHOST) to become a DeFi. 

GHOST COMMUNITY 

Investors or holders of Ghost have the privilege or right to decide what happens on the network just like Tezos, they do this through voting. Ghost holders are allowed to vote on new developments and changes that will happen on the network or changing the Road map. Any user with an idea that can help the network can pay a small fee in Ghost, then the idea will be up for votes by Ghost holders. If the vote is passed and in favor of the idea, funds are taken from the Dev fund to finance the implementation of that if necessary. 

GHOST ALIAS SYSTEM 

Ghost plans on developing an Alias system into the Ghost blockchain, This will allow for easy transfers and people have customizable aliases. They plan on implementing this in a decentralized and private manner. 

GHOST SHOP

This is a Merch Shop where investors could easily buy some branded shirts and other items for themselves with the Ghost coin. 

You could also spend Ghost by using the over 60 iVendPay vending machines around Hong Kong. Ghost partnered with them as reported by JRNY Crypto. 

GHOST ESIM

The Ghost team believes that Privacy is a Human Right and as such has come with the Ghost Cell phone Data services, it offers you decentralized Cell phone data services which allows you to share data, communicate to be done without having to worry about getting traced. This is a great innovation that sets Ghost apart from other Privacy coins. Currently is supported in 35 countries and a few listed mobile devices. The platform offers you a VPN option, IP changing option (ranging between the 35 accepted counties) and also Fast Network Speed among other things. Cool right?.

Exchanges

You can buy and sell Ghost in the following exchanges:

HitBtc, STEX, UniSwap, Bilaxy, McAfeeDex, Bitcoin.com etc. 

You can Store GHOST on https://ghostwallet.io/

TEAM

The project’s CEO is John McAfee, a tech pioneer, computer programmer and a security expert. He supports privacy and believes in the Freedom of Human and their Rights and is the Founder of the McAfee Antivirus. 

The Project has a developer with 10 years experience C++, C# as the project manager. 

The Lead Dev has a PhD in Physics, also a contributor in Bitcoin and Monero. Plus a lot more awesome individuals on the team, you could check out the team page for more. 

Through this collaboration, Ghost coin can now be used in Vending machines in Hong Kong Disneyland. The partnership allows for the coin to be available in over 60 vending machines around Hong Kong including Hong Kong Disney.

Ghost coin

Ghost is a proof-of-stake privacy coin that utilizes the zero-knowledge-proof to help shield transactions and make them secret when transacting online.

The blockchain processes transactions under 120 seconds and its network validators are called Ghost Veterans, they help secure the Ghost network and earn commissions for doing so through transaction fees.

The Sense chat is built on the EOOSIO blockchain and allows users to message or initiate video calls to other individuals freely and privately with the encrypted protocol.

The chat app allows users to build communities too and has its native cryptocurrency called SENSE, the token is used to reward followers of a particular brand or influencer by the owners of those communities, they are rewarding for contributing in the community.

Akoin is a revolutionary cryptocurrency venture poised to bring meaningful social impact across Africa,” said Autumn Penaloza, Sense Chat Partnerships Manager “As avid supporters of self-sovereignty and community empowerment, Sense Chat makes a powerful, natural alignment to help Akoin engage their audience and drive adoption.

Lynn Liss, Akkoins COO and co-founder said 

We are beyond excited to partner with Sense Chat at Akoin,” said Lynn Liss, Akoin’s COO & co-founder. “Building a passionate community, including secure messaging, are critical features for social ventures such as Akoin to succeed.”

“Having a product of Sense Chat’s quality, with cutting edge activation features, available within the Akoin ecosystem will benefit our users massively. We’re looking forward to bringing this to life with the Make Sense Labs team,” she added.

JRNY Crypto had reported earlier that Akon raised a $6 billion contract for the construction of Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the city.

KEEP Token is the force behind tBTC, a trustless and open-source protocol that enables Ethereum tokens to be issued; the issued tokens represent Bitcoin (BTC) and are used to gain access to DeFi protocols. They also support autonomous containerization of user’s private data when interacting with public chains, strengthening the privacy enjoyed by DeFi users.

IMPORTANCE OF DEFI TO ANCHORAGE

Anchorage co-founder and president , Diogo Monica reportedly emphasized the importance of custodians adapting to current and emerging trends, stating that

 DeFi’s increasing complexity is beginning to expose the inadequacies of cold storage custody and manual human operation”.

The Anchorage platform was created to adapt to any blockchain use case without exposing client assets to this kind of additional risk”. He further remarked

Matt Luongo, KEEPS Chef Executive expressed his opinion regarding the collaboration between KEEP and Anchorage.

With such first-class partners as Anchorage, we are able to create the bridge that brings the vast store of Bitcoin wealth into the DeFi ecosystem.” Keep’s chief executive, Matt Luongo, reportedly shared his perspective regarding the collaboration with the custodian.

