On **July 4, 2021**, there will be a network upgrade ("hard fork") with Wownero "Junkie Jeff (https://git.wownero.com/wownero/meta/issues/27#issuecomment-1007)" v0.10 release. The release will likely end large scale pool mining. **Wownero will aim to be solo-mining only**. There is a problem with pool centralization, especially concentrated in China. The two top pools make up over 70% of the network hash.
(http://forum.wownero.com/custom_avatar/8ac51c2358ba970a2a8002099888808d57a55338.png)
We have to do something drastic to ensure a more decentralized and secure network, the status quo is unsustainable. Therefore, we will introduce consensus code that checks miner signatures for each newly minted block. Miners will need to sign block header](https://monero.stackexchange.com/a/6461) data with private [spend key](https://www.getmonero.org/resources/moneropedia/spendkey.html) and amend the resulting signature to a new block header field before doing a Proof of Work hash. Each new [nonce](https://academy.binance.com/en/glossary/nonce) attempted must be hashed and signed by the miner with their private key. Idea was originally [proposed last year by tevador/SChernykh](https://git.wownero.com/wownero/meta/issues/28). You can find the implemented code [here (https://git.wownero.com/wownero/wownero/src/branch/dev-v0.10).
Difficulty will be reset to 2018 levels](https://stoffu.github.io/diff-chart/wownero.html) (100 million) and the difficulty algorithm will be changed from [LWMA](https://github.com/zawy12/difficulty-algorithms/issues/3) back to Monero's [default difficulty algorithm](https://monero.stackexchange.com/a/7981). The current difficulty has been driven up by large pools, a reset to lower levels would help solo-miners find blocks after the fork. The lower level will be fixed for 720 blocks to readjust the difficulty window. LWMA was originally implemented to counter [NiceHash attacks (https://www.nicehash.com/blog/post/official-statement-regarding-the-latest-51-percent-attack-allegations-aug-2020) and gaming the algorithm by large miners "coin jumping" pools. Since we are going to become solo-mining only, a long and smooth difficulty adjustment would be more preferable than the more aggressive adjustments that come with LWMA. Besides, Monero's difficulty code seems more battle tested than LWMA.
[imgMETA]http://forum.wownero.com/custom_avatar/e654405733166cb466bfb9cdde606e014795435f.jpeg[/img]
Solo mining will not be easy. Miners have become accustomed to monitoring difficulty levels and prices on a minute by minute, hour by hour basis, and getting regular "dust" payouts from pools. With solo mining, miners have to play the "long game". The risks are higher (some miners could mine for days, weeks, months, and get nothings), but the rewards are higher... miners could get lucky and win the full block reward (without having to pay pool fees or share the reward with other miners). Solo mining is like a lottery. Everyday there are 288 blocks that will be randomly awarded to miners. On average, a miner with a Ryzen 3700X CPU could expect to win a reward within 30-40 days (with the lower difficulty after the reset.. this is only a rough estimate since it depends purely on luck, there is also the possibility a miner will never get a block).
Someone has proposed changing the block time from 5 minutes to 2 minutes per block in order to increase the number of blocks per day (2 minutes would be increase blocks per day to 720 blocks, which is the same as Monero). More blocks means more chances for solo miners to win a reward. However, I not sure if this would be a good idea. Decreasing the block time would mean the blockchain size would grow faster and we would need to adjust the emission rate either by lowering the per block reward and extending the emission beyond the target 50 years or maintaining the same reward amount but shortening the emission period to less than 50 years. This would be a major change and would need community input to reach a rough consensus if anything should be done about this or left the same. **Please express your opinion about this proposal below.**
The random coinbase unlock time will be dropped and fixed to 1 day (288 blocks) unlock time.
The fork will also include Bulletproofs+, a new range proof that will make transactions smaller and improve verification performance. You can read more about it here (https://www.getmonero.org/2020/12/24/Bulletproofs+-in-Monero.html). Many upstream updates and bug fixes are included in the update.
For a step by step guide on how to solo mine with Wownero, check out: https://forum.wownero.com/t/how-to-solo-mine/551
**Full disclosure**: This is all very experimental and we have no idea if this will actually work. If shit is broken, we can later fork pools back in or consider other alternatives like P2Pool mining](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/P2Pool), [merge mined derivative "hash coin" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91WKy7RYHD4). We are nimble... float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!
rip megapools. we hardly knew ye (because you just joined, pamped the difficulty, and left)
\#JeSuisJeff
So c3pool will be forced to delist WOW ? People get build CPU-Rig and increase the prize of them ? I'm ok for the decentralization but this will encourage anymore theses dudes miners to have the biggest d*ck or car. What's your opinion ?
Anyway, moi aussi #JeSuisJeff
:clap:
sir, WOW is delisting c3pool
After this change, will it still be possible to mine with several PCs by pointing xmrig at a single node I control, or will each and every PC I intend to mine with need its own node and copy of the blockchain?
You would have to run `wownerod` full node on each computer. You can use same miner's address for all nodes.
I think XMRIG proxy will support having one node and linking multiple computers together, but their code needs to be updated.
I support all of the proposed changes. I know it will be disruptive to miners used to pool mining, but I think it would be a good test to shake things up and remove that centralization, even as just an experiment. I am planning on solo mining to support the network and try to find blocks.
I think we should leave block times and emissions alone for now and revisit on another release; this one has got a lot going on already.
