With the rise of cryptocurrency has come increased governmental scrutiny and regulatory action.

For some users who do not like being thoroughly monitored with a spiked Roto-Rooter the market has begun to develop solutions with anonymous cryptocurrencies like DASH, PIVX, ZCash and Monero.

Currently, the best option for privacy and anonymity along with price appreciation is probably PIVX.

The coins, current price each and market capitalization.

DASH - $141.28 - $1.036B
Monero - $42.49 - $619m
ZCash - $233.80 - $339m
PIVX - $1.66 - $89m

DASH v PIVX

DASH

DASH is the largest of the 'private' coins. Many people are lulled into a sense of anonymity security with the Private Send feature.

Private Send is a PrivateSend is an improved version of CoinJoin which includes features like decentralization and a chaining approach.

This decentralized coin mixing service built within DASH's protocol enables fungibility of the currency.

However, in October 2016 the DASH masternodes partnered with Coinfirm to produce Anti-Money Laundering and Know Your Customer support into the DASH blockchain. This is one downside to a masternode structure instead of something like Bitcoin mining with a Bitcoin miner.

Thus, many users many be unaware of this change and would be surprised to know their transactions and identities are linked so thoroughly.

Monero

Significant privacy is provided with ring confidential transactions at the protocol level.

Coupled with stealth addresses for both sender and receiver and significant privacy is attained.

A large problem is the blocksize resulting from the increased sizes of transactions. But the rules do enable an adaptive block size.

Another cool feature will be the Kovri router which will enable the ability to conceal the origin node for transactions within I2P.

ZCash

Zero-knowledge proofs are used to provide anonymity for users.

A zero-knowledge proof enables verification of and privacy of data. Here, transaction amounts, sender and recipient addresses are all encrypted.

Sure, blockchain analysts can correlate information through public transactions on the blockchain and users need to obfuscated their IP addresses when sending transactions.

Finally, the protocol does not hide public data that may be linked to personal identifiers.

PIVX

The ecosystem has an very interesting blend of governance. Like DASH it has masternodes but it also implements Proof of Stake.

Optimized PIVX Staking

When staking, the larger the address balance the more will be earned.

For example, an address with about 15,000 PIVX will earn about 50% more per PIVX than an address with about 1,000 PIVX.

Masternodes may earn more but there is a lot of hassle setting up and running them.

You can estimate earnings with Cryptonode.

The wallet needs to be opened and unlocked while connected to the Internet; so be careful with security.

Addresses need to have at least 100 confirmations.

Crazy Pro Tip - After an address gets 100 confirmations then restart the wallet and unlock it. Then the staking should be active for that balance.

PIVX

Conclusion

So, what do you think? What are the best options for anonymous cryptocurrencies? Why?