The crypto-verse has moved from the first stage of foundation-building and establishment. Virtually every developed and developing nation in the world today has a share in the global crypto pie. As a result, the current crypto era is all about innovation and the adaptation of blockchain solutions to a variety of old and new problems. But, the crypto industry has to overcome some of the present hurdles first, including the rise in regulations and the relegation of user privacy.
Regulations are popping up left and right. Governments are fighting to safeguard their economies from overexposure to criminal elements. However, crypto proponents are also doing their best to ensure that the entire blockchain ecosystem is not criminalized because of some mischievous users. In the meantime, innocent users are lost in the middle, pondering whether anonymity and privacy are still genuine components of crypto.
The crypto industry has an odd relationship with privacy issues. On the one hand, due to the public verifiability of transactions, the movement of money is easily traceable. On the other hand, privacy and confidentiality are core pillars of the crypto-verse. The system is thus balanced since it offers users a variety of ways to maintain their privacy. However, now that more governments are taking more active steps towards streamlining the crypto industry in a way that they can manage, the balance of security and privacy in the system is no longer reliable.
So, to ensure that your crypto assets, investments, and activities are private, here are 5 things you can do.
1- Use Multiple Addresses and Wallets to Receive Payments
The way blockchains operate, anyone who knows your address on the blockchain has automatic access to information that is supposed to be private. Say you want to pay a customer in crypto and exchange addresses. This customer can use any number of tools, including a block explorer, to check your transaction history and find out the size of your crypto pocket.
One of the easiest ways to get out of this situation is to use a new address every time you have to engage in crypto transactions with someone. This helps you spread your activity and asset tracks across a wide range of wallets and addresses. When people look up the address you gave them for a transaction, they will not be able to find out the size of your crypto assets or even the entirety of your transaction history.
You can also be a bit more systematic by using several different wallets at the same time. With each wallet holding a certain amount of your investments and transaction history, you will be able to hide the majority of your crypto activities. This is another reason prominent crypto enthusiasts have accounts with multiple crypto exchange platforms. Each of these platforms serves as a separate bank, so to say, where they can create multiple wallets and use crypto addresses that help them shield their assets and activities from scrutinizing minds.
2- Use Crypto Platforms that Value and Prioritize Privacy
It is a fact that all crypto platforms, decentralized or centralized, are supposed to prioritize user privacy and security. This is because privacy and security are core components of the crypto-verse, ensuring that blockchains are not perpetually vulnerable to malicious break-ins. However, even though crypto exchange platforms are supposed to be user-centric and therefore give precedence to user security and privacy, this is not often the case.
To be fair, crypto platforms cope with many challenges. They have to ensure efficient transactions, deal with verification problems, maintain liquidity pools, and monitor the flow of tokens per time. Even though automated systems are employed for these functions, these systems are not omnipotent. Therefore, the crypto-verse is made up of many crypto platforms that are biased towards one or two of the foundational components of blockchain technology.
So, very few crypto platforms can effectively handle multiple components at the same time and therefore promote all the advantages of using crypto instead of the old system. You should be on the lookout for these innovative platforms because they use novel methods to prioritize user security and privacy.
One such crypto platform is Kyrrex, the innovative digital bank for all things crypto. The platform prioritizes several core crypto components, including security and privacy, transaction speed, trading ease, wide-range online integration, and user access to support. It uses hybrid cryptographic encryption methods to ensure that user data is hidden behind multiple layers of database security.
So, instead of using platforms that promote anonymous crypto trade or those that say nothing about the privacy and confidentiality of user data, use platforms that value and promote the safety of user assets. This choice covers you from virtually every danger of privacy violation, leaving your crypto exchange platform to worry about privacy and security concerns.
From the way crypto critics talk about the porosity of blockchain ledgers and transactions, you would think that every exchange ends up with one side more vulnerable to the assault of hackers than before the transaction. In truth, security and privacy are fundamental components of the crypto-verse, so every platform regards these components highly. (Only that some platforms, as we have shown, are more particular about them than others.) Therefore, there are privacy tools specially designed to promote the confidentiality of crypto users. Examples of such tools are zero-knowledge proofs, mixers, and ring signatures.
