A review of the privacy coin developments in December 2019. The XMR, Grin, Beam, and ZEC you care about are all here

Author's message: Welcome to the first issue of the First Class Monthly Report Series. Starting from January 2020, we will launch monthly reports in the fields of privacy coins, Defi, cross-chain, DEX, cloud storage, etc., to summarize the most important progress in the past month and the most noteworthy hotspots in the coming month. The monthly report will be released at the beginning of each month. Welcome to pay attention to first-class warehouses. If there are any inappropriate articles in this article, please urge friends in the industry to take time to correct them. Thank you!

 

Monero (XMR), # 16 (Ranking of 2019.12.30 CMC data for reference)

 

Progress in December :

• Talk about Hayek, Satoshi Nakamoto and Bitcoin
• 2019 Global Blockchain Policy Annual Report: China focuses on support, and the US mostly regulates
• 2020 Central Bank Working Conference: Continue to steadily advance the development of fiat digital currencies

In December, Random X, an anti-ASIC mining algorithm prepared for half a year, was officially deployed to the main network with the hard fork. The following are the details of the hard fork:

· Mainnet version Carbon Chameleon

· Time: In the early morning of December 1, block height: 1978433

· Upgrade content:

① CPU-friendly, Random ASIC-resistant Random X mining algorithm

② Android builds

③ Automatically search for public nodes and switch the boot mode daemon

④ Improve network security between wallet and nodes

⑤ Payment function of service system (node ​​provides payment RPC, or third party provides payment service through mining)

⑥ You can choose to use Tor / I2P to relay transactions, which has obtained better privacy (block relay is performed on the clearnet / clearnet)

⑦ New gen_ssl_cert tool to generate SSL certificates for Monero

⑧ IPv6 support

⑨ Remove support for long payment ID Views & Future Expectations :

After Random went online, the mining efficiency of the CPU has been improved by 7 to 10 times. Most GPU miners have opted out of mining because of the advantages of mining and opt out, and the hash rate of the entire network is maintained at about 1000 MH / s.

If everything works well, Random X means that in a few years, there will be no more efficient Monero mining equipment (ASIC / FPGA / customized GPU and CPU) than CPU, because the input-output ratio of developers Very low, they may have to spend years to develop a mining machine that is twice as efficient as Intel and AMD products. No matter whether you sell this batch of mining machines or use them to mine, the possibility of recovering costs Minimal, not to mention profitability.

This also means that the threshold for participating in Monero mining has been lowered from GPU to CPU level again, thereby attracting more people to Monero mining. During this redistribution of benefits, many mining pools closed Monroe's mining services and exchange groups. What's more, this monero coin was called a "coin circle tumor". However, some people believe that "only xmr is really good for users, and other currencies require continuous upgrades of equipment."

Monroe is currently developing steadily, and the next focus is on two:

① Does Random X algorithm encounter professional miners?

② The final scheme of the next generation signature technology

Zcash (ZEC), # 32

 

1 February progress:

1) Upgrade of Blossom main network:

· Mainnet version: zcashd v2.1.0

Beijing time: December 12, block height: 653,600

· Upgrade content: reduce the entire network verification time, from the original 150 seconds to 75 seconds, the single block reward has been reduced from the previous 12.5 to the current 6.25.

· Function: This function reduces the waiting time for transaction confirmation, improves transaction throughput per unit time, and keeps transaction costs low.

2) Developer funding proposal:

· Around October 2020, when the 57,000th block is mined, the supply of ZEC tokens will be halved, and all block rewards will be distributed to miners and will no longer be distributed to founders, ECC employees, Zcash funds Meeting, ECC company. This has caused a lot of pressure on ECC's funds.Since 2018, the Zcash community has held a long debate on whether to renew the founder award and how to allocate this part of the funds. The Zcash community put forward 13 different proposals and selected 3 proposals with high votes and support from the foundation, namely:

① ZIP 1013: The proposal proposes to continue to issue newly issued ZEC as a development fund to the team after the first Zcash halving, in which ECC (50%) and ZF (50%) are used for Zcash's continuous research and development , Innovation and maintenance, until the second halved.

