PoW mining pool centralization discussions by Monero Research Labs
PoW mining pool centralization discussions by Monero Research Labs
Monero's PoW mining pool centralization discussions covered problems, principles, PoW improvements, non-PoW alternatives like Trailing Finality Layer, vulnerability of Nakamoto consensus to rented hashrate and balancing decentralization with security. liberachat
Core principles to uphold in solutions: Privacy, decentralization, censorship resistance, accessibility, and permissionlessness, avoiding complexity, monetary policy integrity. articmine: We have to be careful that we do not create a cure that is far worse than the disease
Improvements to Existing PoW: Tevador's bandwidth-based mining protocol proposal to penalize large pools & encourage decentralization. Sech1's idea of allocating 1% of rewards directly to miners. Short-term mitigations: Renting hashrate, temp raising tx fees as a relay rule.
Non-PoW Consensus Mechanisms: Trailing Finality Layer as an overlay for finality, potentially using PoS for validators, to prevent deep re-orgs and enable faster unlocks. https://xcancel.com/MoneroResearchL/status/1956119998004384085 TEEs withdrawn due to security issues.
Short-Term vs. Long-Term actions and research needs: Immediate: Rent hashrate during spikes; explore PoW tweaks.Long-term: Research Trailing Finality Layer, PoS failure modes, hardening PoW.Calls for CCS proposals and literature reviews.
Broad agreement on the urgency of addressing centralization, support for PoW tweaks as realistic short-term steps, rejection of TEEs, and the need for further research. sgp_: I personally think that on the PoW tweak front, tevador's proposal is the most realistic, by far.
kayabanerve: I like tevador's proposal but am concerned about the risk... tevador did respond to this concern though. articmine: I would suggest instead that we focus on hardening our existing POW both at the consensus and node really levels.