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PIVX Weekly Pulse (Dec. 5th, 2025 — Dec. 11th, 2025)

PIVX Weekly Pulse (Dec. 5th, 2025 — Dec. 11th, 2025)

The Weekly PIVX Pulse has arrived! Everything you need on price action, trading updates, and community highlights.

Market Pulse

• Masternode Count: There was a slight reduction in the number of active PIVX masternodes, reversing two weeks of consecutive gains. The total count now stands at 2,068, a decrease from last week’s 2,071.

• Price Check: PIVX prices slid even lower this week, even as stronger signs of sentiment reversal emerged in the broader crypto market. The Daily USD Value swung between $0.15 and $0.17, yielding a weekly average of $0.16. This is a drop from last week’s average of $0.1733.

• Trading Buzz: Along with the price, weekly trading volume also saw some downward action. The total weekly volume fell by approximately 20.69%, closing the week at $23 million. Despite this continuing trend, the daily trading volume is holding strong, regularly sitting above the $2 million benchmark.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

PIVX Weekly Pulse (Dec. 5th, 2025 — Dec. 11th, 2025) was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

India Reverses Mandatory ‘Cyber Safety’ App Requirement Following Surveillance Backlash

The Indian government has backed off on a controversial mandatory requirement for smartphone manufacturers to pre-install its Sanchar Saathi “cyber safety” application on all new devices, following criticism over potential surveillance and privacy risks.

The Communications Ministry announced last week that it would no longer compel manufacturers like Apple, Samsung, and Xiaomi to load the government-backed application onto new phones.

The reversal came less than a week after the initial order, which mandated that the app be added to every new handset within 90 days, with the provision that it could not be deleted by the user. The original policy immediately sparked widespread concerns among digital rights groups that the installation would effectively give authorities access to hundreds of millions of personal devices.

The government, however, maintained that Sanchar Saathi was designed purely as a fraud prevention and device security tool, allowing users to verify device identifiers and report stolen phones. Telecommunications authorities insisted the app is “secure and purely meant to help citizens against bad actors in the cyber world,” adding that “there is no other function other than protecting users, and they can remove the app whenever they want.”

Explaining the swift policy change, the Ministry cited the “increasing acceptance” of the tool, noting that it had already been downloaded by 14 million users, including a reported 600,000 new registrations on a recent single day. Officials suggested the mandate was originally intended to “accelerate this process and make the app available to less aware citizens.”

The original order also prompted significant industry pushback. Reuters previously reported that Apple had planned to inform officials it could not comply with the requirement, as embedding third-party software would compromise the security architecture of its iOS operating system — a principle the company upholds in other international markets.

Digital rights organizations have cautiously welcomed the government’s decision. The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) called the move positive but emphasized that vigilance remains necessary. The organization stated, “For now, we should treat this as cautious optimism, not closure, until the formal legal direction is published and independently confirmed.”

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

India Reverses Mandatory ‘Cyber Safety’ App Requirement Following Surveillance Backlash was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How PIVX Empowers the User, Not the Spectator

I’d probably be a millionaire if I received a dollar every time someone asked about prices in a crypto group. Let’s be honest, this space is filled with speculators, and most people are only interested in “10xing” their $50 investment.

As someone who has been in the crypto space for over a decade, I can confidently say that solid fundamentals, utility, and a thriving community will always outlive hype. Now, this is not in anyway downplaying the importance of price increase; we all want a lambo. That said, walk with me as I explore how blockchains like PIVX empower users and not speculators.

Privacy and Financial Autonomy

The first step in empowering a user is giving them back control over their financial data. PIVX champions the right to financial confidentiality using a bespoke implementation of zk-SNARKs, known as SHIELD.

Unlike some blockchains that enforce full transparency, PIVX gives users the freedom to choose between transparent or fully shielded (private) transactions. The SHIELD protocol ensures that all PIV coins are fungible, preventing transaction history from being traced. This breaks the link between sender, receiver, and amount, offering a level of privacy that makes the currency suitable for true real-world utility.

