PIVX, a cutting edge User Data Protection oriented blockchain project and cryptocurrency, announced on November 25th 2015 and fair-launched on January 30th 2016. Upon its launch (based on the quark Proof of Work algorithm), it had no ICO, no instamine or perpetual developer premine. PIVX switched to a Proof of Stake algorithm on August 17th 2016 and has pioneered Proof of Stake as well as User Data Protection protocols ever since. Its user data protection comes through SHIELD, which is a highly customized anonymity protocol based on zk-SNARKs Sapling integrated into Proof of Stake.