The sample scripts I've included are for Bitcoin and Litecoin, and show how this is done. In short, if we are mining BTC and the script decides to switch to LTC, litecoin.sh is run. The first thing that litecoin.sh does is close all instances of CGMiner using the CGMiner API. It then sets the clocks correctly for LTC mining, and only then does it spool up a new instance of CGminer, mining the desired coin, making sure that API access is enabled for future switching. Each script you write and use (i.e. beyond the litecoin.sh and bitcoin.sh files included) should do roughly the same thing.

What is CryptoSwitcher?
You've heard about these altcoins, and none have them have taken your fancy; you think they're all clones and destined to failure. You think BTC is the one true way, and are still mining it. The altcoins aren't useless to you. Many of them are more profitable to mine short-term than BTC if you just sell them at the market price.

How can I used it?
The source is available at https://github.com/area/CryptoSwitcher. Clone it, and then edit the cryptoswitcher.config.sample file as it instructs in the comments. If you wish to use BTC-E, you will need to edit the 'key.sample' file to contain your API key, and move it to 'key'. The README included should be a bit more comprehensive than the instructions here. If you already have scripts to start and stop mining, then setup should be easy for you.

How does it work?
The actual maths is done by the websites:

http://dustcoin.com/mining
http://coinchoose.com
http://fizzisist.com (Vanity address mining only - down at the moment?)

This is just a wrapper to use the above sites to pick the most appropriate mining activity for your hardware, and make sure that it's doing the right thing for you. It's written in Python, and uses scripts (which the end-user must write, in the language of their choice; some samples are included) to stop other miners and launch the appropriate one.

Isn't this a terrible idea?
Maybe. I honestly haven't decided whether coin-hopping is a bad thing long term. The consequences of wide-spread adoption that I can think of are:

• This would tie the value of all alt-coins to BTC.
• It would cause massive difficulty spikes as retargets happen, causing mining an alt-coin to become less profitable and hoppers to mine elsewhere. The dedicated miners on that coin are then left with a much higher difficulty than they should have, and struggle to find blocks. We have seen this happen already with TRC, which is still struggling to deal with the aftermath

The closest parallel to this I can think of is pool-hopping. However, pool-hopping eventually brought about good - nearly all hoppable pools eventually moved from proportional payouts to an unhoppable payout scheme (e.g. DGM), and pool hopping died as an art, despite the best efforts of P4Man and others. I feel like the same should happen here; if an alt-coin is unable to convince people of its merits such that it is mined regardless of profitability compared to mining the more accepted BTC - or is unable to deal with the consequences of not doing so - then perhaps it doesn't deserve to succeed.

I think this is probably the most contentious issue with this project, and is probably going to get worse as BTC difficulty continues to rise with the advent of ASICs, and people with outdated hardware look to put it to use. I welcome input on this particular aspect.

Features

• Support for both Dustcoin and Coinchoose, and all the coins they list (though only one site may be used at a time)
• Takes merged mining into account if you say its available
• Will automatically sell coins for BTC on BTC-E and/or Vircurex if you choose.

Todo

• Vircurex support
• Use both Dustcoin and Coinchoose at the same time?
• Use the CGMiner API to switch between coins with the same hashing algorithm in one CGminer instance. If a user were to allow remote API access, then this could in theory be provided as a service, without the user having to run the script themselves.
• Monitor miners for dead pools.

It's in, I'm just waiting for sal002 to sort out the LTC ratio on his JSON feed before I unleash a version that uses CoinChoose.

EDIT: Just realised this was probably directed at dust. www.coinchoose.com features BTE until dust includes it.

I'll make a thread in the next day or two when I feel like it's ready for that additional exposure . I'm currently working on introducing your JSON feed, as you have additional coins, as you point out. The JSON feed is reporting an absurdly high ratio for LTC mining though, and I don't know why; it's correctly displayed on the main site. I'm also massaging the code so that it's easier to add additional coins in the future.

The API I used was the one you can find at https://github.com/alanmcintyre/btce-api/ . I wrote a python API for bitcoinica many moons ago though, so maybe I can take a crack at it if I find the time.

Yup, many thanks. I received a second donation shortly afterwards, too.

I added support for BTC-e yesterday, and so there's now the ability to sell any alt-coins as they come in. It uses a Python API for BTC-E that someone else wrote, so if you get around to a fork you should just be able to replace the sellCoin function in the main script with one that uses the Cavirtex API. There doesn't seem to be a pre-made python API, sadly, so I think it's a case of rolling your own...

I totally missed your reply to my earlier question looking for JSON data. Sorry!


Yeah, I guess that's a pretty accurate description. Man, it's been a while since I've heard Bithopper discussed.

What I want to implement, but haven't managed to get to yet, is an option to use the btc-e API to sell all the altcoins for BTC as they come in from autopayouts from your pools, rather than having loads of altcoin sitting around that you mined in 'good faith' before someone decides to crash the altcoin.

Yup, that was super-obvious and I'm an idiot. Duly noted.

I've been working on something that switches between mining different crypto coins automatically based on what is profitable to mine at the moment, that uses this site for its information. I assume lots of other people have been doing the same, but not publicising it. I'm honestly not sure about the consequences of coin-hopping being done en-mass, especially after seeing what happened with Terracoin in the last few days.

I've already had it available for a little while, but I thought I'd publicise it a bit more now. It does require a lot of configuration on the user's part, but that's inevitable with something this complicated. Only tested on Linux - Windows users, you're on your own.

https://github.com/area/CryptoSwitcher

Input appreciated. And if anyone goes so far as to look at the code... I apologise!

Am I imagining things, or does the order of the coins change in the table?

Good catch. Interesting...

179W / 24 Ghash = 7.5W / Ghash

Avalon is 620 / 65 = 9.5W / Ghash

I would not call this "out perform[ing] any competing products by a very wide margin in terms of power", which was Josh's claim even with the power drain. Unless I've missed something...

That said, still excellent news for those with orders.

Bump.

6,695,826

Ouch!

Any chance of a way to get 'clean' data in a JSON format or similar for scripts?

As I was trying to make the bet, they removed it from the site. A shame!

You can still bet on the price at the end of 2017 though...

I realise this, and perhaps 'expect' was the wrong word to use here. I was just after some way of tracking how much has been 'recovered' since the fund announced it was closing other than looking at my relevant BTC address.

Woud it be possible to get the list of investors / holdings spreadsheet updated as these payouts happen so we can keep track of how much we might still expect to receive?

The second 'batch' of Batch 2 took a long time to sell out, on the order of several hours, even with everything going smoothly (with confirmation emails from both the store and BitPay).

The first 'batch' of Batch 2 was a comedy of errors, so hopefully they've learned from all that.

I also have to commend PatMan as a man of his word. We agreed on a price in BTC for the two cards, to be paid in two parts. Despite the value of BTC going from ~$33 to ~$47 in the time between the two payments, he did not renege on the deal - indeed, by the time of the second instalment, he probably could have found a 7970 new for the BTC, but stuck to our agreement.

I look forward to the opportunity to deal with PatMan again.

Ordering from the US, you're rolling the dice on being stung by VAT to the tune of 20% though.


PSU is in good condition and has been cleaned out with compressed air on a regular basis (every 2-3 months) for the nine months I've had it. It's boxed, and is supplied with all of the cables and manuals.

If you show me where from, I'll happily adjust my price accordingly.