For several months there was a debate about whether the project has the potential to replace Bitcoin. Now it turns out that all claims Grin to sit on the throne were probably unfounded.
Ivan Bogatyy, a venture capital investor at Dragonfly Capital, published in his new tweet the information that the MimbleWimble protocol, inspired by the world of Harry Potter, has a loophole that allows you to track “real-time 96 percent.” all sender and recipient addresses. ”
I just published a new attack that breaks Mimblewimble’s privacy model. This attack traces 96% of all sender and recipient addresses in real time. Here’s a summary and what it means for the future of privacy coins:https://t.co/tsIDLyfpzp
— Ivan Bogatyy (@IvanBogatyy) November 18, 2019
A blow to Grin
The time for such a discovery cannot be worse. Grin, which is the most popular implementation of the MimbleWimble protocol, has received an anonymous donation of up to 50 BTC in recent days. This could further strengthen the position of the cryptocurrency.
And while the content of the new report is worrying, apparently the Grin development team and Litecoin creator Charlie Lee knew about the vulnerability. The latter even claims that MimbleWimble is one of the most exciting things that has happened to cryptocurrencies.
The creators of Litecoin have recently contacted Grin ++ developer David Burkett to “add MimbleWimble support to the Litecoin network. ” In this way, its users can “consent to confidential transactions”, with the value of such transactions being more difficult to track. So can this help the technology?
Meanwhile, other members of the cryptographic community say the new report is a targeted attack on Grin. Emin Gun Sirer, who is behind Ava Labs, called him “the perfect attack on the MimbleWimble protocol.”
In turn, Tim Ruffing, who works on Grin, notes that anonymity has never been an inherent feature of MimbleWimble:
“Mimblewimble hides transaction amounts but does not provide anonymity.”
Bitcoin 2.0.?
We remind you that Grin is a privacy coin. On the project page we read:
“Electronic transactions for everyone. Without censorship and restrictions. Grin authorizes anyone to make transactions or save with modern money without fear of external control or pressure from regulators. Grin was designed for the next decades, not just “for tomorrow”. It’s available to everyone, regardless of background, culture, skills or access. Cryptocurrency is developed using a technology known as MimbleWimble. “
Will the new reports kill the project, which literally yesterday was claiming the right to primacy among cryptocurrencies? For now, within 24 hours, the price of Grin fell by 17 percent. at the time of writing these words. Relative to BTC by approx. 14 percent In the background, however, there is a general correction in the digital currency market.
