Why Coinsquare is integrating Monero
The Canadian exchange is also planning to add other coins.
Major Canadian cryptocurrency exchange Coinsquare has announced plans to add Monero to its platform. The move appears inspired by the increasing popularity of the privacy-centric altcoin.
Coinsquare CEO Cole Diamond told Business News Network in an interview that the company is looking to extend its digital currency base by making some new additions to its line-up. However, he did not give a timeline for the integration process.
Monero is not the only addition Coinsquare is contemplating. According to Diamond, the company will also some other coins that have independent blockchains but did not use Initial Coin Offerings to launch. The Coinsquare digital asset base currently includes bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Dash and Dogecoin, which has also been on a tear in recent days.
Monero has enjoyed a rapid rise in popularity in recent days thanks to its unique privacy features that make it virtually impossible to track. Analytics firms are getting better at tracking anonymous digital currency activities linked to many other digital currencies.
One of the key selling points in bitcoin's growth was its touted anonymity, based on the pseudonymous address system used on the blockchain. However, since all transactions and their relative addresses are on public record, it is possible to track actual users.
Monero overcomes this roadblock through its inherently private framework. Transactions on the network use the ring signature technology to obfuscate address details and keep the sender's and recipient's identities private. It also hides transaction amounts to eliminate traceability and suspicion.
Additionally, the platform mixes all coins in the transactions carried out on the network. This means that no single transaction on the Monero blockchain can be singled out for the suspicion that would ordinarily result from coin mixing.
One of Monero's key competitors, Zcash, is said to offer even better security. The major operational difference that sets it apart from Monero is that instead of generating fake addresses for users, it completely encrypts them. Some researchers have already developed an analytics system that helps them partially crack Zcash transactions, but there have been no reports of any tool that can crack Monero as yet. Monero's developers have defended the altcoin by noting that they cannot control its illegitimate use.
Thanks to these features, Monero has become one of the most popular choices. In November and December 2017, its value more than quadrupled and hit US$349.
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