One of the coolest upcoming feature on Bitshares is STEALTH transactions. At the moment the Bitshares blockchain is fully transparent and works with a named account that is easy to use. The blockchain as well as individual accounts can be explored using one of many Bitshares explorers such as CryptoFresh.com, or Bitshares built in explorer or the upcoming Bitshares-explorer.
All this is great but Bitshares is going one step ahead and adding the capability of blind and stealth trasnactions.
Confidential Transactions
Bitshares already supports blinded accounts and confidential transactions. They have implemented this ability in the CLI wallet. You can start a CLI wallet and start sending transfers to and from blind accounts. Ok, so that means I need to run a full node? Well, no. You can always connect to a public node like the ones that you connect to using your light wallet or online wallet. But the cli wallet by definition means you will need to run your Linux shell or Windows command prompt. That requires a bit of techi-ness, and frankly people don't want to experiment when it involves money.
The good news is, STEALTH transactions might be coming to your online/light wallet so you can use it with a Graphical User Interface (GUI). @kencode and the @agorise team is working hard to make this happen.
What are STEALTH transactions
So what are STEALTH transactions? @kencode describes STEALTH transactions as "zero-knowledge super-secure transactions on the Bitshares platform ('unknown' sent 'n' 'unknown' to 'unknown')". That means you can send transfers from your account to a secret account that cannot be viewed on Cryptofresh or any explorer. Then you can do a couple of secret transactions that are completely invisible and take out the money in some completely new account without anyone knowing what has happened. Isn't that super cool?! You don't know whose sending, who its going to, nor the amount or which coin was sent.
This is going to be one powerful feature of Bitshares. With features like this, Bitshares will be leading with the best technology and capabilities out there. It already had the fastest blockchain, with transaction capacity and low fees, it will now also allow complete privacy without having to use a separate slower blockchain. All this with the same awesome capabilities of the existing lightening fast BTS blockchain.
What has the STEALTH token got to do with this?
You will not need the STEALTH token to make any STEALTH transactions, however, these transactions will have a separate additional fee for each STEALTH transaction. This fee will probably be decided later. The STEALTH token has its value in that its a Fee Backed Asset (FBA). 60% fees from all STEALTH transactions will be distributed to STEALTH holders, and there are only 1 million STEALTH token in circulation. So if you hold STEALTH tokens, you will be constantly getting returns based on how much you hold. Since transaction fees are in BTS, you will get paid in BTS as well. Double benefits if BTS goes to the moon.
Remember, there are only 1 million STEALTH tokens!
US citizens, please note you might want to consider if the SEC will categorize this as a security. Do your own research! Do the Howey Test
But can I buy STEALTH now?
Yup! Its going at about $5 in the STEALTH/BTS market (at about 90 BTS). Remember it isn't official yet. Development is going on, and once it completes it will have to get voted it. Who knows where the price will go once its voted in and becomes official!
Also @kencode has been generously doing giveaways of the STEALTH token, so kudos to you @kencode
Edit: @agorise just posted The Agorise Report
Spread the word, vote up and reSTEEM!
Please note there might be inaccuracies in this article. Do your own research and do not use any of this as financial advice.
", you will be constantly getting returns based on how much you hold."
is it automatic or do you have to claim it in some way. I haven't been able to figure it out through the use of google.
From what I know, it will be automatic. Don't know if it will be sent instantly on each transaction, or sent from a pool weekly. The best place to ask is the "Agorise the World" group on Telegram, or this account: @agorise
bitCNY/bitUSD/bitGOLD + Stealth is a moon shot all on its own :)
Absolutely! :)
Great project from the sounds of it. For the non-technical folks what is the biggest difference between blinded transactions and stealth?
I really like your post ,,,,
This is pretty cool, I can't wait to get in this. Thanks for this info.
I started to use bts and I think is easy and brilliant system
credit where credit is due.
confidential transactions were introduced Jan 8, 2016 (or earlier, did not find an older git) by core developers and are available since then. GUI did not offer this feature, so that's what is/was(?) missing.
Yes you're correct. Blinded accounts were there in the CLI (they're in help files too, and I tried them), but STEALTH transactions are a step ahead. Also there was some problem of holding blind contacts when not using a CLI wallet, and something about not wanting to save them on a centralized server. So STEALTH solves this problem. I might not be entirely accurate here.
Have you heard what the fee will be for a stealth trans? Great article btw.....thanks
Thank you! The fee probably will be decided later. At the moment though, if you do a blinded transaction it takes 15BTS for public to blind, and another 15BTS from blind to public. If you do blind to blind, that'll cost more. I remember there were some more fees like 3BTS but I can't remember what that was for. But, of course, the fees will be decided later by members.
love this feature :)
KenCode has an interesting and colorful history. I started looking into it and had reservations on what I found. Ken Code is involved in BlockPay and Stealth, there was talk that "he is a scammer" or "was scammed." I really don't understand all this history, but it brings reservations to me. Do really want the cloak of darkness over the network? Sunlight typically disinfects. Sunlight gets rid of corruption. Sunlight allows everyone to approve of and know who is good and who is bad and what is actually happening. If we add a cloak of darkness to Bitshares we will never know what is happening. I am not sure I want a potential scammer writing the code that hides him being a scammer. We as a community need to have that discussion. I understand that some compromise might be needed. Maybe we do a partial stealth where we only hid a portion of the information. Bob#####45 transfered 23,#### to J######h.
I understand your concern, however I'm only interested in the development of STEALTH and the increasing awesomeness of Bitshares. I'm all for STEALTH transactions if someone feels the need for that. If you want to utilize Bitshares awesomeness in a transparent manner, no one is stopping you. More sunlight to you :) But for those not wanting to keep money in the prying eyes of the govt can do so. That's probably why Bitcoin came into being. And btw, the STEALTH project was first started and coded by Bytemaster, Dan himself, and later continued by Bitshares Munich.
I hear what you are saying. People can change. I don't like trusting or putting faith in crooks. (I know I vote to sometimes you just can't avoid the crooks) but the more we tie ourselves to dishonest people the greater the danger is. Stealth could be an awesome technology, but it also could cause issues. Today everything is in the open, if we change that it is changed for good.
I see nothing in your post that would be a cause for concern. Care to provide some substance?
Well you really need to look at it for yourself. Do your own research. I looked into BlockPay where I saw some allegations and when I started looking deeper I saw stuff for concern. In my attempt at being helpful I was going to share the link that tipped me off to look deeper.... Instead when googled I found this... https://www.startjoin.com/kensilverscamme There are allegations he ran a fake gun school in florida, copied and rebranded. Is wanted by authorities. There are allegations he basically copied and rebranded an exisiting app blockpay instead of developing his own. I looked at the volume trading on blockpay when I got freaked out. It is mostly faked by bots. I don't know what is true and what is not true, but this guy needs to be googled and a concise acquisations and defense needs to be studied by the community. I do not have all the time to do this...
It depends if you do your own research you might just find market manipulation and then if you use transfers to follow the money you might just see that it all leads back to someone who is funding the market manipulation. Then you see that guy is building a way to hide transfers, which would hide his market manipulation. Hmmm....
ZEOS!
eosio smart contracts + Hive = clarion private anonymous version of hive / steemit / voice with eos ubi ...