Introducing SHIELD

Protect your financial information with PIVX's innovative optional privacy feature.

Total Privacy When You Want It

SHIELD provides complete transaction protection, preserving privacy by hiding financial information. And it achieves this with zero preparation time. This is all made possible through PIVX's innovative use of Zero Knowledge Proofs. With SHIELD, you have the flexibility to transact while maintaining complete privacy.

Zero Knowledge Transactions

Thanks to our zero-knowledge transactions, your transaction details are kept hidden, while still being validated for authenticity and accuracy.

Lightweight Proofs

PIVX's use of lightweight proofs means that transactions can be quickly and easily verified for authenticity, without revealing any transaction details.

Lightning-Fast Transactions

With PIVX, transactions are lightning-fast, taking just half a second to generate and 1/100th of a second to verify, making them incredibly practical and convenient.

Complete Privacy Where It Matters

With PIVX transactions, both the sender and receiver's data and the transaction value are hidden, ensuring complete transaction protection and privacy.

You’re In Control

Use PIVX's viewing keys to control your privacy. Share transaction details and amounts with trusted third parties on a case-by-case basis, granting permission to view only what you choose to share.

User-Friendly Transactions

Simply choose between shielded or transparent transactions at the time of the transaction for a user-friendly and hassle-free experience.

How to keep your Transactions Shielded

You can decide when you want to share any transaction or address information publicly, as well as disclose specific transactions and/or amounts with trusted 3rd parties through specialized viewing keys.

Types of SHIELD transactions in the PIVX Ecosystem:

Transparent(Public - Public)

Transparent address

Transparent address

Shielding(Public - SHIELD)

Transparent address

SHIELD address

De-Shielding(SHIELD - Public)

SHIELD address

Transparent address

SHIELD(SHIELD - SHIELD)

SHIELD address

SHIELD address

SHIELD & Transparent Addresses

Transparent addresses start with the letters 'D' and 'S' while SHIELD addresses start with 'ps'.

Transparent to Transparent

Addresses and transaction amounts are publicly visible on the blockchain. This works just like Bitcoin where the sender, receiver, and the transaction (including the amounts) are publicly visible.

SHIELD to SHIELD

The addresses and the amounts of transactions are completely hidden. Even if a transaction between SHIELD accounts is recorded on the PIVX blockchain, it will be hard for people who don't know anything about it to link the addresses of the transaction and prove that they are related.

Shielding and Encrypting with Zero-Knowledge Proofs

Zero-Knowledge Proofs are a cryptographic method by which one party (the prover) can prove to another party (the verifier) that a given statement is true, without conveying (or unknowingly leaking) any information apart from one simple statement: that the statement being made is indeed true.

A Zero-Knowledge protocol thus allows you to do something REALLY impressive. To prove that you know something without revealing what that something is.

Put another way, let's say you have knowledge of something, but do not want to share it (for a plethora of reasons: security protocols, preventing hacking, etc).

But you NEED to authenticate to another party/person/entity/computer that you indeed KNOW that. Dilemma. How do you do that without giving away that secret?

That's the very definition of "zero-knowledge" - no ("zero") information about the secret is revealed, but the second party (or any other party that needs to validate) is convinced (in full) that you know the information/data/details (that secret).

Why you might need Data Protection?

Why would anyone need to prove that they know something without telling what that something is?

When you don't trust the other person.

When you trust the other person but don’t want PERSONAL details floating around online.

When you are “neutral” about trusting the other person but need to complete some transaction.

When you need to persuade another person that you DO have/know something, and can demonstrate it in a mathematical and computational sound manner.

Shielded & Transparent Transaction Data

You want to make a purchase (online, or in a store). Obviously, the retailer needs to know you have the funds and that the funds can get sent. Otherwise, there is no transaction that can take place. So, you need to demonstrate (prove) that you have enough money to pay for that item. BUT, you probably do NOT want to disclose the exact amount of your total holdings/account balance, etc to that individual/retailer. By using a Zero-Knowledge proof, this information (PROOF of your funds) can thus be transmitted and proven to be true without disclosing anything else. Your personal information is safe. Your identity is safe. Your total balance is safe. The retailer is satisfied (yes, you have the funds, thank you!) and you are satisfied you’ve demonstrated you have sufficient funds to complete the transaction, knowing no other information was transmitted (or leaked or obtained by the retailer).

There is more though to the SHIELD Zero-Knowledge Proof story, however. An owner of a SHIELD address may choose to share their Shield address and transaction details with any trusted third parties. This is accomplished through the use and sharing of view keys.

Users and owners are free to transact, send, and receive funds between SHIELD and Transparent addresses, anytime.

With this, we highly encourage each and every user of PIVX to get familiar with how Shield and Transparent transactions work, as there are implications on one's financial data protection when de-shielding or shielding (sending to a transparent address or receiving from a transparent address).

Frequently asked Questions

What Does the Transactional Protection Mean?

There are two main types of addresses in the PIVX ecosystem: shielded and transparent. PIVX-Shielded addresses remain hidden, and any transaction that takes place between PIVX-Shielded addresses keep the address, the transaction amount, and any content of the Encrypted Memo field, completely hidden. PIVX-Transparent addresses are publicly viewable, and any transactions between them and other addresses are completely publicly viewable on the PIVX blockchain, meaning addresses and amounts are visible anytime.

What is a Viewing Key?

An owner of a shielded address may choose to share their shielded-address and transaction details with any trusted third parties. This is accomplished through the use and sharing of specialized view keys.

Need more help?

You can learn more in the PIVX Knowledgebase or post your questions in the PIVX Forum or Discord.