Firo (cryptocurrency)

Firo, formerly known as Zcoin, is a cryptocurrency aimed at using cryptography to provide better privacy for its users compared to other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

Firo official logo
Ticker symbol	FIRO
Development
Original author(s)	Poramin Insom
White paper	Enabling Untraceable Anonymous Payments in the Lelantus Protocol
Initial release	0.1[1] / 28 September 2016[2]
Latest release	0.14.2.3[3] / 7 January 2021[3]
Code repository	https://github.com/firoorg/firo/releases
Development status	Active
Written in	JavaScript, C, Python, Go, C++[4]
Developer(s)	Poramin Insom[5] Peter Shugalev Andrey Bezrukov Tadhg Riordan Panu Suksumonsin Rustam Abrahamyan Sproxet Aram Jivanyan (Research) Tigran Mamikonyan (Research) [6]
Source model	Bitcoin codebase[7]
Website	https://firo.org/
Ledger
Hash function	Merkle Tree Proof[8]
Block reward	12.5 FIRO per block (next halving in September 2020)[9]
Block time	5 minutes[10]
Block explorer	https://explorer.firo.org/

History

Zcoin

In the late 2014, Poramin Insom, a student in Masters in Security Informatics from Johns Hopkins University wrote a paper on implementing the zerocoin protocol into a cryptocurrency with Matthew Green as faculty member.[11][5] The project to create a standalone cryptocurrency implementing the Zerocoin protocol was named "Moneta".[12]

On 28 September 2016, Zcoin, the first cryptocurrency to implement the zerocoin protocol, was launched by Poramin Insom and team.[2] Roger Ver[2] and Tim Lee were Zcoin's initial investors.[13] Poramin also set up an exchanged named "Satang" that can convert Thai Baht to Zcoin directly.[5]

On 20 February 2017, a malicious coding attack on Zerocoin protocol created 370,000 fake tokens which perpetrators sold for over 400 Bitcoins ($440,000). Zcoin team announced that a single-symbol error in a piece of code "allowed an attacker to create Zerocoin spend transactions without a corresponding mint".[14] Unlike Ethereum during the DAO event, developers have opted not to destroy any coins or attempt to reverse what happened with the newly generated ones.[15]

In April 2018, a cryptographic flaw was found in the Zerocoin protocol which allowed attackers to steal, destroy, and create Zcoins.[16] The Zcoin cryptocurrency team while acknowledging the flaw, stated the high difficulty in performing such attacks and the low probability of giving economic benefit to the attacker.[17]

In September 2018, Zcoin introduced the Dandelion protocol that hides the origin IP address of a sender without using The Onion Router (Tor) or Virtual Private Network (VPN).[18][19]

In November 2018, Zcoin conducted the world's first large-scale party elections for Thailand Democrat Party using blockhain instead of relying the election commission to count the votes.[20][21]

In December 2018, Zcoin implemented Merkle tree proof, a mining algorithm that deters the usage of Application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) in mining coins by being more memory intensive for the miners. This allows ordinary users to use central processing unit (CPU) and graphics card for mining, so as to enable egalitarianism in coin mining.[8] In the same month, Zcoin released an academic paper proposing the Lelantus protocol that remove the need of trusted setup and hides the origin and the amount of coins in a transaction.[22][23]

In February 2019, Zcoin was added to wallet supported by Binance cryptocurrency exchange.[24] In the same month, Zcoin partnered with Binance Charity Foundation to raise funds for "Lunch for Children" program in Africa. The charity used blockchain to track and verify the progress of funds from donor to receiver.[25]

On 30 July 2019, Zcoin formally departed from the zerocoin protocol by adopting a new protocol called "Sigma" that prevents counterfeit privacy coins from inflating coin supply. This is achieved by removing a feature called "trusted setup" from the zerocoin protocol.[26] In August 2019, Zcoin was added to an Africian cryptocurrency exchange named OVEX.[27] In December 2019, Zcoin introduced a decentralised crowdfunding and decision making system to fund ancillary tasks for the project.[28]

In January 2020, Zcoin will implement Receiver Address Privacy (RAP) so that users can share a single permanent address to the public to receive money without the outsiders knowing any transaction history in the address.[29] In May 2020, Zcoin announced that all founder rewards will be ceased, while at the same time increase development funding to 15% of the block reward, and allocated 35% of the block reward to masternodes. Besides, a US$100,000 reserve fund was set up to protect against price volatility.[30] In September 2020, Zcoin completed first halving of block rewards.[31]

Firo

In October 2020, Zcoin announced rebranding to new name called "Firo" which signifies a unique way of burn (destroy) and redeem coins.[32]

