The reason of the hard fork was to introduce a new consensus algorithm that could protect Monero’s network against ASIC mining hardware. Monero can be mined using GPU and CPU power, compared to Bitcoin that it is mined using the powerful ASIC miners.
The community explains that the hard fork is intended to keep the decentralized nature of the network, something that ASIC miners would harm.
Monero is a little bit different cryptocurrency, in the sense that the network has regular scheduled hard forks as part of the blockchain protocol. But this new release, was beneficial for the community?
Monero has decided to implement this new hard fork due to Bitmain’s new Antminer X3 that is supposed to mine this cryptocurrency in a very efficient way. One of the upgrades to Monero’s network was an increase in the minimum size of the ring, that moved from five to seven.
At the same time, some changes have been made to the Proof of Work (PoW), algorithm that will reduce any chances of ASIC miners to dominate Monero’s mining activities.
Source, full article:
https://usethebitcoin.com/was-moneros-hard-fork-beneficial-for-the-community/
