Privacy Coin
A cryptocurrency designed to reduce public visibility of transaction participants, amounts, or balances.
- Also known as
- privacy-focused cryptocurrency
A privacy coin uses protocol or wallet techniques to hide or blur transaction details that are normally public. Privacy may cover sender, recipient, amount, asset, or transaction graph, and may be mandatory or optional.
Privacy is not absolute. Network timing, wallet bugs, small anonymity sets, optional transparent use, exchange records, endpoint compromise, and user behavior can reveal information.
Stronger confidentiality can increase proof size, computation, audit complexity, or wallet requirements. Availability also varies because some exchanges and jurisdictions restrict privacy-focused assets. Those policy choices are separate from the protocol's technical properties.
Transparent chains can add privacy tools such as CoinJoin or CashFusion, but optional collaborative transactions have different anonymity and usage patterns from protocol-default confidential transfers.
Related terms
Explore connected entries beyond the alphabetical index.
Ring Signature
→A signature scheme that hides the true signer among a group, providing signer ambiguity.
Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP)
→A cryptographic proof that convinces a verifier a statement is true without revealing the private information behind it.
CoinJoin
→A privacy technique that combines multiple users’ inputs and outputs in a single transaction.
CashFusion
→An opt-in Bitcoin Cash CoinJoin protocol that combines many inputs and differently sized outputs to complicate transaction-link analysis.