Daemons intended for public use can be set up to require payment
in the form of hashes in exchange for RPC service. This enables
public daemons to receive payment for their work over a large
number of calls. This system behaves similarly to a pool, so
payment takes the form of valid blocks every so often, yielding
a large one off payment, rather than constant micropayments.
This system can also be used by third parties as a "paywall"
layer, where users of a service can pay for use by mining Monero
to the service provider's address. An example of this for web
site access is Primo, a Monero mining based website "paywall":
https://github.com/selene-kovri/primo
This has some advantages:
- incentive to run a node providing RPC services, thereby promoting the availability of third party nodes for those who can't run their own
- incentive to run your own node instead of using a third party's, thereby promoting decentralization
- decentralized: payment is done between a client and server, with no third party needed
- private: since the system is "pay as you go", you don't need to identify yourself to claim a long lived balance
- no payment occurs on the blockchain, so there is no extra transactional load
- one may mine with a beefy server, and use those credits from a phone, by reusing the client ID (at the cost of some privacy)
- no barrier to entry: anyone may run a RPC node, and your expected revenue depends on how much work you do
- Sybil resistant: if you run 1000 idle RPC nodes, you don't magically get more revenue
- no large credit balance maintained on servers, so they have no incentive to exit scam
- you can use any/many node(s), since there's little cost in switching servers
- market based prices: competition between servers to lower costs
- incentive for a distributed third party node system: if some public nodes are overused/slow, traffic can move to others
- increases network security
- helps counteract mining pools' share of the network hash rate
- zero incentive for a payer to "double spend" since a reorg does not give any money back to the miner
And some disadvantages:
- low power clients will have difficulty mining (but one can optionally mine in advance and/or with a faster machine)
- payment is "random", so a server might go a long time without a block before getting one
- a public node's overall expected payment may be small
Public nodes are expected to compete to find a suitable level for
cost of service.
The daemon can be set up this way to require payment for RPC services:
monerod --rpc-payment-address 4xxxxxx \
--rpc-payment-credits 250 --rpc-payment-difficulty 1000
These values are an example only.
The --rpc-payment-difficulty switch selects how hard each "share" should
be, similar to a mining pool. The higher the difficulty, the fewer
shares a client will find.
The --rpc-payment-credits switch selects how many credits are awarded
for each share a client finds.
Considering both options, clients will be awarded credits/difficulty
credits for every hash they calculate. For example, in the command line
above, 0.25 credits per hash. A client mining at 100 H/s will therefore
get an average of 25 credits per second.
For reference, in the current implementation, a credit is enough to
sync 20 blocks, so a 100 H/s client that's just starting to use Monero
and uses this daemon will be able to sync 500 blocks per second.
The wallet can be set to automatically mine if connected to a daemon
which requires payment for RPC usage. It will try to keep a balance
of 50000 credits, stopping mining when it's at this level, and starting
again as credits are spent. With the example above, a new client will
mine this much credits in about half an hour, and this target is enough
to sync 500000 blocks (currently about a third of the monero blockchain).
There are three new settings in the wallet:
- credits-target: this is the amount of credits a wallet will try to
reach before stopping mining. The default of 0 means 50000 credits.
- auto-mine-for-rpc-payment-threshold: this controls the minimum
credit rate which the wallet considers worth mining for. If the
daemon credits less than this ratio, the wallet will consider mining
to be not worth it. In the example above, the rate is 0.25
- persistent-rpc-client-id: if set, this allows the wallet to reuse
a client id across runs. This means a public node can tell a wallet
that's connecting is the same as one that connected previously, but
allows a wallet to keep their credit balance from one run to the
other. Since the wallet only mines to keep a small credit balance,
this is not normally worth doing. However, someone may want to mine
on a fast server, and use that credit balance on a low power device
such as a phone. If left unset, a new client ID is generated at
each wallet start, for privacy reasons.
To mine and use a credit balance on two different devices, you can
use the --rpc-client-secret-key switch. A wallet's client secret key
can be found using the new rpc_payments command in the wallet.
Note: anyone knowing your RPC client secret key is able to use your
credit balance.
The wallet has a few new commands too:
- start_mining_for_rpc: start mining to acquire more credits,
regardless of the auto mining settings
- stop_mining_for_rpc: stop mining to acquire more credits
- rpc_payments: display information about current credits with
the currently selected daemon
The node has an extra command:
- rpc_payments: display information about clients and their
balances
The node will forget about any balance for clients which have
been inactive for 6 months. Balances carry over on node restart.
