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All about Monero (XMR) // @MonerotimeStore

Apr 24, 2023, 25 tweets

#Monero #XMR is AUDITABLE, in this thread we will see that the audibility of Monero is as secure or more secure than Bitcoin (cryptographically speaking).

Two types of audit are necessary to verify the offer as a whole, 1) the number of issued coins in circulation (extracted block), 2) The verifiability of the total supply between each transaction (key_image, ringct, ring signature..).

First of all, I'd like to say one thing: Monero is based on a very well-established and well-understood cryptography, battle-tested for almost a decade and every major change is audited by reputable groups and cryptographers.

The inflation bug verification method you'll see here has been tested on an XMR fork, which has a vulnerability that allows the inflation bug to be exploited and verified/comparable that it is not produced in the main Monero blockchain.

The code to check the Monero inflation bug is open source, you can check here.
github.com/DangerousFreed…

The auditability of the Monero offer is mainly based on well understood mathematics, there are different ways to audit Monero, but I'll try to explain it based on the work of a contributor (DangerousFreedom)

Contrary to popular belief, the number of coins extracted from each coinbase transaction is public, a coinbase transaction is the first transaction of a new block extracted.

you can also automate the verification with your demeon log, you would need to run a full node:

1 - help print_coinbase_tx_sum
2 - print_coinbase_tx_sum ''start_height'' ''block_count''

For example, I queried the daemon from the genesis block to block 5000, there were 87732.937218129312XMR, as you can see, it is easier to use the daemon than to count each coinbase transaction, one by one to verify this.

Now, once each new coin from a mined block is sent to a wallet, you lose track of the coins because Monero is fungible, there is no way to distinguish one Monero from another Monero, 1 XMR = 1 XMR.

It is from here that things become more complicated to understand and to be audited by the general public, for example Bitcoin is non-fungible, each transaction has a history (amount, recipient etc) so it is easier to be audited by a random person.

Now, how do we know that between each private transaction, there was no coin creation from scratch? Monero has several privacy technologies built into the base of its protocol, and we'll see how an inflation bug in Monero can be detected.

Double spend: Monero uses unique key_image for each spend, keyframes used more than once are rejected by miners as double spend and cannot be added to a block.

The goal here is to analyze the blockchain and confirm that each key_image is unique in the set of key_images to verify that a double-spending transaction has not occurred. (At the end of the thread, I will provide you with a tool to check the blockchain)

RingCT Inflation : RingCT uses Pedersen's commitment to create a binding, masking and homomorphism function to not bind the transaction amount by creating a "blinding factor" so that no one can bind the transaction amount.

FYI, Pedersen's commitment is a zero-knowledge technology, as old as the world (1992), it is the cryptographic equivalent of secret writing in a sealed, tamper-proof, individually numbered (or/and countersigned) envelope.

And the range proofs allow to prove to the network that its commitment is valid thanks to bulletproof, a zero-knowledge proof, which mathematically allows to prove that the exchanged amounts are balanced (inputs = outputs + expenses)

Monero funded and received two separate audits the first time this part of the code was hit and it also reduced the average size of a Monero transaction by 80%. ostif.org/the-quarkslab-…

Audite Ring Signature : The idea behind ring signatures is simple. We want to mask the identity of the sender by proving that someone in the ring signed the message and transferred the funds without being able to specify who exactly.

*FYI, in addition to ring signatures, Monero uses stealth addresses using the elliptical curve Diffie-Hellman protocol, your main address never appears anywhere. We will talk about this in the next thread.

The objective here is to check mathematically that each signature in the ring is valid.

The more time passes, the less likely it is that Monero will have an inflation bug in the future, just like bitcoin, to be honest I think it's very unlikely even if you can never be 100% sure.

Now, if you don't trust math and cryptography, that's your choice, there's a risk with everything, just as no one can guarantee that your plane trip tomorrow will be uneventful.

So, the auditability of the offering is a false virtue touted by surveillance coin aficionados. In Monero, we audit code and cryptography. There is really much hard work done, barely visible to the broad public. But it has its reasons we still stand solid. moneroinflation.com

In my next thread, I will try to explain to you why and how the number of coins in circulation of #Monero #XMR is rare, and do not hesitate to tell me if my thread has reassured you about the auditability of Monero.

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