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GHOST COIN

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RESEARCH ARTICLE

What is GHOST?

A plain-language introduction to John McAfee's privacy cryptocurrency.

Editorial metadata · E-E-A-T
Author
The GHOST Archive Editorial Team
Editor
The GHOST Archive Editorial Team
Published
2024-01-01
Updated
2026-10-08
Last verified
2026-10-08
Direct answer

GHOST is a Proof-of-Stake privacy cryptocurrency that John McAfee announced in April 2020. It is designed so that senders, recipients, and transaction amounts are not visible on a public ledger. It launched on mainnet on June 22, 2020 and has been developed by a continuing community since.

The one-line answer

GHOST is a privacy coin: a cryptocurrency built to hide who sent a payment, who received it, and how much was paid, using a combination of ring signatures, stealth addresses, confidential transactions, and network-privacy relaying.

What GHOST tries to hide

Flow diagram
SENDER — hidden by ring signatures / RingCT
↓
RECEIVER — hidden by stealth addresses
↓
AMOUNT — hidden by confidential transactions + Bulletproofs
↓
NETWORK ORIGIN — obscured by Dandelion++

How GHOST came to exist

GHOST was announced in April 2020, distributed to ESH (Switch) holders on May 25, 2020, and reached mainnet genesis on June 22, 2020. Its architecture changed significantly between the original proposal and the launched chain.

Is GHOST active today?

Current status must be verified dynamically. The archive separates blockchain status, source availability, development activity, and market availability rather than assuming activity from history. See the Current Status page.

Sources

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