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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
Tick tock. Tick tock. The countdown to Monero’s protocol upgrade is over and the highly anticipated software updates have been rolled out as block 1685555 came and went.The Beryllium Bullet update is meant to bring about a handful of changes, but the excitement in the community is circling around two key updates in particular: Proof-of-Work (PoW) tweaks and Bulletproofing.Updates of this nature are not uncommon with Monero, as the project regularly forks to push new upgrades and improvements. Hardforks are pre-scheduled twice a year and most notably do not create new coins as they are non-contentious forks supported and instigated by the core team and community.Quick Recap – What Is Monero?A fork from Bytecoin, Monero is a leading cryptocurrency with a keen focus on security, privacy, and decentralization. The Monero blockchain leverages Cryptonote software to implement and maintain a fully anonymous and private blockchain. From the Monero Website:Security – Users must be able to trust Monero with their transactions, without risk of error or attack.Privacy – Monero takes privacy seriously. Monero needs to be able to protect users in a court of law and, in extreme cases, from the death penalty.Decentralization – Monero is committed to providing the maximum amount of decentralization.What’s the Buzz All About? Firstly, Monero’s updates to their Proof-of-Work consensus is a continuation of the community’s opposition to ASIC mining. A post from February 11th formalized Monero’s position on ASIC mining and the threat it poses to decentralization. Monero, built as an improvement over Bitcoin, saw the involvement of specialized mining in Bitcoin as a major threat to claims of decentralization. Currently, the pattern of ASIC mining is seen to erode away decentralization as hashing power becomes overwhelming concentrated among a handful of miners. Frontrunning the ASIC miners, however, is a cat and mouse game. The Monero
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