See also

• Legality of bitcoin by country

References

1. "Release for v0.1". Github. Archived from the original on 1 August 2019. Retrieved 1 August 2019.
2. "Cryptocurrency Zcoin Have Just Released 'French Drop' Their Best Privacy Update Yet". Business Insider. Zcoin team. 1 March 2018. Archived from the original on 7 August 2018. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
3. "Releases". Github. Retrieved 8 January 2021.
4. "Firo". Github. Retrieved 8 January 2021.
5. Ezra Kryill, Erker (4 April 2019). "Cyberwarfare to cryptocurrency". Elite Plus Magazine. Archived from the original on 5 May 2019. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
6. "Team". Zcoin.io. Archived from the original on 26 April 2019. Retrieved 1 August 2019.
7. Miers, Ian; Garman, Christina; Green, Matthew; Rubin, Aviel D. (May 2013). Zerocoin: Anonymous Distributed E-Cash from Bitcoin (PDF). 2013 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. Security and Privacy, 2008. Sp 2008. IEEE Symposium on. IEEE Computer Society Conference Publishing Services. pp. 397–411. doi:10.1109/SP.2013.34. ISSN 1081-6011.
8. "Zcoin Moves Against ASIC Monopoly With Merkle Tree Proof". Finance Magnates. 6 December 2018. Archived from the original on 6 December 2018. Retrieved 29 December 2018.
9. "Zcoins Distribution". Zcoin.io. Archived from the original on 1 August 2019. Retrieved 1 August 2019.
10. "MTP – Zcoin's New Proof-of-Work Algorithm". Zcoin.io. Archived from the original on 7 May 2019. Retrieved 1 August 2019.
11. Reuben, Yap. "An Interview with Poramin Insom, Zcoin's lead developer and founder". zcoin.io. Archived from the original on 24 August 2018. Retrieved 8 September 2018.
12. "Moneta - Engineering an ideal cryptocurrency". Moneta.cash. Archived from the original on 3 February 2015. Retrieved 11 August 2018.
13. Reuben, Yap. "A message from our new investor in Zcoin, Tim Lee". Archived from the original on 29 December 2017. Retrieved 13 August 2018.
14. Osborne, Charlie. "The risky business of bitcoin: High-profile cryptocurrency catastrophes". ZDNet. Retrieved 21 December 2018.
15. Rob, Price (20 February 2017). "A single typo let hackers steal $400,000 from a bitcoin rival". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 11 August 2018. Retrieved 11 August 2018.
16. Tim, Ruffing; Sri Avavinda, Krishnan; Viktoria, Ronge; Dominique, Schröder (12 April 2018). "A Cryptographic Flaw in Zerocoin (and Two Critical Coding Issues)". Chair of Applied Cryptography. Germany: University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
17. Reuben, Yap. "A statement on the paper "Burning Zerocoins for fun and profit"". Zcoin.io. Archived from the original on 9 September 2018. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
18. Jintana, Panyaarvudh (15 December 2018). "The distributed passion of a crypto pioneer Insom". The Nation (Thailand). Archived from the original on 15 December 2018. Retrieved 1 January 2019.
19. "Zcoin is the first cryptocurrency to implement Dandelion privacy protocol". finder.com.au. Archived from the original on 2 January 2019. Retrieved 1 January 2019.
20. Jintana, Panyaarvudh; Kas, Chanwanpen. "Reliable voting TECHNOLOGY". The Nation (Thailand). Archived from the original on 3 December 2018. Retrieved 29 December 2018.
21. Chris, Baraniuk (11 February 2020). "Blockchain: The revolution that hasn't quite happened". BBC News. Archived from the original on 11 February 2020. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
22. "Lelantus: Private transactions with hidden origins and amounts based on DDH" (PDF). Zcoin. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 December 2018. Retrieved 29 December 2018.
23. Aram, Jivanyan (7 April 2019). "Lelantus: Towards Confidentiality and Anonymity of Blockchain Transactions from Standard Assumptions". Cryptology ePrint Archive (Report 373). Retrieved 14 April 2019.
24. JD, Alois (26 February 2019). "Binance's Trust Wallet adds Zcoin Privacy Coin". Crowdfund Insider. Archived from the original on 16 January 2020. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
25. "Binance Charity Launches Blockchain-Powered 'Lunch For Children' Program". RTTNews. 22 February 2019. Archived from the original on 23 February 2019. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
26. Andrew, Munro (30 July 2019). "Zcoin cryptocurrency introduces zero knowledge proofs with no trusted set-up". Finder Australia. Archived from the original on 30 July 2019. Retrieved 30 July 2019.
27. Lloyd, Newkirk (29 August 2019). "Zcoin – a private cryptocurrency coming to OVEX". The South African. Archived from the original on 29 August 2019. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
28. Samantha, Hurst (26 December 2019). "Zcoin Announces Launch of Crowdfunding System". Crownfund Insider. Archived from the original on 26 December 2019. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
29. Charles, Brett (7 January 2020). "Zcoin's RAP to enhance wallet address privacy". Enterprise Times UK. Archived from the original on 11 January 2020. Retrieved 13 February 2020.
30. Arnab, Shome (4 May 2020). "Zcoin Unveils New Block Reward Allocation, Creates a Reserve Fund". Finance Magnates. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
31. Kubrick, Kaitlyn (12 September 2020). "Zcoin's (XZC) first halving is just around the corner". Somag News. Retrieved 15 September 2020.
32. Hurst, Samantha. "Zcoin Announces Rebranding to New Name & Ticker "Firo"". Crowdfund Insider. Archived from the original on 30 October 2020. Retrieved 4 November 2020.