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I've played around trading other currencies but Monero is the one I hold dear for the end times. Plus it's fun to mine, you can do it on a CPU instead of needi

I've played around trading other currencies but Monero is the one I hold dear for the end times. Plus it's fun to mine, you can do it on a CPU instead of needing a massive GPU swarm.

galangalalgol 5y ago
Is the algorithm poorly suited to GPUs or fpgas, or are we just not to that point yet? Proof of stake seems like a good thing.
- stavros 5y ago
  They purposely design/change it so it's poorly suited to GPUs/FPGAs.
- randomhodler84 5y ago
  Proof of stake isn’t a good thing actually. Especially in a private cryptocurrency. Monero will remain PoW for its censorship resistance. We can’t have stake oligopolies taking control.
  - Kbelicius 5y ago
    How are mining oligopolies better than staking oligopolies?
    - lmm 5y ago
      It's harder for mining oligopolies to exclude new entrants.
      - Kbelicius 5y ago
        How? The only way I can think of that staking oligopolies can exclude new entrants is if they somehow manage to remove the crypto from markets. Basically killing their stake. It is far easier for me to buy some crypto and stake it than it is to buy mining hardware and mine.
        lmm 5y ago
        Mining hardware just means commodity electronics; the guys with ASICs may be faster but they can't shut you out entirely, and the miners don't generally control the people who make hardware (even the specialised ASICs). Whereas the stakers inherently control the supply of the crypto in question (and they can can e.g. cut off people who sell large amounts to outsiders, in a way that they couldn't cut off hardware makers), and there are generally only a few points where you can exchange that crypto for something commoditised - usually exchanges that do strict identity verification, may only be available to people in certain countries, etc..
        Kbelicius 5y ago
        > and they can can e.g. cut off people who sell large amounts to outsiders, in a way that they couldn't cut off hardware makers How would they do that?
        rtkwe 5y ago
        In theory couldn’t they exclude any transactions made by an ‘exile’ from the chain? I’m not sure how much that differs from doing the same thing on a PoW coin. It is harder to start as a PoS miner but to have the kind of iron control over a coins distribution means you’d have to make it effectively worthless because only the current owners could be ‘trusted’ to be the receivers of transactions. So while it’s theoretically possible for a miners cabal to lock out a new entrant it seems pretty opposed to the value of their own holdings so it’s left to something like a country that wants to shut it down through throwing money at the problem then I guess?
        Kbelicius 5y ago
        > In theory couldn’t they exclude any transactions made by an ‘exile’ from the chain? I’m not sure how much that differs from doing the same thing on a PoW coin. That is also my thinking, that there basically isn't any difference between staking and mining oligopolies. > So while it’s theoretically possible for a miners cabal to lock out a new entrant it seems pretty opposed to the value of their own holdings so it’s left to something like a country that wants to shut it down through throwing money at the problem then I guess? In theory, if the stakers are anonymous, this make PoS more resistant to nation state attacks since it would be easier for a nation state to find the mining equipment producers and direct all hardware production to themselves until they acquire 51% of hash rate than it is to find the stakers and take their keys. Looking forward to lmm explaining how we are wrong.
  - pskiba 5y ago
    I'm not sure I get your argument, staking takes significantly less powerful hardware so its very accessible. Staking pools also have a "saturation point" to encourage decentralization. That way not all 80 Billion dollars worth of ADA goes to one staking pool. Very hard to see how oligopolies can arise in this scenario when compared to mining operations that are unprofitable to most users (and of course bad for the environment).
    - iszomer 5y ago
      I think he was arguing for the effectiveness of the proof of work consensus mechanism as opposed to Cardano's PoS's. As someone else described to me: "..nodes just vote on a block to state whether or not they think it is valid. Once a block gets enough votes, then it is added to the chain." Whereas a PoW will "just blaze". Is this correct?
- chillacy 5y ago
  Designed to be CPU mined: https://github.com/tevador/RandomX https://github.com/tevador/RandomX
- akimball 5y ago
  GPU and CPU miners are roughly equal in mining utility on the Monero chain. FPGAs and ASICS are disadvantaged by the memory bandwidth requirements of the RandomX algorithm
  - galangalalgol 5y ago
    Since posting I poked around on Reddit and it seems many are mining other currencies to trade for monero (cross-mining?), and that mining monero directly may already be close to break even on electrical costs.

