What is Monero? Monero (XMR) is the top privacy-centric cryptocurrency based on the CryptoNote protocol, a secure, private and untraceable currency system. Monero uses a special kind of cryptography to ensure that all of its transactions are remain 100% unlinkable and untraceable. In an increasingly transparent world, you can see why something like Monero can become so desirable. Origins of Monero In July of 2012, Bytecoin, the first real life implementation of CryptoNote, was launched. While Bytecoin had promise, people noticed that 80% of the coins were already published. So, it was decided that the bytecoin blockchain will be forked and the new coins in the new chain will be called Bitmonero, which is was then renamed Monero, meaning “coin” in Esperanto language. In this new blockchain, a block will be mined and added every two minutes. Why Monero? #1: Unlinkability - Your identity is completely private You have complete control over your transactions. You are responsible for your money. Because your identity is private no one will be able to see what you are spending your money on. When you send funds to someone’s public address, what happens is that you actually send the funds to a randomly created brand new one-time destination address. This means that the public record does not contain any mention that funds were received to the recipient’s public address. In Monero, your public address will never appear in the public record of transactions. Instead, a 'stealth address' is recorded in a way that only you, the recipient, can recognize the incoming funds. #2: Fungibility Fungibility is interchangeability between one asset and another asset of the same type. Suppose you borrowed $50 from your friend, you can even return the money in the form of 1 $50 bill or 5 $10 bill, It is still fine. This shows that the dollar has fungible properties. However, if you were to borrow someone’s car for the weekend and come back and give them some other car in return, then that person will probably punch on the face. Cars, in this example, are a nonfungible asset. What is CryptoNote? CryptoNote is the application layer protocol that fuels various decentralized currencies. While it is similar to the application layer which runs bitcoin in many aspects, there a lot of areas where the two differ from each other. CryptoNote features an entirely new code base and is not a fork of Bitcoin. More info about CryptoNote can be found at their website. CryptoNote uses Ring Signatures to conceal sender identities via mixing and it also has unlinkable transactions that is achieved using 1-time keys for each individual payments. Ring signatures enable ‘transaction mixing’ to occur. Transaction mixing means that when funds are sent, the sender randomly chooses several other users’ funds to also appear in the transaction as a possible source of the funds being sent. The cryptographical nature of the ring signature means that no one can tell which of the funds were really the source of the transaction – not even the person that gave the funds to the sender in the first place. A system of ‘key images’ associated with each ring signature ensures that although no one can tell the true source of the funds, it can be easily detected if the sender attempts to anonymously send their funds twice.
ProximaX is an advanced extension of the Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) with utility-rich services and protocols. Businesses, enterprises, and innovators can avoid costly and failure prone centralized architecture by utilizing an all-in-one sustainable platform which provides augmented secured services, content delivery, storage, and media streaming. The ProximaX protocol aims to offer DApp developers cost-efficient fault tolerant, multilayer, P2P cloud services including, but not limited to, blockchain-powered P2P storage and bandwidth. A fault-tolerant system is designed to ensure a system remains fully functional even when part of it is ‘down’ or unavailable. ProximaX will build a P2P cloud storage architecture with fault tolerance and a distributed database by removing the central entity and connecting all the servers (or nodes) in a mesh configuration. Failure of any single component of the mesh will have minimal effect upon the overall performance of the system. ProximaX protocol will ensure confidentiality and integrity of the data passing through a myriad of nodes. The use of distributed databases (DHT) ensures consistency and integrity throughout the network. ProximaX distributed file management system (DFMS) interfaces with NEM blockchain and works in four scenarios: 1. ProximaX Public DFMS with NEM Public chain 2. ProximaX Private DFMS with NEM Public Chain 3. ProximaX Public DFMS with NEM Private Chain 4. ProximaX Private DFMS with NEM Private Chain ProximaX will provide DApp developers with an easy-to-use SDK that abstracts the ProximaX protocol layer into a dynamic second layer on top of the NEM blockchain layer that can carry different unique DApp protocols. This will ensure that the DApp developers can build great P2P applications with the best possible security protocols without relying on points of central authority. It will empower developers to build apps and monetise in the ways they want without any unnecessary compliance pressure. This solution makes use of the NEM blockchain for value and hash transaction and the NEM cryptography framework to gain access to the ProximaX DFMS and work in a tightly integrated environment based on the above four scenarios.