Consider zero-knowledge proofs. These are handy privacy tools because they are straightforward in their function. These proofs enable a user to confirm that they validated a particular crypto transaction and do so without having to provide their public keys to be believed. Ordinarily, publishing your wallet address is the traditional method of verifying transaction claims. However, with zero-knowledge proofs, you don’t have to give away your public address.
Zero-knowledge proofs are a derivative of zero-knowledge encryption, a system that ensures that a user’s access codes are only known to the user and no one else. So far, this system has been adopted in crypto security with the proofs. However, efforts are being made to fully adapt them such that they can become core features on every crypto exchange platform and service. That way, blockchain ledgers can remain transparent at the same time that users can shield their crypto activities and assets from other users and platforms.
Mixers and ring signatures serve similar functions in using both simple and complex methods to hide details of user transactions. Mixers, especially, require a third party whose database becomes the exchange point between crypto users. Therefore, transactions will be traced to the third party instead of the engaging crypto user.
All these tools are useful for protecting user crypto assets, activity, and privacy. Many crypto exchange platforms use them in one way or another. Therefore, you can rely on them as well.
VPNs have become one of the most convenient and valuable features for digital privacy and security. The best selling point of these services is that they can hide your online footprints, especially your IP address, from web trackers, governments, and even some crypto platforms. Therefore, using VPNs whenever you trade in crypto is one of the surest ways to preserve your privacy.
Every knowledgeable crypto user knows that some crypto platforms log users’ IP addresses to increase the efficiency of their services. The problem with this is that whenever hackers gain access to these platforms, they can make away with this information. Once this happens, you can expect clever hackers to try to make as much profit from their theft, including tracing your crypto transactions and finding out ways to defraud you eventually. When you use a good VPN that prevents any platform from logging your IP address, you remove yourself from this narrative of hackers and possible fraud.
One thing to keep in mind is that all VPNs are not the same. To use George Orwell’s words, all VPNs offer privacy values, but some VPNs offer more privacy values than others. You can be sure that premium VPNs (those whose services you have to pay to use) are generally more secure and reliable than free VPNs. So, to be safe, never use a free VPN with your crypto transactions.
5- Use Social Media with Crypto Addresses and Engagements with Care
The easiest way to lose your privacy and be flushed out of your crypto anonymity bubble is to engage social media with your crypto activities. Social media space is virtual, yes, but it is also all-reaching. With many online platforms integrated, every internet user is a flashing point that can be identified on the web. So, when you publish aspects of your crypto activities on social media, you are essentially throwing out pieces of meat and waiting for wolves to trace them back to you.
Granted, there is no reason a rational crypto user would want to have their crypto activities and assets exposed to the world. We all value our privacy, especially as it has to do with financial assets. But it is also very easy to accidentally compromise this privacy on social media.
Say, a celebrity asks their followers to drop their wallet addresses online so they (said celebrity) can give them (the followers) crypto for free. Once these addresses are posted online, they are almost certainly forever ‘inscribed’ on the walls of that social media platform. Any Tom, Dick, and Harry can follow these crypto addresses back to the user, look into their history, and think up ways to take advantage of them.
So, pay extra attention to how you post your stuff on social media. Keep in mind that it is difficult to erase online posts and that there is no steel-solid guarantee that hackers will not break into your social media accounts, even if temporarily. Therefore, endeavor to keep from posting your public and private keys online, whether in private chats or public posts.
So, to conclude, user privacy is very important to the crypto-verse. The appeal of the blockchain revolution is that it grants users more freedom over their assets and financial choices. However, once user privacy is compromised, this freedom counts for nothing. Therefore, the suggestions submitted in this article are simple but effective in safeguarding your place and future in the crypto-verse.