51% Attack
51% Attack
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 ðŸ«
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?
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.
8It's definitely not ideal though, P2Pool is right there.
4Very true. I am sad that p2pool only has so little hash :(
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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.
1Shorting Monero and then attacking would most probably be the most profitable.
1I doubt anyone could be that certain his attack will work. Especially mining on a public pool, it is likely destined to fail.
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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.
5Either way, it's not great.
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Do nanopool users know they have a majority?
0No way to know that.
1