With the replacement of Zerocoin to Sigma, Zcoin has released a new beta version of their core wallet. It is available to download and take advantage of the new privacy features. We will go over the update in details and give you more information regarding what Sigma is, how to mint your Zerocoins and more.
New Wallet and Changes
Zcoin is always striving to further improve the network and the privacy it offers. The next step they have taken towards their goal is to update their core wallet and have now released a beta version of it. You can go ahead and download it from the official Zcoin GitHub. The idea is that the more people migrate to Sigma, the more the global anonymity rises. The new wallet will prompt you to keep a part of your funds anonymized in Sigma, which will be a configurable setting.
There will be new interface elements that will give you a live feed of your anonymization process and give you a clear graph of how your funds are broken down. Additionally, with the new update, setting up nodes and managing them is easier than ever thanks to an updated interface. Of course, there is a lot left to be worked on, like an updated address book, mnemonic backup, translation support, swap capability with BTC/ETH without needing KYC to serve as a middleman, more granular coin control, light wallet mode, Znode wizard creation and more that will be coming with the future updates.
Information About Sigma
As we mentioned earlier, Sigma will be Zcoin’s replacement for Zerocoin as they will be moving on and evolving the features. Some of the improvements include the removal of trusted setup, a major reduction of proof size from 25kB to 1.5kB and marginally better security. The trusted setup has always been seen as a drawback because secret (public) parameters are generated based on a master private key. These parameters are used to create the zero-knowledge proofs, where the master key is referred to as “toxic waste” and needs to be destroyed. The idea behind the trusted setup is the trust that this key was destroyed. With Sigma this need is removed with the help of Pedersen commitments and other cryptographic techniques that do not require the trusted setup.
The downsizing of the proof size from 25kB to 1.5kB will allow for cheaper storage on the blockchain, making it possible for even more private transactions to fit in a block. The team is also developing ways to lower it even further without sacrificing the security of the network.
Final Thoughts
Zcoin just continues to do what they do best and that is improving their goal and making the network more anonymous and secure than ever. With their new Sigma protocol, the project will see a noticeable increase in those fields as well as a happier community with all the quality of life changes coming with these updates. Sigma is the preparation or basis for the next generation privacy protocol that Zcoin is developing, called Lelantus. This new update will remove the need for fixed denominations in minting and spending, but this will come further in the future as it is still under development and have not undergone testing.