Hi, thank you for the great guide.

I'm learning a lot, although I'm getting stuck on genesis block creation.  I changed the PoW to Keccak and added DGWv3 for retargeting, and it seems fine when I leave out the new PoW.

As I understand  it (or not?)  the genesis block can start with any type of hash, then a new algo can kick in and build on that to generate new blocks.  So I could I think generate a nice easy genesis block with good tools, then fire up the keccak miner and keep going.  I could be mistaken here.

I'm using nasa8x's Node genesis creation tool.

Code:

https://github.com/nasa8x/genesis-block

Code:

I have -z "A new keccak coin for 2020 16/Jan/2020"
-t 1579064710
-b 0x1d00ffff
-p "04678afdb0fe5548271967f1a67130b7105cd6a828e03909a67962e0ea1f61deb649f6bc3f4cef38c4f35504e51ec112de5c384df7ba0b8d578a4c702b6bf11d5f" (as for Bitcoin)

I run it:

Code:

james@instance-1:~/node-genesis-block$ node genesis.js -a keccak -t 1579064710 -z "A new keccak coin for 2020 16/Jan/2020" -b 0x1d00ffff -p "04678afdb0fe5548271967f1a67130b7105cd6a828e03909a67962e0ea1f61deb649f6bc3f4cef38c4f35504e51ec112de5c384df7ba0b8d578a4c702b6bf11d5f"

Outputs:

Code:

james@instance-1:~/node-genesis-block$ node genesis.js -a keccak -t 1579064710 -z "A new keccak coin for 2020 16/Jan/2020" -b 0x1d00ffff -p "04678afdb0fe5548271967f1a67130b7105cd6a828e03909a67962e0ea1f61deb649f6bc3f4cef38c4f35504e51ec112de5c384df7ba0b8d578a4c702b6bf11d5f"
---------------
algorithm: keccak
pzTimestamp: A new keccak coin for 2020 16/Jan/2020
pubkey: 04678afdb0fe5548271967f1a67130b7105cd6a828e03909a67962e0ea1f61deb649f6bc3f4cef38c4f35504e51ec112de5c384df7ba0b8d578a4c702b6bf11d5f
bits: 486604799
time: 1579064710
merkle root hash: fa86c79aebc5f75f44c2d7d9c5e0c14ce68157025ac7416f94931e38c1bf09c9
Searching for genesis hash...
nonce: 791176
genesis hash: 00000975f631f9dc89623c62e197175a1c722237dc0e0ff582824fca0c4b29be
james@instance-1:~/node-genesis-block$ 

But no luck, whatever I do assertions fail:

Code:

james@instance-1:~/bitcoin$ bitcoind -daemon
bitcoind: chainparams.cpp:161: CMainParams::CMainParams(): Assertion `consensus.hashGenesisBlock == uint256S("0x00000975f631f9dc89623c62e197175a1c722237dc0e0ff582824fca0c4b29be")' failed.
Aborted (core dumped)
james@instance-1:~/bitcoin$ 

A little puzzling at the moment, I thought these genesis block creations tools worked quite well.  Or at least, they used to; I used the same author's Genesis H0 tool before using the Node script.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what the problem might be?
Thank you good sirs!

I've mined with a few ASICs before, which was nice and easy.  I find GPU mining a bit more difficult, for lack of coins and software.  For instance I can't modify an old Bitcoin release and use an old Bitcoin GPU miner to experiment with (or any coin that uses same proof of work).

GPUs should be quite flexible (still) if not profitable.  I'm fascinated with the subject and would like to learn a bit more, so after changing the proof of work in some version of Bitcoin, I could try and verify it with GPU mining software.

Maybe if there's a good keccak/something else GPU miner, I could rip out SHA256d and try that out.  Not sure what GPU mining software is flexible enough to handle a lot of algorithms though. Can anyone recommend a good GPU miner?

Thanks

Hi there,

I'm looking for some miners, L3+ or S9s or others.  Scrypt or SHA256d.  For scrypt I'm also looking at Moonlanders and Apollo (FutureBit), I will consider USB sticks like the GekkoScience NewPac SHA256d, for USB sticks I would prefer a suitable power board as well.