In my opinion, financial empowerment also requires speed, and transactions on the PIVX blockchain are settled almost instantly.

Decentralized Governance Model

The most powerful feature that shifts the role from spectator to participant is PIVX’s unique governance and economic structure.

On one hand, the privacy-centric project operates on a PoS consensus mechanism, making it highly energy-efficient. Any user can stake their PIV in their wallet to secure the network and earn rewards, converting the simple act of holding the currency into a contribution toward network security and a source of passive income. And on the other hand, masternode operators vote on governance proposals.

These operators are the true power brokers and administrators of the DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization). Masternode operators hold significant power in the governance structure, as each Masternode has one vote on all development and budget proposals, directly controlling the project’s trajectory.

The PIVX treasury system is another evidence of its user-centric design and self-funding capacity. A portion of every block reward is automatically allocated to a decentralized community treasury. This pool of funds is available exclusively for community-approved projects. The power rests with the community, as anyone in the PIVX ecosystem can submit a proposal and request funding from the treasury.

Masternode operators then vote on these proposals. A proposal that receives sufficient net support is funded, ensuring that the development roadmap is not dictated by a closed team of founders but by the collective will of the network’s committed stakeholders.

The Spectator vs. The Participant Model

The core philosophy of PIVX directly contrasts with the “spectator model” prevalent in many crypto projects. In PIVX, the user is not relegated to a passive holder waiting for the core team’s updates and price movements. Instead, the PIVX model elevates the user to an active contributor.

Users gain optional privacy and control their financial data via SHIELD. Their governance power is not concentrated but distributed to masternodes, where 1 masternode equals 1 vote on all development and treasury matters. Moreover, development funding is not reliant on pre-mines or centralized funds; it’s managed by a self-funded treasury that is voted on by the community, empowering the users to become the strategic financial planners of the project.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

How PIVX Empowers the User, Not the Spectator was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

PIVX Weekly Pulse (Nov 28th, 2025 — Dec. 4th, 2025)

PIVX Weekly Pulse (Nov 28th, 2025 — Dec. 4th, 2025)

Your weekly PIVX Pulse is here! Get up to speed on price, trading, and community news.

Market Pulse

• Private Message with Vector: Over on the Vector side of things, the team just hit a massive milestone with the launch of Android support. The platform’s performance and security have been turbo-charged by migrating to an encrypted SQLite database for lightning-fast persistence. Users can look forward to an overhauled UX featuring improved speed, responsiveness, and key bug fixes, ensuring the smoothest and most secure experience yet.
• New Listings: PIVX is now available on Swapter.io, adding a new option for secure exchanges. Users can quickly trade PIVX with over 2200+ cryptocurrencies offered by the platform.
• Masternode Count: The PIVX network recorded an uptick in masternodes for the second consecutive week. The total number of active masternodes now stands at 2,071, marking an increase of approximately 2.83% (up from 2,014) from the previous week.

• Price Check: Despite stronger signs of a sentiment reversal emerging in the broader cryptocurrency market, with indicators moving away from “extreme fear”, PIVX prices saw a further decline this week. The Daily USD Price was between $0.17 and $0.19, translating to a weekly average of $0.1733. This is down from last week’s average of $0.21.

• Trading Buzz: Trading activity for PIVX saw a significant dip this week, extending a multi-week decline. The total weekly volume fell by approximately 30.95% (down from $42 million) and currently stands at $29 million. Despite the overall trend, the daily trading volume is holding strong, regularly sitting above the $2 million benchmark.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

PIVX Weekly Pulse (Nov 28th, 2025 — Dec. 4th, 2025) was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Japan’s Favorite Lager Now Serving Data Leaks

Japanese beverage giant Asahi has confirmed that a ransomware attack on its systems in late September may have exposed the personal information of approximately 1.5 million people.

The company’s two-month investigation concluded that the exposed information included names, gender, addresses, and phone numbers. Data belonging to thousands of employees, their family members, and external contacts were also hit in the breach. Thankfully, no credit-card details were compromised, and there is currently no evidence that the stolen data has been published online.

