[ANN][BLC] Blakecoin Blake-256 for GPU/FPGA With Merged Mined Pools Stable Net

[BlueDragon747]

can someone tell me how is the owner of www.blakecoinpool.org or at least post his email address. My account is locked, and there is no contact given on the support page.

pm kr105 he is running that pool
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=12229

thank you very much

no problem

kr105 is from Chile so might be some time zone issues, let me know if you are still having problems and I can try contacting him too, he is a cool guy just not that easy to contact

[bzyzny]

Bluedragon, can you please update the cgminer link on blakecoin.org? I was telling my friend about blc but he couldn't get mining working since he'd downloaded the outdated version on the website. I know the correct version Is in the first post of this thread, but not everyone will realise that, thanks.

Also I was wondering how that wallet update is going. Do you have a rough outline of your future goals for Blakecoin development? I would like to see Linux binaries for the GPU cgminer on the first post, I have not had success compiling it and prefer to mine on Linux, as I'm sure many others would too. It would be much appreciated.

[BlueDragon747]

Bluedragon, can you please update the cgminer link on blakecoin.org? I was telling my friend about blc but he couldn't get mining working since he'd downloaded the outdated version on the website. I know the correct version Is in the first post of this thread, but not everyone will realise that, thanks.

Also I was wondering how that wallet update is going. Do you have a rough outline of your future goals for Blakecoin development? I would like to see Linux binaries for the GPU cgminer on the first post, I have not had success compiling it and prefer to mine on Linux, as I'm sure many others would too. It would be much appreciated.

same link on OP as on Blakecoin.org

I made a note next to the older cgminer version by melnikalex to make it more clear you should download the pool version by kr105 which is latest for GPU

mingw + boost 1.55 has issues with bootstrap.bat on windows so I am still working on that    

I have not looked into compiling binaries for the GPU cgminer on Linux and if I did it would be for ubuntu 12.04 only would that be ok?

currently I have plans to release another pool in New York but getting the pool code stable first and updated on github, also need to retest my setup/run scripts for Eliopool on ubuntu 12.04 and release those on github

the main website is getting merged with a block explorer on a new server but that has taken longer than planed due to other stuff

[hal7]

Did you see Skeincoin thread? They're probably going on cryptsy soon... Skeincoin is nearly same as Blakecoin, but has no FPGA support. And that's at least one point more for Blakecoin. Do more advertise on your local country forums. I've done that already...

BR

[BlueDragon747]

Did you see Skeincoin thread? They're probably going on cryptsy soon... Skeincoin is nearly same as Blakecoin, but has no FPGA support. And that's at least one point more for Blakecoin. Do more advertise on your local country forums. I've done that already...

BR

7950 184MH/s Skeincoin
7950 2.04GH/s Blakecoin

power inefficient compared with Blake-256!

SHA-256 is faster and more power efficient than Skein  

you are most welcome to ask BigVern how a coin gets on cryptsy  

"Do more advertise"
if I get the time I always try but not easy

 

[bzyzny]

Bluedragon, thanks for the status update I'm glad to hear you are making steady progress. I'm not sure which link exactly my friend downloaded cgminer from but it was version 3.3.1-yac2 (he's got the right one working now), but thanks for making a note to clarify. I think if u compile cgminer on Ubuntu 12.04 that would be pretty widely compatible, I'm on 64bit linux. On another note, this looks very interesting: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=31813471

I wish I was skilled at coding so I could help with this kind of stuff, but do you think this would be possible to implement in blakecoin? It would be awesome feature

[Calhil]

Oh, come on. This is not one of those pump and dump coins. Blakecoin is actually innovative and has a completely different hashing algorithm than the other common clones. If shitty coins like ftc or trc made it to a major exchange this one will as well. Just give it some time and enjoy low mining competition in the meanwhile ;]

[luffy]

Oh, come on. This is not one of those pump and dump coins. Blakecoin is actually innovative and has a completely different hashing algorithm than the other common clones. If shitty coins like ftc or trc made it to a major exchange this one will as well. Just give it some time and enjoy low mining competition in the meanwhile ;]

exactly. innovative coins don't need exchanges. they have value just because they are unique
amazing blockchain and hashing speed! vgas are cool&quiet. lower electricity costs longer vga lives!

