25
votes
Accepted
What is the difference between CryptoNote and CryptoNight?
CryptoNote is the name of the cryptocurrency technology that Monero (and Aeon, and various others) is based on. CryptoNight is the name of the hash function that is used in the CryptoNote Proof-of-...
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23
votes
Accepted
Where can I find a description of the CryptoNight hash algorithm?
The description of the CryptoNight hash algorithm and the steps it performs can be found in the code as well as in a written file by the CryptoNote team, which can be found here. Lastly, in his blog, ...
- 15k
16
votes
Accepted
Is Monero amenable to ASIC mining?
Cryptonight (the PoW hash used by Monero and most Cryptonote coins) does not lend itself well to ASIC development, for the following reasons:
Cryptonight requires 2 MB of fast memory to work. This ...
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15
votes
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CryptoNight-Lite PoW modifications in Aeon
There are two modifications: the scratchpad is only half the size of regular Cryptonight (1 MB rather than 2 MB) and the number of AES iterations is halved (half a million rather than a million). This ...
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14
votes
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Which reasons were discussed for potentially changing the proof-of-work algorithm?
One of the main reasons Cuckoo cycle is atractive when compared to Cryptonight is that it is very fast to verify. This is one drawback of Cryptonight: it makes all operations that need to verify ...
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12
votes
Is it better to mine with a CPU or GPU
The most profitable consumer-grade hardware that I know of is the GTX 750 Ti (an nVidia GPU). This is on a Hashrate per Energy Used basis, since the marginal cost of mining is the energy spent. It ...
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11
votes
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CryptoNote features in other cryptocurrencies
There's less than a couple dozen CN based currencies. See http://mapofcoins.com/bytecoin.
Shadowcash tried to implement ring signatures on a Bitcoin code base. See https://shnoe.wordpress.com/2016/02/...
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9
votes
Is it better to mine with a CPU or GPU
That statement does not mean that CPU mining is generally more profitable than GPU mining. The emphasis should be on significantly reduces. The large memory footprint of CryptoNight is a large reason ...
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7
votes
Mining Monero with Pencil and Paper
I think the overall answer is "it's ridiculously impractical to perform by hand". The Cryptonight hash operates over a 2 megabyte data space, using multiple rounds of AES along with a variety of other ...
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7
votes
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How secure is CryptoNight?
This annotated whitepaper acknowledges the importance of a thorough review:
Constructing a hash function is difficult; constructing a hash function satisfying these constraints seems to be more ...
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7
votes
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Monero Hash, how does it work, C++ basisc
piHashVal = (uint64_t*)(result.bResult + 24);
result.bResult is a pointer to some data structure, it's storing the memory address at which the structure begins. We're not interested in the beginning ...
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7
votes
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I'm trying to create a Python miner, can I get some guidance please?
The general steps are as follows:
Call your Monero daemon's RPC method get_block_template.
Take the blockhashing_blob from the response and convert the hex to binary.
Set a 4 byte nonce in bytes 39....
- 18k
6
votes
Accepted
Mining Monero with Pencil and Paper
I like the question because an answer to it will give a better understanding, from first principles, of the underlying algorithms.
So question 1 has two parts:
1a) How does the CryptoNight PoW ...
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votes
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Is Monero susceptible to botnets?
Botnets do not have magical ability to affect Monero more than any other hash source.
As other PoW based currencies, Monero is vulnerable to 51% attacks, and any adversary who is able to sustainably ...
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6
votes
How does CryptoNight "depend on all the previous blocks"?
I think the CryptoNote website's page about the egalitarian proof of work is about the inner working of the hash function, not about how the hash of a block is computed (which is basically ...
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6
votes
CryptoNight Algorithm Keccak1600?
The Cryptonight description by the Cryptonote team states that
First, the input is hashed using Keccak [KECCAK] with parameters b = 1600 and c = 512.
In the primitive family Keccak, b is the ...
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5
votes
What is the difference between CryptoNote and CryptoNight?
Worded differently (on Reddit):
CryptoNight is the (hashing) algorithm.
CryptoNote is the protocol.
- 4,509
5
votes
Accepted
Energy consumed to protect the Monero network
Generally you can simply look at the value of the current block reward as an indication of how much electricity it takes to secure the network. At 8.7 XMR per block it costs about 78k USD in ...
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5
votes
Where can I find a description of the CryptoNight hash algorithm?
The algorithm is described in Cryptonote Standard 008.
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5
votes
Is Monero amenable to ASIC mining?
Monero is not immune to ASICs in the future, but the costs of manufacturing ASICs is offset by the block rewards such that it would not be profitable. ASIC manufacturing would need to get cheaper, or ...
- 6,484
5
votes
Accepted
Monero Pool job contents, blob length
Mining Blob
The mining blob is the block header + merkle root + number of TX-es. It's similar to block identifier as defined in CNS003:
Calculation of Block Identifier
The identifier of a block is ...
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5
votes
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How is Keccak calculated in Monero?
The keccak1600 function used by Monero is based on Keccak-256 (b=1600, c=512, r=1088 and output of 256 bits, not 1600 bits), but it returns the whole internal state (1600 bits) instead of the first ...
- 3,324
5
votes
What's the difference between the CryptoNightR and RandomX algorithms?
Quoting SChernykh (one of the CryptonightR authors):
CryptonightR is a modification to Cryptonight whereas RandomX is done completely from scratch. The main purpose of CryptonightR is to be the ...
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5
votes
What PoW hashing algorithms did Monero historically use?
Monero's genesis block dates back from April 2014. The first PoW change was in 2018.
The full history is:
| block | date | PoW algorithm
|---------|------------|--------------
| 0 | ...
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4
votes
Accepted
Can a CryptoNote coin be merge mined with a non-CryptoNote coin?
If the cryptonight algorithm was replaced with say, sha256, could it be merge mined with bitcoin, for example?
That would certainly be possible. The requirements for merged mining basically boil down ...
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4
votes
Accepted
How significant is the number of threads when mining? (I7-4790K)
The correct answer is a combination of what you've read. The maximum number of threads you should ever try to use is the number of CPU cores. Each thread uses 2MB of RAM, so your best performance per-...
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4
votes
Would this be a good hardware setup for Monero mining?
GPU mining configurations often use the cheapest CPU. Thus, your CPU should be powerful enough to work with 3 Rx 480. Yes, PCIE x 1 should work for mining but you have to buy a riser (recommended to ...
- 1,016
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