Privacy-Centric Coin Grin Sets Mid-July Target Date for First-Ever Hard Fork

Privacy-centric cryptocurrency Grin is finalizing its timeline for its first-ever network hard fork, according to a proposed timeline uploaded by Grin core developer Quentin Le Sceller to Github dev community forum Gitter on June 5.

Grin is a privacy coin that implements scalability- and privacy-focused Mimblewimble protocol  — named after a fictional tongue-tying curse from the popular Harry Potter novels.

Mimblewimble is in part a variant of the cryptographic protocol known as Confidential Transactions, which allows for transactions to be obfuscated yet verifiable so as to achieve both heightened privacy and the prevention of double spending.

According to Le Sceller’s document, the activation block number for the forthcoming hark fork is 262,080, which is estimated to be hit on July 17.

The hard fork — the network’s first since its launch in mid-January of this year — is one of four system-wide upgrades scheduled for the first two years of the coin’s circulation. Each hard fork is set for every 262,080 blocks — roughly six month intervals.

The proposed timeline also includes a hard fork on Grin’s testnet, dubbed Floonet, on June 15, set at block height 216,000.

As part of its ASIC-resistance roadmap, Grin uses a strategy of frequent tweaking to one of its two proof-of-work algorithms. The imminent hard fork represents the first such tweak that aims to ensure the network remains resistant to mining that uses specialized hardware over the long term.

As previously reported, ASIC refers to mining hardware that uses application-specific integrated circuit chips, which are tailored to efficiently mine cryptocurrency based on a specific hashing algorithm.

Meanwhile, set-ups that use graphics processing units (GPUs) are less specialized, and have ostensibly to date struggled to compete for network rewards due to their reduced efficiency.

Aside from this, the hard fork will include an upgrade designed to increase the Grin wallet’s flexibility and usability — specifically an improvement to its so-dubbed “bulletproof rewind scheme,” which will enable new kinds of wallets including multisig and watch-only wallets, which allow users to detect their outputs, but not spend them.

As recently reported, China-based blockchain platform Neo has just implemented a new iteration of its consensus algorithm on its mainnet. The new algorithm includes a procedure for reintegrating failed nodes back into the network, and also adds a “commit phase” of consensus, which alleviates forking issues by including a step that forces node assignment to new blocks.