Monero Doubles Down on Blockchain Privacy With New Hard Fork

Policy-wise, blockchain privacy may be under attack, but Monero (XMR-USD) isn't deterred in the least. Contrarily, the XMR cryptocurrency is prospering despite the difficult philosophical arguments between safety and privacy. With a new hard fork update, it strengthens its commitment to maintaining transaction anonymity today. The news is another another example of the protocol following its own agenda. Even though the future of blockchain anonymity is still uncertain, the group keeps coming up with new ideas.

Along with Tornado Cash and Zcash (ZEC-USD), Monero is at the forefront of the blockchain industry's need for anonymity. By deliberately obscuring who transacts on their chains, how much they trade, and to whom they trade it, it and Zcash provide this privacy. This approach completely anonymizes the transfer of XMR between parties.

However, privacy initiatives are right in the crosshairs as authorities attempt to impose inside the cryptocurrency field. Since years, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has been pursuing Monero. Back in 2020, it offered a $625,000 reward to anybody who could decipher the project's code and aid with user tracking. The European Union has been working on legislation to outlaw blockchain anonymity inside its borders more recently.

When the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Tornado Cash this month, things reached a boiling point. The initiative, which enables users to blend their assets with those of other users to make their money anonymous, came under criticism when it was discovered to be a tool used by North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group. However, Monero creators remain unconcerned even as the government pursues a close competitor of the XMR cryptocurrency. This much is clear from the project's recent improvement.

Upgrading XMR Crypto Privacy Through Monero Hard Fork

The initiative is undoubtedly significantly hampered by the Tornado Cash sanctions. The tool and the several banned wallets linked to it are no longer accessible to users from the United States. There is a chain reaction being created by this that is affecting several other procedures. The creators of Monero are releasing an update that strengthens blockchain privacy at the same time that this fact is unsettling other projects that are concerned about more fines.

Users of Monero itself have not expressed any opposition to the hard fork update that was delivered over the weekend. Being the privacy-conscious investors that they are, it seems to reason that the more anonymity that transactions may enjoy, the better. This hard fork, which was delayed in July, achieves that goal.

In particular, it promotes anonymity by increasing from 11 to 16 the number of signatures needed by transaction validators. This increases anonymity by making it more difficult to tell whether validators have truly approved a specific transaction from those that are only "placebos."

The update also makes the network run more efficiently. A brand-new "Bulletproof" algorithm is said to speed up transactions while decreasing their size. According to developers, the algorithm will enhance blockchain production by 5% to 7%. "View tags" have been added to the network to speed up wallet synchronization as well, enabling users to quickly set up their wallets with the chain.