The final battle, Monero deploys a new algorithm "RandomX" in October to fight against ASIC

This article is from CoinDesk, original author: Christine Kim

Odaily Planet Daily Translator | Moni

Unlike those cryptocurrency projects that have risen to prominence through hype and fraud, Monero, launched in 2014, has been continuously strengthening its privacy features. It is precisely because of this feature that it has attracted a large number of fans, and its market value has exceeded US$1.5 billion.

On the other hand, the developers behind Monero are also constantly working to provide better services for miners. According to the blockchain data website Messari, although Monero has only been established for five years, its annual blockchain mining returns have reached 62 million US dollars.

However, with the emergence of professional mining hardware equipment, Monero also began to have other centralized mining problems, that is, block mining rewards increasingly fell into the hands of ASIC mining machine operators, while smaller, independent miners and amateur participants were unable to obtain sufficient mining resources, resulting in increasingly polarized mining rewards.

In order to maintain a fair competitive environment, Monero developers have previously periodically used hard forks to "dodge" attacks from ASIC miners - but a recent series of analysis results found that hard forks are not effective in stopping miners using professional mining equipment, and in this competition, it seems that ASIC miners are already in the lead.

Monero contributor Justin Ehrenhofer said:

“ASIC manufacturers are producing specialized mining machines much faster than we expected. It only takes them a month to design and produce a chip, and usually they get a return on investment in six months.”

Diego Salazar, another Monero contributor, has also seen the problem, saying:

“First, we’ve seen that the current approach to solving the problem is unsustainable… We can’t fight ASIC miners with hard forks over and over again. Second, while hard forks can decentralize mining, they will introduce centralization issues elsewhere, such as with developers. The Monero community is able to support continuous hard forks because people still have great trust in the developers.”

As a result, Monero developers are moving forward with activating a new mining algorithm called “RandomX” that aims to make ASIC miners less competitive. The groundwork for the new code is being led by Howard Chu, founder and CTO of computer software company Symas Corporation, who also developed the type of database that currently runs the Monero blockchain. For the code freeze scheduled for July, Chu is working on four different RandomX code audits.

If all goes well, the new algorithm will be put into production in October this year.

Justin Ehrenhofer added:

“We will eventually reach consensus and RandomX will certainly be implemented, which will give us the best chance of preserving Monero. But if that fails, then Monero will likely move to an ASIC-friendly algorithm.”

Diego Salazar revealed that RandomX is Monero’s last effort. If they fail to drive out ASIC miners this time, they may not have the chance to fight against ASIC miners in the future.

Put the CPU first

Howard Chu emphasized that the RandomX algorithm design is “CPU-centric,” as opposed to an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), where the central processing unit (CPU) is a general-purpose design of computer chip hardware. Diego Salazar explained:

"CPU is like a series of computing power. Nowadays, computers are like jacks in all walks of life, but ASICs are only very good in a certain field."

Howard Chu also agrees with this view. He believes that CPU is the most widely distributed computing resource in the world, because now everyone in the world has a smartphone in their pocket, which can be installed with Monero mining software using the RandomX algorithm and use CPU and memory to mine.

Howard Chu hopes to maximize decentralized mining, and he predicts that RandomX will retain a favorable lead that favors CPU miners over ASICs for at least the next three to five years.

Leaving GPUs behind?

At the same time, although the RandomX algorithm mainly supports CPU miners, it does not mean that it does not support miners using other chips, such as GPU miners.

Howard Chu said that he optimized the graphics workload of the graphics processing unit (GPU). Generally speaking, graphics workloads tend to be very sequential. After the data enters the top of the channel, it needs to be "chewed" for a while, and then it is all "spit out" at the end of the channel. The new algorithm mainly emphasizes the fast transmission of data from input to output, which is almost a straight line.

Monero currently uses a mining algorithm called CryptoNight. GPU miners are ahead of CPUs in both computing power and energy efficiency, but many people may not know that the CryptoNight algorithm was originally designed to improve CPUs rather than other types of hardware. Howard Chu explained:

“It may be fate that CryptoNight works quite well on GPUs, but no one expected CryptoNight to perform so well on GPUs. In fact, the CryptoNight mining algorithm was designed in 2013, and no one thought that GPUs would have so much memory and such a large memory bandwidth today. Those problems in the past are no longer a big obstacle now.”

