Bitcoin Forum

Apologies for probably a stupid question, new to this.

Am I correct in understanding that most mining software (claymore/CGminer/CPUminer) can mine most coins and it is in fact the algorithms embedded in the software responsible for the mining and the coins you can mine actually depend on what pool you are connected to?

For example, if I wanted to mine Litecoin for a few days and then switch to Dogecoin, would it be a case of just switching pools on the software, or an entirely different miner version entirely?

Thank you in advance.

There isn't really a standard on this. Different software can run different algorithms, and therefore mine different coins. Some software can work with a wide range of algorithms, while others work with just one.

For example, Claymore makes separate ethereum (ethash algorithm) and zcash (equihash) miners. ccminer and sgminer can work with a ton of different algorithms.

Some miners are meant for CPU mining, some are for AMD cards, some are for nvidia cards, and some do both types of GPUs.

Most that do a particular algorithm can work with multiple coins. I use Claymore's ethereum miner to mine ETH, ETC and MUSICOIN. I use EWBF's miner to mine zcash, zclassic, zen and hush. When it's the same algorithm, you generally just pick the pool for a particular coin you want. Sometimes you need to tweak options to make it work properly (like Claymore's, with the -allpools and -allcoins options when mining something other than ethereum).

You might want to check out miningpoolhub, as they have many pools and many coins, and do auto-switching between them.

Finally, you definitely don't want to try mining litecoin or dogecoin, at least not with CPU or GPU.

Hope this helps.

Awesome,

Thank you for such an in depth reply! I have been searching all evening trying to pin down the answer to this question. Thank you for being so informative and clear, I really do appreciate it.