② ZIP 1012: The proposal proposes to continue to issue the newly issued ZEC as a development fund to the team after the first Network Upgrade 4 (of which ECC (35%), ZF (25%) and long-term The project development fund (40%), as determined by the Zcash Foundation, requires additional input and review from the community) and lasts 4 years. The monthly funding limit for each department is $ 700,000. Governance and accountability build on existing entities and legal mechanisms and encourage increasingly decentralized governance.

③ ZIP 1010: This proposal proposes to continue to issue newly issued ZEC as a development fund to the team after the first network upgrade 4 (of which ECC (30%), ZF (30%) and ZF Grants (40%) for 4 years. The development fund will be paid to a trust fund jointly controlled by the Electric Coin Company (ECC) and the Zcash Foundation (ZF), but there is strict control over the distribution of funds. It avoids code complexity during implementation by entrusting payments to a legal trust; funding ECC / ZF; ECC remains profitable under restrictions; funding for external parties through ZF grants; creating a limited opportunity , Can extend governance to more organizations beyond ECC / ZF to achieve decentralization.

Views & Future Expectations :

The team originally discussed multiple Blossom goals in the official forum in November 2018, but in the list disclosed in January 2019, they simplified other goals that were originally set, focusing on splitting founder rewards and reducing zones There are two parts to the block verification time , so this upgrade has not caused much response in the community. As early as November 2019, the ECC and Zcash Foundation teams disclosed their 2020 development plans respectively. For details, please refer to the first class Zcash column (for each important news of the team, we will promptly launch corresponding translation articles). In 2020, Zcash will integrate with Ethereum, improve cross-chain protocols, enter DeFi, expand offline markets, strengthen ecological construction, transform Zcash's current governance structure, and focus on the first-tier capacity expansion methods (such as HALO's Research) and so on. The story is still being written, where Zcash will go in the future, whether it is blooming as described by Blossom, or is going to wither, let us wait and see!

Horizen (ZEN), # 57

 

Progress in December

1) The Zen node tracking system update is Zen's biggest progress in December. This node (including Super Node and Security Node) update contains two important adjustments:

① Adjust the frequency of weekly reward distribution: From each node to seven separate payments per week, adjust to a one-time unified payment. This change is combined with reducing the number of payments per transaction (from 1200 to 300) in order to reduce issues with software management and payments in hardware wallets.

② API rate limitation: As the number of nodes and third-party applications continues to increase, the use of APIs continues to increase, which makes some tracking server resources tight. The team decided to enable API rate limiting to reduce the load. The API rate limit will be implemented gradually, with a full limit from about December 10. Rate limiting mainly affects hosting providers, monitoring applications, aggregators, and more. It is not expected to have any impact on applications such as wallets.

2) As of December 30, the latest progress of the Zen sidechain is:

① New white paper for extended models: completed and under review;

② The implementation of side-chain consensus mechanism and pledged representatives' implementation strategies are being formulated;

③ The side chain model required for Zen main chain update: continue to develop the required changes to achieve the reverse transfer from the side chain to the main chain, and create python tests for code and function coverage;

Views & Future Expectations :

Since the rebranding of the Zen brand, the sidechain has been the most important project for Zen. The sidechain vision described by the Zen team has been favored by many community members, but the sidechain SDK Alpha version originally scheduled to be launched in the second quarter of 2019 has continued The postponement was not officially launched until October 21, 19, which caused strong dissatisfaction in the community. Some people constantly questioned the team's development capabilities and efficiency. The Zen team's response to this is: due to the spread of the bear market, the team's funds are tight, and there are other tasks to be taken into account, such as node systems, wallets, etc., but the side chain development work will be given top priority. During this period, the Zen team continued to recruit talents to join the sidechain development team. In December, it recruited three more software engineers to help the development of sidechains. In the third quarter work report, the Zen team stated that the beta version of the sidechain SDK will be released in the first quarter of 2020. Whether it can arrive on schedule, we wait and see.

