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Neutrino Wants To Be The SSL Of Crypto-Currency

4 minute read

Posted by: Greg Miller August 28, 2014

The privacy of crypto-currencies has been a hot issue for the budding industry. It isn’t just libertarians and deep web dealers that are worried about crypto-currency. Crypto-currency, such as Bitcoin, provides much less anonymity than even your bank account, because of the publicly visible blockchain. While, many have been trying to solve this problem (and failing), people have overlooked a simple and well tested method for greater anonymity, Tor!

Neutrino runs solely through Tor, by default. While discussions about implementing Tor have been happening in Bitcoin and Darkcoin circles we have not seen anything manifest yet. The main focus when it comes to crypto-currency anonymity has been on transactions. While transactions can give a lot info about users, the technology for transaction isolation or mixing is new and has not been tested throughly. Having a IP tied to a transaction can be very revealing about who that person is. Without a IP, knowing the transactions becomes much less valuable and they already have a tried and tested solution, Tor. Running Neutrino’s network through a hidden service will greatly improve the anonymity.

Neutrino is ran through Tor by default, which means it is in the background and the user doesn’t have to think about it at all. This allows more users who are worried about their privacy but may not have the skills to run Bitcoin through Tor independently, to use the currency without worry. This also, gives greater confidence throughout the whole network.

For example, a investigator is investigating a transaction between #1 and #2. He knows the IP of #2, who forgot to turn Tor on in a currency where it is optional. He does not know who #1 is though. The investigator can track down #2. He does track #2 and threatens him with jail time if he doesn’t give up who #1 is. #2 succumbs to the pressure and gives up #1. The investigator now knows who #1 is and can go kidnap him (put him in jail). Whether that #2 was ignorant, dumb, or malicious, that doesn’t matter, if the Neutrino network had Tor optional, this could lead to the possible de-anonymization of both parties. If the network only runs through Tor and default you don’t have to worry about such a situation unfolding. Neutrino is giving the same peace of mind that SSL does for web users.

Technology And Details

  • Fork of Litecoin 0.8.6
  • Inflationary
  • Open Source
  • Total Amount Of Coins 210,000,000 NTR + 1.1% annually
  • Current Block Reward Is 10.978 (1.1% Annual Supply Growth)
  • Hashing Algorithm Is Scrypt Proof-of-Work
  • Target Block Time Is 2.5 Minutes
  • Difficulty Retarget Is Every 12 Blocks (30 Minute Target)

The team is made of John Reitano (CEO), Adam King (COO), John Taylor (founding member), and Emil Burzo (developer). Other than names, positions and pictures nothing else is given about their role in the project or their expertises.

Mundane But Doing it Right

Though the Neutrino’s implementation of Tor might be mundane and not exciting as Darkcoin’s Darksend, but it is needed and no one has step up to the plate. Unlike many of Darkcoin’s technologies, this one works. Neutrino has already announced that they are implementing Mixcoin to offer transaction anonymity.

Mixcoin is a brand new crypto-currency that is not even able to mine or buy yet. The coin claims to be the first Satoshi implementation of CryptoNote. Very little details are given on the website, as it is brand new, but I assume they are going to fork from Bitcoin and add the transaction scrambling features from CryptoNote.

CryptoNote is a crypto-currency protocol that was made as a starting point for other currencies to be based from. It uses absolutely no code from Bitcoin and is not a fork of Bitcoin. It is a truly original, unlike many Bitcoin clones. When building CryptoNote they added in many anonymity features, such as ring signatures and unlinkable transactions. It is unclear if transaction anonymity will be default and forced onto to every user or if it will be optional, in the Neutrino network. It is also, unclear if the implementation of CryptoNote in Neutrino would change other elements of Neutrino. We will update you as the information becomes available.

The Market Is Loving Neutrino

Neutrino only started a few months ago, on March 31st but it has already taken off, making itself a clear competitor. At the time of writing of this article, Neutrino has a $ 2,147,665 market capitalization and one Neutrino is worth one US penny. The value of each Neutrino is low because of the high number of Neutrino calculating. The current number of Neutrinos is 210,545,045 NTR and will increase by 1.1% each year

The price right now is currently much lower than historical highs but it slowly gaining more and more in market capitalization. Recently, it got into 15th place on Coinmarketcap.com’s list of crypto-currencies, before moving back to 20th . As a result of the very large supply of Neutrinos you will see less fluctuation in the price, where coins with a small amount of coins will have greater volatility. Now, this might be good for that coffee shop that wants to accept Neutrino at a stable price but this makes trading the currency less profitable and less attractive to investors. Despite this, I think the price will increase greatly when and if, they successfully implement a version of CryptoNote. That will make them the first coin to cover all transaction and IP anonymity.

Website, Source Code, White Paper, And Wallet

Updated: 2014-08-28

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