While Asahi did not officially identify the attacker, the Russian-speaking Qilin ransomware gang claimed responsibility in October. Qilin alleged they stole financial data, employee records, and internal forecasts.

The attackers didn’t need to hack 1.5 million separate accounts; they only needed to compromise one access point to unlock a massive treasure trove of data. Their strategy was straightforward: infiltrate one point on the network, encrypt key servers, and cripple the company until a demand is met. However, Asahi’s CEO said that the company did not pay a ransom.

Following the attack, Asahi was forced to implement production shutdowns, halt shipping, and delay product launches for its beverages, including the flagship Super Dry brand. The scope of the damage was so bad that the company had to delay the release of its annual financial results by 50 days. To put things in perspective, Asahi is now working to restore operations and expects to normalize logistics operations by February.

The attack reinforces a fundamental rule of digital security that “centralization equals vulnerability.” Every piece of data a company collects is a liability. When a corporation chooses to aggregate and manage vast quantities of personal information under one roof, the failure of a single security layer can have a massive, cascading impact on public privacy.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

Japan’s Favorite Lager Now Serving Data Leaks was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Russia’s WhatsApp Crackdown: Security or Surveillance?

The fundamental trade-off between national security and personal digital privacy has come into sharp focus once again, as Russia implements what it calls “restrictive measures” against WhatsApp.

The move, which caused disruptions for users in cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg, marks a major escalation in Russia’s ongoing effort to curb the use of Western technology and consolidate control over digital communications within its borders.

According to Russia’s state communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, the restrictions were imposed due to WhatsApp’s alleged repeated violation of Russian law. The agency’s official justification is that the popular messenger is being used “to organise and carry out terrorist activities, to recruit perpetrators, as well as for fraud and other crimes against Russian citizens.” The service now faces a potential nationwide block if it does not comply with domestic regulatory demands.

The restrictions appear to have been partially accelerated by an alleged leak of high-level diplomatic calls. The lawmaker argued this incident proved that the platform’s owners not only ignore illegal activity but may “actively participate” in it.

While governments frequently cite counter-terrorism and national security as reasons to demand backdoors or access to encrypted communications, the actions in Russia are viewed by many as a clear push for greater government surveillance.

The pressure on WhatsApp is part of a broader, years-long campaign by Moscow to tighten control over digital infrastructure. Most major Western platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Discord, are already inaccessible in Russia without a VPN, forcing citizens into a digital silo.

In 2025, when Russia barred voice calls on WhatsApp, the company suggested that the move was an effort to push Russians toward “less secure services to enable government surveillance.”

The current crackdown reinforces this suspicion. Roskomnadzor is actively urging citizens to switch to domestic alternatives, specifically touting a new state-backed messenger called Max, which is reportedly modeled on China’s highly integrated and government-monitored platform, WeChat.

When a government restricts a service like WhatsApp, which uses end-to-end encryption to secure user communications, the primary effect is to limit the ability of citizens to communicate freely and privately, whether they are political activists, journalists, or ordinary people. The price of convenience may well be the loss of core digital privacy rights, but the drive for truly decentralized, private alternatives such as Vector is accelerating.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

Russia’s WhatsApp Crackdown: Security or Surveillance? was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

PIVX Weekly Pulse (Nov 21st, 2025 — Nov. 27th, 2025)

PIVX Weekly Pulse (Nov 21st, 2025 — Nov. 27th, 2025)

Catch up on all things PIVX with our weekly pulse update, from price swings to trading action, and other important community updates.

Market Pulse

• Masternode Count: The PIVX network saw an uptick in active masternodes this week, reversing last week’s decline. The total count now stands at 2,014, up from 1,954. This translates to a gain of approximately 3.07%, suggesting renewed confidence and increased stability in the PIVX ecosystem.