I'm looking to test new coins using Bitcoin and Litecoin PoW so none of these have to be profitable, I just need some hashpower.

I'm looking to reduce shipping costs so prefer if you have the machine(s) in Australia.

Can buy with BTC or instant bank transfer (Osko/PayID) for Australia.

Thanks

Ever tried to get an altcoin going?

So after trying to understand the latest source of Bitcoin and Litecoin etc., and finding it really difficult, and taking the Cryptocurrency course and much more, I used shakezula's guides on cloning Bitcoin and the scrypt guide and got OzCoin up and running.  It's crap of course, but worth the effort.  Frustrating even with Shakezula's excellent work when I messed stuff up, or when I was going for too long like I had and forgot simple things like port forwarding, VPS rules for OzCoin's port (1337) and forgetting -connect, lol, and wondering why there were no connections.  Phew.

So here was the initial post, in the wrong place under altcoin mining. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2539709.0

Cheers

Edit: sorry, this should have been posted to announcements or discussion.  What happens when you've been awake for 30 hours or so ...

Hello,

For all those frustrated and trying to get their altcoins going, and especially to my Strayan friends, OzCoin is up and running with a big thanks to shakezula's excellent guides on early Bitcoin and Litecoin work, and the scrypt guide which was essential along with the cloning Bitcoin guide.

So I have a node on a VPS and a GUI version on a laptop both mining and validating the chain and stuff.  I started it with the story about the ACCC investigating Google and Facebook's impact on news media and put that in my pszTimestamp.  Lots more Googling when it failed at first because the timestamp was too long initially

Here's a screenshot I took earlier on a laptop:

http://13.75.144.108/screenshot.png  (going away soon if it gets too many hits...)

If you're trying to get up and running, or want the source to play with, I'll stick it on github.  Note this is a research and educational project so please don't mine the hell out of it to begin with  Can't take it seriously with port number 1337... it will change later.  And it's definitely not going out there as a real coin project.  Gives me some time to wrap my head around it all and merge in security and feature patches and get binaries happening for different platforms, make it compile with MingW or Cygwin and get a simple Android wallet going, things like that, and a nifty block explorer.

So, if you like creating coins and want to get in touch with others who have struggled past the initial hurdles please get in touch.  We could help each other out and keep documenting changes and merging in patches and running software tests and getting testnets up and humming.

Most of all have fun.  This has been super frustrating but worth every effort

Hello all,

especially to fans of building alt-coin projects and trying to get research or educational coins up and running.


After finding the genesis block, a new one for SMC, how can mining be started?  Is it necessary to start some transactions (how?) and get them in the pool, then work on them to solve a block and mine new SMC coins?  This is starting a new SMC blockchain.  I've googled for a few days and I can't figure it out.

Has anyone used it recently?


Thanks!

Has anyone ever made a decent amount of Satoshi, e.g. 0.1 BTC, just by going to places that give out Satoshi and using those awful ad-apps that promise free coins?

What have been your experiences if you have, was it worth it for some Satoshi?

They all sound really scammy to me, and offer so few Satoshi that I wonder if anyone can ever withdraw it to a wallet, but I don't know.

Aside, if anyone's ever used BitMiner.io, what do you think of that?

Favourite faucets anyone if you use them?  I mean those that give them out rather than putting some in and waiting to turn it into more later.

Hello,

I'm looking for an AntMiner USB device to mine some Satoshis with, someone in Australia or willing to ship to Australia.

I'd like an AntMiner U1 USB that can still do about 1.6Ghash/sec.  I will consider others that do mhash's/sec.  Must be reasonably easy to use, with guides on the Web and able to work with cgminer or other readily available software I can compile on Linux or Windows.

Thanks.

Hello,

I'm looking for an ASIC for mining (for BTC or LTC, doesn't matter) suitable for a beginning miner.  Nothing too much that needs lots of power to start with, maybe something that needs only one good PSU if such a thing exists (like hooking up a power hungry desktop PC).

Anything considered as long as it works and is reasonably easy to use.  Maybe a Gekko Science USB miner or similar?

Might consider an older AntMiner

Thanks very much

This probably sounds like a stupid question, but I can't find an answer I understand yet. 