- simple device callback object added. Device can request passphrase/PIN entry via the callback or notify user some action is required
- callback is routed to wallet2, which routes the callback to i_wallet_callback so CLI or GUI wallets can support passphrase entry for HW tokens
- wallet: device open needs wallet callback first - passphrase protected device needs wallet callback so user can enter passphrase
The secret spend key is kept encrypted in memory, and
decrypted on the fly when needed.
Both spend and view secret keys are kept encrypted in a JSON
field in the keys file. This avoids leaving the keys in
memory due to being manipulated by the JSON I/O API.
This maps key images to rings, so that different forks can reuse
the rings by key image. This avoids revealing the real inputs like
would happen if two forks spent the same outputs with different
rings. This database is meant to be shared with all Monero forks
which don't bother making a new chain, putting users' privacy at
risk in the process. It is placed in a shared data directory by
default ($HOME/.shared-ringdb on UNIX like systems). You may
use --shared-ringdb-dir to override this location, and should
then do so for all Monero forks for them to share the database.
Scheme by luigi1111:
Multisig for RingCT on Monero
2 of 2
User A (coordinator):
Spendkey b,B
Viewkey a,A (shared)
User B:
Spendkey c,C
Viewkey a,A (shared)
Public Address: C+B, A
Both have their own watch only wallet via C+B, a
A will coordinate spending process (though B could easily as well, coordinator is more needed for more participants)
A and B watch for incoming outputs
B creates "half" key images for discovered output D:
I2_D = (Hs(aR)+c) * Hp(D)
B also creates 1.5 random keypairs (one scalar and 2 pubkeys; one on base G and one on base Hp(D)) for each output, storing the scalar(k) (linked to D),
and sending the pubkeys with I2_D.
A also creates "half" key images:
I1_D = (Hs(aR)+b) * Hp(D)
Then I_D = I1_D + I2_D
Having I_D allows A to check spent status of course, but more importantly allows A to actually build a transaction prefix (and thus transaction).
A builds the transaction until most of the way through MLSAG_Gen, adding the 2 pubkeys (per input) provided with I2_D
to his own generated ones where they are needed (secret row L, R).
At this point, A has a mostly completed transaction (but with an invalid/incomplete signature). A sends over the tx and includes r,
which allows B (with the recipient's address) to verify the destination and amount (by reconstructing the stealth address and decoding ecdhInfo).
B then finishes the signature by computing ss[secret_index][0] = ss[secret_index][0] + k - cc[secret_index]*c (secret indices need to be passed as well).
B can then broadcast the tx, or send it back to A for broadcasting. Once B has completed the signing (and verified the tx to be valid), he can add the full I_D
to his cache, allowing him to verify spent status as well.
NOTE:
A and B *must* present key A and B to each other with a valid signature proving they know a and b respectively.
Otherwise, trickery like the following becomes possible:
A creates viewkey a,A, spendkey b,B, and sends a,A,B to B.
B creates a fake key C = zG - B. B sends C back to A.
The combined spendkey C+B then equals zG, allowing B to spend funds at any time!
The signature fixes this, because B does not know a c corresponding to C (and thus can't produce a signature).
2 of 3
User A (coordinator)
Shared viewkey a,A
"spendkey" j,J
User B
"spendkey" k,K
User C
"spendkey" m,M
A collects K and M from B and C
B collects J and M from A and C
C collects J and K from A and B
A computes N = nG, n = Hs(jK)
A computes O = oG, o = Hs(jM)
B anc C compute P = pG, p = Hs(kM) || Hs(mK)
B and C can also compute N and O respectively if they wish to be able to coordinate
Address: N+O+P, A
The rest follows as above. The coordinator possesses 2 of 3 needed keys; he can get the other
needed part of the signature/key images from either of the other two.
Alternatively, if secure communication exists between parties:
A gives j to B
B gives k to C
C gives m to A
Address: J+K+M, A
3 of 3
Identical to 2 of 2, except the coordinator must collect the key images from both of the others.
The transaction must also be passed an additional hop: A -> B -> C (or A -> C -> B), who can then broadcast it
or send it back to A.
