Rucknium: 'raising the ring size is a more cost-effective strategy against a black marble attack than raising fees'

Rucknium¹ has published the first draft (v0.1)² of their Defeating a Black Marble Flood Against Monero: Best Options for Ring Size and Transaction Fee document³ and concluded that increasing Monero’s ring size is a more cost-effective strategy against a black marble attack than raising the minimum transaction fee:

This document attempts to answer the question: Is it better to increase the ring size or the transaction fee, or some combination of the two? Cost-Effectiveness Analysis is used to analyze this question. [..] According to this analysis, raising the ring size is a more cost-effective strategy against a black marble attack than raising fees. A combination of a large increase in the ring size and a modest increase in fee seems to provide a good, cost-effective defense.

The researcher has also shared a bonus animated plot⁴ and is currently seeking feedback from the community in MRL⁵.

It is worth mentioning that the associated R code⁶ is publicly available on Github and anyone attempt to run the analysis.

Consult the previous Monero Observer reports⁷ to learn more about the recent suspected black marble flooding against Monero.

This is an ongoing story and the report will be updated when new information is available.

Update: selsta pointed out in today’s MRL meeting⁸ that the known daemon inefficiency bugs should be fixed before considering a large increase to the ring size so not to risk the stability of the network.