Why does Monero use keccak over something like sha-256?

Question

Keccak uses a sponge function which is cool but what benefits does keccak have over sha-256 for cryptography operations in the code? thanks

Daniel Ternyak · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-20T22:35:54.223

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While Monero does not use Keccak for its hashing, one advantage of using CryptoNote is to prevent Monero from immediately being able to be mined by ASICs. There is tremendous investment in SHA-256 hashing because of Bitcoin's popularity, so using a less popular / more memory intensive standard allows Monero to be mined by the "common man"- at least until ASICs are developed.

edited Dec 20 '16 at 22:35

answered Dec 11 '16 at 00:11

Daniel Ternyak

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monero does not use keccak as a pow. cryptonight is a bunch of random hash functions afaik, but i am referring to crypto operations in the monero code not the mining – samwellj Dec 11 '16 at 03:19
@samwellj Yes, I should have clarified that monero does not use keccak. – Daniel Ternyak Dec 12 '16 at 02:40
@DanielTernyak You can still edit your answer to clarify – Smart Kid Dec 20 '16 at 18:26

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 14 '17 at 22:39

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Keccak has "built-in" protection against length extension attacks.

Edit: spelling

answered Jan 14 '17 at 22:39

Lee Clagett

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Why does Monero use keccak over something like sha-256?

2 Answers2