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Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Quark – Is it worth buying?

I’ve always had somewhat of a soft spot for Quark.


It was a quirky little CPU mined coin that launched with a very unique hashing mechanism, yet faded into obscurity in part due to how horribly it was managed. And yet here I am writing an article about it… Why, you ask?


Quark is up over 2000% during the past week. A lot of other coins have seen significant growth during this period as well, but most of those coins (SRC, PTS, to name a few) owe their growth to being listed on the chinese based BTC38 exchange, and the resulting influx of yuan. Quark is different in that it’s growth has been spurred by non-chinese sources.


So what’s been driving quark’s growth if not the chinese? Supposedly Bill Still (who I’ve admittedly never heard of, yet apparently has somewhat of a following behind him) has expressed interest in it. This could mean good things to come, if the hype is to be believed.


With rumors flying around that BTC38 is looking into adding quark, there’s still room for even more explosive growth. The chinese have altcoin fever right now, and are indiscriminately pumping money into any coin they can get their hands on. With the relative low cost per unit of quark, it could see some impressive growth should it get listed.



All things considered, I believe it to be worthwhile to hold a speculative stake of this coin at the moment. The coming days should be very interesting.


source: http://cryptolife.net/quark-is-it-worth-buying/




Guugll Search


http://www.guugll.eu/quark-is-it-worth-buying/

Feathercoin Official Weekly Update #9

The Price of Survival


Feathercoin Key Stats

217 days since genesis block creation

Approx. 23,200,000 Feathercoins created

Approx. 14.7 days behind target generation rate


The abundance of open source has met with the scarcity of money. If money were not scarce it would not force us to make the sacrifices necessary to reveal our true preferences to the group. That mechanism cannot work without consensus across a broad range of people. In order to be money everyone must agree all the time that your currency has value. It is not good enough that the butcher only believes dollars are worth something 3 days a week. The relative value may fluctuate against various commodities but he must be willing to exchange his money at all times.


When someone sees something in you that scares them they face a choice. They can either attack you or they can be humble and curious. This crypto currency space can be hostile at times because while the code may be open source and shared the money it creates is not and that terrifies us. We all believe we have unique access to the truth, sometimes we need so desperately to be right that we distract ourselves from what is important. I have found the best way to respond to hostility is to keep working and with that we now turn to some of the hardest workers in our community…


CryptoKnox

I don’t know how many times I can say this but UKMark, Nutnut and Svenn have done it again. UKMark is the guy who has put in countless hours in to SMS Wallet and now another 350 hours in to CryptoKnox the new online wallet with Merchant API exclusive to Feathercoin. The lads have committed some serious energy and commitment in to the project.


I don’t know where they get their energy from but what I do know is that I will always support someone willing to put in this kind of time and effort and do my best to remove any obstacles to their success.


CryptoKnox is and online wallet with Merchant API currently in alpha testing


I spoke to them last night on skype and they told me:


Security is paramount especially since the inputs.io scandal so fresh in our minds. All wallets are stored off host, all servers are hardened to the latest standards, all interserver traffic is encrypted AND on private networks, and everything is behind cloudflares CDN.


The Reason behind Knox is to make FTC more accessible to the new people. To find, download and setup a wallet when you first start your journey in to crypto is somewhat daunting. Cryptoknox aims to offer an easy and secure way to get your first Feathercoin wallet address.


This is just an alpha at the moment, security is the most important feature which is why we are asking for some keen beta testers. The lads are getting help from some security experts and I will be helping them with UX and usability feedback.


EDIT: UKMark asked me to point out that the CryptoKnox wallet is not just an online wallet but also includes a secure Merchant API to help merchants integrate Feathercoin payments in to their existing shopping carts. There is more info on their home page.


Local Feathercoin Progress Report

Since its launch back in early October our Feathercoin Map has been growing faster and faster. The main motivation behind the project was to highlight the need for localism. We like to think of Feathercoin as a local currency and you don’t get to the very big without paying attention to the very small.


From our humble beginnings back in early October…


…to the present day


Now due to the rising demand on this page we are slowing down the entries in order to verify all the accounts before we move on to the next stage. If you have put your name forward but don’t see yourself on there it’s because we need some time to verify you on the forum.


Plans now include putting on crypto related events, could be a Bitcoin Conference or a local Litecoin meetup, we don’t care as long as it involves a blockchain. So we welcome all submissions, I will try and get a new form put up there in the next week but in the mean time you can PM me personally like Smoothie on our forum who will be selling his physical Bitcoins and Litecoins at the Inside Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas in December.


The London Bitcoin Expo

Speaking of communities and events here’s a good one. We first heard about the London Bitcoin Expo back in July when we attended the BTC London conference. We try to attend as many of these as possible to make sure we get to meet face to face and away from our computer screens.


