New Bolt Cryptocurrency Privacy Project Gains Backing from Ripple’s Xpring and ZCash

privacy coinsAs per an all-new blog-post published on Medium yesterday, the folks behind Ripple’s Xpring venture and ZCash have partnered up with one another so as to invest in a cryptocurrency project called ‘Bolt’.

About the New Venture

For those of our readers who may not be aware of what Bolt is, it is a “private, off-chain cryptocurrency” that is being devised atop the existing ZCash framework. However, what makes Bolt different from its contemporaries is its focus on issues related to token scalability.

At press time, some of the big-name players who have decided to invest in this new crypto-project include:

• Xpring — Ripple’s fundraising division
• Electric Coin Company
• Zooko WIlcox — The Founder of ZCash.

More on the New Partnership

According to a spokesperson for Xpring, Bolt is changing the way in which “layered solutions” are being used to help improve the global crypto-ecosystem. For starters, the project’s core dev team is currently making use of a “layered protocol architecture” so as to devise new projects atop the existing frameworks of various digital currencies.

“Similar to the internet’s layered protocol architecture, we’re seeing an analogous stack emerge in crypto. Separate layers allow communities to focus on specific problem sets while still enabling interactions between layers for the discrete capabilities to build on each other. The design approach is iterative, with multiple branching paths to arrive at new solutions, versus a single monolithic system.”

Some of Bolt’s Key Technological Aspects to Remember:

• According to industry insiders, Bolt is looking to create a cryptocurrency payment channel that will make use of “zero-knowledge proofs” so as to streamline native monetary interactions.
• The project’s eventual goal is to help improve the scalability of various privacy oriented coins such as ZCash.
• A representative for Xpring was recently quoted as saying that Bolt Labs is also looking to create a platform that will make scalability a reality even for “public chain cryptocurrencies”.

Other Important Details Related to the New Agreement

In a recent interview with ZCash Founder ‘Zooko Wilcox’, he mentioned that the Bolt project was an “amazing scaling solution” (much like Bitcoin’s Lightning Network) that would make smaller transactions more feasible (in terms of cost as well as scalability) for the masses.

In addition to all this, he also mentioned that Bolt’s dev team is currently looking to devise a privacy solution that will offer clients with a high level of security — much like the services being delivered by privacy-oriented currencies to their clients at the moment.

In regards to the matter, Wilcox was quoted as saying:

“Bolt uses cryptography to conceal, from unauthorized parties, the information about which users are sending micropayments to which other users.”

Final Take

As Bolt strives to fight for issues such as cryptocurrency anonymity and user privacy, it is also important to remember that the project also lays an equal amount of importance on securing online transactions. Therefore, if Bolt Labs is successful in realizing its eventual vision, their new technology could have a massive impact on the crypto industry as a whole (much beyond the realm of just privacy coins).