Deepsend - Will It Be The Future Of "Crypto" Anonymity?

DeepSend is a great piece of functionality attached to the "DeepOnion" cryptosystem.

More specifically, it's the process through which transactions can be made completely "anonymous" - by both obscuring the IP of the sender/recipient.

From the "DeepOnion" whitepaper:

DeepSend offers a combination of different technologies to hide the transaction trace in the blockchain.

One of the disadvantages of Bitcoin and numerous other crypto currencies is the fact that the wallet address is linked to the account holder’s transactions.

This means that all transactions carried out by the account owner(s) may be traced back to them once the link between the wallet and the owner is uncovered.

This is a huge privacy problem since not many people want to have a public record of their bank transactions.

Furthermore, the lack of privacy might prevent companies from adopting crypto currencies since this would ultimately reveal their trade secrets.

Therefore, it is important for an anonymous currency that it does not only hide the sender’s IP address (what DeepOnion does with the help of the TOR network) but that it also obfuscates the traces in the blockchain.​

The whole point of the "DeepOnion" system is to create a completely "private" system for the "crypto" world - allowing users to send transactions without the need to disclose their identity, both in the "digital" world (IP) or in the "real" world (name etc).

Unfortunately, whilst many people have heralded the "coin" as a new way to create completely anonymous transactions (thanks to its integration into the TOR network) - but have failed to realize where it could fit into the wider "crypto" landscape.

The current market is very similar to the early .com bubble - a small group of companies driving growth/demand, and a LARGE amount of tagalongs trying to fight for scraps.

My only concern with DeepOnion is that - to quote the words of Steve Jobs - it's a feature, not a product. It's one of the "coins" that has very little by way of independent utility but is able to provide functionality to those who desire "more" out of Bitcoin's core offering.

To this end, DeepSend has been created to provide functionality similar to that of a "mixer" - to essentially "pool" transactions and offer them back out in a temporary fashion.

If you're able to understand this, it might be worth looking further at the system and what it's able to achieve for its users (it may be used by others)...

Mixers & Cocktails

The main problem with "Bitcoin" is that it doesn't really protect the identity of the user(s) undertaking transactions with it. If you know someone's BTC "address", you are actually able to find all their transactions from the ledger.

To get around this issue, a number of systems introduced a "mixer" strategy - through which the system basically put newly transacted tokens into a mini "exchange" - forwarding them onto the appropriate user as required.

The reason this worked so well was that the user's transaction would only appear to be in the mixer pool. This meant that if you wanted to track whatever anyone had been doing, you would essentially be presented with a number of pseudo-transactions which would hide the real identity of the recipient.

The problem with this is that whilst it worked well, it wasn't reliable. If a user wanted to find out who they sent transactions to, all they'd have to do would be to look up the various transaction records in the intermediary blockchain system.

DeepSend, built on top of DeepOnion's TOR integration, works slightly differently. Whilst still maintaining the "mixer" process, it actually obscures user's data even further by using multi-signature encryption and splitting that process up even further.

The process is actually a combination of several modules:

1. Ring Signature
The process whereby a signature can be provided by any member of a group and will have the same impact as any other signature. It's basically able to secure a piece of data with different parties - allowing each party to edit/release the encryption without the need to clarify with other signature-holders.

2. CoinJoin
Anonymity process designed for the "Bitcoin" protocol under the quote of: "When you want to make a payment, find someone else who also wants to make a payment and make a joint payment together". In other words, a process whereby two or more transactions are combined - removing the ability for individuals to be identified.

3. Zero Knowledge
A widely used process through which people are able to settle a transaction without the other party knowing specific information. Most specifically, this is designed to provide users with the ability to have successful operations without the need to divulge other information about a transaction.

The "Future" Of Anonymity?

DeepOnion might make it there, but I don’t know and only time will tell.

The main problem with DeepOnion, as well as a large number of other "coins", is they simply don't have the capacity to surpass Bitcoin. In other words, they're the product of software developers rather than marketers and that’s how I see it.

The "business" side of "crypto" comes from the way in which a particular system is adopted either by consumers or business/enterprise. Bitcoin has obviously won the consumer war; the "business" war is still being undertaken, with Ripple looking quite promising (that's a different story).

It's my own opinion that we are yet to see the "winner" company come along. In every "tech" market, it's the new company which typically takes over in the end (DeepOnion might win). The way in which Facebook overtook Myspace, or how Google dominated search are prime examples.

To this end, what you're seeing with "crypto" is the first step of several that will lead to some new company becoming dominant. This new company won't have its own "coin" nor will it be a "crypto" system. It will just provide a platform for which users will be able to use, transact and buy things through the whole "crypto" system (including everything from Bitcoin to DeepOnion).

This does not bode well for DeepOnion, but it has a high chance of winning the "Anonymity" Crypto war when compared to other cryptos. Again, this is just my thought and I might be wrong too. Let’s wait and wait for the upcoming.

Thanks for reading it through, please share your comments below and correct me if I stated something wrong.