N-1 of N
Generally the same as 2 of 3, except participants need to be arranged in a ring to pass their keys around
(using either the secure or insecure method).
For example (ignoring viewkey so letters line up):
[4 of 5]
User: spendkey
A: a
B: b
C: c
D: d
E: e
a -> B, b -> C, c -> D, d -> E, e -> A
Order of signing does not matter, it just must reach n-1 users. A "remaining keys" list must be passed around with
the transaction so the signers know if they should use 1 or both keys.
Collecting key image parts becomes a little messy, but basically every wallet sends over both of their parts with a tag for each.
Thia way the coordinating wallet can keep track of which images have been added and which wallet they come from. Reasoning:
1. The key images must be added only once (coordinator will get key images for key a from both A and B, he must add only one to get the proper key actual key image)
2. The coordinator must keep track of which helper pubkeys came from which wallet (discussed in 2 of 2 section). The coordinator
must choose only one set to use, then include his choice in the "remaining keys" list so the other wallets know which of their keys to use.
You can generalize it further to N-2 of N or even M of N, but I'm not sure there's legitimate demand to justify the complexity. It might
also be straightforward enough to support with minimal changes from N-1 format.
You basically just give each user additional keys for each additional "-1" you desire. N-2 would be 3 keys per user, N-3 4 keys, etc.
The process is somewhat cumbersome:
To create a N/N multisig wallet:
- each participant creates a normal wallet
- each participant runs "prepare_multisig", and sends the resulting string to every other participant
- each participant runs "make_multisig N A B C D...", with N being the threshold and A B C D... being the strings received from other participants (the threshold must currently equal N)
As txes are received, participants' wallets will need to synchronize so that those new outputs may be spent:
- each participant runs "export_multisig FILENAME", and sends the FILENAME file to every other participant
- each participant runs "import_multisig A B C D...", with A B C D... being the filenames received from other participants
Then, a transaction may be initiated:
- one of the participants runs "transfer ADDRESS AMOUNT"
- this partly signed transaction will be written to the "multisig_monero_tx" file
- the initiator sends this file to another participant
- that other participant runs "sign_multisig multisig_monero_tx"
- the resulting transaction is written to the "multisig_monero_tx" file again
- if the threshold was not reached, the file must be sent to another participant, until enough have signed
- the last participant to sign runs "submit_multisig multisig_monero_tx" to relay the transaction to the Monero network
We keep 1, 2, 3 multipliers till the fee decrase from 0.01/kB
to 0.002/kB, where we start using 1, 20, 166 multipliers.
This ensures the higher multiplier will compensate for the
block reward penalty when pushing past 100% of the past median.
The fee-multiplier wallet setting is now rename to priority,
since it keeps its [0..3] range, but maps to different multiplier
values.
This plugs a privacy leak from the wallet to the daemon,
as the daemon could previously see what input is included
as a transaction input, which the daemon hadn't previously
supplied. Now, the wallet requests a particular set of
outputs, including the real one.
This can result in transactions that can't be accepted if
the wallet happens to select too many outputs with non standard
unlock times. The daemon could know this and select another
output, but the wallet is blind to it. It's currently very
unlikely since I don't think anything uses non default
unlock times. The wallet requests more outputs than necessary
so it can use spares if any of the returns outputs are still
locked. If there are not enough spares to reach the desired
mixin, the transaction will fail.
Fee can now be multiplied by 2 or 3, if users want to give
priority to their transactions. There are only three levels
to avoid too much fingerprinting. Default is 1 (minimum fee).
The default multiplier can be set by "set fee-multiplier X".
When m_refresh_from_block_height has been set, only hashes will be
retrieved up to that height, instead of full blocks. The same will
be done for "refresh <height>" when the specified height is beyond
the current local blockchain.
This allows appropriate action to be taken, like displaying
the reason to the user.
Do just that in simplewallet, which should help a lot in
determining why users fail to send.
Also make it so a tx which is accepted but not relayed is
seen as a success rather than a failure.
With the change in mixin rules for v2, the "annoying" outputs are
slightly changed. There is high correlation between dust and
unmixable, but no equivalence.
This obsoletes the need for a lengthy blockchain rescan when
a transaction doesn't end up in the chain after being accepted
by the daemon, or any other reason why the wallet's idea of
spent and unspent outputs gets out of sync from the blockchain's.
Elliot Wirrick