It’s nearly there! After two rounds of intense community discussion, the final proposal for the Tari proof-of-work strategy has been released as an RFC.

This means that the proposal is open for comment, and is thus subject to change, but short of any compelling arguments to the contrary, it’s very likely that Tari’s proof of work will be implemented as described in the RFC.

In summary, the RFC proposes the following:

Tari will employ a hybrid mining approach. It will comprise two mining algorithms, with an average combined target block time of 120 s, to match Monero’s block interval.

The first algorithm is CPU-friendly: Monero merged-mining using RandomX. On average, 60% of blocks will be mined using RandomX.

The second algorithm is a Tari-only, independent, “GPU-friendly” SHA-3-based proof-of-work algorithm. An average of 40% of Tari blocks will be found using this algorithm.

The RFC has more details on how and why these algorithms were selected.

Thanks also go out to @HansieOdendaal, who performed several deep dives on PoW response simulations. For those that are interested, his reports are all available (1, 2, 3, 4) for your reading pleasure.