Privacy and crypto cannot always be used in the same sentence in the blockchain field as most cryptocurrencies guarantee a minimum level of privacy, in fact they are pseudo-anonymous and therefore, it is always possible to trace back, with different techniques, to who is behind that particular crypto address and account, not to mention the centralized exchanges that can be exploited to get information about users and their accounts.
This is true for most cryptocurrencies but it is also true that cryptocurrencies and tokens have been created that allow you to obscure all the weaknesses of the blockchain such as the transparency of transactions and the related address balances, effectively making these crypto and blockchain the "best" in terms of privacy.
However, it is also true that these blockchains that have developed several years ago use a technology of the time that, although efficient, makes them inefficient from various points of view, such as speed and cost of transactions, in fact just as the bitcoin blockchain is slow underneath several aspects and limited in structure, even the first blockchains focused on privacy, such as Monero (XMR), have significant disadvantages.
But all this will soon be just the past as in addition to other blockchains with various protocols and crypto being born, other solutions are also being born and were born to exploit the power of technologies that prevent transactions from being tracked, such as the solution already developed on Zcash (ZRC), the zk-SNARKS technology.
So is this technology the best?
From a technical point of view it is the best compromise between safety and speed, as the Monero technology for example could be better but has the disadvantage that it is quite slow and expensive and therefore in fact not good.
So better to create a blockchain with zk-SNARKS like Zcash?
Definitely not, as this blockchain already exists and with various integrations such as the possibility of making the so-called shield transactions private or not, and also the problem of creating a blockchain that allows only the transfer of value in a private and protected way, it would be really limiting, and there are several blockchains with this purpose and with different systems, here some.
What would it take then?
More than a blockchain with these characteristics, a protocol would be needed that allows not only to have these aforementioned characteristics, but which can also be integrated into the already developed environment and which can act as a component to be integrated in other areas, as in the case of finance decentralized (DeFi) where the various protocols can be integrated with each other without too many problems.
With such a protocol a real revolution would open in the privacy sector as it would be possible to extend all the advantages of private transactions, with the various advantages of operating freely, therefore with DeFi itself, decentralized exchanges (DEX) and so on away, and the panorama is truly infinite for the applications that can be created.
Are there any such protocols?
As incredible as it is, to date there is only 1 project in the world that is able to do all this and with a development complexity that is strange but true, it was created by a great developer, Matthias Schönebeck.
We are talking about ZEOS, the first token in the world to replicate an entire protocol through a smart contract, and in fact the properties of the zk-SNARKS technology and some of the Haven Protocol (XHV) blockchain, which allows you to make completely anonymous transactions with the related ZEOS, but exploiting all the power of the underlying blockchain which is that of EOS.
What is ZEOS?
In essence, ZEOS is nothing more than a smart contract that replicates the functions that we find on the Zcash and Haven Protocol blockchains, and since this smart contract is located on the EOS blockchain, consequently it exploits the advantages of this blockchain such as the system simple account, incredible transaction speed and also negligible cost of transactions.
Practically with this smart contract, we have 3 blockchains in 1, and with all the various advantages of all 3, privacy, power and speed of transactions, something that could not be replicated on other blockchains as at a lower level just as they were conceived, therefore no Ethereum and none other than Cardano could succeed in this undertaking.
Why is ZEOS so important?
Here we are not talking about a simple peg (anchoring with another asset) to a privacy coin, but we are talking about a real smart contract in itself and which allows you to exploit the characteristics of those protocols in a completely autonomous and unrelated way same.
But the most extraordinary thing about this protocol and smart contract, is that since we are dealing with a smart contract, it is possible to integrate it into any other protocol and decentralized application (dApp), and therefore all the potential we had is unlocked seen at the beginning, as for example a DEX, and consequently exchange any crypto in a completely anonymous way, even the BTC / EOS or BTC / USDT pair.
At what point is this project?
The project is further ahead than one might think as it has been going on for several months now and has also won a loan of over $ 20,000 from the crowdfunding platform Pomelo, and has recently released the first version of the wallet in testnet where anyone can try to make transactions with whomever they want in a completely anonymous form.
Here we can see some screenshots of the wallet and the functioning of the protocol:
So we are only at the beginning of a real revolution both for privacy at an international level and also for the EOS blockchain as thanks to its extraordinary technical capabilities, it will attract many more people and investments to exploit this type of protocol than not found nowhere else.
For more details, here the video for Italians reader where I explain the protocol: