Zerocoin

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Zerocoin

The Zerocoin logo

Zerocoin was a proposed anonymity extension to Bitcoin, and in November 2013[1] was announced as a planned stand-alone anonymous cryptocurrency that would be provably anonymous.[2] Developers plan to employ cryptographic accumulators and digital commitments with zero-knowledge proofs to eliminate trackable linkage in a block chain, which would make the currency anonymous and untraceable.[3][4][5]

As an extension to the Bitcoin protocol, the proposed add–on functioned like a money laundering pool, temporarily pooling Bitcoins together in exchange for a temporary currency called Zerocoins.[6] While the laundering pool is an established concept already utilized by several currency laundering services, Zerocoin anonymized the exchanges to and from the pool using cryptographic principles, and as a proposed extension to the Bitcoin protocol, would record the transactions alongside Bitcoin's existing block chain.[6] One criticism of the extension was the added computation time required by the process, which would need to be performed primarily by Bitcoin miners.[6]

Zerocoin was originally proposed as an add-on to Bitcoin.[7] On 16 November 2013[1], however, Zerocoin developer Matthew Green announced that it would be released as an independent cryptocurrency, going into circulation in May “in some sort of beta program”.[2] The move to an independent currency was inspired by the success (albeit modest) of Dogecoin; Green reasoned that “if people will put money into Dogecoin, they'll put it into anything”.[2]

According the Zerocoin's website, its developers include Ian Miers, Christina Garman, Matthew Green, and Aviel Rubin.[8]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "We designed a new version of Zerocoin that reduces proof sizes by 98% and allows for direct anonymous payments that hide payment amount.". Retrieved 2 February 2014. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Greenberg, Andy (13 January 2014). "Bitcoin Anonymity Upgrade Zerocoin To Become An Independent Cryptocurrency". Forbes. Retrieved 2014-01-30. 
  3. ↑ "A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering: Zerocoin: making Bitcoin anonymous". Archived from the original on 2013-04-29. . Blog.cryptographyengineering.com (11 April 2013). Retrieved on 20 April 2013.
  4. ↑ Greenberg, Andy (12 April 2013). "'Zerocoin' add-on for Bitcoin could make it truly anonymous and untraceable". Forbes. Retrieved 31 January 2014. 
  5. ↑ Knight, Michael (23 April 2013). "This is huge: gold 2.0 - can code and competition build a better Bitcoin?". New Bitcoin World. Retrieved 31 January 2014. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Peck, Morgan E. (24 October 2013). "Who’s who in Bitcoin: Zerocoin hero Matthew Green". IEEE Spectrum (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). Retrieved 31 January 2014. 
  7. ↑ Miers, Ian; Garman, Christina; Green, Matthew; Rubin, Aviel D. "Zerocoin: Anonymous Distributed E-Cash from Bitcoin" (PDF). 2013 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. Berkeley, CA, USA. pp. 397–411. doi:10.1109/SP.2013.34. 
  8. ↑ "Authors". Zerocoin.org. Retrieved 31 January 2014. 

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