What is DigitalNote?
DigitalNote is a blockchain platform for open currency that everyone can benefit from. This open cryptocurrency platform provides a decentralized privacy protected outfit for users, complete with encrypted messaging services and secure GPU services.
DigitalNote was introduced in 2014 when developers were still experimenting with privacy coins. It started out as duckNote, and later on evolved into DarkNote by adding encrypted messaging to the platform.
Soon after introducing blockchain staking and merged mining, DarkNote evolved into DigitalNote.
DigitalNote was founded as a Bytecoin fork, similar to Monero, and is one of the most technologically advanced forks of all the forks that were built in the same manner.
DigitalNote has been a successful force behind the need to fight government surveillance and censorship. These are two of the biggest challenges facing freedom at the moment, civil or in terms of advancing technological progress.
The following are some of the features that are built into DigitalNote that help to advance its cause:
- Multi-signature support
- Blockchain-based deposits
- Encrypted, untraceable messaging
- Scalable and adaptive
- ASIC resistant
- CPU efficient
- Resistant to blockchain analysis
- Untraceable payments
- Unlikable transactions
At the moment, leak culture and worldwide events are shaping the future of societies, and it’s because of this reason that it is important to have an untraceable and encrypted technology like DigitalNote, which provides a true sense of financial privacy, and at the same time offer peer-to-peer banking functions.
What is the problem that DigitalNote Solves?
Untraceable, encrypted messaging is one of those things that cryptocurrency projects tend to promise, but not so many of them have been able to achieve it as they should.
This is one of the biggest challenges in blockchain computing. Most of the time, cryptocurrency is only concerned about digital assets, and how these assets exchange hands from one party to another. However, in some cases, even the transfers are riddled with inefficiencies.
There are times when the payer or payee will need certain information about the other party to the transaction they are engaged in. In such a case, this information can be shared through a secret message.
Take the example of an online store that is offering a money-back guarantee. For the customer to benefit from this, they would need to share their return or refund address as part of the transaction.
Because of this reason, it is important to have a way of communicating private information between parties without worrying about this leaking out somehow.
This is an important feature that most cryptocurrency projects have thought about, but not so many have gone on to implement. The convenience of private communication is one of those things that cannot be taken for granted.
Attaching a plain message to the transaction is not a challenge. However, the problem comes in finding out how to handle secret information. What these parties to a transaction can do, is to use a private key for encryption and decryption.
This is ideal especially when both parties are going to be in communication with one another for a long time. This is why DigitalNote proposes a protocol that would allow the transfer of encrypted messages inside these transactions. Sharing these messages does not necessarily require data exchange. For this reason, this would be built on a modern symmetric stream cipher, ChaCha20.
How does DigitalNote Solve the problem?
Any cryptocurrency project can claim that they are offering privacy. This is a very common statement that is thrown around. However, privacy and anonymity are two different things, and most projects can achieve either, or both, but at different levels.
What DigitalNote does is to focus on using the CryptoNote algorithm’s anonymous technology. For this reason, DigitalNote has a rather solid foundation for building anonymous technology into the project.
There are some unique encrypted messaging solutions that were also introduced into the DigitalNote project, which make it impossible to trace messages. In so doing, users on DigitalNote are able to enjoy the benefit of privacy and anonymity when conducting transactions. These are two features that might not be the same but are intertwined in one way or the other in the context of certain transactions. Considering that a lot of people are worried about the mass surveillance that is in place in so many jurisdictions, this is the best time to implement a project like DigitalNote.
It is also worth noting that DigitalNote is one of very few projects that are ASIC resistant. The problem with ASIC is that while it makes it possible to mine efficiently, it also has the downside of making the process more centralized, which goes against the basic concept of blockchain computing. This is a challenge that we have seen with Bitcoin and so many other alternative coins that came up since then. ASIC resistance, therefore, is a tradeoff that the DigitalNote developers were not willing to risk. How does DigitalNote manage to achieve all this?
Proof of Activity Based Staking
This is one feature that completely sets DigitalNote apart from other projects. XDN rewards users who stake coins in a non-inflationary method. This is not just a means of ensuring fairness in the network, but also offers enhanced security on the network.
Rewards on DigitalNote are determined only by the staking period. Those who stake on DigitalNote are, therefore, rewarded according to the time they have had their coins locked on the blockchain project. Users can lock their coins for anywhere between one month and ten years. The higher the number of stakers, the more secure the network is against attacks.
CryptoNote Technology
This technology has been fully implemented by DigitalNote, making it one of the few projects that are offering true anonymity. Through this technology, transactions are unlinkable. Details about transactions between the sender and the receiver cannot be drawn from the blockchain, which is not the case with most of the other projects.
Apart from that, DigitalNote also uses ring signatures. There is a complex process that is involved before a block is verified. This involves the use of several public keys from different users. Therefore, identifying the original starting point of any transaction content on the block becomes a problem. It is prohibitively difficult, and to be honest, practically unthinkable.
