Privacy Coin Reviews: CONCEAL
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin Mining, Bitcoin, Crypto, Cryptocurrency Investment

Project Name: Conceal.Network

Coin Ticker: CCX

Market Cap: $752,434 (as of 29 December 2020)

Exchanges: Hotbit, STEX, TradeOgre, qTrade, altilly, CITEX, GRAVIEX, AZEX, FINEBOX, ProBitEx, Sistemkoin, CryptoWolf, Instaswap

Mining Algorithm: Crypto Night GPU

Block time: 120 seconds

Original code base: Cryptonote

Founder’s reward or analog: Conceal has no founders’ rewards. 100% of the mining block rewards go to the miners.

Development Team: krypt0Chaos, cryptokatz1, ZeMaNel, HyperMadMax, okansariirmak, Taegus1, bomb-on, alexstanford, devopsralf, bdmcoder, boot_2_thrill

Privacy Protocol:

How does the project protect users?

Securing the network is a high priority to protect our users. Miners are a fundamental piece of securing our ecosystem, they do all the PoW (Proof of Work) needed to validate every transaction and generate new blocks. They are an important part of our community too. Some of the most participative users are miners. We have an entire section of our Discord dedicated to mining. Miners are so important to us that we have invested a lot of time and resources developing the best mining algo possible — Cryptonight Conceal (CN Conceal).

CN Conceal is a variant of the original Cryptonight mining algorithm designed to achieve maximum PoW hash function for egalitarian CPU & GPU mining and ASIC/FPGA resistance. Conceal is the most energy efficient of the FPGA-Resistant algos. It uses a scratchpad of 2MB with FPM (Floating Point Math) that makes programmed FPGAs inefficient. The FPGAs don’t have any advantage over high-end GPUs. Another main advantage is the performance efficiency across multiple generations of GPUs. It is extremely efficient on all GCN architectures from multiple cards across the last 8 years. As an example, the compute core of a 7950 is almost equal to the performance of an RX580. CN Conceal can also be used to mine on a CPU. All these qualities allow CN Conceal to be one of the most decentralized mining algos in the crypto space.

Additionally, we are one of the few PoW blockchains with 51% attack protection. Our code is open source and reviewed by the community. We monitor the network constantly. The state-of-the-art tools available allow us to detect anomalies sooner than in any other privacy coin. At the cloud-API level, our security is reviewed by experienced security analysts (AWS). Our cloud platform is prepared to sustain DDoS attacks. Data is always encrypted both in transit and at rest giving our community an assurance of safety with their data.

Explain the Anonymity Sets (per txn):

Conceal uses Stealth Addresses, Ring Signatures and a Flat Single Fee. Conceal “mixing” is built in at the protocol level (no third parties) and every transaction is mixed and private beyond recognition so censorship becomes impossible.

Every time you receive a $CCX payment it goes to an unlinkable address generated with random numbers. When you decide to spend or deposit the funds in that one-time address, the amount will be broken down and the components will be indistinguishable from identical outputs in the blockchain.

For example if 126 CCX are sent, the protocol will break it down into 100 + 20 + 6 and 5 ring signatures will be performed with other 4 times 100’s, 20’s, and 6’s in the blockchain.

Unlike the “CoinJoin” mixing method, CryptoNote mixes outputs not transactions. This means no other senders need to be participating with you at the same time or with the same amounts. Any arbitrary amount sent at any time can always be rendered fundamentally indistinguishable.

Privacy By Default:

Conceal.Network automatically has privacy features applied to all transactions. You never have to request and then verify whether other people have enabled a privacy mechanism when sending/receiving funds or messages, because privacy is always automatically applied to all transactions at the protocol level. Furthermore, the always-on nature of Conceal’s privacy features means that even if the majority of Conceal users are not privacy oriented, they will still automatically participate.

% tx Anon: 100%

Wallets

Conceal.Network offers several wallet options:

Our wallets are designed with simplicity in mind. Each wallet offers a secure way to access your activity on the Conceal.Network blockchain and our most popular Desktop Wallet provides intuitive menus that guide you through all available features.

Command Line Wallet (CLI)

Our CLI wallet application is meant for use on normal desktop computers and servers and is offered in Windows, Linux and macOS. Recommended for more advanced users, the CLI wallet operates a full node and offers stability and performance.

Desktop Wallet (GUI)

Our Desktop Wallet is the most prefered wallet to use and is the central point of interaction for the primary features of Conceal, sending and receiving $CCX, encrypted secure messaging, and managing your banking deposits. The Desktop Wallet is available for all major platforms Windows, Ubuntu, and macOS.

