Amid IRS bounty and competitor progress, Monero developers ship a major update

A new Monero update brings improvements in performance, speed, and security amid increased scrutiny from law enforcement and developments from competitors.

First announced in September, Monero developers today went live with a network update featuring a new version of its node software, codenamed 'Oxygen Orion.

' The product of 30 contributors, the update promises significant improvement across nearly all aspects of the privacy-focused cryptocurrency's performance.

The highlight of the new update is the compact linkable spontaneous anonymous group feature.

According to the Monero blog, CLSAG will reduce transaction sizes by 25% and improve transaction times by 10% while maintaining transactional privacy.

In addition to CLSAG, the new update brings security improvements to the network especially with regard to Dandelion ++, which is responsible for hiding user IP addresses.

Technically speaking, Monero updates are hard forks so it is imperative that network participants make sure that their software is up to date.

This latest update comes amidst an uncertain outlook for the cryptocurrency due to pressures on multiple fronts.

In September the U.S Internal Revenue Service offer a bounty of up to $ 625,000 to anyone who can crack Monero's privacy.

The Department of Homeland Security claimed to have acquired software that can track Monero transactions, though some researchers question the veracity of those claims.