• Price Check: The PIVX market maintained a tight range this week, with Daily USD Prices compressed between $0.20 and $0.22. This consolidated movement, which saw no significant intra-day spikes, resulted in a weekly average price of $0.21, a drop from the prior week’s average of $0.2486.
  However, the backdrop has begun to shift with the broader cryptocurrency market showing the first signs of a sentiment reversal. After an intense period of selling, indicators like the Fear & Greed Index are ticking up from their deepest “extreme fear” levels.

• Trading Buzz: After recording a healthy, encouraging volume of $100 million last week, PIVX saw a sharp downturn in trading activity this week. The total weekly volume now stands at approximately $42 million.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

PIVX Weekly Pulse (Nov 21st, 2025 — Nov. 27th, 2025) was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

zk-SNARKs vs. Ring Signatures

From zero-knowledge proofs to ring signatures, confidential transactions, and stealth addresses, there are several privacy protocols in the crypto space. Ring Signatures and zk-SNARKs are perhaps the most prominent on the list. While both achieve anonymity, they do so through fundamentally different mechanisms, leading to distinct trade-offs in efficiency, security, and the scope of information they conceal.

Well, let’s take a look at these two revolutionary privacy technologies, exploring how they operate and their differences.

zk-SNARKs

Short for Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments of Knowledge, zk-SNARKs are a specific type of Zero-Knowledge Proof that allows a user (the prover) to mathematically convince a verifier that a statement is true, without revealing any information about the statement itself beyond its validity.

With zk-SNARKs, all transaction data, such as the sender address, the recipient address, and the transaction amount, is completely hidden. The transaction logic is first converted into a complex algebraic equation. The prover then uses their secret key to generate a highly compressed, non-interactive cryptographic proof that solves the equation without revealing the underlying inputs.

The core principle here is Information-Theoretic Security: the secret data is never revealed to the network, but is mathematically encrypted within the proof itself. Verification relies solely on checking the algebraic correctness and succinct nature of the proof. This technology is famously used by projects like Zcash (ZEC) and PIVX for its SHIELD protocol.

Key Technical Properties

• Succinctness: The proof size is extremely small, typically just a few hundred bytes, and remains constant regardless of the complexity of the data being proven. This dramatically reduces blockchain storage requirements and speeds up verification.
• Non-Interactivity: Once the proof is generated, no further communication is required between the prover and verifier, making verification a highly efficient, one-time operation.
• Computational Security: The protocol is mathematically sound, ensuring that it is computationally infeasible for a dishonest prover to generate a valid proof without possessing the necessary secret knowledge.

Ring Signatures

Ring Signatures operate on a fundamentally different principle: plausible deniability through obfuscation and mixing.

They are designed primarily to conceal the sender’s identity by obscuring which specific private key signed the transaction. The true sender combines their private key with the public keys of several other random accounts, often called “decoys” or “mixins”, drawn from the blockchain.

The resulting ring signature is valid for the entire group, or “ring,” making it computationally infeasible for an outside observer to pinpoint the actual signer. The core principle is plausible deniability since the true source is mixed with decoys, making the origin ambiguous.

Its security relies heavily on the size and randomness of the anonymity set (the ring). This technology is famously implemented by Monero (XMR), where it is combined with Stealth Addresses (hiding the recipient) and RingCT (hiding the amount) to enforce privacy by default.

Key Technical Properties

• Improvised Rings: A core advantage is that Ring Signatures do not require a central manager or prior permission from the decoy members. Any user can construct a ring instantly using public keys already on the ledger.
• Linkability Prevention: To prevent double-spending, Ring Signatures use a key image, a unique tag derived from the sender’s private key. If two signatures appear with the same key image, the network knows they originated from the same user, even though it doesn’t know who that user is.
• Proof Size: Unlike the succinct nature of zk-SNARKs, the size of a Ring Signature typically grows proportionally to the number of decoys included in the ring, leading to larger transaction sizes.

zk-SNARKs Vs. Ring Signatures

• Scope of Privacy: zk-SNARKs hide all three transaction fields (sender, recipient, and amount) in one mathematical proof. Ring Signatures primarily hide the sender; they require separate protocols (Stealth Addresses, RingCT) to achieve full privacy.
• Underlying Mechanism: zk-SNARKs rely on cryptographic proof and complex mathematics for their security. Ring Signatures rely on obfuscation and the quality of the anonymity set (the decoy pool).
• Efficiency: zk-SNARKs are superior in terms of efficiency, providing an extremely succinct and constant-sized proof that can be verified very fast. Ring Signatures create proofs that are variable in size and are generally slower to verify as the size of the ring increases.
• Setup Requirement: Ring Signatures boast the advantage of having no setup requirement; rings are improvised instantly. zk-SNARKs have historically required a potentially sensitive trusted setup, though newer generations of the technology are resolving this.
• Fungibility: Both methods provide high fungibility, but zk-SNARKs offer perfect fungibility as every shielded coin is mathematically indistinguishable.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

zk-SNARKs vs. Ring Signatures was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When Your “Private” Encrypted Chats Are Read Anyway

A new threat is proving that even “end-to-end encryption” isn’t a silver bullet for total privacy. Security researchers have uncovered a sophisticated Android banking trojan, dubbed Sturnus, that is capable of capturing private conversations on apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal.

Discovered by Dutch cybersecurity firm ThreatFabric, Sturnus appears to be in its pre-deployment phase, but is already fully functional. It is configured with templates to target major banks across Southern and Central Europe, signaling preparation for a far wider and more coordinated global operation.

Sturnus functions as an advanced banking trojan that gives attackers near-total remote control of an infected Android device. While apps like Signal or WhatsApp protect data in transit, the trojan is designed to monitor everything displayed on your phone’s screen in real time. It simply waits for the messages to be decrypted and shown by the app. It then captures full message threads and contacts right from the display. The very moment you read a message, the attacker can too.

The malware uses highly convincing full-screen overlays to capture banking credentials. It can even execute financial transactions while displaying a black full-screen overlay on your device, hiding the activity from you completely.

When a single piece of malicious code can gain this level of control, the answer to the question, “What could possibly go wrong?” is simply: Everything!

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

When Your “Private” Encrypted Chats Are Read Anyway was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

PIVX Weekly Pulse (Nov 14th, 2025 — Nov. 20th, 2025)

PIVX Weekly Pulse (Nov 14th, 2025 — Nov. 20th, 2025)

Don’t miss a thing in PIVX. Our weekly digest delivers the inside scoop on key market shifts and crucial community developments.

Market Pulse

• Masternode Count: The number of active masternodes on the PIVX network slightly decreased this week, falling to 1,954 from 2,048. This represents a drop of approximately 4.6%. This minor reduction is likely attributable to recent price volatility, as the price of PIV briefly rallied within the week. Some masternode operators may have opted to take profit or temporarily move their nodes offline.

• Price Check: PIVX successfully countered the extreme volatility seen across the broader cryptocurrency landscape this week, managing to trade largely sideways despite intense selling pressure on major assets.
  Daily USD Prices ranged between $0.21 and $0.28. The asset did, however, see periods of strong buying interest, with days featuring intra-day spikes of up to $0.33. This range-bound action resulted in a weekly average price of $0.2486, a slight decline from last week’s average of $0.25.
  Meanwhile, the bearish sentiment in the general crypto market is becoming more intense, with Bitcoin falling to lows last seen in April. The market’s Fear & Greed index has also plunged to 11, indicating extreme fear. However, privacy coins have remained largely resilient.

• Trading Buzz: PIVX recorded healthy trading volume this week, reversing the previous downturn. The total weekly volume climbed to approximately $100 million, an encouraging rise from last week’s $68 million.

PIVX. Your Rights. Your Privacy. Your Choice.
To stay on top of PIVX news please visit PIVX.org and Discord.PIVX.org.

PIVX Weekly Pulse (Nov 14th, 2025 — Nov. 20th, 2025) was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.