The recently launched privacy coin Grin (GRIN) has been removed from trading on the decentralized Bisq trading platform, not more than two weeks after the cryptocurrency’s mainnet launched. At least one horror story has come out of Grin trading on the decentralized exchange, with one user losing 0.5 bitcoin in a botched transaction.
Bisq’s founder Manfred Karrer explained the reasoning for the pull in an official post, citing two general reasons.
‘Just Too Many Problems’
The first is that users don’t seem to understand how to transact correctly with the privacy coin.
Indeed, Grin, an implementation of the novel Mimblewimble blockchain architecture, does not operate in the manner of what we might term a “classic” blockchain; that is, with a public address paired to a private key. In fact Mimblewimble blockchains have no public addresses – only private keys.
Thus, transactions in Mimblewimble/Grin must at present be performed in a peer-to-peer manner by direct contact, either via exchanged text files or “listener ports.” The lack of public addresses in Mimblewimble blockchains is a key aspect of constructing their privacy features – but clearly there is a bit of a learning curve for people accustomed to the simple public/private key pairing.
The second reason Grin was removed, Karrer said, is the current lack of a “verification tool” to confirm transactions. Such a tool is necessary for Bisq’s support staff, in case of exchange disputes.
Daniel Lehnberg, Grin developer and author of the Grin Newsletter, quickly responded to Karrer informing him that a new update to the third-party Grin wallet Wallet713 does in fact have the capability to verify transactions, in addition to many other added functions (such as an ersatz address system, to emulate that “classic” blockchain behavior)
A Moving Target
Notwithstanding the problems, Karrer is a “big supporter” of the privacy coin and intends to re-add it to Bisq trading when it is more stable and developed. He wrote:
I hope the Grin developers get all those issues resolved soon and once we see that the validation tool is in place and we get the impression that the transfer of GRIN is guaranteed to work reliable we will add it again.
Grin, having been volunteer-developed and launched without any external funding other than donations, is a rather barebones and relies on community efforts – like Wallet713 – to develop out its panoply of capabilities.
Enjoying very robust mining support upon launch, Grin exploded in price shortly after going live, gaining as much as 400% in a week.
Featured image from Pixabay
