Cryptocurrencies have been at the top of the food chain for quite some time now, bringing in both fans and haters all the same over the years, establishing itself as a government-free and profitable industry that anyone can get into.
One of the best parts about the crypto market has been and will always be its privacy and anonymity, and that’s a fact.
But, while the crypto market is relatively safe as long as you keep an eye out on where you stack your money and what kind of investments you choose to add to your portfolio, you may want to steer far away from some of the riskier options on the market just so you can keep yourself in the green at all times.
As such, a series of privacy-focused coins were developed over the years that can be used specifically for anonymous payments that nobody can track. So, if you want to keep yourself out of anyone’s reach, you will want to employ the use of these privacy-focused coins.
But, where can you find these crypto coins, and more specifically, which ones are the safest and best options on the open market? This is what we’re here to find out as we dive right into the 5 best privacy-focused coins out there right now. So, let’s just start right off with:
5. Beam
Right off the bat, we can safely say that Beam is one of the best options out there due to the fact that it gives you complete control over your privacy from the get-go.
All of your transactions are private by default though, meaning that you don’t need to do anything to actually keep your information to yourself. Not only that, but you also don’t need to actually put down any addresses or any sort of private information on the blockchain either.
Overall, due to its unique opt-in audibility and the fact that it pretty much supports most if not all transactions on the internet, Beam is more than worthy of being on this list today.
4. Grin
Grin essentially took the ideas that Bitcoin introduced and instead of making everything visible on a public ledger, it decided to not keep tabs on anything, instead allowing you to hide any sort of transactions that may or may not happen on the network as well as the identity of the people in charge.
This is possible due to its Confidential Transactions and CoinJoin additions. Essentially, due to the Confidential Transactions, every transaction is hidden or blinded away from anyone’s sight. At the same time, through CoinJoin, every transaction is piled up in a bundle by the end of the day, making it impossible to track down which transaction belongs to which user.
3. Horizen
Horizen makes sure to keep all of its users’ privacy intact by utilizing privacy shielded Z-Addresses and of course, public T-Addresses. These are specifically tailored to work very similarly to Bitcoin, but instead of sending the money from a Z-Address to a T-Address, the money is sent directly to a node network which keeps everything hidden.
Today, Horizen is the 128th largest cryptocurrency on the open market, so it’s no wonder that more and more investors have decided to put their all into this promising and private coin.
2. Zcash
Zcash is pretty much, according to its developers, Bitcoin but safer. This may sound like a bold statement, but it is technically true because it follows the same rules as Bitcoin, except for the fact that it also features a cryptographic tool known as the Zero-Knowledge Proof.
This feature allows the users to keep themselves safe at all times, making this one of the safest options on the market right now since Zero-Knowledge Proof hides any and all information online.
1. Monero
The main reason as to why Monero made it big in the first place was because it was and it still is one of the safest options on the market.
Its ability to anonymize its users has not gone unnoticed by the crowds as everyone that wanted to keep themselves safe and hidden away from peering eyes has been able to take full advantage of Monero over the years.
It managed to do this through the use of stealth addresses and ring signatures. By doing this, Monero can keep everything under wraps, to the point where nobody can tell who is sending the money and who’s receiving it.
Conclusion
As far as the actual advantages and disadvantages are concerned, it’s safe to say that there are a lot more positives to look over than negatives with privacy coins, to say the least.
For example, you have the fact that keeping yourself hidden does mean that you can purchase anything you want without a care in the world, especially if you want to keep the government away from your transactions.
As far as the disadvantages are concerned though, there are also a few that are worth noting here. For example, you can’t embed a script into privacy coin transactions which means that smart contracts are pretty much instantly off the table.
On top of that, privacy coins tend to be more expensive because of the added technologies that are meant to keep you private in the first place.
All that being said though, we still recommend using privacy coins simply because they are just a lot safer to use.
You can check out any of these privacy coins on the Guardarian and get your favorite crypto with Fiat currencies with multiple payment options!