Anchorage announced it would support the Compound Governance Token ( COMP) upon launch back in April.

KEEP network token raised $7.7 million in a token sale back in April and later launched its trustless tBTC protocol later that same month.

TOKENOMICS (ACCORDING TO CMC) 

Total Supply : 262,800,000 Beam

Circulating supply : 64,509,280 Beam

M. Cap : $31B

TPS : 17

Consensus Mechanism : POW

MIMBLEWIMBLE

This is named after one of the spells used in Harry Potter, the spell stops people from spilling secrets, so basically the Mimblewimble is a protocol that allows transactions to be created without having to reveal details of the transaction like the sender, the receiver or the amount transacted. Unlike the popular Bitcoin explorer where the sender’s address, receiver’s address and amount is made public, transactions with Beam cannot be seen and traced through these protocols. The Mimblewimble protocol allows Beam transactions to be completely hidden while still proving that a transaction really did take place, these hidden essential details can only be seen by the two initiators of the transaction (sender and receiver). This protocol works like a simple mathematical trick, any transaction sent is multiplied by an Unknown large number thereby leaving third parties with nothing or a fake figure on the explorer. Trying to solve the math would be something similar to this :

?? x ?? = 923

?? x ?? = 1463

Or something like this: 11 x 57 x ?? x 17 x ??= 20, 348, 031.

Those missing figures could be anything / any figures in the world, trying to figure what two figures came together to equal that would still give you the wrong answers. It’s best to simply put, you can’t discern those figures, and the most interesting part is even a computer cant. Check out more in this medium article (https://medium.com/beam-mw/mimblewimble-explained-like-youre-12-d779a5bb483d) .

AUDITABILITY

This is a feature that allows other users (auditor) to know or gain information about a particular individual transaction. This feature is chosen by the owner of the wallet, they generate a key pair for auditing, the key generated can be given to third parties that are in position to monitor the transactions conducted from that particular wallet. The auditors could also alternatively provide owners of wallets with their own public key to add to their wallet. When transactions are conducted, they come with tags which allow these auditors to see and quickly identify transactions on that address. This feature was developed so that users of Beam can give to third parties in their countries or regions if need be for regulations, example are SEC or other regulators.

HOW BEAM COMPETES WITH TOP PRIVACY COINS : MONERO AND ZCASH

CONFIDENTIALITY

MONERO utilizes Ring signatures, ring confidential transactions and Stealth addresses to obfuscate the senders of a particular transaction, amount transacted and the receiver.

ZCASH utilizes a Zero-knowledge proof known as zk-SNARKS, with this protocol Zcash is able to hide the sender, receiver and the amount transacted. Zcash private transactions are not by default. It takes about 1-3 minutes on a PC to actually conduct a private transaction on the zk-SNARKS of Zcash.

BEAM offers confidentiality or privacy by default, this means that all transactions conducted on the Beam network are private. They achieve this by utilizing the Mimblewimble protocol which makes It possible for details of a transaction to be hidden completely.

SCALABILITY

With every adoption of Monero, its blockchain continues to grow large and possibly might reduce scalability on the network. Moneros blockchain size is 63GB, it is estimated that when Monero reaches Bitcoin scale, then its blockchain size could be up to 5 terabytes which will make it hard for regular PCs to own a full blockchain.

Zcash has a blockchain size of 26GB as at the time of writing, although better than Monero but also quite up for downloads of a full blockchain.

Beams blockchain size does not grow with the number of transactions on the blockchain, instead grows with the number of Unspent Transaction Output (UTXOs). This is achieved through the cut-through mechanism of the Mimblewimble protocol, this helps Beams blockchain remain small.

AUDITABILITY

MONERO offers you a View Key option, through this feature; third parties are able to monitor incoming transactions.

ZCASH offers you a View Key option just like Monero, the feature allows other external users to track transactions on the blockchain.

BEAM allows users to create different amounts of Auditor keys and these keys can be given to any third party of their choice for auditing.

 BEAM HARD FORK

Beam plans to execute a second Hard fork which will help upgrade the network, this will occur at Block 777, 777 and is expected to hit on the 28^th of June, 2020.

This upgrade will shift the BeamHash II POW to BeamHash III, this upgrade will come with a lot of features on the blockchain like Activating support for confidential assets, activate support for Lelantus mimblewimble, and also support for one sided payment. The only requirements for users are to upgrade their software to the latest version. There will be a compatible release of node, wallet and miner which will be versioned as Eager Electron 5.0. Outside of that, users do not have to do any other task, the upgrade will happen automatically once it hits the Block 777, 777 and no funds will be affected during this process. Wallets are asked to be upgraded to the latest version of 5.0, and any wallet below that version will not be accessible after the Fork except updated. Miners are asked to update their wallets and mining softwares prior to the Hard Fork, after this they are to sit back and keep on hashing as described in the blog.

