Privacy-Centric Monero Plans for July Hard Fork, Plans Include Ring Signature, Bulletproof Upgrade

According to a recent update on Monero’s Github repository, the privacy-focused crypto network is planning a hard fork in July, at a block height of 2,668,888. Monero is the largest private crypto-asset by market capitalization, and in the last seven days monero has appreciated 13.4% against the U.S. dollar.

Monero aims to update in July

The development team behind the Monero (XMR) project plans to update the blockchain at some point in July, according to Github version 15 “Network Update Checklist #690” Monero is an open-source distributed ledger with built-in privacy, as it obfuscates transactions using various techniques.

The Monero network uses privacy techniques such as ring signatures, a cryptographic method and proof of zero knowledge (ZK) called “Bulletproof”, hidden addresses, and also uses an IP obfuscation scheme using the Dandelion++ protocol.

Monero (XMR) is the largest privacy-focused crypto-asset by market capitalization, which at the time of writing is $4.62 billion. The hard fork in July is the 15th version of the software, as the blockchain has experienced a large number of updates since the network was created in 2014.

One of the main goals of many XMR‘hard forks’ is to protect the network from application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) miners. Four years ago, a hard fork led to a privacy-oriented network split into four different protocols. Moreover, in mid-February XMR supporters pleaded with monero miners to boycott the mining pool, which captured 44% of the network’s hash rate.

One month earlier, on January 16, 2022, Monero’s hashrate reached an all-time high at a block height of 2,539,056. On that day, the network’s hash rate reached 3.62 gigahes per second (GH/s). The July update aims to expand the network’s ring signature size and other ring signature parameters.

It aims to support Trezor and Ledger hardware wallets, and the developers plan to roll out a v15 test network next month. In addition, the ZK Bulletproofs privacy proof concept will be updated to a version called “bulletproof+”.

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