When it comes to economic privacy, the master of “disguise” is Monero, even so, their protocol update is actually a well-camouflaged hard fork.
Monero announced a successful completion of the update on their twitter page stating that Monero compatible Bulletproofs are live.
Hard forks are usually associated with separating ways of teams or developers. That can be a reason for calling it a protocol update.
Monero also published on their website a long list of updates and bug fixes (really if you want to see a big list just check it).
Why it matters?
Because size does matter. Security protocols to keep Monero transactions private were also making the data larger, fees higher and processes slower.
So the problem was the scalability.
Bulletproofs are changing everything, fees are substantially smaller, while the transactions are faster.
It actually feels like the early PC era, when computational power was growing exponentially and everyone (who owned a PC) was watching it in awe. What Monero did is the same thing but in blockchain. Now, whoever owns a coin or is part of blockchain is watching with the same amusement.
To give an idea of what it means for Monero transactions, a Reddit user already posted an image showing how minuscule the fees are now after the update.
Mining Monero
For participating parties like miners or nodes it is important to update the software because as of now, non-updated systems will not work.
Monero is also updating its CNv2 Proof-of-Work algorithm, also known as CryptoNightV8, to be ahead of ASICs. Monero prefers to stay CPU-mineable.
Now a reminder; Monero has a very clear stand when it comes to ASIC mining. They simply are against it, mainly because corporate miners are creating a mining monopoly. Monero developer lead Riccardo Spagni wrote in his twitter that Antminer X3 won’t work with Monero.
Today, before the launch of the update, among many twitter comments there was a specific one questioning the name “Bulletproof” and calling it a “microaggression.” Spagni replied sharply to this comment.
Monero is currently the tenth biggest cryptocurrency in the world with a market cap of $1,693,388,977 and trading for $102,65 according to Coinmarketcap.
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