General
Beginner
Updated 1/15/2025
What is
Censorship Resistance?
The ability of a blockchain to process any valid transaction without discrimination, preventing governments, corporations, or other entities from blocking or reversing transactions.
Censorship resistance is a fundamental goal of decentralized blockchains: reducing the ability of any single entity to prevent valid transactions from being processed or reverse confirmed transactions. This is achieved through decentralization of miners/validators, permissionless participation, and cryptographic security. Ergo prioritizes censorship resistance through Proof-of-Work consensus, GPU-friendly mining, and privacy features such as Sigma Protocols and ErgoMixer.
Key Points
- No single entity can block valid transactions
- Achieved through decentralized mining and validation
- Ergo's PoW and ASIC-resistance promote miner diversity
- Privacy features make targeted censorship difficult
- Permissionless - anyone can send transactions
- Core principle of cryptocurrency and financial freedom
Use Cases
1
Sending funds without bank or government approval
2
Protecting against financial deplatforming
3
Enabling commerce in restrictive jurisdictions
4
Preserving financial privacy and autonomy
5
Ensuring transaction finality without reversals
Technical Details
Ergo supports censorship resistance through multiple layers: 1) Autolykos is designed to keep mining GPU-friendly and broadly accessible. 2) Permissionless miners can include valid transactions that pay sufficient fees. 3) Sigma Protocols can reduce unnecessary disclosure in contract flows. 4) Decentralized network topology reduces single points of control. 5) Open-source code makes censorship logic easier to inspect.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Questions about Censorship Resistance
Common questions about this topic
How to provide liquidity on Ergo?
Providing liquidity on Ergo depends on the current active DEX or AMM venue. In general, you deposit equal value of two assets into a pool, receive LP tokens representing your share, and earn a portion of trading fees. Spectrum Finance is historical/frozen since February 2024, so verify the active venue, contracts, liquidity depth, and withdrawal process before depositing funds.
How-to
DeFi
How to get started with Ergo?
Start by getting a wallet (Nautilus for browser, Terminus for mobile). Back up your seed phrase securely offline. Get some ERG from a current exchange or verified venue, then make a small test transaction. After that, explore NFTs, mining, DeFi references, or the developer stack if you're a builder.
How-to
Getting Started
Is Ergo a good investment?
This is not financial advice. Ergo has strong fundamentals: fair launch (no VC dump risk), innovative technology (eUTXO, Sigma Protocols, NiPoPoWs), active development, and a cypherpunk ethos. It's a smaller market cap project with higher risk/reward than established chains. Research thoroughly, understand the technology, and never invest more than you can afford to lose.
Comparison
Getting Started
What can I do with Ergo?
Ergo supports a broad ecosystem: use SigmaUSD, explore historical and current DeFi references, mix transactions with ErgoMixer where lawful, collect NFTs, mine with GPUs, bridge to other chains via Rosen, and build dApps with ErgoScript. Always verify current project status before sending funds to a third-party app.
Explainer
Getting Started