New Monero upgrade boosts transaction speed while shrinking data footprint

In a network focused on greater privacy for cryptocurrency users, Monero activated a new major update. It is named Oxygen Orion and ships as version 0.17.

Thirty developers contributed to the release, delivering substantial improvements across virtually all aspects of Monero.

The key upgrade is the Compact Linkable Spontaneous Anonymous Groups (CLSAG) technology, an improved version of MLSAG—the Monero ring-signature scheme. With its activation, transaction sizes fell by 25%, and transaction confirmation speeds rose by 10%, while preserving the existing level of anonymity.

The scheduled network upgrade went successfully! 🎉

Smaller and lighter transactions (through CLSAG) are now live on mainnet!https://t.co/Acay2ePSeo

— Monero || #xmr (@monero) October 17, 2020

In addition, the release enhances network security, including with respect to the Dandelion++ protocol.

Dandelion++ is an enhanced version of the Dandelion protocol, which was proposed for Bitcoin back in 2017 but is compatible with Monero as well. Its idea is to split transactions into two stages: the transfer itself and the ‘trace obscuring’ phase, during which the sender’s IP address is hidden.

Ricardo Spanyi: the privacy attributed to Monero is a big misconception

From a technical standpoint, every new upgrade to the Monero codebase is a hard fork. Accordingly, network participants—both ordinary users and exchanges—must upgrade their software to the latest version. Those who store XMR on hardware wallets should also ensure they have the latest firmware.

Earlier, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) identified the winners of a contest to develop tools for tracking transactions on the Monero network that bypass privacy technologies. The winners were Chainalysis and Integra FEC.

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