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How Monero’s proof of work works

blog.alcazarsec.com

21–30 of 244 posts

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely true, no one needs monero when you can have bitcoin (and lightning for private instant bitcoin payments).

Lightning Network, ready in 18 months for the last 5 years! Lol.

What exactly are you missing that i.e. PhoenixWallet or Electrum is providing? The only thing missing is merchant adoption - but bitcoin is far ahead monero in this field.

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#22

I never quite understand this stuff, maybe someone can help. Are cryptocurrencies supposed to be a potential replacement for real life cash? This was my understanding of the motivation behind Bitcoin, at least. If so, why does it make sense that people can "generate" cash by proving some amount of work done? This of course cannot be done with normal cash. Is the main functionality of these cryptocurrencies supposed t…

Yes, Bitcoin is a replacement for central banking currencies. Its the first few lines of the white paper.

This is how money works. If you use a medium of exchange and unit of account for goods and services then that medium must increase at the same rate as the increase in goods and services otherwise you get second and third order effects such as inflation, contraction, rising unemployment, etc., directly impacting its ability to act as a unit of account.

In Bitcoin you don't generate cash, you earn block rewards for acting as a consensus broker which otherwise would require a central banking settlement layer. This activity, tied directly to the transaction layer, acts to maintain the equilibrium between increases in goods and services and expansion of the money supply.

Wall Street got ahold of it and now Bitcoin is primarily acting as a Store of Value for the purpose of speculative investments. Driven primarily by the fear of missing out and market manipulation since Bitcoin is heavily centralized.

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#23

I never quite understand this stuff, maybe someone can help. Are cryptocurrencies supposed to be a potential replacement for real life cash? This was my understanding of the motivation behind Bitcoin, at least. If so, why does it make sense that people can "generate" cash by proving some amount of work done? This of course cannot be done with normal cash. Is the main functionality of these cryptocurrencies supposed t…

They're meant to replace the bank.

Cryptocurrencies allow market participants to communicate value to each other without having to trust other market participants or an institution. Mining verifies transactions and commits them to the public record, earning the miner a fee for their work.

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#24
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If so, why does it make sense that people can "generate" cash by proving some amount of work done? Think of it this way: If you pay with physical cash, there are people somewhere who do the work of digging ore out of the ground, smelting it, shaping it into coins, cutting and printing paper and so on. All these people do that, because they get paid in the same currency that they themselves have minted. It turns out…

ETH is trying right now with proof of ownership.

Which automatically makes in possibly centralized (you can never ever guarantee that not a single entity - or group of colluding entities - hold the majority stake and thus excert control).

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#25
post #7

[flagged]

You'll get nothing but up votes here on HN, a lot are still angry they missed the boat. But solving the problem of how to transfer value trustlessly and anonymously, instantly anywhere in the world is one of the biggest breakthroughs since the Internet. Amazing how in a few short years kids started growing up with Bitcoin and don't understand how it work or why it exists :(

If it's actually a transformative technology, there's no boat to miss.

But it's still mostly about the speculation, it seems.

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#26
post #7

[flagged]

You'll get nothing but up votes here on HN, a lot are still angry they missed the boat. But solving the problem of how to transfer value trustlessly and anonymously, instantly anywhere in the world is one of the biggest breakthroughs since the Internet. Amazing how in a few short years kids started growing up with Bitcoin and don't understand how it work or why it exists :(

It was mainly the early wall street types that cashed in big. If it was used as suggested by satoshi, then you were using it as spending cash rather than an investment to sit on, in which case you shouldn't have made much money on it.

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#27
post #7

[flagged]

You'll get nothing but up votes here on HN, a lot are still angry they missed the boat. But solving the problem of how to transfer value trustlessly and anonymously, instantly anywhere in the world is one of the biggest breakthroughs since the Internet. Amazing how in a few short years kids started growing up with Bitcoin and don't understand how it work or why it exists :(

It’s an interesting technical problem to solve. But after 15y still has no meaningful benefits for our societies. Other than gambling/speculation/illegal stuff. The transformative cryptocurrency shift didn’t happen

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If so, why does it make sense that people can "generate" cash by proving some amount of work done? Because you need an incentive for 'miners' to participate in transaction processing. Main functionality is transactions which are not controlled by any single entity (like the government). Most of it is speculation unfortunately, which gives it a bad name, drowning out real usecases.

So now I'm wondering, why wouldn't they just charge a transaction fee in Monero? Why mine at all? If you want to scale up to Mastercard levels.

A transaction fee of what? To take a fee from a transaction there has to be a transaction to take a fee from, which needs some sort of "coin" that came from somewhere. Somebody has to create a money supply and distribute it somehow. When the network first comes into existence, nobody has any money, so where does it come into being from?

Mining is what generates the coins. And you need mining because otherwise you need some other issuing organism. Without decentralized mining you get a central issuer, and that's untrustworthy and possible to shut down.

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