Recently, the crypto market has been experiencing significant fluctuations resulting in a majority of cryptocurrencies showing red numbers. While some remain unaffected by these market dynamics, certain sectors within the crypto community have become more pessimistic as their investments seem to be decreasing instead of increasing.
However, amidst this market volatility, there are some projects that have showcased impressive performance this week. One such project is the privacy protocol Railgun, which has seen a surge of 53% in the last 24 hours after receiving support from key figures in the crypto industry.
Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, recently made headlines when he transferred 100 ETH (worth around $325,000) to Railgun on Monday. Railgun is an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) privacy protocol that enables private transactions for decentralized finance (DeFi) activities. Despite facing criticism for this move, Buterin received overall support for utilizing privacy tools, with many pointing out that his every on-chain transaction is scrutinized and speculated upon.
In response to the news, Buterin expressed his support for Railgun’s use of the Privacy Pools protocol, stating that it makes it significantly harder for malicious actors to join the pool without compromising user privacy.
In addition to Buterin’s endorsement, Railgun also received a nod of approval from the privacy-conscious community, with the project’s token (RAIL) experiencing a 257% surge in value. This brought its price from $0.56 to $1.97 in just a few hours. The rest of the privacy token market also saw a boost, with tokens like Monero (XMR) and Oasis Network (ROSE) increasing by 7% and 12.3%, respectively. Currently, privacy tokens are up by 4.7%, according to data from CoinGecko.
However, amidst this success, Railgun faced accusations of being linked to the North Korean hacker group, Lazarus Group. These allegations were highlighted by the crypto news platform Wu Blockchain, which claimed that the group was a user of Railgun’s coin mixer. Moreover, the post also stated that the US FBI accused Railgun of laundering over $60 million worth of stolen ETH in January 2023, making it the “main alternative” after the sanctions on Tornado Cash.
Railgun swiftly refuted these claims, stating that they were false and based on inaccurate reporting. They clarified that while the Lazarus Group was initially able to use the protocol, they have since been blocked due to the implementation of the Private Proofs of Innocence (Private POI) tool. This tool provides cryptographic assurance that funds entering the Railgun smart contract are not from a list of known transactions or actors considered undesirable by wallet providers.
Despite the controversy, Railgun’s price remained above the $1 support level and even saw a surge in value after being listed on the crypto exchange Poloniex. As of writing, RAIL is trading at $1.85, which is an 18.2% increase in the last hour. Additionally, the token has seen a 156% increase in the last seven days and a staggering 376% rise in daily trading volume.
Railgun’s impressive performance in the past week is further highlighted by its 7-day chart, which shows a steep upward trajectory. This success is a testament to the project’s potential and the support it has received from key figures in the crypto industry.
Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com.
