Today, XCurrency has released a brand new trustless mesh network that looks to create revolutionary advancement in privacy, scalability and mobility. This is the final component of the company’s Rev 2 privacy solution and is a single protocol with many possibilities for users and enthusiasts. This new service will allow any node to communicate on behalf of others, without having to trust forwarding nodes.
The addition of XC’s trustless ad hoc mesh networking comes just months after the company announced XMixer, where nodes can earn revenue for the trustless forwarding of transactions. It seems the company is taking large strides toward creating a truly trustless process, one that may play a key role in the advancement of blockchain 2.0 technologies.
How It Works
When someone makes a private payment using the XC application, the transaction is split into several fragments, after which they are sent to other payment nodes. These nodes form mesh networks that only exist for the duration of each transaction. In these types of networks, no node functions as a “hub.” Instead, nodes mix transactions in a manner where no node knows the source or identity of the coins they are forwarding, and there is also no link on the blockchain between sender and receiver.
Due to forwarding, the identities of the sender and receiver are concealed and due to the fragmentation of transactions, the amount sent is also concealed. In other words, an ad hoc mesh network can create true privacy. According to XCurrency, “since all nodes can forward transactions, nodes cannot even tell whether a given fragment originates from the node it receives it from or whether that node forwarded it from somewhere else.”
The company calls this process “trustless multipath mixing,” and serves the purpose of enabling complete transaction privacy. Even further, it has the possibility to set new paradigms for private web browsing, content servers and mobile blockchains. These aspects are at the core of XCurrency’s upcoming Web 3.0 plans.
What the future holds
Many believe that the future of cryptocurrency will be further propelled through continued advancement in cryptographic technologies. This may be true, however, advanced networking technology like the ones created by XCurrency will also play a key role in continued innovation. Before now, one of the most popular techniques for anonymous transactions has been CoinJoin, but the company believes its platform has many implications that put CoinJoin at a disadvantage – so much so that XCurrency is calling its trustless mesh networking platform a “CoinJoin killer.” The company points out some key factors that separate XC from CoinJoin.
- CoinJoin is vulnerable to a denial-of-service attack: if a single node fails (or refuses) to sign a transaction, then every participating node has to re-sign. In contrast, by design XC’s mesh is continually and dynamically altering its topology, and has no trouble of this sort.
- CoinJoin has no intrinsic way of disciplining bad nodes, whereas XC’s mesh is capable of discovering bad nodes and excluding them from the mesh.
- Nodes participating in a CoinJoin transaction generally know the sender, receiver, and amount sent. And even though the blockchain does not record a link between sender and receiver, the information can be extracted from a node. XC’s trustless mixing conceals links between sender and receiver even from forwarding nodes, and its multipath fragmentation conceals the amount. Thus even if nodes are hacked, they cannot reveal sensitive information.
- CoinJoin generally requires a mixing server or some form of semi-centralised supernode (cf. DarkCoin “masternodes”). XC’s mesh networks are entirely distributed, even with the recent addition of Xmixer.
The idea behind trustless mesh networks can also help create a completely private internet browser, one which could replace the popular TOR network. Networks such as these are ideally suited to conceal IP addresses, simply because nodes mix content and are not able to discover the nature of the content, and also, the distribution of the network makes it highly resilient to attacks. XCurrency believes that this will serve as an excellent foundation for next-gen concealment of IP addresses. What trustless mesh networks create is an aspect of the internet that an increasing amount of individuals, especially those in the cryptocurrency space, find very important.
However, these platforms must also be mobile-friendly, an essential piece of the puzzle in order for a cryptographic platform to go mainstream. Early forms of trustless mesh networks in the mobile environment can be seen in technologies like mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), which are self configuring and have the infrastructure to handle changes in signal strength or location. It may only be a matter of time before we are using trustless mobile mesh networks. However, this will require a continued focus on improving the privacy and mobility of blockchain-based technologies, one we are likely to see as more and more companies focus on blockchain 2.0 innovations. XCurrency appears as though they are focused on exactly that.