This free event welcomes all people and the organisers are working very hard at making this a success


Ruth spoke to Alex who is leading the organisation of the Expo the other day and it sounds like these guys are working incredibly hard. We know just how they feel after the mission we faced in Amsterdam. There will be a stall where people can donate their goods to be sold for Crypto, a virtual treasure hunt where people can venture out in to London to unlock bounties and a fantastic lineup of Speakers.


You can register for the event on the London Bitcoin Meetup page which is run by our friend Iain Cresswell. The impact of crypto on the ground is what it’s all about.


TL;DR — Genius and the Wisdom to Remember It

Everyone wants to be the genius, the one who makes that breakthrough discovery with the razor sharp insight but what’s harder is working on the task right in front of you, the one you can work on right now. Surrounding yourself with the people who want to support you and appreciate you for what you do is one of the most important steps you can take. What is genius without the wisdom to remember it? It’s often the wisdom that can understand the genius better than the genius understood herself.


You don’t need to be the best qualified to undertake a task you simply need the determination to carry on even while everyone around you is telling you to stop.


You can find last week’s newsletter here: Just Fork It. Today special thanks go to @Ruthie for her contributions to this newsletter.



You can follow us on Twitter @Feathercoin to stay up to date.


source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=339334.0




Guugll Search


http://www.guugll.eu/feathercoin-official-weekly-update-9/

FRANKO. The digital currency

What is Franko?

Written by Seiko Chan


Franko is an amazing new digital currency based on cryptography. Franko coins can instantly be sent anywhere in the world over the internet for little to no cost. One Franko is denominated as 1 FRK.


Where do new Franko come from?



Franko releases new currency units into the economy at a predictable rate of 720FRK per day until the network has produced 11,235,813 FRK. New Frankos are created in a process referred to as “mining,” which involves Franko users running software that tries to calculate a complex mathematical solution that increases in difficulty based on the amount of other users trying to caclulate the same solution. One can compare it to finding a needle in a haystack. Whoever finds the needle first, earns 0.25 Frankos, anonounces the find to everyone else and then the process starts all over again. The goal is to find that needle every 30 seconds, so the more people searching for the needle the bigger the haystack becomes. Finding the Franko solution involves an incredible amount of computer processing power, and so users often collectively work together in “pools” in order to find the solution and earn Frankos on a more regular basis.


Where can you get Franko?


There are only two ways to get Franko. The first way to get Franko is by enabling your computer to confirm transactions for the network (“mining”). Confirming transaction blocks often involves an incredible amount of processing power, so users often mine together in “franko pools” in order to process transactions faster and earn Franko on a more regular basis. The second way to get Franko is simply to buy them from someone who already has them. You can earn your first Franko by following the Getting Started guide sponsored by BriefCaseIT:


http://tokyo.briefcaseit.com/GettingStarted/


Where can you spend Franko?



Cryptsy.com — Currency Exchange

Coingas.com — Buy video games with FRK

WorkForCrypto.com — Various people willing to work for Franko

CryptoSexToys — Adult toys

BriefCaseIT.com — Software development

Coins-E.com — Currency exchange

CoinJabber — Website review director

JaysJerky — Beef Jerkey

Copia — Marketplace

Dox Brothers — Private Investigators

Franko Folders — Cancer Research

16BitBet — Gambling

AltDice — Gambling


source: http://www.adviceco.in/2013/11/meet-franko-digital-currency-of-future.html


Current Version: Franko 0.8.5.1

Update by October 15th


Updates:

- added better dnsseeds

- lowered fees from 0.02 to 0.0001

- now using the latest bitcoin protocols


Franko is anonymous internet money that can be instantly transferred to anyone in the world over a secure public peer-to-peer network ran by volunteers .


Important Websites:
http://frankos.org — Main website

http://forum.frankos.org/ — Forum

http://www.reddit.com/r/Franko/ — Reddit

http://franko.freshdesk.com — Franko Helpdesk (please submit support tickets here)
http://www.github.com/franko-org/franko — sourcecode


Buy Sell Trade Frankos

- Exchanges

Cryptsy — https://www.cryptsy.com/markets/view/33

Coins-e — https://www.coins-e.com/exchange/FRK_BTC/

Auto Escro — https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=210389

Koolio’s Escrow — http://www.KoolioEscrow.com


https://docs.google.com/a/frankos.org/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Av4g8w1tEXqUdFptcHBVdExLODFDYjlCWTFtTUdkQUE#gid=0


- Products and Services

CoinJabber — http://www.coinjabber.com

CoinGas — http://www.coingas.com Buy Steam Game Codes

BriefCaseIT Consultation — http://www.briefcaseit.com SEO | Email Marketing | LinkBuilding | Project Development

Copia Market — http://www.copiamarket.com

FRK LOTO — http://www.copiamarket.com/franko-loto/

FRK Wallet — http://www.copiamarket.com/franko-wallet/

Blackjack — http://cryptoblackjack.kicks-ass.net/index.php?coin_type=20

Beef Jerky! — http://jaysjerkyandgoodies.com/How_To_Order-W3.aspx


Block Chain Explorer
http://frk.cryptocoinexplorer.com/


http://altcha.in/chain/Franko


Official Faucets


http://www.copiamarket.com/franko-faucet/index.php


http://majesti.co/freefrk/


Builds and Source: (they contain source and precompiled wallets)


Windows Binary:
http://frankos.org/downloads/Franko-0.8.5.1-Win32.zip


Ubuntu/Debian Binary:
http://frankos.org/downloads/Franko-0.8.5.1-Linux.zip


Thread with info for Yum repository:


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=205101.0


Mirror:


https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-W443vRXlxGMXd5dW5Ldm01UzQ&usp=sharing


Stats:

30 second block targets

0.25 block reward

11,235,813 Total coins

difficulty retarget 4x per day

block reward halves every 22471626


Source
https://github.com/franko-org/franko/


Pools

Proportional — http://frk.dencoinpools.com/ All donations go to the FRK Collective to help fund Collective Development.

PPLNS — https://frk.d2.cc/

P2pPool — http://coinminer.net:9777/static/ — UPDATED

PPLNS — http://coinminer.net:8000/frk/

P2pPool — http://next.afraid.org:8111 — UPDATED

PPLNS — http://pool.1nusa.org:8111

PPLNS — Frankopool.com


http://franko.ub3rl33t.com/


http://franko.miningpool.co


http://frk.botpool.net


Nodes

addnode=74.196.48.62

addnode=193.6.148.18

addnode=23.21.69.181

addnode=50.116.22.43

addnode=80.47.34.212:54897

addnode=37.229.117.57:40680

addnode=69.147.229.226:37080

addnode=82.234.193.23:44067

addnode=108.208.35.34:36475

addnode=192.241.216.151:36669

addnode=190.19.238.43:54082

addnode=95.132.133.218:49509


franko.conf


server=1

rpcallowip=127.0.0.1

rpcuser=username

rpcpassword=password

rpcport=7913


Please virus scan the files and report your findings back. Happy mining.


source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=202417.0




Guugll Search


http://www.guugll.eu/franko-the-digital-currency/

Monday, November 25, 2013

Alpha Technology Developing Litecoin ASIC Miner

Alpha Technology is officially announcing their partnership with Dexcel Electronics Designs, an established and well known embedded systems (FPGA) design house based in India.


The CEO of Dexcel has authored a good write-up for The Hindu, a top newspaper there, and states the Alpha Technology partnership in it. It should be in hard-copy by the time of this reading. Click here to read it in it’s entirety.


Topping this news, is another announcement from Alpha that they have, in conjunction with Dexcel, been developing the world’s first Litecoin ASIC miner!


And we quote:


“We have partnered and have for the past few months been developing together a Litecoin ASIC miner, which is a considerable achievement in the world of cryptocurrencies. Especially with the level of expertise and workforce we are bringing to the table. Dexcel’s partnership considerably brings more expertise and workforce in the ASIC and semiconductor sector, than any other ASIC company currently in the cryptocurrency market. Dexcel are also long-term design partners with Intel, Texas Instruments, Xilinx etc.”


This is more than exciting news for the Litecoin community, and cryptocurrency as a whole. Alpha Technology is looking hot right now. The news that they are developing such a ground-breaking device as this, and taking into account the news of their partnership with Dexcel, we believe it will all together catapult them into lead as one of the most innovative companies in the mining game right now.


There were lots of skeptics, and rightly so with the state of things right now, that wanted more from Alpha on their product. This news about their teaming with Dexcel Electronics Designs should go a long way in establishing their credibility.



With the big news that a well established Indian engineering company is also getting into the cryptocurrency market, we wonder how long until other major companies follow suit.


source: http://majesti.co/cryptonerd/big-scrypt-asic-miner-update-alpha-technology-developing-litecoin-asic-miner/




Guugll Search


http://www.guugll.eu/alpha-technology-developing-litecoin-asic-miner/

Max Keiser talks about Bitcoin and Litecoin on BBC Newsnight

Max Keiser talks about Bitcoin and Litecoin





Guugll Search


http://www.guugll.eu/max-keiser-talks-about-bitcoin-and-litecoin-on-bbc-newsnight/

Goldcoin – The Gold Standard of Digital Currency

The coin has a dedicated team behind it, who has been working diligently behind the scenes to improve and expand the crypto-currency.


With a bumpy start, but now back on track, it has an excellent captain at the helm. His name is MicroGuy, and he is tirelessly informing the masses about the potential of Goldcoin. With this great team and community behind it, we’ve got a feeling that Goldcoin’s moment is coming a down the road at a quick pace!


It comes with great pride that we can announce that there has just been a Goldcoin press release, that this blog was quoted in, that details the current work going on at Goldcoin! It covers the new Android wallet, paper wallet project, and a few other news worthy items. Thank you to the Goldcoin team for including us in the release.


Goldcoin is a Scrypt-based coin, which means you can most likely use the video card in your computer to mine them, and with the current difficulty, mining Goldcoin with a traditional computer and GPU is still profitable.


When you think “Goldcoin”, what comes to mind? We will tell you: wealth. Since the time of the Incas, and before, gold has been THE symbol of intrinsic value! Going into the future, we doubt that this fact will change any time soon. So why would you not want to be “in” on the next step in a golden history?


Some of you are just finding out about Goldcoin, and are wondering where to get them should you not have the hardware to mine them. We recommend you head over to Cryptsy.com and open an account with them. They are the #1 alt-coin exchange, and have a wide variety of coins to buy or trade on their site. If you’re in the chat box on the exchange and see BigVern (the owner of Cryptsy), or MicroGuy (Goldcoin dev), in there, do tell them that CryptoNerd sent you. There’s also the Goldcoin Forums, a popular hang-out spot for Goldcoin enthusiasts, and you can find all the latest news and updates on the coin there.


And last but not least, we would like to turn you on to the Goldcoin Report. Be informed for hours on end, if you so choose, watching the massive library of Goldcoin related videos and weekly shows that our friend MicroGuy faithfully releases on his channel.



Do check out the forums and resources on Goldcoin mentioned above. Get educated about Goldcoin, and when informed and you are ready, if Goldcoin seems like a coin you see going places, make an investment in this coin.


source: http://www.cryptonerd.co/




Guugll Search


http://www.guugll.eu/goldcoin-the-gold-standard-of-digital-currency/

HashFast Open Sources Bitcoin ASIC

Today HashFast announced they are open sourcing the interface protocol used for controlling their bitcoin mining ASICs.


Open sourcing this design gives significant insight into how their bitcoin miners operate and provides a platform for driver developers. More users collaborating in driver development should allow for a more diverse set of options, and a better experience for HashFast customers.


In July HashFast announced a partnership with Uniquify to design the 400 GH/s “Golden Nonce” ASIC, and on September 5 they announced tapeout of their chips with Taiwan Semiconductor. In order to prepare driver developers for the ASICs mid-November arrival, HashFast released an 84-page document explaining how their ASICs are used and details about their interface protocol design. Avalon released a similar open source description of their chip communication spec in April, which lead to a large variety of collaborative projects.


HashFast Batch Sales

HashFast completed preorders of the Batch 1 ASICs at the beginning of September, selling an estimated 225 TH/s at $3M (563 Baby Jets running at 400 GH/s for $5,600). HashFast will likely be second to market with their 28nm ASICs, following KNC’s shipments earlier this month. Despite reports of several of KNC’s capacitors exploding and hosted miners not reaching their promised speeds, it seems a majority of KNC’s Batch 1 customers have received their units.


HashFast publicly publishes the Order Chain for their Batch 1 sales on their website. From there it is evident that out of the 563 Baby Jets sold in their first batch, they have 157 unique orders, a majority of which are single unit orders. This large percentage of retail sales has engendered a community of tinkerers eager to assist the development of the hardware and software related to HashFast’s miners. HashFast’s batch 2 and 3 sales are significantly larger than their batch 1 sales and scheduled to arrive in December. Batch 2 has recently closed out and is expected to be delivered weeks after batch 1 ships.


With HashFast open sourcing their protocol, a community of advanced driver designs may develop by the time their Batch 1 begins shipping in a few weeks. John Skrodenis, VP of Marketing and Sales for HashFast, stated that “the customer base exceeds 350 users including batch 1, 2 and 3,” so there is clearly a large customer base in need of robust software.


ASIC Mining

ASICs, application specific integrated circuits, are customized chips designed for one specific purpose. In the case of bitcoin mining, it’s to perform the double SHA256 hash required to discover new bitcoin blocks. Each of HashFast’s ASIC chips contain four dies, with each die containing 96 cores, for a total of 384 cores per chip. The complexity of designing a robust interface protocol revolves around ensuring each of these cores has a constant queue of work to perform, and efficiently reports back when an acceptable value is found.


In order to mine a block, bitcoin uses hashes of the block header to determine if a block is found. Bitcoin uses the equation SHA256( SHA256( Block_Header ) ), where SHA256 is a hashing function that returns a 256-bit hash, for example: ’00000000000000001e8d6829a8a21adc5d38d0a473b144b6765798e61f98bd1d’.


block_header

Block header information used for hashing


The difficulty is adjusted by determining the number of leading 0’s required, where more 0’s increases the difficulty of finding an acceptable hash. In order to continue trying new hashes while maintaining the block header, a “nonce” field is used which can be incremented. Hashing the same header while gradually incrementing the nonce allows new hashes to be generated without changing important header information. When an acceptable hash is found, it is published in the block header along with the relevant transactions.


