Mitosis is a process of cell division, allowing one cell to split and multiply to large numbers. That’s one way to define Monero (XMR) in its recent developments, especially in the wake of its hard fork this week, which resulted in four different projects.
Unlike other cryptocurrencies, Monero is hard pressed to retain its principle of user privacy. As a result, it has a habit of conducting hard forks frequently compared to its counterparts.
Much like previous hard forks on other networks, not every user was on board with Monero’s latest move. As a result, four projects came to life: Monero Zero, Monero Classic, Monero Original, and Monero-Classic.
One of the reasons for the hard-fork was due to the emergence of new mining technology. Much like Ethereum’s push for the ‘Casper’ upgrade, ASIC miners are believed by some to do harm to Monero.The privacy-centric cryptocurrency’s splinter variations demonstrate that this isn’t a unified opinion. These variations are:
Monero-Classic (XMC)
The architect of Monero-Classic, named PZ, has been referred to as “an early Bitcoin evangelist and blockchain eco-builder.” PZ sees the emergence of professional mining machines as something that Monero is more than capable of dealing with.
PZ also argues that this equipment demonstrates something that all economies have to go through. Most of the reasoning behind the hard fork is due to the fear of being flooded by bot mining operations. Per PZ, events where Monero is attacked by over 500,000 botnets could be avoided with ASIC machines securing the network.
The project is being supported by one of Bitmain’s mining pools, AntPool, which led some to theorize that cryptocurrency hardware mining manufacturer Bitmain has invested in the project. These are, so far, unverified claims.
Monero (XMR) has forked. If you had XMR before 6 April, you can get an equivalent amount of Monero Classic (XMC) after 6 April. Find out more by joining its official group chat at https://t.co/gbyd3JydZQ (doesn't work inside the GFW) pic.twitter.com/zvjrUVC2zi
— AntPool (@AntPoolofficial) April 6, 2018
Monero Original (XMO)
Little information about Monero Original is available, although it has a Github. Other than that, popular cryptocurrency exchange HitBTC is set to list trading pairs involving XMO, and ‘airdropping’ XMO tokens to every XMR holder on its platform.
HitBTC will support the #MoneroOriginal hard fork $XMO scheduled for 6 April 2018 at block #1546000. Every account holding XMR on the balance at the moment of the hard fork will receive the equivalent amount of XMO automatically in case the fork takes place pic.twitter.com/Xmf7g6WcM4
— HitBTC (@hitbtc) April 3, 2018
. In a press release, the developers behind it wrote:
“Monero has always been about freedom of choice, about diversity and about the strong community behind it. We are providing the Monero fans [with] a possibility to support the iconic coin and stay on the original chain. Monero Original team stands for diversity, which is a logical marker of evolution. We are excited to see our favourite coin mature, and we are even more excited to help [in] keeping this diversity.”
Monero 0 (XMZ):
Monero 0’s website reads:
“We’ve decided that the Monero Project’s strategy to continuously hard fork is no longer a stable or a sane approach. We believe that Satoshi’s Proof of Work is the only mechanism for decentralized consensus.“
The project’s creators further claim that the network upgrades Monero (XMR) is working on are a “Trojan horse designed to compromise the effectiveness of Proof of Work.” To them, Monero 0 is “the original Monero.”
Made up of a community of ‘concerned users’, Monero 0 doesn’t see any validity to utilizing hard forks, with its conception being a testament to that.
Monero Classic (XMC)
Monero Classic is made up of a self-proclaimed group of enthusiasts from Singapore, whose representative is Bento Tan. The group believes that the creation of ASIC mining hardware is a market-driven process, and bodes well for the future of cryptocurrencies that capitalize on it.
“The main message of Monero Classic is that we believe that the developers changing the proof of work creates more centralization and harms decentralization.”
Each of these pre-fork coins is met with some complications in its future use. For one, the Monero hard fork hasn’t implemented replay protection, meaning users trying to spend XMR on the new blockchain may also spend it on the pre-fork blockchain as well.
Those who do manage to spend pre and post fork Monero tokens will be met with a different problem, as analysis may reveal who owns these coins, something that goes against Monero’s central privacy value.
