2y ago

51% Attack

miningpoolstats.stream Monero (XMR) RandomX | Mining Pools

List of known Monero pools (XMR) RandomX PoW algorithm. Live hashrate distribution, pool fees & minimum payment comparison. Mining Pools & Block Explorer

I guess the operators of Nanopool are really good guys deciding not to do a double spend attack on the network while having more than 55% of the total hashrate 🫠

Why don’t miners want to use the P2Pool even though it strengthens the network and also has great incentives like zero fees with a very low payout threshold?

10 comments

Having 55% of hash doesn't mean you'll make profit by attempting a doublespend. I don't see how you could gain more from one and dumping the assets price + your reputation as a pool than by just behaving and passively collecting your fees forever. Nobody event talks about how 1 or 2 pools control 70% of zcash hash (although that's probably because nobody uses it) and even BTC has 2-3 companies (not even proper pools) controlling the majority of the hashrate.
It sounds scary but there really isn't that much a non-malicious, profit-driven pool could even do. Even a malicious pool could at worst mine empty blocks for a while.
- It's definitely not ideal though, P2Pool is right there.
  
  Very true. I am sad that p2pool only has so little hash :(
- Having 55% of hash doesn’t mean you’ll make profit by attempting a doublespend
  But a pool could be turned into a malicious pool by an adversary that takes control of it. A clear disadvantages of centralization is that it creates a single point of failure.
  Even a malicious pool could at worst mine empty blocks for a while.
  Why is this the case? I still have not studied the Monero protocol yet.
- Shorting Monero and then attacking would most probably be the most profitable.
  
  I doubt anyone could be that certain his attack will work. Especially mining on a public pool, it is likely destined to fail.

I'd hazard a guess that botnets and cryptominer worms cause the uptick in network hashrate for the centralized pools because it's easy to point hundreds of thousands of machines to 1 large pool.
- Either way, it's not great.

Do nanopool users know they have a majority?
- No way to know that.

10 comments