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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

#231

Post by max51 »

marsten wrote: post #214
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 pro…

>Bitcoin attempted to replace cash, but failed because the transaction costs are orders of magnitude too high.

The current fees are less than 0.40$. It may be too high for a starbuck coffee, but that's way lower than the fees charged by a credit card provider if you are purchasing something over 50$. On a 2%+0.10$ structure, you only need to transfer around 15$ before your credit card fee is higher than the current average BTC tx fee.

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#232

Post by ProllyInfamous »

hyc_symas wrote: post #227
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>On this particular point, I go way back further than you. Definitely know who you are (LMDB programmer &c), and your contributions to world & crypto tech – thanks (few people can claim, like yourself, that their code exists on BILLIONS of machine). I've ALSO been in cryptospace longer than Monero's existance ... you are hands down a better programmer than myself (I'm a bluecollar electrician), with much more name re…

>> just killing the process will never corrupt the blockchain DB > I would love to show you how easy this is to reproduce, even on fresh installs of Ubuntu and/or MacOS on otherwise-stable hardware (never tried Windows... easier?). If it's so easy to reproduce, you should be able to screen record a session with two terminal windows: 1 with monerod running and syncing the blockchain 2 send a `kill -9` to the monerod 1…

Awesome; let me rsyncd this bitch and then I'll try to help out. I'll do another with a brand new fresh install (do you have a Linux varient, otherwise it'll be Ubuntu v24).

Will also provide the perplexity.ai chatlogs that I used to both find other similar crashouts and resolve my issues. Again, I am not a programmer but have been accepting crypto (with client discount) since 2012.

Thanks again for your contributions to this community.

----

As you're capable, do you happen to know why the default configuration doesn't sync in background – this is just wild... anybody installing XMR-adjacent software isn't going to expect this behavior.

...the re-sync (after stopping due to timeout) is always where my issue appears.

The LMDB backend (I know it's you're baby) could possibly be having a freakout when Linux comes back online?! (from e.g. sleep) – I genuinely don't know – but am happy do demonstrate my frustrations (that I've had literally & reproducably on both Linus and MacOS distros (across YEARS).

Thanks for the approachability.

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#233

Post by ProllyInfamous »

hyc_symas wrote: post #228
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>On this particular point, I go way back further than you. Definitely know who you are (LMDB programmer &c), and your contributions to world & crypto tech – thanks (few people can claim, like yourself, that their code exists on BILLIONS of machine). I've ALSO been in cryptospace longer than Monero's existance ... you are hands down a better programmer than myself (I'm a bluecollar electrician), with much more name re…

> Loved your 2019 talk on "is XMR still ASIC-proof" – is it still, in 2026, in your opinion? Yep. Nothing about computing architecture has changed.

Great to hear. Of course, were I in your shoes/connections of course it'd be difficult to give an honest answer =P

----

>once your initial-sync has completed, the default monero node behavior is to then automatically enter the --safe flag

Is this still true, too?

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#235

Post by hyc_symas »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #233
hyc_symas wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Loved your 2019 talk on "is XMR still ASIC-proof" – is it still, in 2026, in your opinion? Yep. Nothing about computing architecture has changed.

Great to hear. Of course, were I in your shoes/connections of course it'd be difficult to give an honest answer =P ---- >once your initial-sync has completed, the default monero node behavior is to then automatically enter the --safe flag Is this still true , too?

I don't know what the current versions do, it's been a while since I touched that code.

I have no reason to lie, I'm not selling anything. Bitmain is selling mining hardware, take a look at their claims. They've had 7 years to try to crack it.

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#236

Post by Nevermark »

hyc_symas wrote: post #205
Nevermark wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are twisting words beyon any coherent meaning. > It's a proof that something is possible to show one example. Agreed. > the proof has been the historical behavior of miners after years of RandomX. > Nobody said it would be eternally or entirely resistant to optimizations... These are contradictory statements. If historical behavior was a proof, then it would be eternally and entirely resistant.

