Ergo Privacy Quick Overview

Armeanio
2 min readJul 20, 2021

--

What’s up Ergonaut’s.

It seems with the latest tweet from Ergo people are asking about privacy, current and potential future implementation.

I gathered a little bit of data quickly into a single post, so those of you interested can review.

THE FOLLOWING IS A GOOD INTRO TO MIMBLEWIMBLE

MimbleWimble Explained to a 12 Year Old.
https://link.medium.com/t2XqXfCd3hb

I pulled some content from multiple answers from the Ergoversary AMA. Just to give an overview of what is possible.

The first has to do with the potential of a MimbleWimble based sidechain. It is not implemented but is possible. It is something that Kushti has been reading/thinking about.

Hello kushti, what are your favorite crypto projects besides of Ergo? + content from other questions

I am still studying Bitcoin, e.g. carefully reading P2P layer source code these days, have plans to get deeper understanding of Taproot and its security also.

I am usually interested in privacy-preserving and MimbleWimble-based cryptocurrencies, such as ZCoin, Monero, Grin, Beam, Gotts, ZCash / Pirate Chain etc, trying to read all more or less good writings on them.

Sidechains can be used to make core protocol new features for the Ergo tokens without modifications needed for the Ergo blockchain (e.g. full privacy on a sidechain via ZCash or Monero like techniques).

We have a draft of trustless peg contract which allows to get tokens from the sidechain in uncensorable way while the sidechain is not broken. Then there are different options for security assumptions of the sidechain itself. When sidechain is reflecting another blockchain, there are different relay options (simple relays / NiPoPoWs).

Undoubtedly Ergo is going to be the unique beast in the zoo of cryptocurrencies. and horizon is still not visible.

Ergo already supports Stealth Wallets and has the ErgoMixer which enables privacy on chain. Read more — see some code on the following Forum Posts.

Stealth Addresses
https://www.ergoforum.org/t/stealth-address-contract/255

ErgoMixer/ZeroJoin
https://www.ergoforum.org/t/ergomixer-zerojoin-mixer-for-erg-and-tokens/318

--

--