Thought I would chime in with info on a new and intriguing coin that is relatively new, DarkCoin.
Bitcoin came with the promise of anonymity, which it delivers if people are very careful, however it is not guaranteed and for 90% of users it can probably be traced in some way.
For instance if your address is 12345678 and you send 1 BTC to overstock.com to buy a couch, then your name is forever now attached to that address and any and all transactions that come from that address are now "12345678 JIM SMITH" if someone wanted to start recording these sorts of things, this is just using overstock.com as an example but this applies to anyone you send a coin to, if ever any one of them recorded any of your information all the transactions for that address are now attached to you! If you use coinbase, forget about it, that should be obvious to you. Some people get around this by creating a new address in the bitcoin client everytime they do a transaction, however most people dont because it takes time, etc.
With Darkcoin they get around that by using the time tested technique of 'washing' the coin with others, just like money laundering in the movies.
Basically this is how it works
whenever you want to send a Darkcoin to someone, whether 1 or 10000000 you send them in 100 Darkcoin increments, but that i mean it has to be in increments of 100.
If you want to send 1 you will send 100 to the pool, if you want to send 250 you will send 300 to the pool.
The pool then combines them with other peoples transactions and sends the intended recipient your coins from a random pool address, not your address.
So to illustrate this lets say you want to send me 5 darkcoins.
You will type in my address and send me the 5 darkcoins, 100 will be deducted from your wallet and sent to the pool
The pool will then combine your 100 darkcoins with other users transactions.
5 Darkcoins will then be sent to me, and 95 will be sent back to you, so you will not be losing 95, they just send them back.
The address that will appear in my transaction log will not be yours but a random address drawn from the pool.
This adds a degree of anonymity to the transaction that bitcoin fails to do, which is a plus.
A downside is there is NO WAY for me to say "i never got them" and you to know if i did or not, the transaction log wont show that, thats the price you pay for anonymity.
I dont think darkcoin will ever be mainstream like bitcoin or litecoin will ever be, but it has a purpose and a specific niche of transactions that want that; the market provides!
I think its great, and have a few squirreled away in case it takes off, which it has to a certain degree already.
What do you think?