However, if the RandomX mining algorithm is activated soon, Howard Chu predicts that CPUs will be at least three times faster than GPUs when mining on the Monero blockchain. This means that the deployment of the new algorithm may cause dissatisfaction among GPU miners, who are not numerous but dare to speak out.

The RandomX mining algorithm actually affects both ASIC miners and GPU miners. In response, Justin Ehrenhofer suggested that GPU miners could resell their mining equipment or try to reuse their hardware. He said:

“If I had a Monero ASIC, there might not be much economic choice. However, I am not worried about the Monero community splitting because RandomX is the closest algorithm we could choose that also retains the vast majority of Monero’s ideals.”

Wandering around

In fact, Justin Ehrenhofer and others have a very real concern in mind: if Monero deploys a CPU-friendly mining algorithm like RandomX, could it lead to the spread of botnets on the Monero blockchain.

Howard Chu explained this concern:

"There are a large number of computers using CPUs, maybe millions or hundreds of millions, and they are poorly secured. It's easy for malware to get into those computers and do things that it can't do on a particular network operator."

According to Justin Ehrenhofer, these malware-infected botnets have been a problem for Monero, and he continued:

“Monero is currently one of the most illicitly mined cryptocurrencies to date, and the problem has been around for years, but the RandomX mining algorithm does not prevent people from using it for cryptojacking and other malware.”

But Justin Ehrenhofer also pointed out that Monero's current mining algorithm CryptoNight has always favored CPU and GPU mining. If you want to avoid being affected by malware, you can visit the Monero network and other related forums, where there are many resources to help users whose computers are threatened.

A new partnership

Despite the many issues, the deployment of the new mining algorithm RandomX has received support from people outside the Monero community, especially some crypto projects that use CPU-friendly mining algorithms. One of them is Arweave, which has raised $8.7 million through an initial coin offering (ICO) and is testing the RandomX algorithm.

Sam Williams, founder and CEO of Arweave, said in a press release earlier this month:

“An ASIC-resistant proof-of-work algorithm like RandomX will further strengthen our permanent, low-cost, tamper-proof storage network. RandomX ensures that our decentralized content strategy in the Arweave network can be well implemented, which is to distribute power to all parties around the world.”

In response, Arweave has funded one of the four audits of RandomX code, which has been officially completed, with a public cost of approximately $80,000, and was conducted by security company Trail of Bits. However, according to Dan Guido, the company’s co-founder and CEO, the final cost of the Arweave audit was actually $28,000.

Sam Williams explains:

“We hope to participate in the audit process, and by helping RandomX with our grant, we can do a small public service to ensure that other crypto projects can see the implementation of a programmatic proof-of-work algorithm without having to worry about security.”

The other three audits were funded through donations from the Monero crowdfunding campaign, totaling $130,000, and were conducted by Kudelski Security, X41 D-Sec, and QuarksLab. According to Howard Chu, all audits will be completed in July.

If the audit is successful, the RandomX algorithm will be deprecated on the Monero public test network, and the main network will be launched in October this year.

Risks remain

In fact, there is still some controversy in the community about the release of the RandomX algorithm on the mainnet. For example, Justin Ehrenhofer believes that it is not yet certain whether the RandomX algorithm can bring real benefits to Monero, so some further demonstration is needed before the mainnet is launched. He warned:

“We don’t know if RandomX is going to work properly, even if all the audits are done and the audits are good, we don’t know what it’s actually going to look like in production.”

If the RandomX algorithm ultimately proves to be unsuccessful, the worst-case scenario for the Monero network, according to Justin Ehrenhofer, is to switch to an ASIC-friendly mining algorithm, similar to the one currently used by Bitcoin. He joked:

“I think if RandomX does fail, Monero will likely switch to an algorithm that is more ASIC-friendly, as many in the Bitcoin community have said.”

However, despite the potential difficulties, Diego Salazar insisted that Monero should try something new, even if it may face the ultimate result of failure, questioning:

“If you don’t know which algorithm is the best, then how can we have a good cryptocurrency in the future that is digital, extant, fungible? Monero is not a stepping stone to a good cryptocurrency, but it can try and fail, you know? Let’s give it a try, one last time.”