Firo (FIRO), previously known as Zcoin, is a cryptocurrency that emphasizes privacy, functioning as confidential digital money. It introduced the Lelantus privacy protocol, enabling users to destroy their coins and later receive new ones that have no prior transaction history.
Before adopting Lelantus, Firo was the pioneer in implementing the Zerocoin protocol in a practical manner. This protocol became widely used among privacy protocols until vulnerabilities were found in 2019, leading to its replacement first by Sigma and then by Lelantus.
Who Are the Founders of Firo?
Firo, initially branded as Zcoin, was founded by Poramin Insom. He holds a master's degree in Information Security from Johns Hopkins University, where he authored a paper on implementing the Zerocoin protocol. In addition to Firo, Insom co-founded the Satang Corporation and served as a second lieutenant in the Royal Thai Armed Forces' cyber warfare division.
Reuben Yap came on board shortly after the project's 2016 launch and now guides Firo's strategic direction, development, and research priorities. Yap is a prominent advocate for digital and financial privacy, having established one of Southeast Asia's first VPN services to resist censorship. He is a recognized speaker on privacy issues, with insights featured in outlets like CoinDesk, BBC, Forbes, Nasdaq, Reuters, and Cheddar News. He became Project Steward & Co-Founder in November 2019.
What Makes Firo Unique?
Firo stands apart due to its Lelantus privacy protocol and the earlier Sigma protocol, which employ unique zero-knowledge proofs known as one-out-of-many proofs. Unlike other zk constructions, these do not require trust-based setups or complex cryptographic assumptions, yet they maintain substantial anonymity.
In October 2018, Firo was the first to implement Dandelion++, a method for broadcasting transactions that shields the user's IP address from being linked to transactions by third parties.
In a groundbreaking move in November 2018, Firo's blockchain was utilized in the Thai Democrat Party's primary election to choose a party leader, involving over 127,000 votes. This marked the world's first large-scale political election conducted on blockchain technology.
The project transitioned from the Zcoin brand to Firo in October 2020.
How Many Firo (FIRO) Coins Are There in Circulation?
As of August 2021, Firo (FIRO) has a circulating supply of 12,211,042 coins, with a maximum supply capped at 21,400,000 FIRO. Its distribution pattern is similar to that of Bitcoin.
How Is the Firo Network Secured?
Firo employs a hybrid consensus model that combines Proof of Work (PoW) and Chainlocks. This involves forming quorums of hundreds of masternodes that are deterministically chosen (LLMQ), carrying out a network-wide measurement and voting on the "first-seen" rule, thereby locking in the first-seen block. Once a block is confirmed, no reorganizations are allowed, preventing 51% mining attacks, as the masternode network would need to be compromised to disable Chainlocks before such an attack could occur.
Firo's mining uses the MTP algorithm, which is memory-hard and thus resistant to ASICs. The network is transitioning to FiroPOW, a ProgPOW variant tailored for GPU mining, further ensuring resistance against ASICs and FPGAs to promote fair coin distribution.
Where Can You Buy Firo (FIRO)?
You can purchase Firo (FIRO) on various exchanges, including:
* Binance
* Bittrex Global
* Huobi Global
* Gate.io
* MEXC
* Satang
* Tokocrypto
Additionally, Firo (FIRO) is available for swapping on the following platforms:
