Privacy-focused cryptocurrency Monero has made good on its promise to change its mining algorithm to be ASIC-resistant, but “Monero Classic” (XMC) is threatening to undermine that promise.
Monero underwent its biannual hard fork on Friday, bringing a slew of new upgrades to the 10th-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, but one upgrade has raised fears that the network could split into two competing chains.
As reported by CCN, earlier this year, Monero announced its intention to regularly update instances of its Cryptonight Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining algorithm to prevent mining hardware manufacturers from developing Monero-compatible ASIC miners. Critics argue that these devices lead to the centralization of mining and threaten the health of the network.
Shortly after that announcement, Bitmain, the world's largest ASIC manufacturer, said it had developed the Cryptonight ASIC, and Monero responded by incorporating an emergency PoW adjustment into its hard fork scheduled for this week.
The move appears to have broad support from the community, but at least one faction – an anonymous group operating under the name “Monero Classic” – has said it will continue mining the original chain.
From the group's website:
“Around 80% of the current Monero hashrate agrees with our position and refuses to follow any changes to the POW. Therefore, we declare in advance that we will maintain the original software following the original rules. We reject centralized developer control and believe that voluntary participation of both users and miners upholds the principles of decentralization.”
It is unclear whether the group is truly pro-ASIC or simply looking to exploit the fork to create a new cryptocurrency and make a quick buck, but it is worth noting that Bitmain-run AntPool has opened a Monero Classic mining pool and is encouraging users to claim XMC.
In any case, the 80 percent figure quoted on the Monero Classic website is of course misleading: users are always slow to upgrade to new software versions, so failure to upgrade in a timely manner does not mean that miners have rejected the PoW change.
Additionally, an unknown percentage of the hashrate belongs to ASIC miners, devices that will be rendered obsolete by the fork, and of course, they will continue to mine the original chain, leaving them with no choice but to redirect their hashpower to another Cryptonight coin.
Finally, it is common knowledge that Monero is mined by numerous botnets, and while skilled hackers deploy updated payloads to zombie computers, “script kiddies” do not have the tools to do this, so their botnets will continue to mine Monero Classic forever.
Regardless of which chain it follows, Monero developers have warned that spending the coin on both chains could have negative effects on users' privacy, even for those who only interact with a single network.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
The post Monero hard forks to remain ASIC resistant, but ‘Classic’ wants to spoil the party appeared first on CCN