I've played around trading other currencies but Monero is the one I hold dear for the end times. Plus it's fun to mine, you can do it on a CPU instead of needing a massive GPU swarm.

galangalalgol 5y ago

Is the algorithm poorly suited to GPUs or fpgas, or are we just not to that point yet? Proof of stake seems like a good thing.

stavros 5y ago
They purposely design/change it so it's poorly suited to GPUs/FPGAs.
randomhodler84 5y ago
Proof of stake isn’t a good thing actually. Especially in a private cryptocurrency. Monero will remain PoW for its censorship resistance. We can’t have stake oligopolies taking control.
- Kbelicius 5y ago
  How are mining oligopolies better than staking oligopolies?
  - lmm 5y ago
    It's harder for mining oligopolies to exclude new entrants.
    - Kbelicius 5y ago
      How? The only way I can think of that staking oligopolies can exclude new entrants is if they somehow manage to remove the crypto from markets. Basically killing their stake. It is far easier for me to buy some crypto and stake it than it is to buy mining hardware and mine.
      - lmm 5y ago
        Mining hardware just means commodity electronics; the guys with ASICs may be faster but they can't shut you out entirely, and the miners don't generally control the people who make hardware (even the specialised ASICs). Whereas the stakers inherently control the supply of the crypto in question (and they can can e.g. cut off people who sell large amounts to outsiders, in a way that they couldn't cut off hardware makers), and there are generally only a few points where you can exchange that crypto for something commoditised - usually exchanges that do strict identity verification, may only be available to people in certain countries, etc..
        Kbelicius 5y ago
        > and they can can e.g. cut off people who sell large amounts to outsiders, in a way that they couldn't cut off hardware makers How would they do that?
        rtkwe 5y ago
        In theory couldn’t they exclude any transactions made by an ‘exile’ from the chain? I’m not sure how much that differs from doing the same thing on a PoW coin. It is harder to start as a PoS miner but to have the kind of iron control over a coins distribution means you’d have to make it effectively worthless because only the current owners could be ‘trusted’ to be the receivers of transactions. So while it’s theoretically possible for a miners cabal to lock out a new entrant it seems pretty opposed to the value of their own holdings so it’s left to something like a country that wants to shut it down through throwing money at the problem then I guess?
        Kbelicius 5y ago
        > In theory couldn’t they exclude any transactions made by an ‘exile’ from the chain? I’m not sure how much that differs from doing the same thing on a PoW coin. That is also my thinking, that there basically isn't any difference between staking and mining oligopolies. > So while it’s theoretically possible for a miners cabal to lock out a new entrant it seems pretty opposed to the value of their own holdings so it’s left to something like a country that wants to shut it down through throwing money at the problem then I guess? In theory, if the stakers are anonymous, this make PoS more resistant to nation state attacks since it would be easier for a nation state to find the mining equipment producers and direct all hardware production to themselves until they acquire 51% of hash rate than it is to find the stakers and take their keys. Looking forward to lmm explaining how we are wrong.
- pskiba 5y ago
  I'm not sure I get your argument, staking takes significantly less powerful hardware so its very accessible. Staking pools also have a "saturation point" to encourage decentralization. That way not all 80 Billion dollars worth of ADA goes to one staking pool. Very hard to see how oligopolies can arise in this scenario when compared to mining operations that are unprofitable to most users (and of course bad for the environment).
  - iszomer 5y ago
    I think he was arguing for the effectiveness of the proof of work consensus mechanism as opposed to Cardano's PoS's. As someone else described to me: "..nodes just vote on a block to state whether or not they think it is valid. Once a block gets enough votes, then it is added to the chain." Whereas a PoW will "just blaze". Is this correct?
chillacy 5y ago
Designed to be CPU mined: https://github.com/tevador/RandomX https://github.com/tevador/RandomX
akimball 5y ago
GPU and CPU miners are roughly equal in mining utility on the Monero chain. FPGAs and ASICS are disadvantaged by the memory bandwidth requirements of the RandomX algorithm
- galangalalgol 5y ago
  Since posting I poked around on Reddit and it seems many are mining other currencies to trade for monero (cross-mining?), and that mining monero directly may already be close to break even on electrical costs.