In the world of cryptocurrency, there is a severe lack of privacy and anonymity to deal with. Especially when it comes to Bitcoin and even Ethereum, neither trait is easy to come by. DeepOnion is a relatively new cryptocurrency which promises to address these problems moving forward. Whether or not it will succeed is a different matter altogether.
What is DeepOnion?
As the name somewhat suggests, DeepOnion focuses on providing anonymity first and foremost. With this project mainly relying on TOR connectivity, there will always be questions as to what the future holds for this specific cryptocurrency. It is certainly possible that a TOR-based cryptocurrency could succeed, even though most people will acknowledge this protocol is not sufficient to provide actual anonymity to the public. It’s better than optional privacy, at least.
Under the Hood
DeepOnion has a lot of features which people may want to take note of. First of all, the currency uses TOR, as previously mentioned. This will help improve privacy for users, yet it is insufficient to provide proper anonymity. It seems the project mainly focuses on private transactions through its native ecosystem. It is also worth noting these transactions are instant, which is certainly something to look forward to. It also seems DeepOnion uses the OBSF4 public key obfuscation protocol to hide the message content passing through the protocol. That’s an interesting approach, although it remains to be seen how this will all work exactly.
There is also the DeepVault service to take note of, which provides an immutable information store on the DeepOnion blockchain. This tool can be used for storing file validation credentials within the blockchain itself. It can be a welcome addition to DeepOnion, even though it’s not something most people would associate with a currency focusing on privacy and anonymity. Other features will come to this network as well, including DeepSend – for untraceable payments based on multisignature technology – and VoteCentral to determine the future of the DeepOnion project as a whole.
The Future of DeepOnion
With the year 2018 upon us, the DeepOnion team has a fair bit of work to do. For now, they are focusing on the launch of VoteCentral, marketing, and mobile wallets. Later this year, there will be free airdrops for all 12.5 million coins, an effort to bring more shopping sites supporting ONION on board, and the launch of DeepSend. Zero-knowledge protocol support will come to market by the end of the year, as will smart contract technology.
