DAPS Platform: A Hybrid and a New Age Privacy Platform that Rivals Monero and ZCash
Fact: privacy is a right and shouldn’t, in any way, be interpreted as a privilege. It is sacrosanct and rightly enshrined in the constitutions of democracies. Indeed, it would be savage not to port the same into shaping technologies of which blockchain promises to be.
Bitcoin was the first project that proved a concept. Upon launch roughly 11 years ago, the project’s anonymous founder decided to make its transactions as private as he could whilst ensuring that transactions are transparent yet secure.
That meant the rising of the middlemen who collected troves of data in the name of intermediation. Projects have since evolved and in the last decade, we have seen projects that fronted privacy and anonymity despite the pressure from regulators.
Introducing DAPS
DAPS (Decentralized Anonymous Payment System) is advancing the same privacy, anonymity and autonomy concept by taking it a step further. Already developed, DAPS is a privacy platform that is secure and scalable with completely private transactions.
Through the platform, users can send and receive transactions via stealth addresses, meaning no entity or governments can track the addresses and no wallets or wallet totals can be seen other than by the wallet itself. This is thanks to the team’s effort to merge several privacy features from established privacy-focused blockchains.
Their objective was to build an anonymous staking blockchain and a private payment system by incorporating several properties from Monero, the leading privacy-centric platform, and PIVX.
By doing so, DAPS has merged BulletProofs, RingCT and Ring Signatures in their Proof of Work (PoW), Proof of Stake (PoS), and Proof of Audit (POA) hybrid consensus algorithms effectively making it the first PoS cryptocurrency blockchain project bearing all these properties together. Therefore, through DAPS, one can run a masternode, stake and concurrently mine POA blocks.
HERE is a full description of DAPS project
Bullet Proofs and Ring Signatures on DAPS Platform
Monero integrated Bulletproofs in 2018. Other coins like ZCash have also done the same. Bulletproofs are advanced, non-interactive ZK proofs that require no trust setup for verification. What that means in plain text is that with Bulletproof both parties can prove they are part of the transaction without revealing their true identities. This feature is derived and is an improvement of ZK SNARKs that require a trusted setup.
Its activation, therefore, means one will send confidential transactions or effect confidential smart contracts on the DAPS platform while significantly scaling the network by reducing the size of transactions. This will go a long way in reducing the ever-swelling blockchains, a teaser for future masternodes or miners.
Bulletproofs supplement Ring Signatures, Confidential Transactions and Stealth Addresses that are conspicuously ported from the open-source Monero chain. Notably, the Ring Signature is a standout feature. Here, the sender unifies his/her signature with others making it impossible for trackers to know the true signer.
Why DAPS
Figure 1: DAPS platform Unique Features
Combined and utilizing the numerous advantages inherent in the blockchain network, it has been possible for DAPS to create a private blockchain and essentially solve the Trust Problem through a hybrid consensus system and specifically through Proof of Audit. In this hybrid system, the first 500 blocks were mined through Proof of Work.
Thereafter, the PoA and PoS systems have taken over with PoA and PoS block times of one hour and one minute, respectively. With each confirmed block, 1050 DAPS coins are emitted. Out of this, 50 DAPS coins are sent to the DAPS Development Fund.
Through the blockchain, users have a right to keep their transactions private and to avoid prying eyes from growing blockchain analytic firms like Chainalysis. Making this possible is a set of measures that have been taken by DAPS. To ensure that masternodes can’t collude and work to the detriment of the blockchain, Proof of Audit will act as a check and balance, enabling the reality of a fully private blockchain.
Each masternode must have at least 1 million DAPS coins as collateral, a dedicated IP address and a downtime of no less than 1 hour per day. For their participation, they are paid a portion of the mined block as incentivization as picked from the PIVX “See-Saw” model. Also, by merging PoA, PoS and masternodes the DAPS team created the Harpocrates protocol, a new industry standard in privacy blockchain .
DAPS platform users stand to benefit thanks to the array of features incorporated by the team. Unlike Monero, the platform will be stealthier with varying ring sizes from their Ring Signatures and miles ahead of traditional platforms as Komodo, where privacy is optional. Also, like Grin and ByteCoin, there will be no halving, whilst fees are kept at a minimum in a fully trustless system. The Mimble Wimble issue is also not a problem DAPS will face. Bogatyy stated in a research article that he was able to trace over 96% of all Grin-related transactions in real time, including the addresses of the senders as well as recipients associated with these sets of transactions as stated on Cointelegraph.
In Summary
Combined, these features are advantageous for end-users who would like to utilize the global blockchain for fast transaction settlement and to hide their transaction details, keeping them private. DAPS also passed a code security audit by the renowned security firm named Red4Sec. From the look of things, DAPS is ahead of the pack, secure and practical.