Web Wallet

Our web wallet runs on Conceal.Cloud, a privacy-protected online interface that allows users to access Conceal’s decentralized banking blockchain through any platform in a simple manner (it only requires a basic browser). At the moment we have the basic wallet features working and we are setting up the privacy protected time-locked smart contracts handler that will allow full access to the banking features available (deposits). We will continue to add more features in the future.

Mobile Wallet

Our mobile wallet connects to the Conceal.Network through Conceal.Cloud, enabling users to easily manage their funds and make and receive payments anywhere and anytime.

Paper Wallet

Our Paper Wallet simply provides a wallet address and your private keys. If you only want to receive CCX, then all you need is a paper wallet. Our Paper Wallet is an offline mechanism for storing your Conceal coins. The process involves printing the private keys and Conceal addresses onto paper. If properly constructed, and provided that certain precautions are taken, it will be nearly impossible for a hostile user to access your Conceal holdings. A paper wallet is considered an extremely secure way to keep Conceal safe from cyber-attacks, malware, etc. But it’s important to remember that it’s not the Conceal coins that are being printed out like regular currency. It’s the information stored in a Conceal wallet or digital wallet that gets printed out. The data appearing on the wallet includes the public key (wallet address), which allows people to transfer money into that wallet, and the private key, which gives access to fund spending. Thus, Conceal coins themselves are not stored offline, but the important keys are stored offline.

Windows GUI Wallet: Releases · ConcealNetwork/conceal-desktop

Windows CLI Wallet: Releases · ConcealNetwork/conceal-core · GitHub

Linux GUI Wallet: Releases · ConcealNetwork/conceal-desktop

Linux CLI Wallet: Releases · ConcealNetwork/conceal-core · GitHub

macOS GUI Wallet: Releases · ConcealNetwork/conceal-desktop

macOS CLI Wallet: Releases · ConcealNetwork/conceal-core · GitHub

Web Wallet: https://conceal.cloud/

Android Wallet: Conceal Mobile

Paper Wallet: Paper Wallet

What does privacy mean to you and why is privacy important to your project team?

We view privacy as a fundamental right to everyone. Early on, we agreed on four fundamental pillars that serve as the foundation for the Conceal community: privacy, social inclusion, decentralization and censorship resistance.

Privacy is very important to us. The autonomy that privacy provides is essential to Conceal.Network. Privacy enables us to protect ourselves from unauthorized monitoring in our lives. This freedom gives us the ability to be who we want to be and interact with the world around us, without being judged or discriminated against.

Cash continues to become obsolete. The end of cash means the end of financial privacy. It is very reasonable to predict that centralized digital money will continue to progress and if so, would inevitably lead to unreasonable financial surveillance.

Privacy has nothing to do with being a criminal. None of us want our private lives aired to the world and that includes our finances. Conceal $CCX gives you peace of mind knowing that governments or criminals can not freeze or seize your funds. Conceal $CCX allows people to remain anonymous while also protecting their financial data and personal messages from mass data collection or government surveillance.

What makes your project stand out above other projects?

We can give you a few different reasons like a unique economic model with exquisite block reward scheme and low emission, the cold staking, hashed-timelocked-contracts, encrypted messages, our own mining algo (ASIC/FPGA Resistant), original GUI wallets (desktop, cloud and mobile), powerful API & Cloud services.

We use output transactions mixins since day one and opted in for a universal transaction flat fee to avoid cross-side attacks based on TX-fees metadata. Conceal is truly decentralized through its trustless setup. Contrary to some of the competition, users are still able to audit the data (including TX amounts, total coins in the chain, coins locked through deposits, interest paid) in the blockchain without compromising privacy and preserving the transparency required by a global economic ecosystem.

Last, but not least, an experienced team with proven track record and a passionate community.

Because Conceal miners are so important to us we want to highlight the structure of Conceal’s block reward model. We use an innovative approach where block rewards start small, but increase over time. Why would we do that? At the beginning of every blockchain, usage is relatively low. Only a small number of transactions occur per day and block data is still small. With time, the network matures and block data size and resources will also increase.

Securing a blockchain at the beginning of a network requires fewer miners, because of the smaller numbers of transactions. However, as the blockchain network matures, more miners will be needed to secure the network because the number of transactions will continue to increase. Likewise, the block reward will continue to increase as an incentive for miners to continue to secure the Conceal.Network.

