what is the plan about anonymity with NEM?
Several times I have come across the argument, which seems to make sense, that lack of anonymity of a coin endangers its fungibility, eg: http://www.cointersect.com/blog/2015/3/23/fungibility-and-the-need-for-truly-anonymous-currencies
i would like to see anonymity built into nem but not until its as big or bigger than bitcoin… once there are much larger vested interests, it becomes much more difficult for authorities to stamp it out. so i agree it should be an option in nem but just not yet imo.
I've already said it few times, it's interesting from technologic PoV and would definitelly be interesting for the devs to implement, but that's not what we want for NEM.
So if there will be any anonymity , it will be a service, and you will have to trust owners of that service. As of now there are no plans to have anonymity features inside the blockchain.
If you sent your coins to an exchange and then to another address… Is that not already "mixed" then?
Thanks gimre for joining the discussion. Can you tell me more about why this is not what is wanted for NEM?
The lack of anonymity hampering fungibility seems quite a strong and good argument in favour of adding anonymity, isn't it?
I also find it strange to have a blockchain technology (whose key advantage is that is does not need trust) require trust to have anonymity.
I'm genuinely interested to learn more about this, and hope you can take the time to explain more!
If you sent your coins to an exchange and then to another address... Is that not already "mixed" then?
The exchange clearly can track the coins in that case.
(which for US users results in no privacy at all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine)
The exchange clearly can track the coins in that case.
(which for US users results in no privacy at all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine)
Right, so you would need to create another account (through a non-logging VPN) sell the XEM to the second account and then move it somewhere else. Could that work?
The exchange clearly can track the coins in that case.
(which for US users results in no privacy at all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine)
Right, so you would need to create another account (through a non-logging VPN) sell the XEM to the second account and then move it somewhere else. Could that work?
All the transfers are available for anyone to analyse, and in your scenario just looking at the amounts transfered would already tell a lot. But even if you build a more complex scenario, computer programs can analyse the blockchain and link your different accounts. There are even services that do it for the bitcoin blockchain: https://bitiodine.net/ announces they can track transfer between account clusters, and http://coinalytics.co/ is another similar service.
Thanks gimre for joining the discussion. Can you tell me more about why this is not what is wanted for NEM?
The lack of anonymity hampering fungibility seems quite a strong and good argument in favour of adding anonymity, isn't it?
I also find it strange to have a blockchain technology (whose key advantage is that is does not need trust) require trust to have anonymity.
I'm genuinely interested to learn more about this, and hope you can take the time to explain more!
This is a very good point.
I'd like to also reiterate that i think the vast majority of crypto users prioritize anonymity over anything else with good reason.
From my perspective, Cryptocurrency was a rebellion against the current financial system and regulations - unfortunately this also means crossing over the legal line in many circumstances (And why Bitcoin become such a success due to it's black market trade propping up the price)
Truth be told, in the event there is a monetary/financial crisis, those who bend over backwards to remain legal will get shafted the worst -- I'm immediately reminded of this image:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a1/Executive_Order_6102.jpg/640px-Executive_Order_6102.jpg
(Essentially, when people lost faith in Government issued money and had the foresight to store wealth in gold, Even then the government came after them.)
What i'm saying is; Crypto's are never going to be friends with governments or banks and focusing too much on compliance will be it's undoing, because laws will often never be made in Crypto's interests, just those in power. The current financial system puts them in a position of authority of which cryptocurrencies by their very nature challenge -- they will NOT give this up.
This will especially hold true if shit hits the fan. Just as history has proven time and time again (hence that image). Just replace/add crypto's to that executive order and you'll see my point, and then you'll wish you had a anon currency.
There isn't actually a very good answer for anon right now. Either your paying a lot, or you can be tracked by the NSA, or you are using a chain that might have weaknesses. A truly really good anon feature hasn't been made and I'm not sure in the near term it will be.
Masternodes or ring signatures have their weaknesses and problems, and zerocoin hasn't really been implemented. There is a darkwallet https://www.darkwallet.is/ and it is in its alpha trial phase. It is also open source https://github.com/darkwallet/darkwallet Dark wallets are really a good solution for anon has they won't have the security risks as some of the other in chain anon cryptos.
Still Darkwallet is not perfect either. From what I understand it is kind of like a mixing service and its strength lies in many people using it. Darkwallet will use coinjoin tech.
Our NCC is open-source, so in the future if the dark wallet turns out to be successful, a person can use its model and build a wallet for NEM. That would be at no expense to NIS. If somebody made a wallet like that, I would use it as the default option and a lot of people probably would too. Its not that I have to have anon, but if it is there and isn't costing me more or only a very little bit more, then yeah, why not? A little extra privacy is always nice. If a couple of big exchanges implemented a dark NEM wallet, then that's all it would take to have a reasonable anon solution for NEM.
But generally other than a dark wallet solution, or maybe someday something like a side-chain solution, I don't think we should be pursuing anon in the core. Lots of other very interesting things to be working on.
thanks for your input jabo38s, I'll dive deeper in the technologies you mention. If you have good links describing problem with current solution could you share them?
I don't have enough tech knowledge on masternodes or ring signatures to tell you the exact problem or have good links. It's just what I've heard around on BTT.
There are two people to watch when it comes to anon crypto. One is a crazy guy who use to go by th name anonymint, but I'm not sure what his name is now but his real name is Preston. He has a very unique writing style that can't be missed. The other is Greg Maxwell. Maxwell is a famous Bitcoin dev. They both love anon. When one of them approves of a code, then we are closer to a decent anon solution. When they both agree, that is the real deal. (They don't like each other)
Until then it's all hype and half measures in my opinion.
I will say though that coinjoin has been reviewed by academics and the theory proves solid. There just isn't any good implementation of it in a wallet (except the dark wallet beta). It is however the tech that some mixing services use but for high fees.
I don't have enough tech knowledge on masternodes or ring signatures to tell you the exact problem or have good links. It's just what I've heard around on BTT.
There are two people to watch when it comes to anon crypto. One is a crazy guy who use to go by th name anonymint, but I'm not sure what his name is now but his real name is Preston. He has a very unique writing style that can't be missed. The other is Greg Maxwell. Maxwell is a famous Bitcoin dev. They both love anon. When one of them approves of a code, then we are closer to a decent anon solution. When they both agree, that is the real deal. (They don't like each other)
Until then it's all hype and half measures in my opinion.
You should check out BTCD's teleport for anon transactions.