The Hashing Operation

HashFast open sourcing their protocol has given insight into the operations driving their ASICs hashing. Cores are controlled through operations sent from a host’s CPU. HashFast provides each core with messages from the host CPU through an operation bus (the data link), which provide the cores with commands such as configuring clock speed (the OP_PLL_CONFIG operation), restarting the core (OP_RESET), and providing work information for hashing (OP_HASH).


hash_core

from page 14 of the Protocol Interface Guide


Hashing commands are among the most important aspects of chip design. In HashFast’s design, if an OP_HASH command is received while the core is currently hashing, it is stored in an input queue. This allows the core to have continuous work after finding an acceptable hash. Each OP_HASH operation also contains a unique sequence number used for retrieving relevant information about the hash later on.


When a hash is found that meets the difficulty requirement in the OP_HASH operation, the hash core returns back the nonce that was used, as well as the OP_HASH’s sequence number. The host can then look up the sequence number to find the block header information without having to constantly transmit it back and forth.


USB Protocol

In practice, all of these operations are controlled through HashFast’s open source USB Communications Protocol. Within their USB protocol there’s a higher level protocol, called the Global Work Queue (GWQ). The GWQ allows developers to control the operation of ASIC cores at a more abstract level, allowing the low-level work details described above to be handled internally. The goal being to provide driver developers tasks that are light on CPU power required, and to enable modest CPUs to control large scale systems.


CGMiner is an open source bitcoin mining driver that has been developed for a wide range of GPU, FPGA and ASIC miners. Adrian Port, one of HashFast’s Lead ASIC Engineers has been working with the CGMiner team to implement HashFast’s protocol. They have been using the CGMiner drivers internally while developing the GWQ interface.



Along with the release of their documentation, HashFast will also release header files they have been using. Within a few days they expect to publish the CGMiner driver they developed onto github as an example for future developers. Adrian sated, “We expect to use this protocol for the foreseeable future, through several generations of ASIC. If additions are needed, the protocol is very extensible.” Accordingly, any design work spent on HashFast’s protocol should be usable for several generations of products.


source: http://thegenesisblock.com/hashfash-announces-open-sourcing-bitcoin-mining-asic-interface-protocol/




Guugll Search


http://www.guugll.eu/hashfast-open-sources-bitcoin-asic/

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Mining 101 – Mining Pools

First of all, apologies for the delay in writing this article.


I’ve had a busy few days with some real life stuff that had to be taken care of, but today is my writing day, so expect some more good stuff to come during the day. It’s time to continue our Mining Lingo 101 series with the next part, discussing Mining Pools.


First off there are two types of mining pools: pushpool and p2pool. We will take a look at both of these, to discuss their differences. Please note that it’s hard to judge which pool system works better for you. You’ll have to do those calculations for yourself.


-Pushpool: I quote this from the official Bitcoin pushpool thread: “When a block or tx arrives, it is preferable to begin working immediately on the new work. From the server’s perspective, this is a classic data-broadcast problem, where the server wants to broadcast N different pieces of work to N miners. Hence, “push mining” where the server pushes new work pro-actively to the miner clients.


Okay, sounds great, but what does this mean for us miners, exactly? As soon as new block on the network is discovered, the pushpool script will force all miners to immediately switch over to mining the new block together. This will automatically make shares that are submitted too late, invalid. In your mining software, this may show up as ‘prevhash-stale’…


Pushpool is just a way to ensure that the new block’s data get sent out to all miners at the same time, to reduce the number of invalid shares and wasted mining efforts.


-P2Pool: P2Pool shares form a “sharechain” with each share referencing the previous share’s hash. The chain continuously regulates its target to keep generation around one share every thirty seconds.


That may sound like a bunch of gibberish to you, but I’ll try to make it understandable. P2Pool offers variable mining difficulty, thus allowing both big miners, and small miners, to mine effectively on a P2Pool server. This has it’s advantages as well as disadvantages.


As more people start mining on the P2Pool server, it will become harder for small time miners to find shares before a new block is detected on the network. Finding less shares also means smaller payouts.


The advantage, however, comes from the ability to finding more blocks when more miners join the P2Pool server. More hashing power usually results in more blocks in a shorter span of time. This allows several small payments to add up rather fast, giving you the same result as receiving one bigger payment after a longer period of time.


The main difference between pushpool and P2Pool is the time in between payouts. Pushpool users see their earnings increase within the first 5 minutes of mining on the server, whereas P2Pool miners will see their first payout after up to an hour. This is, of course, all dependent on the pool setup, as well as the hashing power on the pool.


When you connect to your mining pool of choice, you’ll notice that you will either get a getwork connection, or a stratum connection. It may be wise to explain those terms too, so let’s give it a shot :


-Getwork: Unfortunately, this is the slower of the two mining protocols. For a pool operator, it’s not the best choice to use getwork, as it requires a lot more resources on your pool server compared to Stratum. For the miners, getwork protocol requires more bandwidth, which may be a factor for some of us. Getwork connections may also cause a lot of invalid shares being submitted to the pool.


