Tag: ghost

Only in Crypto: John McAfee Admits "Copy-Pasting" PIVX Whitepaper, Wants to Sue them Nonetheless

John McAfee is an eccentric, bold personality well-known in the crypto-space for his absurd comments. The entrepreneur claims to know Satoshi Nakamoto, promised to eat his d*** on Twitter if Bitcoin didn’t reach $1 million among other grandiose claims. 

Now, the sensationalism is reaching another level. McAfee’s crypto project “Ghost” was found to have plagiarised its entire whitepaper from another crypto firm, but instead of being apologetic, the entrepreneur threatens to sue PIVX, the project in question, for causing reputational damage.

Stolen Verbatim

Via a tweetstorm on May 20, McAfee admitted Ghost’s whitepaper “copy-pasted” parts of the PIVX protocol. Both projects are anonymity-oriented and aim to create a private cryptocurrency rivaling the likes of Zcash and Monero. 

McAfee states PIVX is an open-source project, which allows anyone to lift parts of its protocol to create a native token/sidechain. Earlier this week, representatives from Ghost stated the project’s codebase is a “forked” version of PIVX, and claimed Ghost’s developers did “a lot of improvements” to what PIVX offered. 

For those out-of-the-loop, PIVX said on May 18 that Ghost plagiarized over 20 pages of its 26-page whitepaper, which while outdated, contained material that was “directly” lifted verbatim. 

PIVX later stated that anyone was free to use their product as long as “copyright credits are maintained in the code,” the whitepaper was restricted material and “fully copyrighted” as of 2018. 

But McAfee is having none of it, the British-born American entrepreneur tweeted:

He added the “lawsuit is coming for defamation,” indicating the government will now be involved after PIVX supposedly defamed McAfee on social media. 

“Claiming a product is an open-source while withholding the documentation is a fraud. Pure and simple. I will soon demonstrate that in the courts,” said McAfee.

No Legal Charges

PIVX representatives say the company is not a legal foundation or domiciled in any particular region, and no “single person” has ownership of the project or its development. 

A spokesperson stated to crypto publication Cointelegraph:

“It’s like John saying he’ll sue Bitcoin.”

Interestingly, John McAfee faces criminal charges in the U.S. for tax evasion schemes and other financial fraud, meaning a lawsuit may not take place and the tweets may be an empty threat. 

Meanwhile, PIVX noted in other tweets the paper that Ghost copied from is outdated, i.e. several mentioned solutions and algorithms are not private and may harm the development of Ghost. 

“…which is not only outdated but cryptographically flawed and can be exploited. There are also multiple technical errors and inaccuracies that should be addressed,” adds PIVX. 

The team concluded: “You are required to credit and attribute the sources as clearly stated under the MIT license. This is a common and ethical practice in the open-source community.”

Image via Gage Skidmore

McAfee's Ghostcoin Gets Backing as Payment in Hong Kong

Days after McAfee’s Ghostcoin confirmed its partnership with ZelaaPayAE, a payment startup based in the UAE, it was announced that the privacy coin would be expanding into the Hong Kong market. The announcement confirmed in a Twitter post, will see Ghostcoin’s adoption and integration by 60 vending machines in Hong Kong including those at Disneyland.

Ghostcoins Launching and Giant Leaps

Ghostcoin was launched last week disregarding the controversies surrounding it. The privacy coin is the invention of John McAfee, a British American Inventor famous for the game-changing anti-virus software McAfee. Ghost coin has unique features that further the fundamental agenda of blockchain technology which includes providing complete anonymity when making transactions. Ghost transactions use a state of the art escrow pool to shield and erase the history of transactions. GHOST transactions are verified using zero-knowledge proofs.

The super-privacy coin runs on a decentralized system that uses a proof-of-stake network controlled by GHOST token holders and users. GHOST has no central company or owner and is run and maintained by the community. The unique features of Ghost have attracted businesses in the UAE and Hong Kong where payment startups ZelaaPayAE and iVendPay are helping to drive its integration by vendors.

Higher Expectations

McAfee’s Ghostcoin has gained a lot of attention from the cryptocurrency sector since the announcement of its impending launch. While it may be too early to rate the coin’s users’ experience, blockchain enthusiasts’ reaction to the series of strides the coin has made is impressive. In keeping up with future expectations, the project will need to amply introduce more value while creating bigger markets across countries. In all, the blockchain ecosystem stands as a winner with this new addition to the family.

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