Firo Privacy Coin Disables Protocol To Investigate Suspicious Transactions

The Firo privacy coin disables the protocol briefly to investigate a suspicious transaction with the core developers activating emergency mode to disable Lelantus so let’s read more in our latest altcoin news.

The team behind the Firo privacy coin identified multiple Lelantus transactions which looked suspicious according to the project steward Reuben Yap and the developers immediately activated their emergency switch to disable the LElantus and give them time to investigate and to identify the issue, as Yap wrote:

 “Our core team is working with several parties, including engineers from Trail of Bits (who audited our Lelantus cryptographic library), another cryptographer and a black hat to identify the issue. We have made significant progress in narrowing down the cause and are working on a proof-of-concept code to verify that what we’ve found is the core issue before resuming Lelantus functionality. Our team is also determining a plan to restore Lelantus functionality with minimum impact.”

The Lelantus protocol was launched back in January and introduced on-by-default privacy and prompts users to anonymize their funds with the goal of ensuring transactions that were sent by the official Firo wallets stay private. The transparent transactions have been explicitly selected and it allows for partial redemptions of the burn-and-redeem model which had to be redeemed in full. This is actually the second time a challenge like this arose since the launch back in January. Less than a week later, Firo was hit with a 51% attack that forced it to fix it instantly.

The Firo developers were able to disable the Lelantus protocol based on the votes that gave the core team the ability to turn off and turn on features like Lelantus, instant send, and Chainlocks, as Yap said:

 “While we have taken practical precautions including audits and review, developing cutting-edge privacy tech comes with risk. The safeguards we put in place in recognition of this has mitigated damage as the technology matures and becomes battle-tested.”

New software update Firo v0.14.5.3https://t.co/1poGpxP0B0

This is a maintenance release that resolves some bugs. It is highly recommended to update for node stability

As always, please backup your wallet prior to updating for safety.#FIRO $FIRO pic.twitter.com/08jcoAUrO1

— Firo (formerly Zcoin) (@firoorg) February 20, 2021

As reported, Zcoin rebranded to Firo at the end of November 2020, and the decision coincided with ZCoin’s Lelantus upgrade. The upgrade offers improved privacy, faster transactions, it has become much easier to use and many other features as well. Zcoin which is a minor privacy coin announced that it will undergo a rebranding on November 30 after which the coin will be known as Firo. The name”firo” means “Fire” which reflects one of the main features of the coin which is burning.