Just floating the idea that we can possibly inherit arguably the most decentralized mining network in existence and make it work to secure BCH.
Hashrate on BCH remains pretty low in relation to available SHA256 hashing power out there. If we were to also integrate Monero’s randomX algorithm we could leverage the large CPU based hashing power to help make BCH more secure. Similar to how DGB is mined on multiple algorithms. This way even if hostile SHA256 miners attacked BCH they would not be able to overcome the CPU based POW also going on.
I realize this is a pretty far fetched idea which may have huge technical barriers but I just wanted to put it out there anyway.
I think this is an interesting idea to discuss, but I expect you’re already aware of the likely community response: not interested.
BCH already stands to inherit arguably the most decentralised mining network by flipping BTC & getting back all the SHA256 hash. That’s not a short term fix, but it is a powerful one. It requires zero extra work (beyond the work needed to create enough ecosystem growth to start a Flippening), and there’s been no serious ramifications from being a minority chain yet (so there’s no apparent need to switch, in fact if anything there’s evidence the miners LIKE BCH & switching away would cut us off from that).
So while I don’t know much about randomX and maybe it could be a good idea, I personally am not excited about changing the hashing algorithm in any way and I don’t expect the community to be either - but I’m open to more nuanced arguments either way.
Hi, thanks for the informative reply. I have been binge watching your show
miners LIKE BCH & switching away would cut us off from that
Definitely not suggesting to move away from SHA256, BCH is the miners’ backup plan if BTC fails.
The benefit of RandomX is that it only works efficiently on CPU’s which prevents the centralization of mining to a single class of hardware. If we were to combine SHA256+Merge mining with XMR it would make BCH mining very resilient to attacks or censorship.
Not trying to push this idea more, just explaining the rationale.
You still can’t beat economics of scale. XMR is mined by enthusiasts and botnets only because it is still too small. If it had market cap of Bitcoin™, things would change.
Just packaging CPUs with cheapest ancillary hardware and into big mining farm form factor (like what Bitmain did) gives farms enough advantage over hobby miners. Then, big farms have special deals for power, some even have it free.
There’s only so much CPUs consumers/botnets have.
To give you an idea of scale of available centralized compute, if government wanted to take over mining Monero:
you’d need 50k pcs of those, so 5% of 1 datacenter of 1M CPUs, or 0.5% of 100 such datacenters, which is just Google’s capacity, but total available compute is much more
you’d need 50k pcs of those, so 5% of 1 datacenter of 1M CPUs, or 0.5% of 100 such datacenters, which is just Google’s capacity, but total available compute is much more
True, but it would take huge amount of time and effort to coordinate and execute and it would have to be sustained. By the time Monero is worth attacking it will be too big to attack.
It is much easier for government to attack Bitcoin, they just send a letter to the 3 largest mining farm owners and it’s done. Or just show up there with guns.
*edit
Both definitely have their benefits, so using both would bolster the mining security IMO.
Monero hashrate would most likely go up significantly if BCH was being merge mined with it.
The amount of BCH nodes would go up a lot.
All Monero miners would become BCH users.
A surge in CashFusion usage as most Monero miners would want to make their mined BCH more private.
It is good to see that these types of discussions are possible in the BCH community.
You’re welcome & glad to hear you’re enjoying it, that’s what it’s there for!
I need more information about the specifics of how this would work, cos I don’t really know much about randomX. If we had some other mining algorithm, that would presumably mean LESS coinbase rewards and fees going towards SHA256 miners, which makes us less appealing to that existing huge industry (even if just in part, instead of totally). That could be really really bad news because SOOO much money has gone into mining (funded, ironically, by the BTC guys) which BCH got for “free”, unless we shoot ourselves in the foot chasing some other different algorithms or trying to “diversify”.
But BCH is already over that “by the time” hurdle because of being insulated by the BTC mining industry / funding. So it seems counterintuitive to me to go backwards and have to restart that process of getting “too big to be attacked” when we’re already there with the amount of SHA256 ASICs. Basically this might be a good idea, but it’s not solving a problem we actually have (just one we might theoretically have).
Doesn’t matter to BCH, not a factor to me.
Well, only by the number of mining nodes, which is a minority of the nodes. So probably it wouldn’t skyrocket, just go up a little bit, and our current number of nodes is totally fine. More is better, but this isn’t a super compelling argument.
Maybe in the sense that they set it up 1 time and ran a node or ticked a box to start merge mining, but it doesn’t get them necessarily to buy into the chain and its mission and community and so on. It COULD, but isn’t likely to. And you’re talking about throwing away literally billions in USD value (and more in conceptual value) from SHA256 miners just to attract a handful of XMR miners a little bit. Not remotely comparable in worth.
This is also unrelated. BCH/XMR atomic swaps is coming which is basically addressing the same onboarding problem or compatibility with XMR. In reality this is a trivial benefit.
Absolutely, it’s great to discuss and I like people bringing these new ideas to the community! That said, the unbelievably titanic benefit of being 100% SHA256 as a minority chain is not even remotely approached by the likely cumulative benefits of the points you mentioned (like not even 0.001% of the benefit). Let alone the risk and disruption to the ecosystem of such a change.
Same holds for any PoW coin, no matter the algorithm. Ultimately it is real world value of block reward ((subsidy+fees) * price) that provides security, and sha256d mining industry is the best security provider in the world.
Hashes are a commodity we buy with our block reward.
