Is There True Anonymity in the Blockchain?
Many consider, that all the cryptocurrencies in the world are completely anonymous. Bitcoin is the best example. Most people are sure that if all information is encoded with "incomprehensible symbols", then users remain completely anonymous. But this is far from the reality, and every user of BTC can be tracked without much difficulty.
In fact, all transactions on the BTC network are ordinary messages that are encrypted into a certain number of characters using the SHA-256 hash algorithm. For example, when someone sends Bitcoins to another person, it looks like this: "Hello, this is Frank, and I send you 10 BTC". The "author" signs this message with his private key, after which the transaction gets into the blockchain and reaches the final addressee. The whole chain of such transaction can be easily traced.
That is why crypto enthusiasts began to create truly anonymous cryptocurrencies. A lot of such coins appeared in the past few years: Dash, Monero, Zcash. Each of them has its advantages. But there are also drawbacks, especially regarding anonymity.
So, the group of developers decided to take the best of them, and create a cryptocurrency that cannot really be tracked - Sumokoin.
Initially, Sumokoin appeared as an educational project dedicated to anonymity in the crypto world. But soon the developers decided that it is necessary to move from theory to practice. In May 2017, they hardforked of one of the best anonymous coins in the world - Monero. The developers considered that XMR with all its advantages still didn't provide users with complete anonymity, and transactions in the network can be tracked. Therefore, they decided to go their own way and create a cryptocurrency, which could truly hide the user from unnecessary eyes.
But they didn’t just soullessly copy the Monero code but improved it drastically.
Developers Sumokoin borrowed from Monero protocol Crypto Note. SUMO like Monero also works on CryptoNote protocol.
The transaction in CryptoNote is similar to the same BTC, but there are significant differences. The sender also transmits a message, but the system automatically selects a group of several people. Suppose, from 10. The message itself looks like this: "Hello, someone from 10 people has sent you a cryptocurrency". And for signing, private keys and public keys of one of the members of this group are used. In this scheme, it is almost impossible to track the original sender.
When authenticating a transaction, the system will be able to determine that the transaction is correct and signed by one of a group of individuals. But the system wouldn’t know, who exactly it was. This keeps anonymity, and at the same time protects the blockchain from the problem of double spending.
The SUMO developers have perfected this mechanism and switched to the Ring Confidential Transactions (RingCT) principle, which is based on not less than 12 transactions mixing to guarantee the secrecy of the sender and receiver of money.
Basically, the "message" about the transaction passes through 12 groups. Therefore, it is impossible to track it.
Another striking difference between Sumokoin and its predecessor it is stability. Monero developers are constantly trying to make another breakthrough with the help of hardforks. This affects the quality of the coin and may cause some problems. Sumokoin is going to achieve its goal “quietly”, and sure, because the stable operation of the network is above all.
Sumokoin has long-term ambitions. Even the emission principle says that: most of the SUMO coins will be produced only after 20 years. And while this time has not expired, the coin team will concentrate on the basic things.
Moreover, the creators do not want the cryptocurrency to be used only by "chosen one" developers. Therefore, in the near future, SUMO will focus on user-friendly interfaces of its services.
Simultaneously, the team will work on the popularization of the cryptocurrency. Here the focus is on merchants who will adopt SUMO as a reliable and fully anonymous payment instrument.
And, of course, the developers of SUMO do not forget about the fundamental principles of the cryptocurrency - complete anonymity, security, and ease of use.