While those spearheading Bitcoin's technology have warmly welcomed ASICs, devices designed for a single purpose, those behind Monero, championing privacy, have shown more caution. Monero Some believe that ASICs threaten the decentralization and economic structures of blockchains using a Proof of Work system because their operation logistics introduce vulnerabilities.
The developers of Monero have their argument against ASICs, which led their latest upgrade to effectively expel this specific miner category. XMR miners .
Monero Network Sees Massive 85% Hashrate Drop Post Hard Fork
Weeks ago, Blockonomi reported Monero's team executed a hard fork in their consensus mechanism, strategically targeting and disabling ASIC contributions. CryptoNight-based According to BitInfo's data, the blockchain upgrade took place at block height 1,788,000 on March 9th and achieved its objective.
Post the Boron Butterfly fork, aptly named by developer dEBRUYNE_1, the network experienced a significant drop from 946 to 144 megahashes per second, signifying an 84% decrease.
Expert Predicted the Impact of Monero's Upgrade Accurately
Remarkably, MoneroCrusher, an industry analyst under a pseudonym, had forecasted this hashrate drop, corroborating his investigation into ASIC prevalence in recent months.
Research by MoneroCrusher, backed by SChernykh and the Noncesense Lab, estimated about 5,400 ASIC machines were contributing to the network. XMR-centric Given the fruition of the 85% prediction, many ASIC devices lie inactive across global mining farms, a setback for device creators but a win for decentralists supporting Monero's stance.
This upgrade's success is underscored by previous adjustments in Monero's resistance against ASICs and their impact, such as the drops in hashrate observed during 2018 and the following year.
Network Safety Bolstered
Reduction of ASICs wasn't the sole aim with Boron Butterfly. Security advancements include block size modifications to counter attacks that could rapidly expand blockchain size, impacting network nodes.
Mitchell Krawiec-Thayer from Noncesense warned about the potential ten terabyte swell of Monero's network from such an attack, threatening significant infrastructure.
Another advancement improves transaction uniformity by embedding decoy encrypted data, thereby enhancing the anonymity of transactions and misleading analytical algorithms.
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