Firo Frontier Newsletter - Vol. 1 No. 5
Firo Frontier · December 8, 2024
Firo Frontier provides a brief summary of what's been happening in Firo over the past two weeks.
Firo is now officially listed on Biconomy
Exciting news - Firo is now officially listed on Biconomy exchange, with a FIRO/USDT trading pair!
But that’s not all — Biconomy supports both native FIRO and BEP-20 FIRO giving you even more options. Biconomy also allows direct withdrawals to Spark addresses for enhanced privacy (this is huge), making it the 2nd centralized exchange to support Spark! (The NONKYC exchange was the first to support Spark deposits/withdrawals when Firo Spark was implemented early this year).
Plus, don’t miss the Biconomy Kickstarter session where you can commit your USDT tokens for a chance to win exclusive airdrop rewards!
Learn more: https://firo.org/2024/12/02/firo-listed-on-biconomy.html
Start trading at: https://www.biconomy.com/exchange/FIRO_USDT
MAGIC Grants funding integration of Firo into Enkrypt wallet
Enkrypt wallet is a multichain browser extension wallet and was developed by the same people who built MyEtherWallet.
The integration will feature full Spark privacy support right from within your browser. The integration work is expected to take 3 months. This will be Firo’s first browser extension wallet! More info about the integration can be found here:
https://firo.org/2024/11/25/magic-grant-enkrypt-wallet-integration.html
More info about Enkrypt wallet is here: https://www.enkrypt.com/
Binance prevents French users from depositing/withdrawing ‘privacy’ assets.
Binance France issued a notice on the 7 December 2024 to its users in France that deposits or withdrawals of certain “privacy assets” FIRO, PIVX, DCR, DASH, SCRT and XVG would be blocked on the 11 December 2024 due to pressure from French regulators. ZCASH already had existing blocks. This is despite some of these assets not even having onchain privacy features (only claimed ones) or having specific compliance tools (such as Firo’s EX addresses). This further highlights the lack of understanding that regulators have and the further need for decentralized options. If you are a Binance user in France, please ensure you have withdrawn your FIRO before the 11 December!
Major legal victory for Tornado Cash’s technology
Tornado Cash recently won their appeal and the crypto world celebrated a major legal victory when a US federal appeals court struck down the OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) sanctions on Tornado Cash’s immutable smart contracts.
Basically - The appeals court found that the OFAC had no authority to sanction the Tornado Cash's open-source software - it's not the 'property' of a foreign national or entity and therefore can not be blocked by the OFAC - rather - they need to be targeting the specific persons using the technology to launder funds from illicit activities, not the technology. This verdict helps strengthen the foundation for privacy and innovation in crypto - and boosts confidence in creating privacy-focused protocols.
What is a circular economy and why is it important for crypto
Let's face it - Satoshi created Bitcoin in order to have an alternative to Fiat money - and it's becoming even more essential with all of the globalization and CBDC talks - where you may be paid with ‘programmed crypto' that either expires or has major restrictions on what you can use it for (you're over your carbon limit for the month - so - 'no more gas for your car 'til next month') - not likely the kind of future any of us want to see.
Crypto has to become something that is more than about making profits - more than price charts and market caps. Bitcoin and many other coins have been high-jacked by maxi’s (and others) - You can read about it in Roger Ver’s book - “Hijacking Bitcoin: The Hidden History of BTC“. They want crypto to remain ‘true to the original code’. By doing this they miss the original point of Satoshi’s vision. Crypto needs to allow people to build a private, secure, circular economy where coins like $FIRO enable private transactions and provide economic freedom while enabling the transformation of how people think about money.
A circular economy in crypto creates real-world utility where digital assets flow naturally between participants. People who earn crypto ultimately will spend it - or save it for a while - or invest it - but with the final goal of using the crypto again for something productive and useful in the economy - not just dumping their coins on an exchange when the price goes up a little bit. Privacy coins like Firo enhance this by adding a critical layer of confidentiality to transactions, similar to how cash functions in traditional economies.
Privacy allows businesses to transact without exposing sensitive financial information to competitors. At the individual level, privacy keeps personal spending habits confidential (you don’t want to expose all your financial information by buying a coffee with Bitcoin).
Firo is a privacy-preserving cryptocurrency that aims to fulfill these goals by using advanced cryptographic techniques to ensure that transactions are private and untraceable.
Firo developed Lelantus Spark with it’s own development and research teams. The technology hides the sender and receiver information and the amounts of the Spark transactions while allowing Spark receive addresses to be freely shared without it being searchable on the blockchain.
Firo’s cryptographic protocols provide high anonymity sets (currently 1-in-32,000) much improving on some other coins that are limited to 1-in-10 or 1-in-16. This allows people to transact with confidence that their financial activities are hidden and third parties are unable to easily link the recipient’s wallet address to a transaction on the blockchain without the assistance of additional external information.
The Firo ecosystem keeps expanding and now includes payment gateways like NOWPayments and Binance Pay, allowing businesses to accept Firo as a form of payment, further integrating it into the real-world economy. This capability is crucial for building a circular economy where digital assets are used seamlessly in daily life. Firo continues to improve it’s privacy functionality with upcoming features like Lelantus Spats. This feature allows all assets on the new tokenization layer to share the same anonymity pool, vastly improving privacy.
Reuben, Firo’s project steward, has demonstrated the practical use of Firo by paying for flights and accommodation using the cryptocurrency through Travala - a travel company that accepts Firo as payment. This real-world application showcases how Firo can be used to facilitate private and secure transactions and incorporate crypto’s use into a real-world circular economy.
The future of crypto - as envisioned by Satoshi - requires us to support the use of alternatives to Fiat by supporting and using privacy-focused cryptocurrencies like Firo in daily transactions. By doing this we’ll help to build a more private, secure, and accessible financial future for everyone.
Read more about Firo here: https://firo.org/guide/privacy-coin-comparison.html
This entry was in part inspired by the following post on X:
https://x.com/ndako_mustapha/status/1860989400798150721?s=46&t=qVKSVK3piZfV4fASftaaAw
Updates from the developers
The $FIRO developers continue to actively work on new $FIRO features that keep $FIRO on the leading edge of privacy preserving crypto - and aim to have $FIRO’s infrastructure become the best privacy preserving coin in the crypto space.
Current work includes:
Spark Names - Work on this new feature continues and will allow people to be able to send and receive Firo through human readable names.
Spats - this feature allows all assets on the tokenization layer to share the same anonymity pool, vastly improving privacy. Work on this feature continues and is progressing well.
Spark support for newly created $FIRO coins - work continues on enabling newly created $FIRO coins (as part of the mining or Master Node rewards process) to be created as Spark assets rather than the current transparent coins - thus allowing privacy for all coins created as part of the $FIRO ecosystem.
Normal maintenance also continues on $FIRO programs including Electrum / Trezor issue resolution, Performance improvements, preparation work for implementation of new $FIRO features, and normal bug fixes.
Development details can be found in this Firo Forum post: https://forum.firo.org/t/weekly-firo-development-meeting-minutes/2337/107
Other News
The Privacy RoundTable: Why Privacy coins haven't taken off and should they. Featured guest Zcash.
Recording of The Privacy RoundTable on X on November 20th, 2024 can be heard here: https://x.com/i/spaces/1ypJdpYeqzQJW
Or on our Youtube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A9gok7t0e4Champions of Copa Monero 2024
If anyone has been following the Copa Monero Soccer tournament - Guarani, representing Firo, got to the finals, but was ultimately beat out by the Liberty Club - Soccer team - Sponsored by Cakewallet.
Let's face it - since Monero sanctioned the games - we all win - since secure private crypto is what we all want - and Firo is doing its part as well. More info here: https://copamonero.com/The recent Firo X Meme Contest brought out the creativity and humor of our amazing FiroFam.
Contest results can be found here: https://x.com/firoorg/status/1859646674546851924?t=F9JHDOp1eOUQE3z0Z2zZ-Q&s=19
Free Roger: Roger Ver has been one of the most influential people in the crypto world since day one. A lot of effort has been put into going after him after all this time for alleged tax issues, and this is an attack on the crypto industry in general. If jailed, we should all be very concerned.
More info on X here: https://x.com/reubenyap/status/1859270384203481462?s=46&t=qVKSVK3piZfV4fASftaaAw
If interested - you can sign the petition to demand justice: www.freerogernow.org
Reminder - FiroFam! Beware of Scammers!
There are always new scams being created every week - note that our official site is firo.org. We do NOT offer cloud mining, deposits, or any investment schemes. Stay safe and always verify!
Did you know?
Milestone Alert!
We recently passed the 1,000,000th Block! This marks over a million steps toward stronger financial privacy and innovation.
Thank you, FiroFam, for being part of this journey — let's keep it going! The block was mined on Nov 27, 2024. You can see the block here: https://explorer.firo.org/block/d20e37308ffca455439ceace115749e883e47961edabec59e588f93f1a97a147More information about Firo is available at: