"The 'Black Lives Matter' Effect! Bail Bloc, a software that supports undocumented immigrants, gains attention"

In the United States, the large-scale protests following the death of African-American man George Floyd due to excessive law enforcement have yet to subside. Aside from people raising protest signs with "Bitcoin and Black America," the previously reported encrypted messaging app Signal has also gained popularity across the country, reaching record download numbers. Recently, another mining software has caught the attention of more people in the U.S. amidst the turmoil, and it is called Bail Bloc, which is based on Monero mining.

Bail Bloc is a mining software dedicated to Monero (XMR). It collects mining rewards from all participating users' computers and pools them into a specific address. The funds are then distributed to innocent individuals in need of bail who have been unjustly incarcerated after verification. Data as of the deadline indicates that if 5,000 people start mining with Bail Bloc for 12 months, it could generate a bail fund of $87,623, enabling the release of 46 people from immigration detention centers (as shown in the image below).

Increasing User Base

Bail Bloc was established as early as November 2018, with founder Grayson Earle conceptualizing the project back in 2016 after Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. With the intensification of the Black Lives Matter movement, the popularity and usage of Bail Bloc have continued to rise.

Earle told Coindesk that the mining software's hash rate has increased by 20% compared to last week, currently at 94.5 KH/s. At the end of each month, Bail Bloc converts Monero to USD and donates the proceeds to one of the National Bail Fund Network members in rotation.

Earle also noted the assistance of the Monero protocol for the project:

The Random-X mining algorithm of Monero has been a great help to our project, as most individuals running Bail Bloc on their computers are using mid-range laptops without dedicated graphics cards. Currently, the efficiency of GPU and CPU hash rates is balanced, allowing us to efficiently acquire Monero.

Note: Random-X was implemented by Monero in December of last year to replace the original CryptoNight mining algorithm, aiming to weaken the gap in mining power between ASIC specialized mining machines and balance CPU and GPU mining power, enabling ordinary devices to participate in Monero mining on a fairer basis.

So far, Bail Bloc has bailed out 13 individuals, totaling $8,141.5.

Is Anti-ASIC Mining Algorithm a Double-Edged Sword?

As of now, Bail Bloc has raised over $8,000, enough to bail out 13 individuals detained by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) due to inability to afford bail, or to deposit in the immigration bail funds in Connecticut in the form of checks.

Although this project is entirely altruistic, Monero is also the preferred cryptocurrency for hackers to implant malicious mining software in others' computers. Previously reported incidents of European supercomputers being hacked were for the purpose of mining Monero.

While the consensus algorithm against ASIC mining machines (RandomX) enables ordinary computers to participate in Monero mining more fairly, it also provides sufficient mining power for malicious hackers using regular devices.

In addition, blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis announced yesterday that it will include the privacy coins Dash and Zcash in its compliance analysis services, claiming to be able to review over 99% of transaction activities, while Monero may not be included in the analysis service due to its higher level of privacy features. However, if Monero continues to remain untraceable, being targeted by relevant regulatory authorities is likely only a matter of time.

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