Thread by @SarahJamieLewis

Titling this thread: "Actually interesting cryptocurrency things" wherein I will list the things happening in cryptocurrency that are actually interesting - maybe not complete or immediately viable, but technically interesting projects that may evolve into amazing systems.

First up: Grin, a mimblewimble implementation - github.com/mimblewimble/g…

Why I like it: MimbleWimble / focus on & investment in privacy & anonymity tech which I hope will pop up elsewhere / anarchist-leaning community open to experimentation

Next: Zcash z.cash

Why I like it: Investment in rolling out / scaling ZKP tech, zero knowledge systems in general, generally just more investment in privacy and anonymity tech (yay), the funding model for the foundation and the core team is also innovative.

Next: Coda codaprotocol.com

Why I like it: Recursive ZKSnarks / Compact Blockchains have interesting potential to minimizing the trust gap between being a fullnode and relying on someone elses fullnode.

Next: Lightening Network - lightning.network

Why I like it: A cohesive, technically sound answer to the "no seriously, how does this thing securely scale?" question.

Special Shoutout to BOLT (z.cash/blog/bolt-priv… / eprint.iacr.org/2016/701.pdf) and my hopes one day that we can somehow munge privacy and channels together in a holistic way.

There are lots of academic and peripheral engineering efforts that I wasn't intending to focus on but I'll also give a mention to:

* Zexe - eprint.iacr.org/2018/962.pdf
* Dalek Bulletproofs - doc-internal.dalek.rs/bulletproofs
/index.html
* Cloak - medium.com/interstellar/p…

On the consensus front:

PHANTOM - eprint.iacr.org/2018/104.pdf
Avalanche - ipfs.io/ipfs/QmUy4jh5m…

Waiting to see how these algorithms get incorporated into systems / the real world.

On sybil resistance: everything is terrible, PoW is still less terrible than everything else.

For completeness sake: Bitcoin (BTC - there are too many "Bitcoin"s) - still probably the only cryptocurrency I would actually recommend people use*

* I've gone into this elsewhere, go find those threads.

Transparency Disclaimer: I own (or control by proxy) some amount of BTC, XMR, ZEC, LTC, ETH and REP

Oh I also own some IOTA but the story behind that is probably best left for a hallway track session at some future security conference.

But Sarah what about <insert project here>

If it's not on my list it's because it is either:

1) Not technically interesting to me
2) I don't see how it will achieve adequate decentralization (fieldnotes.resistant.tech/dags-and-decen…)

or

3) It's just an outright scam / naive attempt.

There is also the possibility of 4) "I haven't heard of it"...unless we are talking about recent academic results or newly launched projects (i.e within the last 6-12 months) this one is less likely - I get sent a lot of stuff.