The limit we set at the beginning was "no one can design a custom device for RandomX with more than a 2:1 efficiency advantage over general purpose CPUs". That is and will forever remain true. In reality, no one has been able to build any device for RandomX that isn't actually a CPU. The closest thing to a "mining ASIC" is just a bunch of RISC-V cores.

I was intending to comment on poor wording or poor reasoning (I assume the former), not Monero.

I think what the evolving Monero team has done, for many years since inception, is wonderful to the point of inspiring. The thoughtful approaches it has consistently taken over many upgrades reflect a much greater level of competence, responsible goals, clever design, and a clearer consistent vision than all but a few alternative systems.

(Including better choices than Bitcoin, which seems to have completely elevated code stability over any problem resolution (user privacy/safety, transaction scalability, environmental damage, etc.). Stability over all non-critical features including ergonomics (i.e. transaction times) is a very strong, but legitimate choice. But not stability over basic failures/limitations relative to current function.)

Disclaimer/scope: I do not own Monero or any other cryptocurrency, but have in the past. My comments are purely about technology, with no financial/investment dimension.

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#237

Post by matheusmoreira »

neilwilson wrote: post #221
matheusmoreira wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Fractional reserve banking. Basically, bankers start getting very anxious when they see the masses of people depositing mountains of cash into them. They look at the cash hoard they have suddenly amassed and think, we can't just leave this pile of cash here…

It's amazing this myth continues when the Bank of England debunked it in 2014. [0] [0]: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/m...

So it's no longer "reserves", it's "capital requirements", "liquidity coverage ratios" or whatever else. Banks inverted the technical language. They don't literally loan out deposits anymore, now they just create loans out of nowhere. Except they still can't create loans out of thin air unless they have actual equity to back at least a fraction of those loans. They still can't create money unless they have... reserves...? And what do you know... Deposits just happen to be the the easiest way to fund that equity account..?

Yep. Not a single change to the moral calculus here. Banks want to be as leveraged as possible. They want to risk it all: their own assets, and other people's money. And they want that risk to be subsidized by society itself. And society allows it because it's addicted to cheap credit. Loans are so thoroughly wired into people's finances at this point that weaning them off it is actually dangerous, not just politically inconvenient. So we'll keep building up and unwinding financial call stacks, and the godlike oligarchs observing and programming the system will keep profiting from the peaks and valleys while everybody else just keeps getting rekt. Nothing new here.

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#238

Post by ckw »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #184
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…

> 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 Fractional reserve banking. Basically, bankers start getting very anxious when they see the masses of people depositing mountains of cash into them. They look at the cash hoard they have suddenly amassed and think, we can't just leave this pile of cash here…

Can banks individually create money out of nothing? — The theories and the empirical evidence https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105752191...

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#239

Post by hyc_symas »

tardedmeme wrote: post #141
hyc_symas wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monero is disinflationary , not inflationary. The rate of new coin emission is only enough to maintain equilibrium with the rate of coins being lost (due to people losing wallet keys, etc.). So your comment about being forced to keep earning doesn't apply to Monero.

The price is intended to decrease. If people are losing money (causing the price to increase) at the same rate the price decreases that's on them.

> The price is intended to decrease.

No. Monero's tail emission rate was specifically chosen to be less than the rate of global gold production. Do you claim the price of gold is intended to decrease?

A continuous emission like Monero's doesn't equate to inflation/devaluation. It allows its userbase to expand organically, without artificial scarcity pumping its price.

Re: How Monero’s proof of work works

#240

Post by neilwilson »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #237
neilwilson wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing this myth continues when the Bank of England debunked it in 2014. [0] [0]: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/m...

So it's no longer "reserves", it's "capital requirements", "liquidity coverage ratios" or whatever else. Banks inverted the technical language. They don't literally loan out deposits anymore, now they just create loans out of nowhere. Except they still can't create loans out of thin air unless they have actual equity to back at least a fraction of those loans. They still can't create money unless they have... reserve…

They never did loan out anything. It’s always been a myth propagated by people who have never been involved in banking [0]

The limits to banking are when the last creditworthy person prepared to pay the current price of money walks through the door.

[0]: https://new-wayland.com/blog/post-war-banking-policy/

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