How does a mining pool know you've done work and contributed to the pool for shares?  If I mine 2000 Satoshi per day, in a pool, as I understand it, I've done some work and I'm rewarded with Satoshis which are paid out when I hit 5000 Satoshi.  But, what prevents me from saying I've done more work than I really have?  I take it that it's not possible to craft some network traffic to send to the pool which says I've crunched X hashes when I've really done nothing;  I suppose you have to send some proof.  Does the pool check in a specific way to make sure you really have done the work given to you for mining?  (I'm not even sure if a pool gives you work to do; is it up to you to calculate as much as possible then call getwork() or something like that to keep going?)

Thanks for any clarification.

I have rented some compute power to try out some mining, mostly on AWS but also Linode, and three laptops at home. I'm using cpuminer. I have six miners going at a total of about 800 khash/sec (this is in a pool at litecoinpool.org). I would try solo mining, Bitcoin or Litecoin, but I know I need specialised ASICs like AntMiners, is that right? Are older ones being sold on eBay for $100 to $300 a good way to try it out before dropping a few thousand dollars on new mining hardware?

I was thinking on the possibility of finding a block, or a probability, but I take it that would be difficult to compute because of the competitive lottery - is it that the more firepower you have to crunch those hashes, the more probability you have of finding a candidate block that has a relationship to the "target" whatever that is?

I've tried to read the Bitcoin source and looked at slow but more educational mining software to try and understand it a bit more, but not sure if I'm really getting it. I'd like to write a pseduocode algorithm and implement my own toy miner and just see if I can get it to work. If I can explain the mining process for Litecoin and Bitcoin at a conceptual and technical level, I'd be happy with my mining experience. I don't expect to make anything unless I go for some mining hardware later on.

I think in Bitcoin (I'm also trying to find a reasonable comparison to adjust for Litecoin) what happens is that the miner collects some pending transactions in the order they arrive on the network into a pool, and selects some so that if a block is found it won't be too large, is that roughly why the debate about a solution to the 1MB hard limit is going on?

So the mining software creates a block maybe from a template, and calculates the merkle root of the transcations from the pending pool, including a coinbase among the transactions. The header in the new candidate block contains a version number, the hash of the previous block on the blockchain, the merkle root of the coinbase + pending transactions, the current timestamp (is it updated every time a computation is done?), the target (from getdifficulty()?), and a nonce.

New block to try and add to blockchain:
--> Version
--> Hash previous block
--> Merkle root of pending transactions and coinbase
--> timestamp
--> bits (current target)
--> nonce

... and to try and find a new block, the miner iterates over this new blockheader, updating the nonce until it fails (rejected by network? someone found it first?) or until sha256(sha256( new blockheader )) < target? If not found, increment nonce, (adjust timestamp?), and try double hashing again until either it fails or succeeds.

If that's correct, is mining Litecoin roughly the same thing but scrypt is added after hashing? I'm not entirely sure what the Litecoin Wiki is saying about the use of scrypt. Example code uses sha256, but near the end it seems to be saying that miners concatenate the hex strings in little or big endian, then use the scrypt parameters N = 1024, r = p = 1, and 80 bytes from previous block header which is fed to scrypt, then checked against the target.

So far I haven't found a clear explanation of what exactly is going on with mining. I take it that a miner gets the latest block from a full node with the entire block chain, and queries some daemon for the current difficulty/target, and the daemon supplies it with some pending transactions, and then the computation is done, which is broadcast to the network if candidate_block < target.

Aside from that, when I join a pool such as litecoinpool.org and put in about 850khash/sec. and make around 0.001774308936 LTC /day, I can see it will take quite a long time to get a litecoin if the pool mines a block. Otherwise I can get a litecoin every now and then if I just keep going with some work like this, although it doesn't seem worth it at all unless I have something like an Antminer (or several of them) for Litecoin.  Not sure about Bitcoin, it seems that is just going to be far too difficult and I wouldn't be able to afford a few of the latest AntMiners to get even with the purchase later on if I actually find some blocks.  Maybe it's the same for Litecoin...

Thanks if anyone can answer quesitons, and wants to keep up the discussion on being new to mining, and especially the algorithms for mining and exactly what happens to mine a new block.