If `get_block_template` is made to spit out the private key, XMRig (connecting to daemon or to xmrig-proxy) could be made to work.
(http://forum.wownero.com/custom_avatar/cd7b1f6b7632e8a740e36bd7000de52d5e384c28.jpeg)
pool kill is exciting :D
not sure i understand about emission change for shorter curve, think having longer curve makes wow attractive for those learning crypto now that realize most everything else is all mined
Yeah, I am not totally sold on changing the emission/block time stuff, partly because I barley understand how it works. I think we are going to leave it as it is. If anyone feels compelled to push for a change, they are free to make a PR and/or campaign for the change in a future release.
I wanted to host a community pool... i almost bought a VPS for that... but you made this.
So i will never make a 0% fee pool ;-;
Also, I think that making solo-miners only will **kill** a lot of small miners who get less than 4 KH/s.
This is exciting! I'm looking forward to seeing how things change after the 4th.
Also, everything that @lza_menace said was exactly what I was thinking when reading the post.
Happy to be a soldier on Pool Independence Day.
*Viva La Wow!*
Pardon my newbness. But if all pool mining will end after the 4th doesn't this mean that people mining with lower power machines like myself are essentially pushed out of minning? I've enjoyed mining WOW on herominers for about a month with my old Optiplexes but it seems if solo mining is the only option my hardware doesn't stand a chance against dedicated mining rigs running the latest Ryzen processors.
Well the difficulty right after fork is set to 100 million. Right now difficulty is 50.000.000.000 , so about 500 times more profit right after the fork. What happens after is interesting to see, I mean for sure some miners will drop because of the solo mining aspect. This also gives opportunity for those who want to take the risk.
This will also pump the number of wow nodes, a nice side effect. I'm fan of this disruptive change, really interesting to see what network hashrate eventually will do. I will take my chances and be patient to mine some solo blocks :smiley:
Some members of the Monero community state that this fork would not successfully mitigate pools because:
* There's no risk in sharing the key
* A pool can simply add the tx private key (the new header signing key), to each stratum job
* Pool nodes can hardcode the private key (e.g., as 1)
* You need the wallets private spend key, not the tx private key for the proposal to work
I'm not an expert by any means, so am wondering if this is true and if so what changes are being made in response.
Yes, we are still testing and code needs to be changed to take into account the observation.
Thank you for letting me know, that's good to hear. One remaining issue they mention is that after the required changes are made, the problem of mining to a private pool (e.g., botnet/cloud) still persists, since sharing the coinbase spendability doesn't matter.
Though if these issues remain, maybe it would be better to push back the fork a month or two, until they can be verified.
it is possible to have private "member's only" pools, where the miners do not mind sharing their wallet private keys with the pool operator and other miners (they would have trust them). Same is true with cloud/botnet mining, but the private keys would need to be communicated to all bots, and block header information back and forth.
Not only system administrators would notice the mining activity more easily, they would have access to the private keys too. As the data that needs to be signed changes every block, the amount of bandwidth needed to constantly share information among bots would substantially increase the cost of operating a large botnet.
I have a BIG proposal, which if succeeds, will get an exponential improvement to WOWNero and maybe to Monero too.
Here are the links:
WOWNero: https://forum.wownero.com/t/wownero-proof-of-work-proposal/593
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Wownero/comments/o5kbkt/wownero_proof_of_work_proposal/
#je suis Jeff
So Jeff uses a bunch of used computers to mine. WOW was created so that Jeff could tell Mom hes also a successful crypto miner without him ever being able to spend it all on smack. We still haven't told him about tradeogre. I think he stole his miners from a computer club at the local high school and for some he just walked out of internet cafes holding their desktops after creating a diversion. Nevertheless, hes got every surface of his 2 1/2 apartment stacked full of old HP and dell desktops. My main concern lately is that these mega pools are getting a huge chunk of Jeff's pie and worse yet they are profit switching to other cryptos which means more changeability with other cryptos which means more chances Junkie Jeff finds a way to turn his WOW into Smak. So we are agreed for Jeffs sake that we have to get the megapools out but I thought the time lock mechanism for newly minted coins would be enough to discourage megapools and perhaps extending that would work. The one issue I have is that as WOW scales it will become very hard for a small time miner to ever solve a block within the lifespan of their gear. The hope is to eventually in the next 20 years reach out to an estimated 2 billion junkies mining on shit hardware. I think if you can have bands of trusted miners that might work but how will junkies trust other junkies with the key? Then youll just have a bunch of well adjusted techies banding together because they trust one another with lots of gear and all the junkies with used high school desktops fending for themselves because they cant trust one another.
This is crazy. I like it.
I also wonder if one could run a pool and simply ask miners for collateral of 1block reward that way there would be a mutual incentive to not steal the block for all miners. The problem if that becomes the case is anyone with at least 1 block rewards worth of collateral could participate in mining pools while those who don't wouldn't be able to. Which creates a pay to play dynamic that would slow WOWs network effect.
I think youll be able to mine with people you trust which means youll have to reach out to others to mine with you. There will also be people who will risk it all to support giving small miners a chance.
(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)
Interesting stuff, solo mining (technically trusted mining) is almost guaranteed by the difficulty of signature algorithms. Though something like split mining is possible: while main node increments nonce and signs a new block, a pool of untrusted computers can collectively hash signed blocks
The cost of having to transfer the unhashed blob over the network would make that not worthwhile imo. Especially when each untrusted computer could just have its own spend key.