# Firo (FIRO): D-Score 63/100 — Decentralized

**BlockIndex D-Score: 63/100 (Decentralized).** Firo (FIRO) is a Layer 1 cryptocurrency using PoW consensus. Firo: Privacy-focused Layer‑1 PoW blockchain using Lelantus privacy protocols, Dandelion++ and LLMQ ChainLocks.

_Source: https://blockindex.ai/coin/firo · Data by BlockIndex.AI · Updated 2026-06-19_

## D-Score breakdown (0-100, higher means more decentralized)
| Component | Score |
| --- | --- |
| Overall D-Score | 63 |
| Node distribution | 30 |
| Initial distribution | 0 |
| Governance | 16 |
| Age and history | 12 |
| Autonomy | 5 |

## Key facts
- Layer: Layer 1
- Consensus: PoW (Other)
- Launch: Fair Launch (2016)
- Founder: Poramin Insom; Reuben Yap
- VC funded: No
- Max supply: 21,400,000
- Circulating: 18,710,007 (87.4%)

## Market data (as of 2026-06-19)
- Price: $0.71
- Market cap: $13.37M
- 24h volume: $300,257.44
- 24h change: -3.92% · 7d change: -2.37%

## About
Firo (formerly Zcoin) is a privacy-focused, research-driven native UTXO blockchain that has evolved from early implementations of the Zerocoin protocol to the more advanced Sigma, Lelantus and Lelantus Spark constructions. Founded in 2016 by Poramin Insom with Reuben Yap joining early as a co-founder and project steward, the project has consistently prioritized cryptographic privacy primitives that enable strong anonymity for value transfers and private assets. Firo’s design emphasizes practical, trustless zero-knowledge techniques that do not rely on a trusted setup, enabling privacy-preserving transactions and private asset issuance. Over time the project rebranded to Firo in October 2020 while continuing to develop its privacy stack and network-level protections.

On the technical side, Firo combines a Proof-of-Work base layer with quorum-based masternode infrastructure (LLMQ) to provide ChainLocks for near-instant finality and strong resistance to reorganizations. Network-layer privacy is enhanced through adoption of Dandelion++ to obscure originating IP addresses, while protocol-level privacy is delivered by the Lelantus family (including Lelantus Spark) which provides one-out-of-many zero-knowledge proofs and mechanisms to extend privacy to token-like assets. Historically the chain used the Merkle Tree Proofs (MTP) mining algorithm and has documented a transition to FiroPoW (a ProgPOW variant) intended to favor GPU miners and reduce ASIC centralization. The chain remains UTXO-based and leverages masternode quorums to perform LLMQ ChainLocks, a model that couples PoW security with quorum-based finality to mitigate 51% attack vectors.

In terms of use cases and adoption, Firo has been used for real-world experiments beyond speculative markets: notably, the chain (as Zcoin) powered a large national political primary election in Thailand in November 2018, demonstrating potential for civic and privacy-focused applications. The project supports private transfers of value and private assets (Spark Assets / Lelantus Spark) that can be applied to confidential voting, private token issuance, and privacy-preserving financial interactions. While market capitalization and exchange listings give the token visibility on major platforms, Firo’s core value proposition remains centered on privacy research, enabling censorship-resistant private payments and enabling private asset workflows for specialized use cases.

Tokenomics for Firo mirror a capped-supply PoW model similar to Bitcoin with a documented max supply of 21.4 million FIRO and a circulating supply in the 18.07M range at the time of the provided snapshots. Emission follows a schedule with tail emission characteristics rather than an open mint; no premine or founder pre-allocation is documented in the provided materials and the project is described as a fair launch. Market snapshots in the supplied files recorded a price of approximately $1.28 with a market cap around $23.25M and historical price extremes including an ATH of $172.77 on 2017-12-26 and an ATL on 2016-12-02.

Governance is stewarded by project leadership and an active masternode community rather than a formal on-chain DAO. Decision-making and upgrade coordination appear to be led by project stewards and developer contributors with masternodes providing LLMQ quorum services; no formal on-chain token voting system or DAO treasury mechanism was documented in the supplied materials. The project emphasizes ongoing research and development—migration to FiroPoW, continued privacy protocol work, and expansion of Spark Assets are central roadmap themes—while the ecosystem supports hardware and desktop wallet compatibility, major centralized exchange listings, and explorer/analytics visibility for users and ecosystem participants.

## Links
- Website: https://firo.org/
- Whitepaper: N/A
- GitHub: https://github.com/firoorg

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About the D-Score: BlockIndex.AI rates decentralization from 0 to 100 across node distribution, initial distribution, governance, age and history, and autonomy. Methodology: https://blockindex.ai/dscore