Mastering Blockchain, 2nd Edition

Chapter 8. Onchain Privacy, Monitoring, and Overall Security

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Although the concept of public, open, and borderless blockchains is based on transparency, users of various chains do, at times, require certain mechanisms that can safeguard private details.

As interest in crypto and blockchain has grown over the past decade, many have realized it’s not always useful for transactions and token ownership to be completely available to prying eyes on public chains. This is where privacy comes in, as someday it will likely become more than an afterthought and one of the main pillars of onchain security for a blockchain network.

Privacy Overview

In the technological scope of this book, privacy is the capability of an individual or a business entity to control the dissemination of information about them. Although there certainly have been regulatory advancements in this area, notably GDPR and CCPA regulations that now exist to ensure privacy protections, these policies don’t consist of actual technologies that can protect ...