-Stratum: Nearly every mining pool out there uses Stratum these days. It’s more secure, it’s faster, requires far less pool resources, and generates almost no invalid shares for the miners. Stratum protocol also requires less bandwidth. Pretty much the best way to go, as a miner or pool operator, is with Stratum support.



source: http://majesti.co/cryptonerd/mining-lingo-101-mining-pools-part-1f/




Guugll Search


http://www.guugll.eu/mining-101-mining-pools/

Mining 101 : BAT Files

First off, let’s do a small tutorial on how to create a BAT file, without going into the details of the parameters or flags :


Step 1 : Open Notepad or a text editor


Step 2 : Add the following lines :


setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100


setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1


Step 3 : Add another line, pointing to the directory where your mining program is located. For example : C:\Cgminer-3.3.31-windows\cgminer.exe


Step 4 : Save the file.


Congratulations, you have created your BAT file. However, with just that line, I’m afraid not much will happen. I guess we had better look at the other parameters to include in your freshly created .bat file :


BAT File settings


-o : Allows you to add the server you wish to mine on. For solo mining, this will be “-o http://127.0.0.1: port number”. For example, the server name is mine-dgc.scryptmining.com on port 3338, using the stratum protocol. Therefor, I have to add “-o stratum+tcp://mine-dgc.scryptmining.com:3338″ to connect to my mining server.


In case your server does not run a stratum protocol, you can just connect with the regular “http://” in front of the server name , or IP address.


-u/-p : These simply stand for username and password (e.g. : jdebunt.1/x)


–scrypt : Has to be added if you are mining Scrypt coins. If you’re mining SHA-256, this is not required to get started.


–gpu-engine / –gpu-memclock : If you aren’t interested in pushing your card to the maximum, undervolting the card, or are just content to have it running at the standard settings, you can leave this out. These settings are intended for people who want to experiment with their mining speed. These settings are different for each GPU.


–thread-concurrency / –shaders : Once again, there are also settings intended for people who want to experiment with their mining speed, and they are different for every GPU.


We urge you to do some research on your GPUs brand and model to find the optimal settings for your card. Messing around with incorrect settings can lead to permanent damage of your GPU.


-I : The intensity setting for your GPU. The standard intensity will be determined once you run your .bat file for the first time. It is not required to add the intensity setting, unless you wish to experiment with mining speeds. Each GPU has a different optimal intensity setting.


-w : The worksize setting. This directly affects your mining speed, and is different for each GPU model out there. For high-end cards, this should usually be either 128 or 256. If you search for your GPU’s brand and model’s worksize, you’ll find the right answer.


-g : Sets the number of threads per GPU. The default setting is 2, which should work for most GPUs out there. It is not required to change this value unless you are noticing a very low hashrate in your miner’s window.


–lookup-gap : This is only required if you are mining Scrypt coins. Optimal value is usually 2, but may depend on your GPUs brand and/or model.


–auto-fan : This allows your GPU to automatically increase or decrease the fan speed required to keep the temperature down. We recommend putting this in all of your .bat files , as it is one less thing to worry about when fine tuning your settings.


–no-submit-stale : Disables submission of stale shares. A share becomes stale when it takes too long for your miner to submit the share to the pool or network. We recommend putting this in all of your .bat files to avoid as many invalid shares as possible.


WARNING : Experimenting with these settings can load to permanently damaging your GPU. Use these settings at your own risk.


There are plenty more settings you can include in a .bat file. Take a look at the official Github page for your mining software, or browse around on BitcoinTalk, where you’re guaranteed to find an answer to your questions.



source: http://majesti.co/cryptonerd/mining-lingo-101-bat-files-part-1e/




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Mining 101 : Mining Software

Most of the things you’ll see in the mining window are self-explanatory really.


I have taken the CGMiner window as an example, but I will cover the other mining programs in part 1D of this article. Let’s do a quick rundown of this program for kicks :


cgminer


- GPU 0/1/2/3/… : GPU 0 means there is 1 GPU. This number indicated the amount of GPU’s that are mining , minus one . Next to it on the right is the temperature your GPU is currently running at. Keeping this temperature around, or preferably below, 70°C is advised. (I am fully aware that my temperature is 73°C here, this is just for exemplary purposes)


- XXXX RPM : RPM stands for rotations per minute. This indicates how fast your GPU fans are spinning to keep the temperature down. For the longevity of your fans, it’s always a good idea to not let this number get to the maximum RPM available for your card. The maximum RPM can be found in your GPU’s manual. (For my card, this is around 3250)


- xxx.x K/xxx.x Kh/s : This value is your effective mining speed, for that GPU. Depending on the brand , model and type of your GPU, these numbers may vary. The xxx.x K part is your average mining speed for the past 5 seconds. The xxx.x Kh/s part is your average mining speed for the entire duration that your GPU has been mining without being interrupted.


