I have been wanting to add my humble hashrate contribution to the network for a while now.
I wanted to first get a dedicated machine, with at least 200GB for the full and blockchain, running 24x7, with all the bells and whistles...
So I kept pushing it off, further and further. "I don't have the hardware", "I don't have 200GB", "I don't have a monero node for maximum privacy"...
Today I realised that I should at least try it a bit. Just a tiny bit and see how it goes.
Thank you @XMRbutterfly for your post
I went to the gupax website just to see what it looks like, there is a short video explaining the process.
Downloaded, added a monero address, clicked start. BOOM! I am already running a monero miner on p2pool mini!
It was actually surprisingly fast and easy. None of the roadblocks I imagined were actually real.
I don't have to run it on a separate dedicated machine (I can always do that later), I don't have to allocate 200GB for it (I am using a remote node for now, so 0GB for that), I don't have to run my own node first (this setup is already a good start).
Why didn't I try this earlier? I don't know, don't ask me =D
In any case, just so you know, you can try it right now in just a few minutes, and even if you stop mining after a while, that's perfectly fine too.
Yes, engaging a huge attack directly this way would mean having in the end a lot of regular users spinning up gupax.
But the main benefit here is that for me and anyone else doing that, it's practically free to run the miner.
We don't need to have a million users running gupax, it starts with 10, then 100, then 1000, then more.
We don't need to reach a million in any case. Each additional miner, as small as his share is, is a direct additional cost for the attacker.
The small miners can add hashrate for free, and the attacker always needs to compensate that and add some more on top.
Remember, this attack is expensive for the attacker, and its funds are limited.
This asymmetry is key, don't let the whale discourage the shrimps from banding together.
And as Malcom X said, don't let your enemy tell you how many of you there are.
I mostly agree, except no PoW mining is free. It requires to pay electricity, which is obvious.
You get rewarded for mining (unless you're donating your hashrate someone).