To fairly reward miners, we started the block reward at 5 $CCX. We will continue increasing the block reward by 0.25 $CCX every month until we reach a 20 $CCX block reward. In 5 years, we will reach our max block reward. Once we reach the max block reward, we will begin decreasing the block reward because the number of transactions processed by the network will be much bigger and the fees collected by the miners will balance the block reward decrease.

With this simple and logical approach we avoided the unfair enrichment of early miners during the initial stages of the project where mining difficulty is low and successfully reached one of the lowest coin emission curves throughout the crypto space without affecting the mining profit.

Due to this low mining block reward emission curve we were able to introduce a new feature — blockchain deposits paying interest. These deposits help the economic ecosystem by taking coins out of circulation for a self-designated period of time. As $CCX gets staked, it directly increases demand, scarcity and, subsequently, market value. The interest paid by these deposits will add new coins to the network balancing the ecosystem with coins locked by new deposits. This model not only rewards people for taking $CCX out of the markets but benefits the miners too (higher market value for $CCX).

There is another quite interesting detail, several studies show that there is a direct correlation between good hashrate (CPU&GPU — ASIC Resistance) and market value. So, in practical terms, more miners will generate more hashrate but bigger hashrate brings a better market value and liquidity, keeping the mining activity profitable.

Every detail has been carefully studied and tested. Conceal has been cited in a few external reports of having one of the lowest inflations in the crypto space without affecting the mining profitability.

What do you have in the works for future development?

Business wise, we already have working solutions for vendors and merchants with Conceal.Pay and Conceal.ID.

Conceal.Pay makes it simple for businesses and people to receive payments on the Conceal.Network. Conceal.Pay is seamlessly integrated with the Conceal.Cloud for absolute ease of use. You can easily create URLs with a simple web page where customers and friends can send you payments. Conceal.Pay makes it trivial for you or your business to receive payments online, fast.

Conceal.ID gives you the ability to make a memorable alias for your CCX address. In that way, you can handle transactions in an easier and faster way. In the near future, sending and receiving messages using the Conceal.ID will also be implemented in Cloud and Desktop wallet.

Also, we plan to have a few business-oriented proof-of-concepts ready next year. We are working to develop Conceal.Card, a card that facilitates $CCX NFC payments (contactless) and a platform to handle confidential assets in corporate environments. These two new products will allow a vast portfolio of services from loyalty rewards to vending machines.

What is the path to mass adoption of your project?

Conceal is a decentralized, private and trustless form of cash. It allows everyone to engage with financial services and messaging without a central authority. It offers high autonomy and fewer barriers comparing with traditional services. There are billions of people without access to basic financial services. But most of them have smartphones that can be used as a mean to access DeFi services. We think that Conceal.DeFi will be one of the boosts for crypto adoption like the “dot.com” moment for the entire cryptospace. This will drive the future value of Conceal.Network.

Conceal allows extremely small amounts to be used in its financial system. For example, transfers equivalent to a few dollars can be made. Our decentralized banking allows savers to put very small amounts of value to work, on which people can earn interest. Anyone will be able to hold just a few dollars’ worth of CCX. Even the yield curve will be able to be constructed on a micro-level, for example any future compounding interest function could happen based on a day basis, rather than on wide fixed dates with interpolation between such dates for pricing at that time. It will revolutionise finance. These are problems for which the only technology solution is Conceal Network. The traditional banking system simply cannot offer such solutions; they are stuck in an analogue world. We are working to link cryptocurrency to the real economy and challenge the core banking of deposits and, in the future, probably decentralized lending. We are doing massive research as well in mobile payments using the blockchain.

Our primary objective is to provide a privacy framework for social inclusion through decentralization of financial services.Our business strategy puts us on the right path to mass adoption.

Any additional final thoughts you want to include?

Before being a project, we are a community. We take pride in the fact that every single team member came from the community. We work closely with our international ambassadors to boost our local communities and have several successful local initiatives across the globe. The community is the foundation of Conceal and everyone has a voice. Each year we have an annual consensus were anyone can participate. We keep an exclusive channel in Discord that allows any community member to propose an idea to the team for consideration and consensus voting. We truly value our community.

Important links:

Conceal Network — Anonymous DeFi & Private Communication

Conceal Mining Pool

Conceal.Network — Block Explorer

https://github.com/ConcealNetwork

Start | Conceal Wiki

https://discord.gg/YbpHVSd

Telegram: Join Group Chat

https://twitter.com/ConcealNetwork

https://medium.com/@ConcealNetwork

https://www.reddit.com/r/ConcealNetwork/

https://www.facebook.com/concealnetwork/

🌐 [ANN] [POW] [CCX] — Conceal.Network — Banking, Private TXs & Secure Messages