The community behind the privacy-centric bitcoin app Wasabi Wallet recently brought together 100 people to collectively execute a “CoinJoin” transaction on bitcoin in what might be the biggest event of its kind. Some context: bitcoin itself is far from private,…
Tag: Privacy
Tor Makes Launching Bitcoin Lightning Nodes Easier for Users, Casa Finds
The privacy-minded network Tor helps users to leapfrog one of the trickier aspects of setting up a bitcoin and lightning node, according to bitcoin startup Casa. Casa CTO Jameson Lopp addressed this point during a talk at CoinDesk’s Consensus 2019…
Bolt Labs Raises $1.5 Million Seed Round to Boost Lightning Privacy
Academic researcher Dr. Ayo Akinyele is working on a cryptographic solution to boost privacy across second-layer blockchain solutions like the lightning network for bitcoin. Akinyele just announced the formation of Bolt Labs, named after the BOLT protocol that aims to…
The Crypto-Surveillance Capitalism Connection
Michael J. Casey is the chairman of CoinDesk’s advisory board and a senior advisor for blockchain research at MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative. The following article originally appeared in CoinDesk Weekly, a custom-curated newsletter delivered every Sunday exclusively to our subscribers. ___________…
2018: When Privacy and Decentralization Collided
Guy Zyskind is the CEO and co-founder of Enigma, a secure computation protocol that integrates with blockchains. The following is an exclusive contribution to CoinDesk’s 2018 Year in Review. In 2018, two major long-term trends finally collided in a very public…
ING Bank Launches Zero-Knowledge Tech for Blockchain Privacy
ING Bank is continuing further down the path of advanced blockchain privacy with the release of its Zero-Knowledge Set Membership (ZKSM) solution, announced this week at the Sibos banking conference. The Netherlands-based lender had already received plaudits for adapting classical zero-knowledge…
A Small Crypto Coin Is Making Big Claims About a Private Proof-of-Stake
If any coin is going to fly under the radar, it makes sense for a privacy coin to do so. Spectre (not be confused with a separate project called SPECTRE), created two crypto tokens – the aptly named spectre token and…
Privacy Is Vital to Crypto – And the Global Economy
Michael J. Casey is the chairman of CoinDesk’s advisory board and a senior advisor for blockchain research at MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative. The following article originally appeared in CoinDesk Weekly, a custom-curated newsletter delivered every Sunday exclusively to our subscribers. Imagine…
Will Lightning Help or Hurt Bitcoin Privacy?
Faster, cheaper bitcoin transactions? Check. But at what cost? For bitcoin users, many of whom were drawn to cryptocurrency for its promise of financial sovereignty, bitcoin is still synonymous with privacy. But the gap between the vision and the reality,…