- A/R/HW : Probably the most important part of your mining information. A stands for number of accepted (valid) submitted shares. R stands for rejected (invalid) submitted shares. HW stands for hardware errors. For GPU’s, this number should be 0, or as close to 0 as possible. If you see the HW number increase over time, you may need to check your mining settings, or your GPU itself to make sure there is no physical hardware failure.


- U : Indicates how many shares you are submitting per minute. Depending on the coin your are mining, and the pool you are on, this number can range anywhere from 0.1 to 100. This stat is just an indicator of the total amount of shares submitted : A + R + HW.


- I : The intensity setting for your GPU. This is a setting that can be different for all GPU’s you may have, even if they are the same brand and/or model. Playing around with this setting is important to get the best performance from your GPU.


The most part of your mining window will be filled up with general mining information as it happens : submitted shares (valid or invalid), new blocks being detected on the network, you yourself finding a block, pool restarts, etc. It’s important to keep an eye on this output as well, in case something goes wrong you will most likely find the reason why in that section.



source: http://majesti.co/cryptonerd/mining-lingo-101-mining-software-part-1c/




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Mining 101 – Mining Hardware - FPGA

FPGA : This is an acronym for field-programmable gate array. Not such a sexy name, so FPGA rolls a lot better off the tongue. What makes an FPGA so interesting, is the fact they have RAM blocks to implement complex digital computations. In layman terms, this means they are very well equipped for mining cryptocurrency.


FPGA’s were the next evolutionary step in mining SHA-256 coins. Packing a lot more punch than a regular GPU, FPGA’s could rival the mining speed of GPU farms, at a fraction of the power cost. As we discussed yesterday, an average GPU draws between 150 & 300W for mining, whereas a FPGA could increase hashing speed tenfold, and the power consumption would be about 25% of a GPU farm’s power consumption.


For those of you interested in a little history lesson, we’ll take a look at some of the FPGA models which paved the way for a new generation of hardware :


- Xilinx Spartan6-150 : These boards achieved a mining speed of about 200 to 220 MH/s per chip, and were priced competitively (at that time) at around $1 to $2.50 per MH/s.


- Icarus FPGA boards : An Icarus FPGA generates about ~360MH/s hashing power, with a 19.5W power consumption. .


800px-Icarus_Front


- Altera FPGA : Produced and used by Butterfly Labs, a company we’ll discuss a bit more later on in the ‘ASIC’ section of the article. Butterfly Labs sold their dual-FPGA 830 MH/s Single units for the very aggressive price of $600 (less than 75 cents per MH/s).


- ZTEX USB-FPGA Module 1.15y : This unit consists of four Spartan 6 XC6SLX150 FPGA’s , netting you a 860 MH/s hashing speed (on average).


KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA


- Butterfly Labs miniRig : a 25.2 GH/s mining device consisting of 17/18 boards with two Altera FPGAs each. The Altera FPGAs on the miniRig’s boards were more expensive chips than the ones on the Single’s board, operating between 650 and 750 MH/s each. These chips were known to cause a wide fluctuation in mining speeds, which many customers weren’t exactly thrilled with.


As you are all aware, technology is evolving at a very rapid pace over the last decade. This evolution also lead to some new developments in the crypto hardware world, and the application-specific integrated circuit ,or simply ASIC, was born.


The chip development resulted in smaller and smaller chips, meaning a lot more chips could be placed on a single mining board. This created many new possiblities, as several companies rivaled each other to bring out their ASIC devices for the SHA-256 mining community :


- Avalon : Avalon is the ASIC-based successor of the aforementioned FPGA-based Icarus device. The ASIC is a small, single-core, 110 nm chip. An Avalon rig consists of several hundred chips and achieves a hash rate of approximately 66 GH/s.


- Butterfly Labs : Several ASIC-based devices were announced : a 60 GH/s “SC Single”, as well as a 4.5 GH/s low-end product called “Jalapeno”, and a 1,500 GH/s high-end product called the “SC miniRig”.


In order not to jeopardize ongoing sales of FPGA-based mining devices, Butterfly Labs offered a trade-in-program where, upon the return of a BFL FPGA-based device, a customer would receive a full trade-in refund for a ASIC device purchase of twice the price, thus saving 50% of the ASIC-device’s purchase price.


- ASICminer : A few different devices have sprung forth from this company : a USB Block Eruptor, running at 300-330 MH/s and the Block Eruptor Blade , running at ~10GH/s each, are the most well-known devices from ASICminer.


Unfortunately, several of the companies mentioned above, as well as other companies have gotten some bad press lately because of delivery issues. The goal of this article is NOT to address or discuss this situation. More information about the delivery status of ASIC devices can be found on the BitcoinTalk Forums.



source: http://majesti.co/cryptonerd/mining-lingo-101-mining-hardware-part-1b/




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Mining 101 – Mining Hardware

Before you all get confused looks in your eyes, 1A means that we’ve decided, as your supreme overlords), that the Mining Hardware bit will be split into two parts. Part 1A will focus on GPU mining hardware, part 1B will focus on FPGA/ASIC mining hardware. Now close your mouth and keep reading this article!


