Bitcoin Private (BTCP) Review – A Fork-Merge of ZClassic and Bitcoin

Bitcoin Private is a cryptocurrency that has the advantage of being the first privacy coin forked off of Bitcoin. Members of the community believe that it is closest to Satoshi’s original vision of financial freedom with fast, low-fee, decentralized and private transactions.

The Idea and the Team Behind Bitcoin Private

Bitcoin Private is a merged fork of Zclassic (ZCL) and Bitcoin (BTC) created on February 28, 2018. Forks are changes in the underlying code of a blockchain. In other words, you can think of a fork as a set of rules a community follows.

Bitcoin Private’s fork was intended to add privacy and spendability to the Bitcoin blockchain. In comparison with its predecessors Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Private wanted to use a larger block size (2 MB), a shorter block time (2.5 minutes), and an ASIC-resistant (GPU-friendly) proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm for mining (Equihash).

After the hard fork, anyone holding ZClassic or Bitcoin received Bitcoin Private at a 1:1 ratio. That means that if you had 20.3 ZCL and .1 BTC, you would receive 20.3 BTCP. The payout from this fork means that Bitcoin Private is possible one of the most widely distributed coins available.

The idea behind Bitcoin Private originated from Rhett Creighton, founder of ZClassic (ZCL). The rest of the team soon followed, including Jacob Brutman, head of Operations and Giuseppe Stuto, Head of Strategy.  Bitcoin Private is community-driven and comprises over 150 contributors all over the globe.\

With its capability to provide fast transactions, Bitcoin Private has real-world applications in both peer-to-peer and commercial transaction in both global commerce and local stores. In addition to offering a secure, tested and widely adopted form of cryptocurrency technology, it has the added benefit of anonymity and privacy.

Bitcoin Private Price History

Since it is a fork from ZClassic and Bitcoin, Bitcoin Private did not have an ICO.

After the launch of Bitcoin Private in February, the coin briefly shot up to $83.20 in January.  The coin rose again to $39.30 in April.

The Bitcoin Private Technology

How is Bitcoin Private’s technology different than Bitcoin and ZClassic? It has distinctions in the area of privacy, speed, and transparency. Similar to both coins, however, Bitcoin Privacy supports peer-to-peer transactions without a third-party. Transactions are verified by nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public ledger.

Privacy

Bitcoin Private employs the technology used with ZClassic, which are zk-SNARKS. “ZK” is an abbreviation of “zero-knowledge.” It means that payments are published on a public blockchain, but the sender, recipient and other transactional metadata remain unidentifiable.

Speed

Bitcoin Private supports an increased block size, an additional megabyte over Bitcoin, which translate into increased speed. It does this while at the same time allowing anonymity and security.

Transparency

Bitcoin Private offers full transparency to its community. It is open-source and will remain so forever. The codebase is viewable by anyone upon request.

The Bitcoin Private Network

Bitcoin Private has several unique features that distinguish it from other coins as well as its predecessors. They include: Proof-of-Work (EquiHash), transparent and shielded transactions, the voluntary miner contribution program, and the treasury fund governance.

Proof-of-Work: Equihash

In contrast with Bitcoin, Bitcoin Private utilizes the Equihash Proof-of-Work algorithm. That’s in contrast to the minign of Bitcoin with ASICs, which are more difficult to acquire and have led to centralization of Bitcoin mining. Decentralization is key for greater democratization of the blockchain, decreased risk of attack, and adoption of the currency as evenly as possible.

Transparent and Shielded Transactions

Transparent transactions have input, output, amount and signature. Shielded transactions, on the other hand, are verifiable but indecipherable to third-parties. When using these transactions, a specialized zero-proof algorithm is employed called zk-SNARKS to ensure integrity of the system.

Miner Voluntary Contribution Program

Bitcoin Private is unique in that it set of a treasury before launching with 50,000 ZClassic to be forked into BTCP. This was to be used for development and marketing purposes.

Funds are to be distributed as follows:

• 50% on exchange listings
• 25% for development
• 15% for marketing
• 10% for general administrative costs

Treasury Fund Governance

Members of the greater community as well as the mining community are assembled to be in charge of the treasury

How to Purchase BTCP

HitBTC is the main option for purchasing BTCP, as well as the exchange where it has the highest volume of trading. It is available for purchasing with BTC.

Trade BTCP with BTC on HitBTC

BTCP is also available on the following exchanges:

• Nanex (Trade BTCP with NANO on Nanex)
• Trade Satoshi (Trade BTCP with BTC on Trade Satoshi)
• Sistemkoin (Trade BTCP with BTC on Sistemkoin)
• Exrates (Trade BTCP with BTC on Exrates)
• Sistemkoin (Trade BTCP with TRY on Sistemkoin)

Where to Mine BTCP

BTCP can be mined using a mining pool. The official mining pool is built and run by BTCP developers and available from the Bitcoin Private website.

How to Store BTCP

BTCP can be stored on a number of wallets, including a Full-Node Desktop Wallet, an Electrum Wallet, and Coinomi.

For maximum security, we recommend storing your BTCP offline.

In addition to the wallet choices above, Bitcoin Private enables you to open a Paper Wallet on its website.

Roadmap and Future Updates

Bitcoin Private has many development plans for 2018 and 2019. In Q3 of 2018 it plans to release a new core node, initiate a soft fork for full SegWit support, and initiate Lightning Network and the Electrum Wallet. It also plans to have significant ecommerce integration.

By 2019 it hopes to release its decentralized exchange, make shielded transactions default and consider making them mandatory.