General Overview of Bytecoin (BCN)

What is Bytecoin?

Bytecoin is a cryptocurrency that is untraceable and uses CryptoNote ring signatures to enable anonymous transactions. It is also a peer-to-peer (P2P) payment system and is comparable to Bitcoin in its uses in different ways.

Bytecoin was created in 2012 and is regarded as one of the earliest cryptocurrencies. The project received criticism when it started due to the anonymity of the team behind it. However, recently, the team relaxed on this and opened up channels of communication which removed layers of anonymity, helping to build community confidence and growth.

The coin is deeply connected to another popular privacy coin, Monero, which is also a fork of Bytecoin.

The CryptoNote technology used by Bytecoin helps provide the anonymity through ring signatures and one-time addresses. In these type of anonymous transactions, the sender’s and receiver’s addresses are concealed and cannot be seen.

History of Bytecoin

Bytecoin was founded on July 4, 2012, and improvements have continued to be made to the project since its launch. These improvements include multi-valued transactions and security updates. The original CryptoNote implementation was rewritten with C++ in 2013. On the Bytecoin blockchain is additional information that is not related to remittances: some blocks include the geographical coordinates of educational institutions and universities among other buildings. Blocks that were created since August 11, 2012 include quotes from Cyphernomicon, William Gibson and other authors.

A road map for future releases was announced by Bytecoin developers in March 31, 2015. Some of the mentioned improvements are:

• A payment gateway that allows for the receiving and sending of hundreds and thousands of transactions simultaneously.
• Several API layers to be integrated with other surfaces.
• Desktop GUI wallet software.
• Blockchain-based assets.
• Blockchain-based aliases system.
• Smart contracts with embedded Turing-complete language.

How Does Bytecoin Work?

Bytecoin is an open-source cryptocurrency that uses the principle of Proof-of-Work protocol. This algorithm for mining in Bytecoin is different in that for x86 microprocessors, it uses the AES command system, with a fairly large amount of memory. This makes GPU mining not as efficient, as with Bitcoin. It also uses an algorithm called CryptoNight, which uses its ring signature to provide complete program anonymity. Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Yael Taumann developed the cryptographic basis for the protocol in 2001 and it was finalized in 2007 by E. Fujisaki, and K. Suzuki in 2007. American mathematician Daniel Bernstein proposed the EdDSA scheme that is used as the signature algorithm. It is on this basis that additional transaction obfuscation was added.

As a result of CryptoNote and the obfuscation added to the protocol, passive mixing ensures that all of the system’s transactions are anonymous, and all the participants in the system can use plausible deniability in the event of capture.

Bytecoin Mining

Bytecoin is a CPU-mined currency, which is why it is very attractive to people. It uses an Egalitarian Proof-of-Work, ASIC/GPU-resistant algorithm based on CryptoNight. Basically, every modern PC ought to be able to mine Bytecoin well.

Bytecoin emission is limited to about 184.47 billion. The number of emitted Bytecoins decrease slightly every 120 seconds. As this happens, the BCN tokens start appreciating in value as the exchange rate increases, which essentially makes BCN become more expensive.

Bytecoin emission is completely different to that of fiat currencies, as that is a closed process. Bytecoin emission, on the contrary, is open and uses computing power from all the network members. Any user can join the network and help to emit Bytecoin, which in turn makes them miners.

Miners ensure transactions, which occur every 120 seconds, are processed correctly. They also ensure cryptographic protection for personal data and transactions. Privacy concerns are not necessary as miners can access the financial data of users. Bytecoin ensures all information about the sender, recipient and amount sent in a transaction is concealed.

Bytecoin Team & Progress

Since its inception in July 2012, the Bytecoin project has been fairly fractured. In the past, several separate teams worked on the project without having to communicate with each other. This led to numerous forks and versions of the coin.

In July 2017, the team changed their name and become more transparent with the community. The team initially provided names and headshots on their webpage, then removed them, but included a contact page and several means of communicating with them.

In early 2018, the team worked on their code, and released a new API in March of that year. In continuation of reaching its milestones, the team also entered the Asian market in Q1 of 2018.

The development team is currently working on Bytecoin Zero, which will provide users with the convenience of light web apps while letting them maintain the security level expected from Bytecoin.

Competitors Info

Dash (DASH)

Dash (formerly called Xcoin, then Darkcoin) is an open-source cryptocurrency and a form of decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that focuses on privacy and anonymity. It is an altcoin forked from Litecoin which itself was forked from Bitcoin protocol, which protects user privacy and transaction anonymity through the use of a technology developed by the team called Darksend.

Monero (XMR)

Monero is another open-source cryptocurrency that offers decentralization, fungibility and privacy through the CryptoNote protocol — a secure, private, and untraceable currency system. Monero utilizes an obfuscated public ledger to ensure that anyone can broadcast and send transactions with the source, amount, or destination hidden. Monero uses a Proof-of-Work mechanism for the issuance of new coins and as an incentive to miners to ensure network security and transaction validation.

Grin

Grin coin is a lightweight, privacy-focused, open-source, Proof of Work (PoW) project that is based on the mimblewimble blockchain protocol. It is a scalable crypto.

Unique / Key Features Against its Competitors:

• Payments are untraceable. Bytecoin hides transactions using ring signatures to mix different outputs with similar values into one transaction. This ensures it is impossible to tell where the money came from. All addresses are obscured on the Bytecoin blockchain.
• Bytecoin is evolving. Bytecoin is an open-source software cryptocurrency that allows everyone to contribute to the development of the project.
• Instant Fee-free Payments. There are zero transaction fees on the Bytecoin network. These transactions happen as fast as your internet permits. Transactions are not actually instant as confirmation is needed first.
• Double-spending proof. Bytecoin uses the modified version of the “Traceable Ring Signature”. This in fact transforms traceability and linkability while also ensuring a signer’s anonymity is preserved if they use the same private key to create more than one signature. These signatures are linked together, which is an indication of double-sending attempt.