- GPU : This may be the most obvious term, but for those of you who really have no idea what i’m talking about, GPU means Graphics Processing Unit. This is also known as “graphics card”. If you ever want to get into Cryptocoin mining, you will need a decent GPU, preferably a Radeon card. Nvidia works too, but they are just sub-par for these tasks.


- Fans : No, we are not talking about your horde of groupies here. Fans can be found on the front side of your GPU, where they regulate the GPU’s temperature by blowing hot air away from your GPU as best it can. The number of fans on your GPU is important, the more, the better. Well, the better for your temperatures at least, because more fans also means there will be more noise produced by your GPU. Depending on where your mining hardware is located, this can be more or less important to you.


nvidia vs amd


- PSU : This is a very critical factor when building a mining computer. I know that EVERY computer needs a power supply, but bear with me here. Mining Cryptocoins with GPU(‘s) requires a lot of power, about 150W-300W per card (depending on the card itself, the brand, and your mining settings of course).


When considering to equip your mining machine with multiple GPU’s, make sure you allot for the required power consumption , plus an extra buffer. Why a buffer? In case you want to expand your number of GPU’s, change your existing GPU’s for newer models, and just to be on the safe side. Power supplies never run at the full labelled wattage.


To make it very easy, and this is not correct for all models, assume your power supply runs at 85-90% of the wattage stated on the label. For example, a 900W power supply will run at approximately 765-810W. If your entire mining computer requires 800W, you might want to buy a 1000W+ power supply, just in case.


- PCI-E Slot : PCI-E stands for PCI-Express. A PCI-E slot can be found on the motherboard of your computer (see image below). When you decide to build your own mining computer, the number of PCI-E slots is important. The more PCI-E slots you have, the more GPU’s you can put in there without using special wires (see below).


PCI-E slot


PCI-E slots come in different forms : you have the standard PCI-E 1.0/1.1 slot, there is a PCI-E 2.0/2.1 slot, and there is the one we are most interested in : the PCI-E 3.0/3.1 slot. Why is the PCI-E 3.0/3.1 slot important, you wonder? This is taken from the official Wikipedia page: “The new interface would prove advantageous when used for general purpose computing with technologies like OpenCL, CUDA,…”.


Mining cryptocurrency with your GPU uses the OpenCL protocol, if you’re using a Radeon card, or CUDA protocol, if you’re using an Nvidia card.To get the most work out of your GPU, your PCI-E slot should be , preferably, a PCI-E 3.0/3.1 slot. However, a PCI-E 2.0/2.1 slot will still be sufficient, just try to avoid anything older than that, unless you really have no other choice.


Just to be complete : PCI-E 4.0 has been announced in 2011, As this is still being worked on, we do not expect to see the finalized specifications until 2014 or even 2015.


- (Un)powered Risers : This may not be a too common term to most of you, so I’ll do my best to explain this carefully. Relocating and increasing the spacing between graphics cards will dramatically improve cooling and reduce power consumption for mining computers. Using a powered PCI-E riser cable will also protect your motherboard from overdrawing power on it’s ATX power connector.


Let’s break that into a few smaller bits . First of all, you will only need riser cables when you are running two GPU’s or more. With just one GPU, there is no real point in using a powered riser, but it won’t affect performance if you actually use one. Also keep in mind that powered risers are meant to be used in mining computers which are not inside a regular computer case. But we’ll discuss this further below.


When using multiple GPU’s, the spacing in between your GPU’s is very important. If multiple cards are in close proximity to each other, you will have one GPU’s fans blowing hot air away from the GPU, onto the back of your other GPU, thus increasing the card’s temperature. The higher your GPU’s temperature, the bigger the risk of hardware failure, sooner or later.


When your GPU is plugged into your motherboard, the GPU will draw power through the PCI-E slot on your motherboard. When running just one GPU, this does not cause problems. However, once you’re running with multiple GPU’s, say for example, 4, you have 4 PCI-E slots where power is drawn from, which can in an unfortunate event, cause you to burn up your motherboard’s PCI-E connection(s), requiring you to purchase a new one at some point.


But how can these help with power drawing? It’s called a POWERED PCI-E riser for a reason. Powered meaning that it has a molex connector, allowing you to connect the riser cable to plug into your power supply, and directly draw power from there, instead of routing it through the PCI-E slot on your motherboard. Power supply’s are designed to deliver power to different components at the same time, so this will not cause any major problems with the power supply.


powered pci-e riser


There are also unpowered risers. The main difference between powered and unpowered risers is that unpowered risers can NOT be directly connected to your power supply. An unpowered riser will serve as a way to create more spacing in between GPU’s, but has no other advantages. Depending on your setup, these may or may not be useful to you.



source: http://majesti.co/cryptonerd/mining-lingo-101-mining-hardware-part-1a/




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