In market cap terms Monero (XMR) is the biggest of

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In market cap terms Monero (XMR) is the biggest of the three leading u2018anonymousu2019 cryptocurrencies. At around 2.5 billion, it just edges out Dash (at 2.4 billion) and is roughly four times the size of ZCash (at 680 million). Sometime in the next 24 hours the Monero network is upgrading (nobody in the core team…

In market cap terms Monero (XMR) is the biggest of the three leading u2018anonymousu2019 cryptocurrencies. At around 2.5 billion, it just edges out Dash (at 2.4 billion) and is roughly four times the size of ZCash (at 680 million). Sometime in the next 24 hours the Monero network is upgrading (nobody in the core team is referring to it as a u2018forku2019 u2014 but more on that later). According to its core developers, there are two primary reasons behind the upgrade. One is to increase the minimum ring size to 7 (mixin 6), and the other, is to drop a spanner in the works of the ASIC miners who crashed the Monero party back in January and never left.

So whatu2019s the back story? Currently, Monero runs a consensus proof-of-work algorithm called CryptoNight which can be mined using standard CPUs and GPUs. Consequently, with lots of CPU and GPU miners operating internationally, the network has remained decentralized, with no central point of failure and resistant to manipulation. The network is not Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) resistant, however , and once ASIC miners enter the equation things change quickly. Designed with only one function in mind (to mine Monero for example) the ASIC rigs are way faster and more powerful than CPUs and GPUs. When they start working a network, the total hashing power on the network is raised exponentially. Why is this a problem? Because in order to keep a coinu2019s block times consistent, the difficulty of solving the PoW equation must be increased. With the difficulty increased, CPU and GPU miners canu2019t keep up and they drop out u2014u00a0 forcing the network to resort to ASICs to effectively mine.

This leads to centralization of the protocol itself, making the network inherently less safe. Enter the Antminer Back in March Bitmain announced the Antminer X3 , which is an ASIC miner specifically designed to mine coins that use the CryptoNight algorithm.

It appears, though, that ASIC miners actually came on to the Monero network well before that announcement was made. In the chart below, the Monero network shows modest increases in hashing power throughout 2017, before heading stratospheric in January u2014 with the most likely explanation being the introduction of ASIC mining rigs. u00a0 u00a0 So, with a clear and present danger to the autonomy of its network, Monerou2019s core dev team have decided to instigate an upgrade sometime around April 6th that will lock out the ASIC rigs and keep its mining community working on CPUs and GPUs. Fork this The story doesnu2019t end there, though, as on the other side of the equation there are a lot of people who have shelled out US$12,000 for an ASIC rig specifically built to mine Monero, who come the 6th of April will find themselves with a very expensive paperweight.

Sure, they could mine one of the other coins that use the CryptoNight algorithm u2014 like Bytecoin u2014 but given Bytecoinu2019s current price is fractions of a cent, they would spend more on electricity than they could ever make mining coins.

What these people want to get a return on their investment is a Monero hard fork. While anyone can fork any coin any time they want (itu2019s a decentralised world after all), there are some obstacles to doing so. Itu2019s technically a little challenging, but not terribly.

Whatu2019s more important is that the hashrate comes with you, and the branding.

Put those two together and the odds that a new fork will survive get much better. Which brings us to u2018Monero Originalu2019 announcement we received last week, posted here verbatim: To whom it may concern, We are contacting you on behalf of the developers team behind the Monero Original project. Monero Original (XMO) is the original Monero chain that we will keep up and running after the Monero hard fork scheduled for the 28th of March 2018 at block #1539500.

u00a0 We are eager to spread the information about Monero Original to ensure that even more miners, exchanges and wallets can benefit from the upcoming hard fork, support the original chain and get XMO coins. By this email we invite you to share this information with the readers of [Media Name]. Please feel free to use the attached detailed information and kindly get back to us if you have any further questions regarding Monero Original. Regards, Monero Original team
While the funky grammar and u2018insert media name hereu2019 errors here make it pretty obvious the senders of this email maybe arenu2019t really equipped to pull off this attack on Monero, it should, nonetheless, highlight to all how great the potential is for big money interests to take over a trusted brand.

Decentralized cryptocurrencies are just that u2014 decentralized. Nobody u201cownsu201d them.
The name Monero, for example, isnu2019t trade marked, because a distributed decentralized user community canu2019t trade mark anything. That requires an individual or some other legally recognised entity like a company.

u00a0 u00a0 u00a0 Monero Original? Looks similar, but It’s not the original Monero As stated above, ASIC mining rigs perform at a level that outstrips any GPU or CPU miner and the propensity for a fork to be unsuccessful when substantial hashing power remains on the legacy chain is great . So what would happen on April 6th if a big chunk of Monerou2019s hashing power decided to join the u2018Monero Original teamu2019 that emailed us last week? Might these ASIC miners, in fact, be able to outwork the real original chain and keep mining? And facing the potential loss of the cash theyu2019ve poured into their rigs why wouldnu2019t they try and do this? The Monero core team notes on its Reddit page that whatu2019s about to happen is “a scheduled and consensual network upgradeu201d and thus, unlike the Bitcoin / Bitcoin cash split u201ca new coin won’t be created.u201d Well not by them anyway. But that wonu2019t stop others from trying to hijack the upgrade and launch their own coins u00a0u2014 and perhaps the next group that gives it a go will be sophisticated enough to pull it off. And itu2019s not just Monero thatu2019s vulnerable, as far-fetched as it sounds, what about Ethereum? Currently, itu2019s being mined predominantly on GPUs, but Bitmainu2019s announcement of Ethereum ASIC rigs this week is bound to shake things up for the worldu2019s second largest cryptocurrency too. The threat of a hostile takeover for any cryptocurrency is very real but seldom discussed to the extent that it warrants.

Seriously, can you think of any other brands worth billions of dollars that arenu2019t protected by armies of lawyers? u00a0Sure, a crypto blockchain canu2019t be hacked u2014 but a crypto brand? Now thatu2019s a different story.
The post Is Monero forking? It depends who you ask.

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