• The latest hardfork on Monero will bring key improvements in terms of network efficiency and performance.
• Binance said it will support the hardfork by handling all technical requirements involved for all users holding XMR in their Binance accounts. 

Privacy blockchain network Monero has announced that it will undergo a network upgrade this week on August 13. This will be nothing but a hardfork in the Monero blockchain network occurring at block 2,688,888. Post the network upgrade, all participants will have to update their software in order to continue using the Monero blockchain.

The Monero network upgrade will bring a ton of new features. Let’s take a look at each of them.

1. Increasing the ring size from 11-16. This will also be the largest ever absolute increase in the base anonymity set of every transaction taking place on the Monero network.
2. Monero plans to upgrade its Bulletproof algorithm to Bulletproofs+. This will help in reducing the typical transaction size by nearly 5-7 percent. Also, it will make transactions lighter and faster while improving typical verification performance by 5-7 percent.
3. Introducing the much-awaited View Tags. This will help in reducing wallet sync times by an average of 30-40 percent. As Monero explains: “This tag does not reveal any information about the transaction to outside viewers, only adds 1-byte (a negligible amount) to transaction sizes, and yet allows us to reduce sync times by 40%+ by cutting down on the complex verifications necessary!”
4. The Monero hardfork will bring fee changes improving the overall network security as well as the resilience of the network. This would help in preventing attacks from malicious entities.
5. The Monero hard fork will bring key fixes to the multi-sig features along with critical security patches.

Binance extends support to Monero Hardfork

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced that they will be supporting the Monero network upgrade and the hardfork. The official announcement noted:

The Monero (XMR) network upgrade and hard fork will take place at the Monero block height of 2,688,888, or approximately at 2022-08-13 (UTC). Deposits and withdrawals for XMR will be suspended approximately from 2022-08-13 14:00 (UTC).

Binance will handle all technical requirements involved for all users holding XMR in their Binance accounts. We will reopen deposits and withdrawals for XMR once we deem the upgraded network to be stable, and we will not notify users in a further announcement.

Just a day before the hardfork, there’s another important event taking place in the Monero ecosystem. As we reported, Monero’s largest mining pool, MINEXMR shall be shutting down on August 12. This was because the single pool has been controlling over 48 percent hashrate on the Monero network which brings it dangerously close to the 51 percent attack on the Monero blockchain.