CreationEdit
In the late 2014, Poramin Insom, a student in Masters in Security Informatics from Johns Hopkins University wrote a paper on implementing the zerocoin protocol into a cryptocurrency with Matthew Green as faculty member.[13][5] The project to create a standalone cryptocurrency implementing the Zerocoin protocol was named "Moneta".[14][15]
On 28 September 2016, Zcoin, the first cryptocurrency to implement the zerocoin protocol, was launched by Poramin Insom and team.[5][16] Roger Ver was the initial investor.[5]
2017-2018Edit
On 20 February 2017, a malicious coding attack on Zerocoin protocol created 370,000 fake tokens which perpetrators sold for over 400 Bitcoins [$440,000]. Zcoin team announced that a single-symbol error in a piece of code "allowed an attacker to create Zerocoin spend transactions without a corresponding mint".[17] Unlike Ethereum during the DAO event, developers have opted not to destroy any coins or attempt to reverse what happened with the newly generated ones.[18]
In September 2017, Poramin set up an exchange named "Satang Pro" that can convert Thai Baht to Zcoin directly.[5][19]
In April 2018, a cryptographic flaw was found in the Zerocoin protocol which allowed attackers to steal, destroy, and create Zcoins.[20] The Zcoin cryptocurrency team while acknowledging the flaw, stated the high difficulty in performing such attacks and the low probability of giving economic benefit to the attacker.[21]
In June 2018, Cookly, Thailand based cooking classes and culinary experiences platform raised series A funding through Zcoin. The company also planned to use Zcoin technology to facilitate its transactions.[22]
In August 2018, Boozeat, a liquor delivery service in Malaysia accepted Zcoin as a payment method.[23]
In September 2018, Zcoin introduced the Dandelion protocol that hides the origin IP address of a sender without using The Onion Router [Tor] or Virtual Private Network [VPN].[24][25]
In November 2018, Zcoin conducted the world's first large-scale party elections for Thailand Democrat Party using blockchain instead of relying the election commission to count the votes.[26][27] In the same month, a video named "Rap Against Dictatorship" was uploaded to Zcoin blockchain after Thailand government's threat of arresting the people involved in the video for speaking against government policies.[28]
In December 2018, Zcoin implemented Merkle tree proof, a mining algorithm that deters the usage of Application-specific integrated circuit [ASIC] in mining coins by being more memory intensive for the miners. This allows ordinary users to use central processing unit [CPU] and graphics card for mining, so as to enable egalitarianism in coin mining.[11] In the same month, Zcoin released an academic paper proposing the Lelantus protocol that remove the need of trusted setup and hides the origin and the amount of coins in a transaction. The paper was revised in November 2020 to incorporate new changes to the protocol.[29]
2019-2020Edit
In February 2019, Zcoin was added to wallet supported by Binance cryptocurrency exchange.[30] In the same month, Zcoin partnered with Binance Charity Foundation to raise funds for "Lunch for Children" program in Africa. The charity used blockchain to track and verify the progress of funds from donor to receiver.[31] On 25 April 2019, Zcoin was listed on Indonesian digital exchange KoinX.[32]
On 30 July 2019, Zcoin formally departed from the zerocoin protocol by adopting a new protocol called "Sigma" that prevents counterfeit privacy coins from inflating coin supply. This is achieved by removing a feature called "trusted setup" from the zerocoin protocol.[33] In August 2019, Zcoin was added to an African cryptocurrency exchange named OVEX.[34] In December 2019, Zcoin introduced a decentralised crowdfunding and decision making system to fund ancillary tasks for the project.[35] In July 2020, using the crowdfunding system, Zcoin raised US$22,500 from 89 contributors to fund the first phase of its third-party audit of Lelantus protocol.[36]
In January 2020, Zcoin will implement Receiver Address Privacy [RAP] so that users can share a single permanent address to the public to receive money without the outsiders knowing any transaction history in the address.[37] In May 2020, Zcoin announced that all founder rewards will be ceased, while at the same time increase development funding to 15% of the block reward, and allocated 35% of the block reward to masternodes. Besides, a US$100,000 reserve fund was set up to protect against price volatility.[38] In September 2020, Zcoin completed first halving of block rewards.[39] In the same month, Zcoin was added to Stakehound for easy accessibility to Decentralized finance [DeFi] while earning staking rewards.[40]
In October 2020, Zcoin announced rebranding to new name called "Firo" which signifies a unique way of burn [destroy] and redeem coins.[41] Firo suffered 51% attack in January 2021.[42] Firo has since implemented ChainLocks on Firo's blockchain which should make it nearly completely resistant to 51% attacks.[43] In June 2021, Firo was added to NOBI trading platform based in Indonesia.[44] Firo implemented Receiver Address Privacy [RAP] in June 2021.[45] In August 2021, Firo announced the Lelantus Spark protocol. This protocol offers additional privacy features, including generating new one-time addresses for receiving payments, efficient multisignature operations, and the availability of view keys for authorised third parties to view a transaction.[46][7]