[TmottaDing]

To get coin on cryptsy people need to request Big Vern to add coin, requests can go to info@cryptsy.com. or can be added to forum discussion at https://cryptsy.freshdesk.com/support/discussions

[BlueDragon747]

To get coin on cryptsy people need to request Big Vern to add coin, requests can go to info@cryptsy.com. or can be added to forum discussion at https://cryptsy.freshdesk.com/support/discussions

In a perfect world this would be the way to get coins listed on cryptsy but I think you will find there is more to it than that

[bzyzny]

Perhaps we could round up a few thousand blc to give to bigvern as a thank you for adding blc to cryptsy ;-). I could contribute 500blc. But I dont think we should hurry. I think its best we make sure there a few more pools, iron out any bugs, and generally prepare more since the added attention from getting on an exchange will test our infrastructure. I'm not a coder but am quite technically knowledgeable and am eager to help where I can. Perhaps by writing some documentation, any suggestions?

[BlueDragon747]

Perhaps we could round up a few thousand blc to give to bigvern as a thank you for adding blc to cryptsy ;-). I could contribute 500blc. But I dont think we should hurry. I think its best we make sure there a few more pools, iron out any bugs, and generally prepare more since the added attention from getting on an exchange will test our infrastructure. I'm not a coder but am quite technically knowledgeable and am eager to help where I can. Perhaps by writing some documentation, any suggestions?

I think you will find entry fees gifts are in BTC not BLC  

I will stick to my list of tasks above and not worry about exchanges atm, thanks for everyone's support  

any how to guides or other doc's are most welcome I get little time to do any documentation for Blakecoin so it would help  

[Calhil]

7950 184MH/s Skeincoin
7950 2.04GH/s Blakecoin

power inefficient compared with Blake-256!

SHA-256 is faster and more power efficient than Skein  

you are most welcome to ask BigVern how a coin gets on cryptsy  

"Do more advertise"
if I get the time I always try but not easy

I think energy efficiency argument is bullshit. It doesnt matter if the whole network is hashing with 1KH/s or 100TH/s. Changing difficulty will ensure that blocks are found at the same rate in both cases.

[BlueDragon747]

7950 184MH/s Skeincoin
7950 2.04GH/s Blakecoin

power inefficient compared with Blake-256!

SHA-256 is faster and more power efficient than Skein  

you are most welcome to ask BigVern how a coin gets on cryptsy  

"Do more advertise"
if I get the time I always try but not easy

I think energy efficiency argument is bullshit. It doesnt matter if the whole network is hashing with 1KH/s or 100TH/s. Changing difficulty will ensure that blocks are found at the same rate in both cases.

it does matter but it does not effect block time which is the limiter on coins produced per day/hour etc.

if Blake-256 gets as popular as Scrypt then it will make a huge difference to cost and power usage

From my own tests on Blake with my GPU rigs show they draw less power from the wall than either scrypt or sha-256 for the same mining process, this also effects fan noise and heat output!

here in the UK electric is expensive ~15 pence per kWh, so energy efficiency of the algorithm is a very important factor and so is cycles per byte as efficiency of the hashing algorithm directly relates to operations per second, silicon space and power usage *This is a Fact! and a fundamental principle!, this is not the case with resistance or memory hard algorithm's which claim a lot but often fail to deliver e.g Litecoin/Scrypt *Which started the GPU/FPGA/ASIC resistant, slow algo myth

GPU Only Rig3+Rig4 Results(shared power meter at wall):

• Blakecoin = 1876W avg
• Bitcoin = 1932w avg
• Litecoin = 2139W avg

so if we ignore difficulty and reward, Blakecoin is ~14% more power efficient than Litecoin for the same rigs! and if we factor in that Blakecoin is merge mine capable then it would be orders of magnitude more power efficient each coin we could merge mine!

so my rough calculations for power usage over a year on these GPU rigs looks something like this:
Litecoin ~ £2802.95
Blakecoin ~ £2458.31

now multiply that by all the rigs using GPU and Mining Scrypt based coins you are talking a LOT of power/money wasted!

