Title: Cryptocoin Algorithm Comparison Post by: l8nit3 on September 12, 2015, 10:02:03 PM Hello all bitcointalk members! (specifically developers)
I am looking into some of the hashing algo's used in todays cryptocoins, and am hoping someone here can give me a bit more insight. Basically what i looking for is a few informed individuals who can give me some pro's and con's , aswell as personal opinions, on the different available algorithms. (Why they are good for cryptocoins specifically, whether they are "asic-resistant", etc) For the most part, im looking for answers from the developers point of view, however miners opinions are always usefull aswell! :) Algo's im specifically interested in: blake512, bmw512, groestl512, JH512, Keccak512, Skein512, Luffa512, Cubehash512, Shavite512, Simd512, Echo512, Hamsi512, Fugue512, Shabal512, Whirlpool. Aswell as each of their 256 counterparts. Other's of some interest: Blake2b, Scrypt-n, Scrypt-Jane. Any insight into these cryptographic algo's would be greatly appreciated. (a short laymans version is fine... no need for intense detail :) ) I am currently in the process of researching each of these myself... however tbh alot of what i've found is explained in a way that is far beyond my understanding. Title: Re: Cryptocoin Algorithm Comparison Post by: tromp on September 12, 2015, 10:54:51 PM I am looking into some of the hashing algo's used in todays cryptocoins, and am hoping someone here can give me a bit more insight. Basically what i looking for is a few informed individuals who can give me some pro's and con's , aswell as personal opinions, on the different available algorithms. (Why they are good for cryptocoins specifically, whether they are "asic-resistant", etc) You may want to read this article http://cryptorials.io/beyond-hashcash-proof-work-theres-mining-hashing/ explaining there's more to mining than hashing. Title: Re: Cryptocoin Algorithm Comparison Post by: l8nit3 on September 12, 2015, 11:23:32 PM Awesome thank you for the link, reading now
Title: Re: Cryptocoin Algorithm Comparison Post by: skeem on September 13, 2015, 05:07:43 AM it's not so important which algo, every one is exellent.
Title: Re: Cryptocoin Algorithm Comparison Post by: MaxDZ8 on September 13, 2015, 06:00:38 PM Most of the algorithms you have cited are SHA3 candidates. They can be better investigated at the SHA3 zoo (http://ehash.iaik.tugraz.at/wiki/The_SHA-3_Zoo) or WP:EN (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIST_hash_function_competition).
Most of them have no ASIC resistance while some are explicitly ASIC friendly. The 256 bit variation is not very relevant. The structure is basically the same for most of them and they are stronger or weaker as you would expect. My impression about some I have taken a look at:
The idea of scrypt is to accumulate various hashes (except they are not hashes: they are block ciphers, but that's not considerably different for the purpose of discussion) and use their effectively random bits to force memory usage. Because memory is slower than computation, they speculate this increases security as a brute force attack cannot access any faster architecture (memory is memory, and commercial RAM is rather efficient). If you ask a 'pure' cryptographer they'll tell you that this kind of approach is pretty weak compared to higher complexity functions or tuning parameters, or new designs. I even read a paper by Intel (I think) stating this. That's probably true in theory. In practice, high memory usage is the only thing that keeps ASICs at bay but due to some debatable decisions, ASICs for scrypt-1024 are viable. Scrypt-jane uses the structure of scrypt using different block ciphers (such as Blake). It is not considerably different. Scrypt-jane is really a framework to produce "variation" of scrypt as far as I've understood. Another few things you might have heard of...
Title: Re: Cryptocoin Algorithm Comparison Post by: l8nit3 on September 14, 2015, 11:14:28 PM Thank you so much MaxDZ8! Thats exactly what i was looking for! and with links for further research!
Your friend with a thing for Skein, does he happen to run a "pure", logarithmic skein coin lol? It's intriguing to me that each of the algo's that make up the 'x' series coins, " have no ASIC resistance while some are explicitly ASIC friendly." And yet each of these algo's combined into one chain seems to be somewhat 'asic-resistant', at least so far. It seems I have lots more to learn, thank you again for showing me where to get started :) Title: Re: Cryptocoin Algorithm Comparison Post by: tromp on September 14, 2015, 11:42:40 PM somewhat 'asic-resistant', at least so far. Asic resistance is not a temporal property. Scrypt was never particularly asic-resistant. And neither is X11. Everybody expects X11 ASICs to arrive sooner or later once it's profitable enough, e.g. once X11 coins exceed Litecoin in market-cap (which seems unlikely to ever happen). It would appear that many (dozens? hundreds?) MB of memory are needed to provide decent ASIC resistance. Ethereum's ethash, which requires 1GB for efficient mining, can be said to be pretty ASIC resistant. |