1 Level
14 Review
32 Karma
Review on Verge by Christian Menke
Verge spits out a lot when it comes to her technology and its possibilities…
Verge spits out a lot when it comes to her technology and its possibilities. However, the code is copied from another project and nothing that the crypto world has never seen before. Privacy is not automatically protected. For example, users must be careful to work exclusively with stealth addresses. Parts of the blockchain are public and so you can draw conclusions about cash flows via Blockchain analysis. Those who want to keep their account balances and cash flows private should probably look better for something else.
Pros
- According to the developers, Verge is one of the most innovative privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies. With the Wraith Protocol, which was rolled out in early 2018, users should be able to optionally protect their transaction from the curious eyes of third parties. Verge has two mechanisms for this: stealth addresses and TOR routing. Stealth addresses are generated from three components: the public view key, the public spend key, and random data. Only the receiver of a transaction can identify it for itself on the blockchain and later spend it on its own. The second special feature of Verge is the integration with TOR (The Onion Router). With the TOR network, the IP addresses of the transmitters can be obfuscated (ie obfuscated). Since the Wraith protocol update, all Verge nodes are hosted over the TOR network. Thus, the origin of a transaction is no longer recognizable.
Cons
- Stealth addresses alone are not enough to anonymize the transactions on the Blockchain. They protect the receiver, but not the transmitter. If the transaction is sent from a public address, this is visible on the blockchain. In Verge Blockchain Explorer you can find transactions from public addresses to stealth addresses. It can be seen the credit of the sender address and incoming and outgoing transactions. It does not have much to do with anonymity. In a Verge transaction, the amount is always visible. This allows for an additional attack vector, namely when sending exceptionally specific amounts. Another weakness, which unfortunately has many privacy coins, and which Verge even interprets as strength, is the optional privacy. One would like to make some transactions public - for example, a donor organization that wants to assure the donors that no funds will be embezzled. The use of stealth addresses in Verge is opt-in, not opt-out. This means that anonymity is not standard. People will probably only use anonymity if they really need it. For a real anonymity in the whole system, it would be better if all transactions were done with stealth addresses. If someone wants to publish their wallet or a transaction, there is an explicit view key. Using blockchain analysis software, it is possible to get far-reaching conclusions about wallet connections. The know-your-customer policies on exchanges, in turn, provide a link between real identities and the pseudonyms of a blockchain.
