Grin: Global Digital Cash

What if there was a way retain total privacy with your digital transactions?

Today’s guest is Daniel Lehnberg, a core developer for Grin, an exciting new cryptocurrency that launched earlier this year.

Join us for a look at how Grin aims to be the first private electronic cash, how it compares to Bitcoin, and the important impact this technology could have on democracy.

##Cash-Like Cryptocurrency

Grin is a new cryptocurrency with the goal of becoming a global, digital cash. This means there is no transaction history, and you can retain total privacy with no permanent record of your sent and received payments.

Grin’s conception story is similar to Bitcoin in that it has pseudonymous founders and developers, there is no company behind it, there was no pre-mine, and there is a vibrant community of early adopters and developers supporting the ecosystem.

The protocol and the implementation itself takes pride in being very simple and minimalistic by design. It’s a fresh take on how to do private and electronic cash.

##How Grin is Different

“Grin’s aim is to be better money,” says Lehnberg, and the focus is on delivering that idea of electronic cash-like transactions.

In order for electronic transactions to be cash-like, they shouldn’t have a memory. That’s the focus of the coin and why the emphasis is on privacy.

There are other privacy projects trying to solve similar problems, but the difference with Grin is that the amount of information that goes on the chain is very little. There is no amount, no address, and no metadata beyond a link of cryptographically blinded inputs and outputs.

##The Potential of Electronic Cash

Electronic transactions have revolutionized the way we make payments and how we transact between borders around the world, but it has required us to sacrifice many of the benefits of cash.

With the current way electronic transactions work, we must allow third parties to become privy to our transactional information and we must also establish gatekeepers to make decisions about who has access to this global financial system, who will be allowed to transact, and how.

Electronic cash like Grin has the potential to have an important impact on democracy and individuals’ abilities to protect their own liberties.

Key takeaways:

Grin is a 3-month-old crypto asset that aims to be digital cash;
Unlike Bitcoin’s fixed supply schedule, a new Grin will be created every second;
Grin has seen developer-led community support, and has an early but vibrant community