CryptoNight Algorithm
This algorithm is a memory function that is implemented on the CryptoNote protocol, that was used in developing DigitalNote.
Why is this algorithm important?
Well, this is the reason why Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) mining setups cannot overpower the network. This is a far cry from the SHA-256 that is implemented by Bitcoin.
It is through this algorithm that DigitalNote becomes a truly decentralized blockchain project, offering fairness for all users. A lot of the large PoW projects usually struggle because ASIC miners can easily turn the mining process into a monopoly, and over time, this also increases the risk of attacks.
Proof of Work/Proof of Stake Hybrid
Using a hybrid mechanism for consensus is a feature that has been successfully implemented by a few projects, and DigitalNote is one of them. This consensus is important in authenticating transactions. The network is broken down to stakers and miners. This is an important process because it helps to reduce the amount of power or resources that are consumed in running the network. It is also through this that DigitalNote makes sure miners never get to impose a monopoly in the system.
What makes DigitalNote better than the competitors?
In a market where everyone seems to be promising privacy and anonymity in transactions and very few manage to achieve it, there is a lot of competition. The biggest concern is that most of these projects are usually clones of certain projects, so it becomes difficult to fully understand the code they are working with, hence the challenges they experience in implementing their manifestos, especially concerning privacy and anonymity. The following are some of the reasons why DigitalNote is better than most of the competing projects:
Consensus Mechanism
DigitalNote uses a hybrid consensus mechanism. It is one of very few projects that is running a hybrid proof of stake/proof of work consensus. This is an idea that helps to champion fairness on the network by making sure that miners do not get to hog the network resources, hence gaining control over the network. Apart from that, this also makes sure that there is a drastic reduction in the number of resources and power that is consumed on the blockchain. Therefore, DigitalNote can mitigate some of the environmental constraints that are often associated with projects that operate on Proof of Work, like Bitcoin.
ASIC Resistance
One of the biggest concerns that PoW projects face is ASIC miners gaining control over the network over time. This is not something that DigitalNote users have to worry about. When ASIC miners gain control, they pretty much create a monopoly, mining most of the blocks that are needed. By implementing an improved CryptoNight algorithm, users on DigitalNote have a fair chance of mining blocks. CPU and GPU miners can also look forward to mining blocks on DigitalNote without worrying about unfair competition from the ASIC miners.
Completely Anonymous
What else would you ask for, in a project that is offering true anonymity for users? This not easy to find, and most projects that claim they offer complete anonymity barely do. Transactions on DigitalNote are untraceable. Built upon that are privacy features that make your interaction process better and safer. All messages on DigitalNote are encrypted. You can send anonymous messages, and any comments on transactions are also safe and protected. When using DigitalNote, you are always sure that the privacy of anyone involved in the process is guaranteed.
This is different from what other projects do, whereby messages and transactions that are performed are stored on a public blockchain. Therefore, anyone who can access the blockchain can view the messages and have an idea of what was going on.
Feature-rich Platform
DigitalNote is loaded with a lot of features that most projects lack. First, DigitalNote has some of the shortest block times on the blockchain. This is because updates to the platform are run from time to time. All users on the DigitalNote project have the same opportunity to mine blocks, and the security measures implemented are amazing.
How can DigitalNote be categorized?
DigitalNote is an open privacy cryptocurrency. This is a decentralized, privacy-protected blockchain project that offers instant, encrypted and untraceable messaging, blockchain staking for fixed returns, and secure, GPU and CPU efficient ASIC-resistant mining.
What’s DigitalNote’s vision on Security?
Security is always a concern for projects like these that are about encryption, privacy, and anonymity. DigitalNote implemented the LWMA-2 difficulty adjustment algorithm. This helps to bridge the security flaws that existed within the original code. As a result, DigitalNote is now a network that is highly resistant to hash attacks or timestamp attacks. According to the DigitalNote developers, this is one of the best algorithms that micro coins can implement to boost their security, given that it offers the best and fastest response, especially for a predetermined level of stability.
Examples of DigitalNote use cases/applications
There are several uses to which DigitalNote can be implemented. Given that this is a project that focusses on privacy and anonymity of transactions, it would be ideal for the following scenarios:
Donations
Donors can simply specify either privately or in a public manner, how they would like to have their donations distributed.
Payment ID
Any merchant can choose not to provide an address, especially one that was recently created, for every single customer transaction. Instead of this, they can simply transfer the payment ID inside the transaction.
Moneyback feature
A customer that does not have a permanent account on a site, especially one who is making a one-off purchase or an infrequent buyer, can choose to specify their public address so that the merchant is the only person that can see it. This is useful should the customer need to invoke the money back feature.
Greetings
You can even send a digital postcard with a personal greeting message, and send it with a present if you wish.