Crypto Project Decred Adds Privacy Features to Its Coin

On Aug. 28, cryptocurrency project Decred announced that it is adding a few new privacy-focused features to its cryptocurrency DCR.

According to Decred’s official blog, the goal of these new features is to be “simple, adaptable, and creative.” The post explains:

“Decred has implemented a variant of CoinShuffle++ in its wallet. Although it is possible to perform this process in an entirely peer-to-peer (“P2P”) fashion, that overlooks constraints that come from routing over the public internet, so we have created both a server, csppserver, and integrated the client into dcrwallet. [...] It is expected that roughly 12.5% of all decred in circulation will make use of privacy within a few months.”

More privacy, less coding

Jake Yocom-Piatt, co-founder and project lead at Decred, explained that his team has been working quietly to add these privacy features to the coin since 2017, and that they comprise only a few hundred lines of code, compared to thousands or tens of thousands for other privacy-focused projects.

Per the announcement, Decred is “built on the tenets of blockchain security, built-in governance, and a self-funding block reward that makes it a superior store of value.” Yocom-Piatt added:

“With these foundations in place, we are keen to build out privacy features that will enhance security for our users.”

Decred wants to offer the right amount of privacy

Decred is an open-source blockchain-based cryptocurrency that was created by several crypto-enthusiasts claiming that Bitcoin’s decision-making was getting more and more centralized due to the existence of mining pools. 

At press time, DCR is trading at around $22.5 and has a market capitalization of $252 million, according to Coin360.

As Cointelegraph reported on July 19, privacy-focused digital currency Zcash (ZEC) has forked into a new blockchain network dubbed Ycash, whose total supply amounts to 21 million coins.