Private Instant Verified Transaction (PIVX) price

What is Private Instant Verified Transaction?

PIVX is a cryptocurrency project focused on facilitating fast private transactions with little environmental impact and low transaction fees. Its innovative Proof-of-Stake protocol uses a variable reward mechanism that balances 90% of its block reward size between staking nodes and master nodes, and the remaining 10% for budget proposals. The stated goal of PIVX is to achieve a decentralized cryptocurrency that is sustainable, with near instant full-time private transactions, fair governance, and community intelligence.

PIVX was originally launched on Feb 1, 2016 under the name Darknet (DNET). From this time to August 2016, PIVX ran its initial Proof-of-Work distribution phase before transitioning to a Proof-of-Stake protocol. Based on the Blackcoin 2.0 PoS protocol, and the Bitcoin Core 0.10x code base, PIVX is primarily marketed as the solution to a lack of privacy and speed found with other cryptocurrencies, and utilizes unique, highly advanced Blockchain technology to achieve this.

How Does PIVX Ensure Transactions Are Kept Private?

With traditional cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, all transactions and balances are visible through the digital public ledger stored on the Blockchain. This means that anyone who looks at the ledger can see all transactions and balances, as well as the associated wallet addresses. Although wallet addresses are anonymous, transactions with exchanges or merchants via a user account could potentially reveal the true identity of the associated wallet owner.

PIVX aims to decouple the wallet address and the user accounts through the use of a well-known protocol called Zerocoin. PIVX combines the protocol with the PIVX coin to create “zPIV”, a user-minted, anonymous coin that achieves anonymity by “mixing” coins in a shared pool and then redistributing coins out as different pieces of data, which are equal in value to the original value of the deposited PIVX. The following analogy is taken from the PIVX Zerocoin Protocol’s White paper, and explains the premise in an easy to understand format:

“...Finally, a simple analogy. Think of zPIV as casino chips. You give your 100 dollar bill (i.e. PIV) to the cashier and you get some 1x$10, 2x$20, 1x$50 dollar chips (i.e. zPIV). This means that you no longer own that particular 100 dollar bill you exchanged and instead have “proof” that you still own $100. Now when you need 50 dollars of it back as fiat (PIV), you give your chips (zPIV) back to the cashier and the cashier delivers a brand-new uncirculated 50 dollar bill to a recipient of your choosing.”

How Does PIVX Keep Transaction Fees Low?

PIVX keeps transaction fees low by utilizing a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol to verify transactions on the Blockchain, rather than a Proof-of-Work (PoW) protocol. PoS works by incentivizing currency holders to “Stake” their coins in the system in the hopes of being chosen to validate a block. The more the user stakes, the higher the chance of being selected. PIVX allows all coin holders to stake their coins, and to provide validation services to the network in exchange for rewards. This keeps transaction fees relatively low, as the cost and computational complexity of producing blocks is much smaller than that of a PoW protocol. Because of PIVX’s PoS implementation, they are able to offer one of the lowest transaction rates available in the cryptocurrency market, at almost negligible rates of 0.0001 PIV.

Who Is the Team Behind PIVX?

With privacy as the central focus of the PIVX project, it is no surprise that there is very little information about their team and founders. A short bio can be found on the PIVX website, detailing the two founders under the pseudonyms “S3v3n H4acks” (Chief Visionary) and “Coin Server” (Sys Admin). The descriptions are brief, as is the equally ambiguous team page, which openly states that many team members “prefer to maintain their privacy”, and that all community members can elect to have their profiles publicly posted on the page, so long as they are respected contributors to the platform. Many of the profiles have ambiguous avatars and use pseudonyms, and communication and information about the project and team is shared primarily through their social media accounts in real-time.

Does PIVX Have Growth Potential?

Over the course of 2 years, PIVX’s value skyrocketed from its initial (in Feb 2016) value of 0.0001 USD to  approximately 14.00 USD (in Jan 2018), thanks to a strongly stated development path, a sound technological foundation, and rapid growth within the crypto-market. The PIVX community are steadfast supporters of the technology behind the project and the development team is communicative and eager to progress towards their goal of providing a well-balanced, fair, private, secure, and lightning fast cryptocurrency for the global population. These factors have proven to position PIVX as a popular alternative to more established cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, and as a likely candidate for success in the future.