2020 is the year that will go down in infamy.
The year was absolutely insane one event after the other.
2021 already has begun with crazy news
such as politics going mad, the social media crisis with Twitter,
leading the way by restricting freedom of speech,
and, of course, the Parler hack, which has let anyone grab all of Parler's data.
We knew it was coming, but what's next?
The IMF, or the International Monetary Fund, says they would like to see a great reset in the world.
This reset includes a lot of scary things, but to me, the scariest is the total loss of privacy.
Today, we're going to talk about one of the tools we can use to stave off a privacy execution
and how it could benefit your portfolio.
Let's get it!
BitSwap is the hottest new way to trade tokens.
Crawling all the top decentralized exchanges,
BitSwap gets you the very best price and value for your trades.
BitSwap is changing the game.
Try it now at bitswapdex.io.
Welcome to BitBoy Crypto! The largest crypto channel in all of the Interwebs.
My name is Ben.
Everyday on this channel, I show you how to make money in cryptocurrency.
If you like money and crypto, make sure to hit that subscribe button.
Also, smash up the likes for us.
This lets YouTube know you're going down the privacy rabbit hole
and know that the future is anonymous.
Let's get rolling.
Privacy concerns have been there since day one.
Big Tech has been siphoning off our data and selling it to their third party partners
much of the time, forming a web of information about us.
We aren't even just talking about enterprises.
This is a problem of major scale.
Speaking of retail customers,
most people simply don't take their privacy seriously.
Let me be just straight up honest about it.
You use a service. Let's say a social media platform like Facebook, Instagram or Telegram.
You send files, talk to friends and engage with other people.
All this is essentially data,
which is then being used to create statistics, which are then used for various cases.
The platform is free to use as the company benefits from your data.
You are the product.
They collect it and sell it to third parties, many times cycling your data amongst each other.
You assume that it is safe for your identity.
Well, it ain't.
This space is highly unregulated.
Unless something shady gets exposed,
which happens rarely,
you simply don't know what's going on behind the curtains.
Even if a data leak does happen,
no one seems to care and it's gone from the news cycle in a short period of time.
And here's the thing I try to drive home with the BitSquad over and over again.
Remember these words.
What is legal today may be illegal tomorrow.
And we see that while the law isn't necessarily always retroactive,
we know that the cancel culture is.
This data isn't always used to protect you.
Look at what happened recently with the madness at the Capitol.
Just being in Washington DC on the day of the riots was enough to get you reported to the FBI.
If we want to solve this problem,
we've got to start from the beginning, the foundation.
You see, the evil lays in the roots.
And it's not just about regulations.
It has to do with the tech base.
If there will be something which is transparent,
traceable,
and perfect for tracking records to know where our data was going,
we wouldn't have to worry about shady activities by these big tech companies.
If only there was a magical tech.
Oh, wait.
There is.
It's called blockchain.
But, BitBoy, what about privacy?
Well, folks, blockchain is a foundation which needs to be implemented.
It gives us the infrastructure to track everything in a compliant manner.
The other key puzzle piece which is necessary for security is the privacy layer.
Since we already have blockchain being used by corporations,
the last missing piece of the puzzle is a privacy solution.
Currently, the titans of privacy coins are Monero and Zcash.
It's like the fight of the immovable object versus the unstoppable force.
Both have their strengths and weaknesses,
but look at these two and try to decide which one best suits the needs of the space in 2021.
Or is it something else?
The first mover advantage, of course, goes to Monero or XMR.
It's the Bitcoin among privacy coins, dating back to 2014.
It's an open-source protocol which uses an obfuscated public ledger,
meaning anyone can send or broadcast transactions,
but no outside observer can tell the source, amount or destination.
The IRS even started a witch hunt to crack Monero,
fearing that many cryptocurrency investors in the US are hiding their money.
They offered up $625,000 to crack Monero.
CipherTrace has stated it has a tool to do just that.
Now, is it legitimate?
Well, let me ask you. If it wasn't,
you think the government would pay them, not once, but twice under different agencies to develop it further?
However, Monero has been known to have been cracked even years ago.
Furthermore, a website titled Monero BADCACA claims to trace 100 users of Monero a day
by displaying their IP address and their favorite type of dirty movies to watch on the internet.
Well, it's a little bit graphic, to say the least, so make sure to visit at your own discretion.
Now, on to ZCash or ZEC, the rival.
Founded in 2016, Zcash is based on Bitcoin's codebase.
It offers confidentiality to protect user privacy and financial history.
Zcash is the first widespread application of zk-SNARKs,
a novel form of zero-knowledge cryptography, which ultimately means
one can prove possession of certain information without revealing that information.
It means you can prove that a statement is true without revealing any information beyond the approval.
Now, as we mentioned several times on this channel as a side note,
zk-SNARKs are created by Algorand founder Silvio Micali.
But this is a feature which is especially effective with sensitive data.
There are multiple forks of Zcash such as Pirate Chain and Zero,
which consider themselves as the proper Zcash.
Pirate Chain was forked by cypherpunks and those within the hacktivist group Anonymous.
These are community-driven projects focusing as well on privacy.
Some consider Pirate Chain the hardcore version of Zcash
as it's apparently even more reliable privacy-wise.
One YouTuber who knows a ton about Pirate Chain is Crypto Rich.
If you're seriously interested in privacy,
why it's important and how Pirate Chain is one of the best underrated coins,
make sure to go and give him a subscribe on YouTube.
Now, Dash is also worth a mention.
It used to be a privacy coin,
although, lately, it seems to be shifting to fully becoming a payment solution.
This is a widespread approach by smaller projects
as most aren't able to compete in this ever-changing market.
Many are fearful due to regulation, so changing the focus is an easy solution for most.
We should definitely have more competition and possible solutions, in my opinion.
There are almost no decent new kids on the block besides Pirate Chain.
Another worth looking at though due to recent ongoing development is Secret Network or SCRT.
Secret Network blockchain itself is based on Cosmos SDK/Tendermint,
meaning the network has its own independent consensus, on-chain governance and more.
It uses hardware-based and software-based privacy technologies.
dApps can be built on top of it,
which are applications that can utilize encrypted data
without exposing the data itself.
Still, the question remains,
who will take the top spot of the go-to privacy protocol?
Currently, it looks like Zcash has more chance of becoming an adopted privacy solution
due to strong community support, overall flexibility and features of the protocol.
Additionally, somehow it's a privacy coin that seems to have at least some support level from institutional investors.
Monero has doubled the market cap though despite the discomforting news around it.
Zcash has quite some room for growth in the coming months
as large investment funds bet big time on it.
Grayscale even has a Zcash trust.
Winklevoss Capital is invested.
Yes, the two brothers who the Zuck nerd stole Facebook from,
and, of course, as you guys know, they're also the founders of the Gemini exchange.
We also know though that restrictions on or a ban of a currency such as Monero
can lead to a big price surge, not only in its favor, but also in favor of several privacy coins.
Zcash being the second superstar, at least in the short term.
Only time will tell,
but we will definitely witness a lot of privacy drama this year.
That's for sure.
So grab some popcorn and enjoy the show.
Make sure your shades are blacked out.
But what do you think?
Which one will become the BTC of privacy?
Make sure to drop your comments down below.
Also, make sure to smash the like button on the way out
so more people can know about the upcoming privacy storm.
Nobody wants the government watching you poop.
And that's what they're trying to do.
That's all I got.
Be blessed.
BitBoy out.