Monero’s RandomX will be a ‘more aggressive change’ than CryptoNight, claims Justin Ehrenhofer

Recently, Monero concluded testing RandomX on a private testnet. The coin is in the news again after Monero Community’s Workgroup organizer, Justin Ehrenhofer, said that RandomX, the new Proof of Work [PoW] algorithm, is not meant to be “ASIC-proof.” Ehrenhofer’s remark followed him talking about the Monero 0.15 software update in an interview.

The aforementioned update is a scheduled update for Monero that is conducted twice every year. The current upgrade contains privacy and security features, refined code and an improved GUI user experience, informed Ehrenhofer. These updates in turn, provide users with a more decentralized network and an effective anonymizing network [I2P]. The organizer added that the most significant change with this update will be RandomX, an upgrade which will prevent ASICs from dominating the Monero network.

This Proof-of-Work [PoW] algorithm has been around for over a year and depends upon random code execution, difficult to manipulate by specialized hardware. Ehrenhofer added,

“RandomX isn’t meant to be “ASIC-proof,” but it hopes to close the efficiency gap so significantly that other financial factors discourage significant network control. ASIC manufacturers’ small efficiency gains must be compared to the lost financial option to sell used generic hardware, for instance. In a volatile market, the flexibility of CPUs in particular shine.”

Calling it a “significantly more aggressive change” than CryptoNight, Ehrenhofer hopes it will retain Monero’s longstanding principles, especially since the regulatory landscape is uncertain. However, Monero has support from various US-regulated exchanges and foreign crypto-exchanges. Monero is set to see another major protocol change with ring signature upgrades. Ehrenhofer added,

“As far as major protocol changes are concerned, keep an eye on ring signature upgrades. Omniring, Lelantus, and RingCT 3.0 offer alternative ways to improve Monero’s privacy and efficiency, though these still need further evaluation before being used in production. “