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How Monero’s proof of work works

blog.alcazarsec.com

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Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#211

Post by hggh »

tardedmeme wrote: post #89
j4cobgarby wrote: post #5

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…

Bitcoin was designed to be a replacement for real life cash, but it ultimately failed in this role. Nonetheless it was a great experiment that essentially invented the industry. Most cryptocurrencies, if we go only by their number, are designed to make their creators rich and moderately succeed at that. This is your ERC20s, pump dot fun, et cetera. If we only consider ones that have any serious chance of being usable…

> Bitcoin was designed to be a replacement for real life cash, but it ultimately failed in this role

The BTC implementation clearly has failed in this role, but not Bitcoin protocol (look at BCH, for instance)

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#212

Post by hggh »

tardedmeme wrote: post #103
Hilliard_Ohiooo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, Bitcoin was hijacked by the company, Blockstream and they injected the SegWit and RBF attacks to kill it as a currency, Bitcoin Cash still functions as Bitcoin however. Monero is similar to Bitcoin Cash, a useful replacement for cash in most cases.

segwit is an optimization, not an attack wtf. I'd get it if you said Ethereum Classic, since that fork actually did come from an attack on the protocol that successfully reversed transactions on the main chain, but Bitcoin Cash is not of that nature.

SegWit added unnecessary complexity (~5,000 LOC) to a problem that could be solved just increasing the max block size (1 LOC)

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#213

Post by [deleted] »

sowbug wrote: post #183
Eisenstein wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complete individual freedom as a concept is not a human right. There has never been a society oriented on it and it is not self evident why it would be beneficial for society as a whole to allow an individual to do whatever they like. If you want the benefits of a society, you must reciprocate; otherwise you can go live in the woods by yourself.

You seem to be earnestly and repeatedly attacking this strawman of "complete individual freedom" as antithetical to society, but I'd prefer that you not conflate it with the position I've taken in this discussion. Happy to continue discussing if you'd like to reply to what I wrote.

[deleted]

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#214

Post by marsten »

j4cobgarby wrote: post #5

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…

Bitcoin attempted to replace cash, but failed because the transaction costs are orders of magnitude too high. The high cost of zero-trust makes it a desirable medium of exchange only for criminals and scammers.

In an effort to make Bitcoin a reasonable medium of exchange, various businesses arose to act as intermediaries/market makers. But this violates the trust-free model – and many of those intermediaries have proven to be outright scams. It turns out that trusting an intermediary to handle your cryptographically untraceable asset is not a wise thing to do.

So that leaves Bitcoin in a similar category as gold. You're either a paranoid type for whom the high cost of holding and transacting the asset is a price you're willing to pay for an asset that could survive a global meltdown. OR you extend trust to various intermediaries (gold ETFs, bitcoin ETFs for example) and treat it as just another tradable financial asset.

Bitcoin is undeniably the cleverest way anyone ever became a billionaire. Nakamoto's sole contribution was posting an anonymous 9 page whitepaper to the internet and voila, today he (or she, or it) is worth $80+ billion.

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#215

Post by rcbdev »

j4cobgarby wrote: post #5

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…

> This of course cannot be done with normal cash.

Yes, it can be! Just open a bank.

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#216

Post by nunobrito »

tardedmeme wrote: post #203
kyleee wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that nelson Mandela was considered a terrorist too

So was Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden was at some point pushed as a freedom fighter hero by the US government: https://www.businessinsider.com/1993-independent-article-abo...

He received plenty of USD in cash delivered in hands by the US government through the three-letter-agencies. These kind of things always happened, it is unfair and incorrect to blame crypto currencies whereas the overwhelming majority of "special operations" continue to be paid today in plain paper money.

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#217

Post by vessenes »

fluffypony wrote: post #150
dgacmu wrote: post #3

If folks are interested in the old Monero PoW function (and, uh, the reason they changed it), I wrote up a thing about it a long time ago: https://da-data.blogspot.com/2014/08/minting-money-with-mone... The history of people trying to design GPU or ASIC-resistant proof-of-work functions is long and mostly unsuccessful. I haven't looked into RandomX; it's possible they've succeeded here (or possible that with the alt-…

Hmmm. That's not the reason we changed it. We just got tired of tweaking things to prevent ASICs. I'll add that there was such a large influx of miners at the outset, that (statistically) it seems any crippling of the original algorithm was fairly futile - the edge was both short-lived and minimally impactful. We're over a decade later, and nobody mining in the first month (even with that unfair advantage) was able t…

Monerites - what’s the state of play for fpga mining? I did not see anything in the light documentation of RandomX that looked like it was tuned to be “awkward” for a good sized fpga.

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#218

Post by epolanski »

j4cobgarby wrote: post #5

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…

> Are cryptocurrencies supposed to be a potential replacement for real life cash?

I think the better word would be alternative, rather than replacement.

Crypto currencies have way too many flaws to be really useful as currencies.

Not just usability, technology, fees, etc, but the very deflationary nature of most of them makes them unsuitable as a currency because the incentive is hoarding, not spending.

But...you can still use them as a mean of transferring money. So they are absolutely an alternative.

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#219

Post by epolanski »

ballofrubber1 wrote: post #73
dhosek wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the weird things about our world is that money is central to everything, but it’s hard to understand how it works. There’s a great deal of handwaving around how, for example, dollars are created, much of which is, in fact, not correct at all (most dollars are created not by the government, or even the Federal Reserve, but by private banks, via a mechanism which I will not pretend to fully understand). The big…

I’d argue that this is more of a feature than a bug. The assumption behind the “deflation is bad” argument is that spending itself is the goal. But spending is not automatically good. Productive spending and productive investment are good. Wasteful consumption, speculation, and forced risk-taking are not. If money holds its value, people become more selective. They still buy food, housing, tools, entertainment, exper…

Your entire post is flawed by a giant mistake: thinking that money has any intrinsic value.

Money doesn't have any value, none, zero.

Unless you like watching a piece of paper with Washington or the Queen of England or landmarks in Europe on it, so at least it could hold a value of "I can look at it/burn it".

It's value is none, zero.

That's true both for fiat and crypto.

They are absolutely, inherently, worthless.

The value is given by third parties wanting that money. That's the only reason it has a value.

And your country making some currency (generally its own) the legal tender ensures that that specific currency is used to trade in that country thus reinforcing this "value".

To me the entire idiocy of the crypto cultists is not understanding that money is worthless.

Even the richest people on the planet have very little of it. Their wealth is tied to owning assets be it estate, shares, art, cars, whole companies, funds, etc.

Money is worthless, you're at the mercy of other people wanting it tomorrow or in one year or in 10, and at the mercy of what the market will decide it is worth.

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#220

Post by ballofrubber1 »

epolanski wrote: post #219
ballofrubber1 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d argue that this is more of a feature than a bug. The assumption behind the “deflation is bad” argument is that spending itself is the goal. But spending is not automatically good. Productive spending and productive investment are good. Wasteful consumption, speculation, and forced risk-taking are not. If money holds its value, people become more selective. They still buy food, housing, tools, entertainment, exper…

Your entire post is flawed by a giant mistake: thinking that money has any intrinsic value. Money doesn't have any value, none, zero. Unless you like watching a piece of paper with Washington or the Queen of England or landmarks in Europe on it, so at least it could hold a value of "I can look at it/burn it". It's value is none, zero. That's true both for fiat and crypto. They are absolutely, inherently, worthless. T…

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