Private Finance (PriFi) in 2024: LFG!
2023 was another turbulent year for the cryptocurrency industry. As many had already predicted, a key trend was the growing number of regulations worldwide.
Events such as the arrest of the next co-founder of Tornado Cash, the launch of Worldcoin, the launch of ArkhamIntel, the new Binance CEO with connections to the WEF, or the new cooperation between Tether and the U.S. government (DoJ, FBI, Secret Service) make one thing particularly clear: The industry must finally return to the old values of decentralization and privacy.
This is exactly what I intend to do as a core team member of Navcoin and Co-Founder of the Private Finance Syndicate (PFS)!
The Need For Financial Privacy
As a rule, ordinary citizens still seem to take too little interest in their right to privacy. Even in our community, where you would expect things to be somewhat different, the status quo is rather sobering.
Most market participants care little about the fact that KYC is becoming mandatory everywhere; that governments want to monitor crypto transactions; or the fact that Bitcoin and Ethereum transactions are not anonymous, just pseudonymous.
In my opinion, one of the central problems is that people do not understand why financial privacy is an absolute must, without which other freedoms may no longer be exercised.
What do you need to actually pursue those freedom rights? When you think about it there is just one answer: money! Starting with the activities that are required for ‘freedom of speech’, such as: creating a website, book advertisement, and paying graphic designers. ‘Freedom of assembly’: Paying for train tickets to go to a demonstration, book a hotel room, get a taxi. All those are things which cost money.
If you are not able to pay for certain goods or services your freedom rights are getting taken away - and with governments getting rid of cash, implementing CBDCs, while heavily regulating cryptocurrency transactions, this is not an unlikely scenario; just remember the trucker protest and frozen crypto wallets in Canada in 2022.
This is exactly the reason why the time has come for private finance (PriFi) solutions!
What is Private Finance (PriFi)?
PriFi stands for Private Finance. This includes all projects and efforts to use cryptography and blockchain technology to create solutions that help users preserve and increase their financial privacy.
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and blockchain ecosystems like Ethereum cannot do this due to technological fundamentals. They are merely pseudonymous, not anonymous, and allow anyone interested to trace wallets and payments via public ledger.
Within PriFi, two main subcategories can be identified:
1. Privacy Coins
2. Private Finance Ecosystems
While privacy coins include anonymous cryptocurrencies, such as Monero (XMR), the best known and most successful private cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization, which allows users to send/receive funds without trace, private finance ecosystems, such as Navcoin in our case, are experimenting with other use cases that will for example help bringing privacy to pseudonymous blockchains/tokens.
Over the last few years, the number of PriFi projects has consistently increased, more and more developers are dedicating themselves to this area and slowly but surely there are also more interested users.
Trend: CEXs Delisting Privacy-Oriented Projects
Due to growing pressure from governments and regulators, more and more centralized exchanges are deciding to delist privacy coins if they do not adhere to certain requirements, such as the introduction of a transparent 'exchange only' address.
This trend will continue in 2024 and it will be interesting to see how the various teams deal with it; whether they bend over backwards to meet these requirements or simply focus on decentralized exchanges (DEXs).
In the long term, I believe that 'true' privacy coins on CEXs will not have a future. DEXs are the only way forward, as governments and regulators won’t back down.
DeFi, privacy coins… all these are things that the old structures, especially governments and regulators, are terrified of. Their potential has been recognized and every effort is being made to turn DeFi into a corporate business, while they attempt to shut down PriFi completely.
We need to go back to the roots, away from centralization and pseudonymity to decentralized and truly anonymous solutions.
Fighting Back: What Is The Private Finance Syndicate (PFS)?
The Private Finance Syndicate (PFS) aims to fight back. Since last year we, the founding partners Navcoin and LunarDAO, have been building a non-profit organization that bundles forces of projects and individuals in the PriFi space. We do not see other PriFi projects as competition, but rather as like-minded partners.
Regulators and government bodies will come for all of us if we do our job properly, giving what the people need in the future: financial privacy. Unity, exchange of knowledge and network, shared ideals — with every project joining us, we grow stronger together.
Let's use 2024 to build the PriFi applications we will urgently need in the near future!