A few days ago
Just before another amazing Cryptos bull run began.
Mining my own business
What to do with some left-over LINUX computers lying around, just taking up space. Wanted some energy efficient ones a few years ago. Already had installed LED lights everywhere, years ago, cutting electricity costs. Next step was giving up my beloved AMD WATT burning Power PC. Used it for multi-media work that needed some heavy computing strength. The rest of the computers here in the network could do with less. Although there would be some protests like: "Why LINUX!? Can it still run Minecraft and Sims?" Buying cheap elements and putting them together, install LINUX on them and hey presto! Very energy efficient computing power, 18 WATTs per hour. And with WINE and PlayOnLinux installed old Windows stuff did function too. For the rest there were the Microsoft licenses that could get Windows to work in a VirtualBox. Yes, yes, I know, not a word about mining Cryptocurrencies yet...
Well to be honest, ditching the AMD Panther with enormous calories burning Graphics card was good on the electricity bill. Replacing the whole network with 18 WATT AMD APU using PC's running LINUX was great. On the other hand it was a nightmare. And I'm not talking about getting XARA Xtreme Pro to work so I could work with it. Making some games work took some trial and error too, but I managed somehow, more or less. In the meantime there are two Windows 10 computers in our Network, burning those WATTs again. (Yes, yes, I know, mining's the word...Wait for it, wait for it...) While I now have the luxury of three AMD APU based PC's, that are easy on the WATTs usage. Even when running all three at a time it still does not consume more than 54 WATTs. Hm, now what to do with that sea of opportunities? YES, there it is, EUREKA, mine them Cryptocurrencies like in them good oal' AMD Panther days! Rock 'n Roll baby, yeah!
Pool mining, but at a severe loss...
First of all I wanted to update Slothcoin {SLOTH} (Stop laughing, it is a real Crypto). And then mine some SLOTH again, just for the fun of it. At some point I had hundreds of millions of them. But at such a low value it did not matter that much. Had given away most of it. All good fun. Slothcoin uses the so called 'Keccak' algorithm (became the new official SHA3) for finding new SLOTH. Back in 2014 it was still easy to join in with only a couple of Mega Hashes {MH/s} per second. When I look at the current amount of total hashing power in the network for Slothcoin I can see that it is at 7 Giga Hashes. Things have changed, quite a bit, in just a couple of years time. That is not going to get my 18 WATT AMD APU's anywhere. One can get to about 7 MH/s. That is a chance of a one in a thousand to be able to find a Slothcoin block, giving me 4321 SLOTH as a reward. No idea what a SLOTH pays these days, and I was too lazy to look it up. So just for the fun of it then? Just wasting some Kilo Watts per Hour {KW/h}? What a shame.
Then I decided to look at some mining-pool that would not force me to register first. And I ended up at NLpool dot NL, close to home. Trying to find some Algorithm(s) {short: Algo} that even the 18 WATT using AMD APUs could be useful for. One thing that I like about a mining-pool like NLpool is that I can mine any Algo and have it payed out in any Cryptocurrency that I want (that is to be supported by NLpool, of course). There is a build in on-the-fly exchange, giving a huge advantage, up to 30% better than on an external one. So, I made my choice for a mining-pool, yet what kind of Algo could still be useful? Mining 'keccak', SMARTcoin and MAXcoin, could be done, in a rather disappointing way. No need to even try and calculate how much 'profit' there might be, as there is only a loss. Electricity is very expensive where I live, so basically it is just for supporting some Cryptocurrency networks. The only thing that could work was an Algo that was not dominated by GPUs, FPGAs and or ASICs, yet. But was there any at all?
YeS crypt, CoinOmi to me!
There was something that caught my eye. An algorithm that with a name called 'YEScrypt'. It could well be that even my slow computers would be able to mine some of it. Turned out that I needed to compile the source software for a CPUminer first. On the Lubuntu 18:04 that was a piece of cake, on the not yet updated other two PC's I still have to build it. Anyway using only one CPU core, of the 2 available, I actually got results. Shares accepted, many at a 100%. Then I decided to switch over to the even more heavy version of YEScrypt. They are very memory hungry, with YEScrypt32 even taking it to the limit. Yet, to my pleasant surprise it did work out too! Switching over to 2 cores gave more results but also heated up the CPU too much, so I kept it at one. Now, what to have it payed out in? Some Cryptos have a certain payout trigger at the NLpool, that my 'mining-farm' (LOL) probably is never ever going to reach. Lowering my goal, just want at least some idea that it worked in some way. And so it became Myriad Coin. They really flew in like magic in my CoinOmi wallet. Okay, only a very few so far.
Thus the most exciting thing that I found out about is the HD CoinOmi Cryptocurrency wallet now supports almost all known platforms. Android (Smartphone and -tablet), Iphone/ Itablet and Desktop systems like Mac, Windows and Linux. And you can use the same 12 words for all these CoinOmi HD wallets, on all your systems. Personally I use different ones for all installations. The support of different Cryptos is huge and it also supports Ethereum Tokens. Plus it also has two build in exchanges. This is absolutely my favorite Multi Crypto HD Wallet. And it supports Myriad Coin too. That is now HODLing a huge 3 XMY {Myriad Coin} in pocket. Okay, it is worth shait, but did not Bitcoin {BTC} start out that low? And look where it is today! This may proof to be one of the smartest things I did, or just a complete waste of time. Yes, but in the proces I learned a lot again, kept up with things concerning Crypto Mining at a pool and so on. Also if you do have a tough PC with a lot of CPU cores, running at say 3 GHz? You might give mining YEScrypt (normal or 8|16|32) a shot. If you manage to pump out 10 KH/s or more, using the CPUminer, it could really earn you some serious Cryptos. At over a 100 KH/s (using YEScrypt) you really will kick some serious mining rear-end-of-a-donkey.
Well I may not be getting me some serious payout in Myriad, but at least I HODLed some serious business Cryptos. The sun is shining, bit chill still, but I am enjoying the current Bullrun!
Have a great one!
Mining cryptos, so far...
Image license CC0
- NLpool : https://nlpool.nl
- CoinOmi: https://coinomi.com
- Myriad Coin: https://www.myriadcoin.org/
- Litebit Exchange: https://www.litebit.eu/en/sell/myriadcoin
- CPUminer: https://github.com/JayDDee/cpuminer-opt/releases
PS This is an original blog-item written for Steem and I am not affiliated to any of the sites/projects mentioned.