Monero Upgrade Successful: Improved ASIC Resistance, Security, and Privacy

Published on by Cryptoslate | Published on

Monero successfully completed a scheduled protocol upgrade on Mar. 9th. The upgrade includes tweaks to the PoW algorithm for better ASIC-resistance, changes to mitigate big bang attacks, and increased transaction homogeneity to further improve privacy.

Monero, one of the leading privacy coins, has successfully completed a scheduled protocol upgrade today.

First, the upgrade tweaks Monero's proof-of-work algorithm, CryptoNight-R, to curb ASICs currently on the network and to further preserve ASIC resistance.

Second, the upgrade addresses an edge-case attack termed a big bang attack, where an attacker spamming transactions could cause an "Exponential increase in resource requirements that would exceed the capacities of the extant Monero infrastructure on the scale of hours," according to a Dr. Mitchell Krawiec-Thayer, founder of Noncesense Research Lab, in a write up on the Monero GitHub.

The issue arises from how Monero structures its block-size limit.

The block size limit for Monero is set to an average of the last 100 blocks.

The update introduces dummy encrypted data to each transaction making it even harder for blockchain analytics to determine the source of a payment, further increasing privacy.

All of the changes discussed above, according to the Monero GitHub were "Deemed safe to apply" by the Monero Research Lab.

Note, the changes consittute a "Hard fork," meaning clients running old versions of the software will need to upgrade to remain functional; Users must upgrade their wallets and miners to the newest version.

Once again the Monero community continues to build and improve its software to create a "Fast, private, and secure" digital cash.

x