AFTER THE FORK

Here are lists of some of the things that will happen after the Hard Fork;

Web Wallet and Wallet Service API : This will help bring Beam to every browser and to be integrated into third parties’ wallets easily and without affecting privacy too.

Confidential Assets : This feature allows users to create and transact new kinds of token on the blockchain. All created tokens will share the same feature as Beam.

Wallet Auditability : This allows institutions or individual businesses to report their transactions easily to any third party of their choice.

Bridges to Ethereum :  This will allow users to create a Beam representation of erc-20 tokens and would probably have the same market value depending on the market..

Versatility : Beams blockchain allows for different implementation of transaction types , this includes : Atomic Swaps, escrow and time-locked transactions.

You can see more here (https://medium.com/@BeamFoundation/beam-foundation-presents-roadmap-update-q1-2020-161106894cf5) .

Other Concepts of Beam

BEAM FOUNDATION : A non-profit organization with the sole aim of promoting the development and growth of Beam cryptocurrency.

Beams smallest unit is called Groth, it is named as a tribute to one of those who helped lay the groundwork for Zero-knowledge proofs.

Beam Emission : Beam is designed to be released and split between 2 bodies within the first 5 years, this is the Miner Rewards and the Treasury. During the first 5 years, miners get 80 coins per block, this will be reduced to 40 in 2-5 years and then finally in the 6^th year, it will be 25 coins per block.

For the Treasury, 20 Beams are released (emitted) to it, and it will get reduced to 10 coins in 2-5 years. The Treasury is used to repay Beam investors (early investors that helped the project stand), the Core team and help support the Beam Foundation.

The treasury rewards are distributed on a monthly basis, below is a chart showing the % distributed each month and to which arm.

Exchanges 

Beam is listed on a good number of Exchanges, you can grab some here

*Binance 

*Bitforex

*Hotbit

*Houbi Korea

Etc

Beams Team

The Beam Foundation has a lot of solid individuals on the team ranging from Board members, Core team to advisors. 

CEO Alexander Zaidelson is the Founder of Nareos, a P2P File Sharing company,he is also the founder of Wikitup which was acquired by iMesh. Alexander has served as VP Product at WeFi and served as Principal at CIRTech VC. 

CTO Alex Romanov has strong technical background and managerial skills, he leads the R&D team at Beam. He has also worked on many complex projects with a large distributed team. See more Beam teams here (https://beam.mw/team#team )

The first developer to receive the grant is Chris Belcher, a UK based developer who recently issued a proposal for the adoption of CoinSwap, a privacy protocol developed in 2013 by Maxwell Greg. But since Greg’s ideas were too technical for implementation it was left without testing, Belcher’s proposal however uses the same Smart Contract trick that is utilized in Bitcoin lightning network. 

The HRF funds will be focused on “Privacy” among other blockchain goals.

Alex Gladstein, Chief strategy Officer for HRF said. 

“Broadly speaking, the long-term goal is to help meaningfully improve the privacy and resilience and decentralization of the protocol while also inspiring more nonprofits to get involved with Bitcoin development,” he said.

Donator 

HRF says the funds were donated by an anonymous donor whose interest was to see financial support for open source development and particularly so it could be more safer and private for Human Rights activists, political dissidents and those who may be interested in Privacy. 

Gladstein stated that another portion of the donation was allocated to another developer which will be announced later on. 

He also stated that anyone who cares to donate can do so in BTC or USD on the Foundations own BTCPay server payment portal. 

Developers can submit Bitcoin related proposals, these proposals will be reviewed by a small team that have been set up by the HRF. 

Over time, Bitcoin developers have often worked for free because of their passion for blockchain privacy, now empowered with these funds we might see a lot of developers come up with different ideas on how to make Bitcoin transactions more Private. 

The Latin American partnerships helped Dash grow as a payment option within these regions. During this period of time the number of active wallets installed on mobile devices amounted to 101,747 which is a 214% increase from the previous year and a 21% increase compared to the previous quarter. 

Dash also grew in number of daily commercial payments usage by 104% compared to previous years. This growth was made possible through several partnerships Dash has built in Latin America, especially in Venezuela and Brazil. 

In Brazil alone, about 2.5 million merchants are able to accept Dash as a payment option and also citizens can choose to pay for goods and service with it. This is made possible by ATAR Pay, a payment platform. 

Dash is partnered with Burger King located in Venezuela, in addition to that, other merchants can choose to accept Dash due to the partnership with the local advocacy programs and integration with Mega Soft Point-of-Sales (POS) terminal. 

Price Action

As could be expected, Dash price grew and showed some positive price performance during this period of time. It had made the list of top assets that performed well in terms of price because it had shown a 60% increase in price. 

Fernando Gutierrez, Chief Marketing Office for Dash Cute group said. 

“Users spend more when the price is going up because they become wealthier and because they feel they got a better deal. Price performance probably added more than a few transactions to the general long term Trend in a day to day usage”.