Grin (GIRN), # 106

 

Progress in December :

In December, the Grin team has been doing various preparations for the second hard fork, namely Grin3.0.0 version. Currently, it has released three versions Beta 1, Beta 2, Beta 3, and successfully completed on the testnet Floodnet. Hard fork. Grinv3.0.0 will bring many new features, such as TOR transactions, proof of payment, optimization when multiple nodes are synchronized, etc. Here is the timeline:

Views & Future Expectations :

After the second hard fork, the GPU-friendly algorithm Cuckarood algorithm will be updated to Cuckaroom to resist ASIC mining machine mining. In the first two years of Grin's launch (2019 to 2020), Grin will perform a hard fork every 6 months, that is, the C29 algorithm will be upgraded every 6 months to resist the large-scale ASIC miners at the beginning of the project. Mining leads to problems with concentration of chips. At present, the mining ratio of C31 (ASIC-friendly) algorithm has exceeded 51%. Grin will completely eliminate the C29 algorithm after the fourth hard fork on January 15, 2021, and enter the era of comprehensive ASIC mining.

Zcoin (XZC), # 109

 

Progress in December :

Zcoin launches a crowdfunding system to solve financing problems and key decision-making problems of the project. The main contents are:

① A plan to further decentralize the project and eliminate single points of failure

② The crowdfunding system intends to transition from the block reward mode to the donation mode

③ Funding auxiliary tasks, such as non-core development, third-party integration, community management and event organization, etc.

④ Zcoin crowdfunding system supports any community member to propose, approve and fund activities

⑤ Funded projects release funds in accordance with specified milestones and regularly update project progress

⑥ Use Zcoin's Github to increase transparency, all proposals and their revisions can be traced back to historical records

⑦ Borrowed from the perfect case of MoneroCCS, fiercely competing privacy projects can complement each other and draw on and cooperate in research

⑧ Will continue to simplify the crowdfunding system to raise funds and involve more communities

Views & Future Expectations :

After about halving in September 2020, the rewards of the founders and the development team will all be cancelled. The miner rewards will be increased to 70%. Znodes will still account for 30%. At present, the development funds still depend on block rewards, and a new funding is urgently needed mode. The launch of the crowdfunding system has two significant implications:

① Guarantee the funding source of Zcoin's subsequent development to facilitate the subsequent development and maintenance of Lelantus;

② Community members participate in project proposals and decision-making, making Zcoin more decentralized.

Beam (BEAM), # 110

 

Progress in December:

Beam released the desktop wallet Double Doppler 4.0 version in early December. This version launched the initial atomic swap market, which supports BTC, LTC, and QTUM. Users can directly exchange assets in the wallet in a decentralized manner without any transactions. Opponent risk. Two weeks later, the Beam team released DoubleDoppler 4.1, which optimized the availability of the atomic swap trading market. At the end of December, Beam launched Double Doppler iOS 4.0.

Views & Future Expectations :

From the release of this version of the wallet, the Beam team planned to complete it at the end of 2019 according to the roadmap. And Beam has been strong in the execution of the team since the launch of the main net, basically following the roadmap plan. This also makes us look forward to Beam's performance in 2020. It plans to complete the second in the first quarter of 2020. The change of the secondary mining algorithm and the release of the Lelantus-MW agreement by the main network, which is planned to break the transaction linkability of the MW agreement, has certain innovation, which is also a big step for Beam towards full privacy.

Dero (DERO), # 547

 

Project progress in December :

Dero originally planned to deploy the smart contract Stargate version to the testnet in the fourth quarter of 2019, and has now announced an extension, which is expected to be released before the end of the second quarter of 2020. Because it found that RandomX algorithm implemented by Golang will affect the security of the blockchain when testing in October, it can only be announced to abandon. The team is currently researching other algorithms, and its plan is to switch to PoW + PoS in the general direction. This possibility.

Views & Future Expectations :

The Dero team plans to deploy anonymous smart contracts on its native chain, which is difficult to achieve by itself, and there are many things to do at present, but its development team has fewer members and weak development strength, and the plan can only be postponed repeatedly. Although the team promised that it is still focusing on smart contract implementation, its delivery is also difficult without new development blood.

summary

In general, the overall progress of the privacy coin section is stable, and each project is currently focused on one or two aspects. Among them, Monero and Grin are mainly based on iterative mining algorithms. Zcash and Zcoin are about to expire due to token rewards, and are currently looking for new sources of funds to maintain subsequent development. Beam focused on atomic swaps and considered absorbing Zcoin's Lelantus protocol. Horizen and Dero's main energy is focused on the development of public chain infrastructure (side chain, smart contracts). The roadmap for various projects in the new year will also be launched one after another.

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