Dear UltraNote community we are pleased to announce that we have now successfully completed the Fork to the new patched mining algo which should protect us from similar attacks to the attack of the 13th March 2020.
Like stated previously the attack was in simple terms an attempt to inject undetectable coins (ghost coins) on the blockchain which would flood the market without showing up our Blockchain Explorer stats. This is exactly why XUN Blockchain Explorer APIs were displaying a circulating supply of approx 230 Millions Coins While TradeOgre sell order books were showing 400 Million coins & up to 1.3 Billion coins to a certain point in time on 14th march 2020. More can be learned there
https://www.getmonero.org/2017/05/17/disclosure-of-a-major-bug-in-cryptonote-based-currencies.htmlSince we tested our blockchain for this particular attack more than a year ago and nothing suspicious was detected; our first thought was that TradeOrgre was cooking the order books but being aware of this potential attack we immediately started to investigate the ghost coin possibility. It was unfortunately observed that the attackers had found a way through the patch. As the situation was escalating; we advised traders on Friday the 13th of March 2020 at approx 10.00 PM Uk Time to stop buying coins on Exchanges until we had a clear view of the situation and that trades were then being taken at your own risk.
On Saturday 14th of March 2020 a fork and roll back were identified as the best approach to resolve this situation. Exchanges: STEX as well as TradeOgre were requested to halt every XUN transactions and while they accepted to pause Withdrawals and Deposits they still kept trading open. Some traders were still ignoring our advice to stop trading and a refund treshold was thus set at 4.00PM UK time to compensate for the lost coins bought on exchanges due to roll back.
Today after 5 long days of hard work we are now back on track with a new patched blockchain & a roll back of 3 month to the 28th of December 2019. 3 Months to some people may sound a lot but it's what we feel is best for our Community as well as the integrity of XUN Blockchain. UltraNote is a still a small coin & given the low activity level prior to the attack the compensation rate would not be too high as compared to a 1 week roll back.
So what will happen now:
-New wallets will be released in a few days. Tests are being done to make sure all is as smooth as it should be.
-Lost coins bought on exchanges compensation process will be announced as soon as we have the relevant resources to do so. (Genesis Block Coins will be used for that purpose and since they are deposited we need to wait for them to unlocked) Please read the previous announcements regarding the documentation necessary for compensation processing. We will be looking into your requests one request at a time so please wait for the relevant announcement before trying to DM me.
About Compensation for Bought Coins Lost during Roll back.
To request your compensation you will need:
1 Proof of holdings on Exchanges (i.e) printscreens of wallet balance.
2 Proof of filled buy orders of XUN coins from My trade tab. (proof of the amount of coins you bought and when you bought them)
3 If you did withdrawals you will be asked to provide proof of withdrawals (i.e) printscreens + Transaction hash.
4 If you Deposited coins on your GUI wallet please also take printscreens of your GUI wallet balance.
Time & date should be clearly visible on the printscreens. All the above will be needed for verification of transactions & confirm all matching numbers for refund. UltraNote is a privacycoin so if you do not provide the right information we will not be able to verify the request thus resulting in loss of coins.
About Exchanges.
After the fork & Roll back today the 18th of March 2020 we requested exchanges to update their wallets which Both TradeOgre & STEX refused to do since they would apparently be losing the Billions of XUN malicious coins due to the roll back. Even though we offered to compensate them for their fees and refund the exchange users they plainly refused to co-operate. Their attitude gives us no choice than to go towards the delisting of XUN From the above mentioned exchanges. The coins left on STEX & TradeOgre will simply be lost and stuck there on the old blockchain. Please do the necessary to record your exchanges transactions since as mentioned above ONLY BOUGHT coins will be compensated for.
Deposited coins on the exchange by miners that were to be sold will unfortunately not be compensated by XUN team as the exchanges are refusing to update their wallets and the compensation should come from the Exchange & Not XUN team. We cannot take the risk to double refund users If ever STEX or TradeOgre decide to Update their wallets. all the legit deposited mined coins will be accessible again to their owners and thus offering mining dumpers double coins which is unfair towards our community. UltraNote Team has been very clear since the begining that mining to exchanges is not advised and so should be done at your own risk. If miners have complaints to do you are free to get in touch with STEX or TradeOgre.
We believe that this situation is a moment filled of opportunities for XUN as a community to start fresh, on better grounds and also reshape our approach towards the crypto market. Over these 2 years we too have been caught into the notorious cryptocurrency trap of having to conform to market norms by being open source, getting on new exchanges or simply get more attention by trying to get more miners, adopt merge mining and drive higher hash rate. we are pleased to tell you that all of this will change as from now. We are working to put a plan together for us to become a niche privacycoin. A privacycoin for the people who understands true privacy; A coin for a community which is stronger together.
First move will be UltraNote source code going private again. There is no rule stating that blockchain projects should be open source. Our goal is to use blockchain as a vehicle for privacy and not being an open source crypto like the other 1000s of altcoins. We are definitely Not Bytecoin or Dogecoin which are basically cryptocurrencies like thousands of others. We are UltraNote a privacy solution with blockchain technology. It does not matter if our code is open source or close source what we deliver as techology is what matters the most and should matter the most to our users. The idea behind this move is to bring back a rewarding mining experience to our small miners, those who wish to mine from GUI wallet or small mining rig operators with a few GPUs. Our Mining will now be available only via our official mining pools. This is to mainly discourage the entry of big solo miners who only focus on mine dumping practices. This will be a good way to allow small miners to be core actors of the bigger picture.
All the other upcoming changes will be announced as we progress in order to avoid getting distracted trying to handle too many stuffs at the same time.
We wish to express our gratitude towards your support & outstanding approach to this situation. We are building XUN together and together we will rise.
I wish you all the best & be safe.
Regards
XUN Team.