energy efficiency on the FPGA with Blake-256 is awesome, doing about 2x the hashing compared with SHA-256 for the same power usage, same would be true if Blake had an Asic (faster, cheaper, more power efficient to run)

higher hash rate means that a bruteforce guess has more chances of finding that needle in a hay stack if the diff goes high due to a pump/spike.

the larger the set (hashrate) the greater the probability of finding a random guess for any difficulty hence why Scrypt based coins get stuck so much in pumps as you still need to get to the retarget

Quote from wikipedia:
"In probability theory, the law of large numbers (LLN) is a theorem that describes the result of performing the same experiment a large number of times. According to the law, the average of the results obtained from a large number of trials should be close to the expected value, and will tend to become closer as more trials are performed. The LLN is important because it "guarantees" stable long-term results for the averages of random events."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers

• block find is the random event in mining

this is the type of search mining is doing if you wanted to do the maths for exact numbers:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_process
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergence_of_random_variables

this is also useful:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_distribution

the only reason a miner joins a pool is for better average payouts due to higher hash rate and better block find average's  

[rupy]

@BlueDragon747 @kramble Works, I'm mining! The leds don't blink The leds do blink and the pool is reporting ~1GH/s... but the heatsinks are completely cold... this is my command:

cgminer.exe -T --ztex-clock 128:128 --disable-gpu -o stratum+tcp://eu1.blakecoin.com:3334 --userpass XXX:YYY 2>log.txt

What should the --ztex-clock be?

[kramble]

What should the --ztex-clock be?

Whatever gives you the best hash rate Its supposed to be managed automatically (at least in the bitcoin version), but doesn't work very well for blakecoin so I added the --ztex-clock parameter. I suggest you try setting it to say --ztex-clock 120:148 and monitor it to see where it settles, then use that value (or maybe dial it back slightly).

The reason I recommend setting min and max to the same value for production use, is that the automatic management will occasionally go haywire, so it seems better to fix it. The cgminer ztex driver is just buggy. Don't worry too much about HW errors at the device level as these are counted differently to other fpga/gpus.

[rupy]

But can I damage the chips by setting it to 250Mhz f.ex?

I have extreme cooling, so heat is not a problem. My worry is breaking the chips...

How do I monitor where it settles?

[kramble]

But can I damage the chips by setting it to 250Mhz f.ex?
I have extreme cooling, so heat is not a problem. My worry is breaking the chips...
How do I monitor where it settles?

Overheating is the only thing that will damage them, so as long as they stay cool you should be OK. Blakecoin does not stress the FPGAs as much as bitcoin mining (which really means there is likely scope for considerable performance improvement given the attention of an expert coder rather than my amateur efforts). I wouldn't try 250MHz though as its way too fast for this bitstream (the CM1 bitstream will run this fast, but that's due to a different internal divider ratio, in both cases the internal core is only running at around 60Mhz or so). Oh BUM, I just realized this is scrypt I've been thinking of. Blakecoin runs faster (cgminer README). You'll probably be able to get it up to around 180Mhz or so (README). So try --ztex-clock 160:200 with the v03 bitstream and see how it copes.

Cgminer will display the current clock speed per device, and the logfile will mark the clock speed changes. You should see the clock speed ramping up, roughly one 4MHz step every few minutes, until HW errors start increasing, at which point it will back off a step. Its this speed that you should then hardwire into the startup script (it may be slightly different for each device)

(edited rather a lot, hope it vaguely makes some sense now)

[teknohog]

From my own tests on Blake with my GPU rigs show they draw less power from the wall than either scrypt or sha-256 for the same mining process, this also effects fan noise and heat output!

Doesn't this just mean that the GPU code has plenty of room for optimization? (If the code is already well optimized, you could at least run the GPU at a higher frequency.)

I agree on the statistical points, and I like the idea of an FPGA/ASIC friendly function vs. artificially complicated ones that end up wasting more power. However, I don't see how the efficiency can be meaningfully compared between different functions.

[Calhil]

Did anyone try to mine blakecoin with an nvidia gpu? Im wondering what hashrates can one get compared to a similarly priced amd cards.