Meet Ryo Currency 0.5.0.0 update - Fermi Paradox. In this update we will discuss 3 updates and do one announcement in the source code, 2 of them will be the first among any Cryptonote projects:

• Wallet Scan speedup thanks to ECC and multi-threading library.
  Increased wallet scan speed when processing blockchain. New Elliptic Curve Cryptography library combined with implemented multi-threading that ustilises user's CPU results in reduced block verification up to 10x times compared with previous modes.
• Plateau emission curve
  Ryo's block reward changes every 6-months following a "Plateau Curve" distribution model. The modification of emission curve was initiated and debated with Ryo community. The following fork will finalise and implement that change.Notice: the difference between previous and this model will take effect at block height 394470.
  Read more about Ryo plateau emission curve
• - Various code edits, refactoring and minor fixes.
  There are multiple code fixes and edits that could be considered minor when looked in particular, but when looked in general - result in more than 35.000 lines of code being changed making core code more clean, optimised and bugfixed.
  Check Ryo Github repository

Research and studies of Ryo Dev team showed that current ring signature technology as it is - is morally obsolete and has too many flaws to be considered as a means for reaching the goal of the second level of of privacy. Therefore we will be replacing ring signatures with second generation ZK-proofs technology in observable future and temporarily downgrade privacy level to 1.

In general, you can consider privacy levels like that:

• level 0 - everyone can look into your wallet and know your transactions (BTC level)
• level 1 - nobody can see inside of your wallet, but each note has a serial number (yes, this is real life money level and in CN coins is implemented using stealth addresses)
• level 2 - notes you have don't have a serial number to a guy that gave you one, and no-one can't know if you spent it later (In CN coins it is implemented using ring signatures - which are the failing ones)

What we are saying is over the past year or two, researches stripped ring signatures of their privacy properties so much, that we think it is no longer fair to say that we (or Monero, which is even worse since it has even smaller ring size compared to Ryo) or any other CN project that uses it - meet the level 2 of privacy.

So, summarising in non-tech words what does it mean - when you are doing a transaction and want to imagine how it looks like in system:

• bitcoin - "I spent output 10, worth 1 BTC and output 22, worth 0.5 BTC"
• >ring signature (current CN coins) - "I spent output 10, 14, 18 or 20, and output 16, 18, 19, or 22"
• zk-proof - "I spent something."

Please update your wallets before this block, or your previous wallet will stop synchronising after the block 362000:

• Ryo Wallet Atom: download latest Atom installer when annouced update to version 1.5.0, start it and perform reinstall.
• Ryo cli binaries: download or compile from source updated binaries from Github version 0.5.0.0 and unzip it, and place your wallet key files in new folder.
• Pool owners and exchanges are notified about updating their nodes to the latest version before the fork.

Questions you might have regarding the fork:

• What will happen with mining algorithm - will it change or what does "fork" mean - coin is split on 2?
  No, "fork" basically means major code update that is being activated on a specified block height. There will be no mining algorithm change or chainsplit.
• Ryo roadmap indicates that you had in plans reaching 100x ring sizes. In light of future introduction of ZK-proofs does it mean that this is not aplicable?
  Yes, we eventually will be replacing ring signature technology on ZK-proofs, which is more fundamental change than trying to "beat dead horse" with ring signatures.
• What about atomic swaps? Ryo roadmap indicates it being planned, is it still possible with introducing ZK-proofs?
  Yes it is! And we aim to implement this feature after all necessary updates in core code. It is important to have everything implemented and tested before adding that feature.
• What is a ZK-proof?
  ZK stands for zero-knowledge. In cryptography, a zero-knowledge proof is a method by which one party (the prover) can prove to another party (the verifier) that they know a value x, without conveying any information apart from the fact that they know the value x You can read more about zero-knowledge proof (with real life examples) here.
• Will blockchain grow faster (what about tx size) when moving to ZK-proofs?
  Overall, transactions and blocks using ZK-proofs will be even smaller in size than pre-fork ring signatures with bulletproofs! Plus it enables transactions to be aggregated together - this is obviously a major scalability gain for Ryo Currency.
• I heard or as far I understand that ZK-proofs are somewhat less private? Does it mean that you are not privacy-oriented project anymore?
  No, in short - we decided to do this change to second gen. ZK-proofs, because ring signatures as is are too weak on providing enough for us default level of privacy and overall are considered now as an obsolete technology. So we don't want to say that we have a privacy level of 2, when research shows that it is not.
• Ok, after 0.5.0.0 fork - will we be using uniform payment ID-s to do transactions on exchanges?
  Yes. There are no changes regarding usage of payment ID-s and integrated addresses. We will be still using ring signatures, but also are announcing our goal on moving to ZK-proofs.
• What else is there in plans/ideas you have in development of Ryo?
  Besides all plans and development ongoing with Ryo (wallets, infrastructure, core code and researches) we also developed and improve Mining platform RagerX. It is a all-in-one mining platform that unites a miner, pplns pool, OS, GUI flasher utillity, pool frontend and has advanced social features as well as 2 level affiliate program. In observable future we will add Cryptonight-GPU mining possibillity.We are implementing RagerX so people can mine CPU coins and Ryo simultaneously. Which means more eyes on Ryo, especially from fresh members.
• Are the ring signature issues that have been discovered are applicable to other ring signature based coins like Monero?
  Yes.