With hindsight, what are the factor that pushed Verge so high in terms of market cap? After all, it's just another privacy-focused coin.
"just another privacy-focused coin" -- It's the first to get privacy right.Here are the common problems with other so called "privacy" coins:
Masternodes centralize and make the rich richer (Dash)
IP addresses are visible via extraction methods (Dash, Monero, Bytecoin)
Cultish founding ceremony relies on trust (Zcash)
Founders' reward makes the rich richer (Zcash)
Proof of stake makes the rich richer (Cloak)
Vertcoin removed stealth address option
Mind you, all competitors are a one trick pony, while Verge uses IP obfuscation + stealth address receiver obfuscation. All in all, XVG by default protects its users entirely when using the XVG Wraith 4.0.1 wallet, while none of the others do for sure. I simply can't honestly call most of it's competitors private.
Looks like you've done your homework. What do you think about PIVX? DeepOnion?
I like XVG because it's a lightweight solution with many wallets and use cases, and Monero for quality privacy tech (RingCT is superior to all other attempts I believe)
To combat this, the Verge Wraith 4.0.1 wallet keeps the sender private with IP obfuscation and keeps the receiver private with stealth addressing. In the near future Verge will also include RingCT for senders, since a minimal amount of information like transaction amount can be seen on the blockchain.
So Verge is clearly at a superior stage of privacy than all others. PIVX and DeepOnion are proof of stake coins, so they have the same problem as Cloakcoin... making the rich richer, centralizing the wealth, making it in the long run rendered unusable as a currency.
IP obfuscation is somewhat overrated. Many Monero users share a monero daemon with a remote RPC call, so that increases their IP anonymity (as long as the server is not backdoored). More importantly, it's trivial to use VPNs, SOCKS proxies, many other options. People who are serious about privacy are already using these techniques, because they don't require coding and/or complex setup. Most daemons and wallets also have native support for SOCKS, or the connection is at a lower level than the daemon's network code (ie VPN). Finally, some coins are natively using the I2P protocol, which should provide good anonymity.
I had not heard that Verge devs want to support RingCT - that seems like a LOT of work.
Thanks for the tip on Cloakcoin. POS is, well, frankly a POS, from what I've heard.
All of this privacy tech is fairly cutting-edge and obscure. But we should expect to see gains in the space within a year or two. If people experience pain from being de-anonymized sooner, then the privacy space will only heat up faster! I notice a distinct uptick in crypto robberies being reported...
Of course one can use TOR and ssh tunnels via Socks5 and VPNs whatnot. This is also not the point.
The specialty in Verge is, that the services are WITHIN the TOR network. So called Hidden Services. They are NOT on clearnet and thus no exit node is involved for a transaction.
Thus: People who are serious about privacy understand this specialty also!
