The Open Source Technology Improvement Fund is working with the Monero community to fund at least two (and probably three) audits of Monero RandomX.
What is RandomX?
RandomX is a project that implements a dynamic proof of work algorithm. The aim of an algorithm that changes is to make it difficult to design efficient circuitry that can fully automate the algorithm in an ASIC. The increased complexity of the algorithm makes it so that an ASIC would lose the advantages that it has over more traditional CPU/GPU designs that can execute many types of code and do many types of mathematics.
The goal of RandomX is to be a significant boost to ASIC resistance, which is seen as a hedge against centralization.
Monero (and some other cryptocurrencies) are fighting to overcome significant efforts to centralize mining under ASICs, because one of the fundamental components of cryptocurrency is that access to mining needs to be egalitarian, and custom ASIC designs place the lions’ share of the processing power under the control of a few centralized entities, who then gain significant control over the blockchain.
The community has selected three auditors, and a fourth, Trail of Bits, is also looking at the code through an independent group Arweave.org.
The auditors are:
You can read the actual proposals from each team here: https://github.com/hyc/RandomxAudits
The fundraising has been moving quickly, if you have some XMR that you’d like to contribute to the effort you can pitch in here!