John McAfee’s anonymity-oriented Ghost project has largely plagiarized its whitepaper, according to developers of privacy coin PIVX. “After a detailed investigation, it is obvious the GHOST whitepaper was plagiarized extensively from an outdated 2018 PIVX whitepaper,” PIVX tweeted on May 17. PIVX developers went on to conclude that “at least 20 of the 26 total pages” of the Ghost whitepaper “contain material directly plagiarized from the 2018 PIVX whitepaper,” attaching a number of screenshots to back their claims. “PIVX is a MIT licensed, open-source project,” a representative for the blockchain told Cointelegraph, arguing that it can be forked “as long …

The first blockchain was launched more than 10 years ago and since then, it has evolved from simply being a backbone for Bitcoin (BTC) to a global technological phenomenon. In some sense, the distributed ledger became more popular than Bitcoin itself. Even the harshest cryptocurrency critics — like the government of China and JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon — recognize blockchain technology’s potential, while corporations as large as Microsoft and Accenture have adopted it to their needs. However, there is another view of blockchain technology. One that is based on the assumption that the technology has stalled in certain areas it …

Privacy-focused altcoin, Beam (BEAM), will soon execute its second hard fork. This fork will upgrade its Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm and activate new network features. According to an April 22 blog post, Beam’s second fork will occur at block 777,777, shifting the network’s PoW algorithm from BeamHash II to BeamHash III. The new PoW algorithm is expected to be a major improvement to the Beam mining network, and will enable fuller GPU card capabilities. Additionally, the firm said that the hard fork is designed to unlock some new features like confidential assets, one-sided payments, and the support of privacy protocol, Lelantus …

The developers behind major payment-focused cryptocurrency Dash (DASH) announced that they expect to update the project’s “Evonet” test network every roughly six weeks. According to an April 17 announcement, the Dash Core Group plans to release the first update that follows the new schedule between April 22 and May 5. The Dash Core Group expects that frequent updates will allow feedback on whether the design choices are appreciated. As a consequence, the developers will be able to change design direction quickly if feedback reveals that it is necessary. The announcement explains: “Frequent software releases are encouraged as a way of …

A kind of ransomware — a malware that encrypts user data and asks for a ransom to restore access to it — switched from Bitcoin (BTC) to Monero (XMR) to better protect the hackers’ identities. According to an April 11 report by cybersecurity news outlet BleepingComputer, using Monero will make it harder for law enforcement to track ransom payments to the hackers behind Sodinokibi. As the article mentions, Europol strategy analyst Jerek Jakubcek explained during a February webinar how anoncoins influence legal investigations: “Since the suspect used a combination of TOR and privacy coins, we could not trace the funds. …

Opera now enables users to access decentralized web pages through a partnership with Unstoppable Domains, a tech firm backed by prominent Bitcoin (BTC) advocate Tim Draper. The collaboration entails Opera’s integration of Unstoppable Domain’s .crypto domain extension, according to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph on March 26. This will allow the browser’s users to surf decentralized websites, as well as make cryptocurrency payments. No more middleman As the announcement further explains, blockchain domains are stored by the owner instead of by registrar firms, and decentralized websites are stored on peer-to-peer networks, not cloud services. This makes it possible to conduct …

Cryptocurrency and ransomware have had a long history together. They are so closely intertwined, in fact, that many have blamed the rise of cryptocurrency for a parallel rise in ransomware attacks. Ransomware attacks are certainly increasing — they rose by 118% in 2018 — but it’s not clear that this is due to cryptocurrency. While the vast majority of ransoms are paid in crypto, the transparent nature of these currencies actually means that they are a pretty bad place to hide stolen funds. In this article, we’ll take a look at the relationship between cryptocurrency and ransomware, as well as …

At the end of January, a poll apparently confirmed community support for a new mining reward-distribution structure for the Zcash (ZEC) network, whereby more will flow into the developer fund. Still, the decision proved to be rather controversial. Electric Coin Company, the firm behind Zcash, announced in a Jan. 2 blog post that a community poll on the Zcash Improvement Proposal 1014 — referred to as ZIP 1014 — showed a consensus for implementing a 20% fee on mining rewards. The results showed that 77 people, or 87.5% of all votes, were in favor of the implementation, while just 11 …

A new coin is hoping to provide stiff competition to rivals such as Monero and Zcash by delivering “the first fully private hybrid chain with staking.” DAPS, which stands for Decentralized Anonymous Payment System, says it has developed ground-breaking technology that properly addresses the issues seen in other privacy coins, resulting in a truly trustless setup. A trustless setup occurs when a user can create a wallet or node without any exchange of information with another user or node. Some privacy coins require you to “trust” the setup information given to you — and trust that the giver of that …

Cryptocurrencies could not exist without cryptography. Advances in this field can have far-reaching impacts on blockchain technology and its potential. We will examine the opinions of industry experts on the latest cryptographic advances and their potential for cryptocurrencies. Zero knowledge proofs: more than just privacy Director of research at blockchain firm Blockstream and mathematician Andrew Poelstra told Cointelegraph that zero-knowledge proof (ZK-Proof) systems are “one of the most exciting areas of development” in the cryptography space. This kind of cryptography is known and appreciated for being the basis of privacy-preserving solutions. ZK-Proofs are the basis of the privacy-preserving technology included …

A major global company that helps fight illicit cryptocurrency-related activity does not think that privacy in crypto markets is necessarily bad. Despite representing one of the primary sources of crypto transaction data for federal agencies like the Internal Revenue Service and the FBI, Chainalysis does not exactly oppose the privacy and decentralization of crypto. “Complete transparency is not necessarily an ideal place” Jonathan Levin, co-founder and CSO at blockchain and crypto analytics firm Chainalysis, reiterated his stance to privacy in crypto, claiming that full transparency of cryptocurrency transactions might not turn out to be the best situation. Speaking in an …

On Feb. 1, part of the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain became anonymous. This is all thanks to the Aztec protocol that Thomas Walton-Pock and his team launched on the network’s mainnet last week. Aztec is designed not only to provide a high level of privacy on the ETH blockchain but also, according to its creators, it can significantly reduce transaction costs. Besides, as expected in the nearest time, users will be able to release their assets using the Aztec development toolkit. Under the hood The Aztec protocol is already known in the Ethereum community with the ETH blockchain previously used to …