Grin Coin is a cryptocurrency that supports digital transactions without any censorship or restrictions. It is focused on solving security and scalability issues that have been observed in other cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin).
Grin is slated to have a fair proof-of-work and is an implementation of the MimbleWimble protocol.
The coin has an anonymous founder, and is a community focused project.
Launch Date
Grin's Testnet V4 was launched on October 2018, and the cryptocurrency was launched on 15th of January 2019.
Mining
Its mining algorithm is currently ASIC-resistant, meaning you can mine Grin with your laptop. The MimbleWimble protocol is a design for a blockchain-based ledger where there are no addresses and the data storage required is minimized.
Features
It is a private-by-default blockchain that is also scalable and uses elliptic-curve cryptography that has been tested for decades. When compared to Bitcoin, MimbleWimble only needs to store 10% of the data requirements which means that it is more scalable, less centralized, and significantly faster.
Issues
Grin has flown under the radar compared to more high-profile projects in the mainstream despite integrating some of the most cutting-edge technologies in the industry.
Conclusion
Quietly, there is significant anticipation around Grin from privacy proponents and other Bitcoin supporters. MimbleWimble is a relatively well-known concept when it comes to the more technical aspects of cryptocurrencies, and Grin’s use of the MimbleWimble protocol gives it some compelling potential.
Transactions in MimbleWimble are opaque but can still be validated appropriately despite there being no addresses and the amounts transacted are entirely hidden.
MimbleWimble relies on the properties of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) to structure transactions based on the verification of zero sums and possession of private keys.
Verifying transactions with Mimblewimble requires that the sum of transaction outputs minus the sum of the inputs is always equal to zero. This is accomplished using Confidential Transactions that prove a double-spend or creation of new funds did not occur with a transaction while concurrently obfuscating the actual amounts in the transaction.
MimbleWimble derives their concept for this from Confidential Transactions (CTs) by Greg Maxwell.
Ownership proof in MimbleWimble relies on blinding factors which are essentially the private keys of the users and excess values that are part of the transaction kernel. This blinding factor can be leveraged to prove ownership of the value in a transaction without revealing its values.
The approach that MimbleWimble takes to scalability is much more direct than more complicated layer two solutions or increasing on-chain throughput capacity. Instead, MimbleWimble relies on eliminating old and unnecessary transactions on the blockchain to improve efficiency.
Specifically, the protocol removes spent inputs on the blockchain over time by aggregating intermediary transactions together so that the size of blockchain is drastically reduced. The protocol uses a method called cut-through. A MimbleWimble transaction consists of the following components:
One of the main issues of the Grin infrastructure is that nodes need to be online to transact. The coin faces some well-established coins as competition, some having million dollar capitalizations for example:
