Blockchain-Free CloudCoin Claims Secure Email-to-Email Transactions

Published at: July 15, 2020

CloudCoin announced the launch of its cloud-based digital currency on July 15. With no blockchain, public ledger, accounts or encryption, CloudCoin claims it is the most private digital currency ever created.

It uses technology adapted from the internet’s Domain Name Service, or DNS, to enable secure email-to-email or email-to-wallet transactions. CloudCoin says that it eliminates systemic risk of theft by not requiring private keys which can be stolen, and that lost CloudCoins can even be recovered.

Not Bitcoin, not blockchain

Since the release of the Bitcoin white paper back in 2008, cryptocurrencies have been inextricably linked with the blockchain technology that underpins them. But what if a currency was secured with a technology other than blockchain? Would it even still be classed as a cryptocurrency?

CloudCoin set out to address some of the issues that come with blockchain-based digital currencies. President of the CloudCoin Consortium, Sean Worthington, explained:

“Cryptocurrencies built on blockchains come with a host of challenges, making it difficult to do simple things like buy a cup of coffee. Transactions take too long, fees are too high and it is still too difficult to scale. We developed CloudCoin to overcome these challenges and pave the way for mass adoption.”

Low energy consumption means free transactions

The global Domain Name System services billions of users, is scalable, and has not been brought down since it went live in 1985.

CloudCoin’s Redundant Array of Independent Detection Agents, or RAIDA, is based on this technology and is currently distributed across 25 national jurisdictions. The cloud-based network uses so little power that these transactions can be made with zero gas fees.

Plus, even if governments or hackers try to take the RAIDA down, the currency supposedly can’t be double-spent, hacked or spied upon. RAIDA knows nothing about who owns the coins, as its purpose is simply to authenticate. All of the information about the coins is held directly in the coins themselves.

Cash-like qualities, but digital

Each CloudCoin is a file, consisting of a serial number and authentication data. The authentication data is shredded, rather than encrypted, and distributed across the RAIDA. This method is claimed to be quantum-secure.

Much like cash, the owner of the file has the authentication data and can control the coin. When ownership is transferred, the new owner changes this data to ensure exclusive ongoing access.

Transfer speeds depend on the number of coins that need to be authenticated, but the RAIDA can routinely secure transactions of 100,000 CloudCoins in under 3.5 seconds.

Because CloudCoins are file-based, they can be transferred via the free encrypted email service, ProtonMail, or with a Sky Wallet. ProtonMail also lets users pay for its premium services with Bitcoin (BTC), although as Cointelegraph reported, it hasn’t cashed any out to fiat in years.

Of course, being file-based, CloudCoin can’t be subdivided or split, and comes in set denominations of one, five, 25, 100 and 250 CloudCoin units. The currency is not inflationary and the total number of coins in the cloud never changes from 16,777,216, which is fixed by the length of the serial number in bytes.

To avoid a rash of copycat coins springing up, CloudCoin has also patented its “Method of Authenticating and Exchanging Virtual Currencies,” making it what is claimed to be the world’s first patented currency.

Tags
Technology
Digital Currency
Security
Dns
Related Posts
XRP purchasers back Ripple, arguing that it is not a security
On Dec. 22, 2020, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint against Ripple Labs. The complaint essentially alleged that Ripple had engaged in a multi-year, sustained practice of illegally selling unregistered, non-exempt securities in the form of its XRP tokens. This complaint, having been filed on the last day of former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton’s tenure at the commission, led to a considerable volume of public commentary, as is not unusual for SEC litigation against major players in the crypto space. What is unusual about SEC versus Ripple is the reaction from a sizable segment of XRP …
Technology / March 21, 2021
yEarn Creator Says Recent Audits Don't Necessarily Mean the Project Is 100% Safe
Andre Cronje, the creator of Yearn.Finance, has recently made security audits of his project publicly available. He explained to Cointelegraph that he had been previously withholding these audits, which were completed months ago, so as to not give users a false sense of security: I always refused to publish the audits because I don't want people to get a false sense of security because of them. Yesterday, Cronje published five audits on the project's GitHub repository. The audits were performed between February and July by leading auditors, such as Certik and Quantstamp. Some of the vulnerabilities that were discovered are …
Technology / Aug. 20, 2020
Bank of Thailand Progresses With Digital Baht Tests Before Public Launch
Thailand’s central bank has reportedly entered a new phase in the development of its central bank digital currency, or CBDC. The Bank of Thailand, or BOT, has reportedly deployed its CBDC, and has been using the digital currency for financial transactions with some large businesses, local English-language newspaper The Nation reports July 16. Thailand to roll out CBDC testing with the Hong Kong’s central bank in September The bank has entered the third phase in development of the digital baht and plans to expand to more businesses, BOT assistant governor, Vachira Arromdee, reportedly announced on Wednesday. According to the report, …
Technology / July 16, 2020
Baseline Developers Propose DTL-Based Coronavirus Contact Tracing
Developers working on Baseline, an enterprise smart contract and tokenization platform developed by Microsoft, Ernst & Young, and ConsenSys, are working to solve several flaws identified with Apple and Google’s proposal for coronavirus tracking initiatives. Google and Apple propose a contact tracing solution that would add cross-platform APIs that allow health authorities to monitor users. Both brands have discussed rolling out related software updates next month. The plan suggests using a phone’s Bluetooth Low Energy to detect other devices within 30 feet of each other. This would allow infected individuals to be identified through proximity detection. For people who come …
Technology / April 17, 2020
Coinbase discloses recent cyberattack targeting employees
Crypto exchange Coinbase experienced a cybersecurity attack targeting its employees on Feb. 5. The attack came through SMS scams and involved impersonations of IT staff, according to a recent report from the company's engineering team. No customers' funds or information were impacted, the firm said. As per the report, on a late Sunday several Coinbase employees received SMS messages requiring them to urgently log in via the link provided to access an important message. Acting in a good faith, one employee followed the exploiter' instructions: "While the majority ignore this unprompted message - one employee, believing that it’s an important …
Technology / Feb. 22, 2023