“Bypassing the blockchain for the sake of anonymity” is not something you hear every day, but newly developed BurnerCoin is seeking to do just that.
Development of BurnerCoin, a motorsport-themed altcoin Cointelegraph reported on last week, has been occurring at a blistering pace since its release 3 weeks ago. An Android app is already available on Google Play, which allows players to race in order to win BurnerCoins, and it is tipped to be the next coin added to the Poloniex exchange by popular vote.
Yesterday, however, its developer announced the main upgrade to BurnerCoin, and it could well be more than just a slick tour de force in public relations.
BurnerConnect is a method of sending BurnerCoins via a TCP/IP connection which even bypasses the blockchain itself.
“The connections are established directly and no central server is needed,” the developer wrote in a post on Bitcointalk, adding, “BurnerConnect is a separate feature than Tor and we are considering it an advanced option.”
‘Tor… and then some’
The tool is designed to be used only for a minority of transactions which require complete anonymity. This is done by creating what are essentially dummy wallets, each containing a portion of the total number of coins to be sent and which can only be accessed by the recipient, who can send them to their main wallet or another recipient. The wallets are then subsequently deleted.
“These wallets are maintained in a separate window from the receivers default wallets,” the developer told Cointelegraph through his promoter via email. “The receiver can delete BurnerConnect wallets that are empty. They are treated as ‘temporary’ wallets.”
The process of sending the coins is done as follows:
“Our algorithm determines the amount of wallets to be created,” the developer writes.
“The amount of BurnerCoins are randomly sent to each wallet and the wallets are encrypted. Each wallet is then sent directly to the receiver's client via a secure connection. The receiver's client automatically decrypts and imports each wallet individually, and then each wallet is handled separately within the client.”
The idea of bypassing the blockchain raised some predictable concerns in response to the Bitcointalk post, with users not only expressing skepticism over security but also the wider implications for the underlying philosophy of Bitcoin itself. However, both the developer and promoter were keen to point out that the blockchain is in fact not completely bypassed:
“The dev is not bypassing the blockchain entirely. The blockchain is being bypassed when the wallets are being transferred to the receiver.”
The comments above are set to be released in full on Bitcointalk later today. In the meantime, BurnerCoin community members will be eager to see just what will result from the eye-watering momentum the coin has accumulated in such a short time.