Monero Upgrade Leads To GPU And ASIC Mining Retirement

The latest Monero Upgrade has finally decided to get rid of GPU and ASIC mining, after the successful implementation of the scheduled event on November 30 as we reported in our XMR news.

The new RandomX mining algorithm was introduced to get rid of the ASIC machines and to improve the efficiency of CPUs in general. The specialized mining hardware has been an often-debated issue and some of the critics argue that they have a centralizing effect since only a handful of companies in the world are capable to create the ASICs. On the other hand, some suggest that the ASIC-secured networks are less prone to getting hit with a 51 percent attack.

The Monero upgrade led to the proponents who heavily criticized ASICs and pledged to maintain the resistance of XMR as specialized hardware, finally changing the mining algorithm even at a higher cost. RandomX is now the result of that decision and the new proof-of-work algorithm uses a random code execution and memory-intensive techniques that make the use of ASICs unnecessary. The introduction renders all of the CryptoNight ASICs obsolete and the added complexity only makes the development of the new machines expensive and ineffective.

The ASIC miners are not the only ones that are affected by the upgrade since the new algorithm is meant for CPUs as well in order to penalize GPU miners who want to mine Monero. The comparison shows that the hashrate for central processing units is looking a tenfold increase and in comparison, the Nvidia GPUs either retained or improved their existing performance. For AMD cards, most of them are half as capable as before.

With the focus on CPUs, Monero developers believe that the ‘’network will become even more decentralized and egalitarian in the distribution of block rewards.’’ This could turn out to be a bad idea as well since Monero has historically always been more CPU-friendly which leads to the spread of malicious native browser-based mining software. The developers expect that the new upgrade will become noticeable by administrators because it has a great memory-hard approach and a higher potential to gain which could result in a renewed push for malware distribution.

However, the uniqueness of the new RandomX platform is positive from a security point of view.
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There are a few CPU based mining farms that can be repurposed to attack monero. The Hashrate also increased since the introduction so it seems that CPUs already formed a significant deal of the mining power.