Optimally Implementing Privacy in a High Value Digital Asset as Distinct from a Low Value Transacting Platform

It isn't the job of a monetary asset to facilitate "hidden" transactions because that asset will be traded in a myriad of environments, each of which depend on maximum public consensus as to its veracity. Case in point = encrypted blockchains. Most of their transaction volume takes place on trusted platforms where identity verification is required and where those platforms provide the 'privacy'. Meanwhile, the encrypted blockchain itself is about as verifiable as a highway through a shattered windscreen at 70 miles an hour.

It is, however, the job of a monetary asset to be fungible which means that one unit of its supply should be as indistinguishable as possible from any other unit from viewpoint of both keyholders and non-keyholders alike. That is Dash's priority and that is where it excels because it's been able to optimise fungibility against the background of a transparent blockchain.

Privacy in the Native Environment

Now lets consider "privacy", even if you want to use the Dash native asset platform as the transacting environment.

Satoshi already did most of the work by breaking the statutory association between the asset and a legal entity. He created bitcoin as a bearer token where nobody could know who was transacting despite being able to see, verify and endorse the veracity of those transactions. However, with recourse to off-chain knowledge it may be possible to infer information about keyholders identities of nearby addresses which mitigates fungibility.

What Dash does is to impose a cash drawer archetype on the blockchain to continuously restore fungibility without recourse to transparency or delinking of sequential addresses (which would eventually kill the public authenticity of the blockchain stone dead). That has the effect of eliminating the use of off-chain knowledge in combination with on-chain address patterns to discover the identities of keyholders.

There's your privacy. Perfected for a high value digital asset. Transparent. Free from toxic encryption and decoupled from the priority of keeping address balances visible to maximise public consensus as to their authenticity and consequent value. It's also decentralised because each transaction is treated on a case by case basis whereby it receives an arbitrary allocation of mixing sources as opposed to a single, centralised encryption algorithm. Users and holders therefore enjoy increased protection with increasing usage because any attack vector:

A. requires off-chain information
B. is limited to a single transaction, not the whole network

Where's the Value ?

If all you want is a valueless, hidden transacting environment, stick with SSL. It has a better track record than encrypted blockchains of not blowing up and also has far more adoption.

If, on the other hand, you want to own a digital asset of high value and mobility, that can be held, traded, publicly observed and verified with ultimate privacy then you need transparent fungibility which is what Dash has aspired to from the very first day of its conception.