Stegos Privacy Blockchain

What is Stegos?

The Stegos privacy platform provides users with fully private transactions, messaging and data transmission. Stegos acts as a gateway to an entire ecosystem of privacy services and apps. Stegos combines a unique blockchain and token design to implement the first cryptocurrency that’s absolutely private, secure, efficient and fully mobile compatible. The most up to date information can be found in the Project section of our website at http://stegos.com.

How can I be sure that STG transactions are unlinkable, untraceable, and completely confidential?

Stegos uses multiple methods to ensure maximum privacy. User identities are obfuscated using cryptographic key pairs, and each transaction uses a new stealth address. Transactions are combined into supertransactions to hide sender and receiver information, while all transaction amounts are hidden using cryptographic commitments (Pedersen commitments) and zero-knowledge range proofs (Bulletproofs). Validator stakes and transaction fees are the only exception since these must be visible for blockchain validation to work. However, users can create as many wallets as they choose, so validation and staking can be performed separately and privately.

Who is building Stegos?

The Stegos team doesn’t just bring blockchain experience to the table (although we have plenty of that, too). With backgrounds in finance, aerospace, and cryptography, the team has a breadth of experience in applying technology to some of the most sensitive challenges facing society. Want to know more about the team? Check them out here: https://github.com/stegos/stegos/wiki/Whitepaper-EN#team

How can Stegos send messages via the blockchain?

Unlike other blockchains, Stegos is regularly pruned to keep it small. This means the Stegos blockchain has space for messages in addition to standard transactions.

How can Stegos work on mobile?

Stegos is optimized for use on mobile. The Stegos chain is compact, and we use a version of Proof-of-stake to secure it, which makes it viable to run full nodes on your phone and earn STG tokens from your pocket.

Will there be an app?

Yes, there will be a primary Stegos app which serves as a user-friendly gateway to the Stegos privacy ecosystem. See the Stegos App section below for more details and questions.in scale? Stegos is designed with users in mind and optimized for mobile. Therefore, it is essential for the blockchain to remain small and efficient. This is done using transactional sharding and block pruning: spent coins and expired data are safely and securely removed from the blockchain.

What consensus mechanism does the Stegos privacy blockchain use?

The Stegos privacy blockchain uses a version of Albatross which has been optimized for privacy and mobile compatibility. Stegos block rewards are distributed using gamified Proof-of-stake (gPoS), a unique modification to Proof-of-stake which ensures that all users have a fair chance to earn tokens for maintaining and validating the network, not just whales.

How does gPoS work?

In addition to regular staking, gPoS adds a validator sevice award, a randomly distributed award which will be distributed to a single user who has helped to maintain the Stegos blockchain in the most recent award cycle.

How is the validator service award funded?

One-third of the block reward from each newly created block is added to the award pool.

How much is the validator service award?

The validator service award grows with each block until it is randomly triggered to be distributed to a single eligible user. The current size of the validator service award will be displayed on the Stegos website and in the Stegos app.

How often is the validator service award distributed?

In order to keep the award exciting and to prevent manipulation, the award is distributed to a random user at a random time, with the likelihood of the award being released increasing as the award pool grows. On average, however, we expect the award to be allocated every few thousand blocks. This ensures that all active users have an extremely high chance of being selected to help validate the blockchain by the time the award is triggered.

How can you guarantee that the validator service award is random?

Many features of Stegos require randomness to work. This randomness is ensured via verifiably unbiased distributed randomness, ensuring that no-one can predict or manipulate the result.