FutureBit Project Apollo: Bringing ASIC Mining Back to the Home Miner

31 Aug
2018

An interesting new project from the developer of the FutureBit Moonlander and FutureBit Moonlander 2 USB Litecoin ASIC miners jstefanop called FutureBit Project Apollo. The new device called the FutureBit Apollo LTC is trying to be the world’s most efficient Scrypt ASIC miner, using WiFi and actually being silent… and if it is available at a good price point we are sold. It is targeted at home miners that want to get into mining and/or play around with ASIC miners and not large scale mining operations and mining farms, though it might be interesting for bigger miners as well thanks to the promising specifications announced.

FutureBit Apollo LTC miner Prototype Specifications:
– Compact Stand-alone Pod Style Miner (4x6x4in).
– Very wide range of operation modes with preset ECO (quiet) mode and TURBO mode.
– 100-140+ MH/s of Scrypt performance per miner.
– Industry leading 1W/MH in ECO mode, and 1.4W/MH for TURBO (100-200 watts).
– Powered by a fully integrated Quad-Core A7 ARM based controller.
– First miner to be fully controlled over wifi, only cable needed is power! (this will be a Beta feature on launch..backup ethernet port is available as well).
– Clocks and Voltage is fully customizable by user with easy to use interface (no more pots!).
– Industry leading 97% efficiency 12v power-stage, with 27 ASIC chips powered in a 3×9 parallel/serial power arrangement.
– Custom designed cold forged hexagonal pin heatsink with leading thermal performance for the quietest ASIC miner in operation!
– 2k-6k PWM High Static Pressure Dual Ball Bearing Fan with automatic thermal management with onboard temperature sensor.
– Controlled via local connection on a web browser similar to antminers. You can simply set it up via smartphone browser. No crazy driver installs, hard to use miner software or scripts needed.
– Two Six Pin PCIE power connectors for wide-range of power draw (only one is needed in ECO mode).
– New future platform features including full-node/peer to peer fully decentralize mining, full stand-alone solo mining, cloud/app based controls and more in development.

According to jstefanop the device is ready for mass production and it will be available in pre-order batches just like the previous Moonlanders. The first batch will be a VERY limited run (under 1k units) in order to fix any production issues with expected price range of $200-300 USD (it is not easy to beat large scale manufacturing in China) with better price and better efficiency. The first batch will probably be available for October delivery to people that pre-order the device in a first come first served basis. All of the initial sales for the Futurebit Apollo miner will be handled through the official Futurebit project website, though later batches will probably be available through resellers.

– For more details about the initial announcement of the FutureBit Project Apollo…

B is for Bitcoin, a Book About Bitcoin for Children

30 Aug
2018

“B is for Bitcoin” is an ABC book for children about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency written by Graeme Moore, and it’ll be available for purchase on Amazon in September. On the official website you can subscribe to get notified when the book is available for purchase. Could be a great way to educate children about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in an easy to understand way. This definitely marks another milestone in the history of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

– Visit the official book page for more details when it will become available…

lolMiner 0.43 AMD and Nvidia OpenCL Multi Equihash GPU Miner

30 Aug
2018

If you are mining any of the popular Equihash variants for GPU you might want to check the latest lolMiner 0.43 as it is an OpenCL miner for both AMD and Nvidia GPUs that supports Equihash 144.5 (ASF, BTG, BTCZ, LitecoinZ, HeptaCoin, Safecoin, Snowgem, ZEL), Equihash 96.5 (Minexcoin) and Equihash 192.7 (ZERO & SafeCash). The main feature of the latest version is the addition of support for the 192.7 algorithm used by oins such as Zero (ZER) and SafeCash (SCASH), there are of course multiple fixes and improvements applied as well. You can find the full changelog of the lolMiner 0.43 below. The lolMiner 0.43 is a closed source miner available wih binary only releases for Windows and Linux. Do note that there is also a built-in developer fee, Equihash 144.5 and 192.7 should have 2% fee and Equihash 96.5 is with 1% fee.

lolMiner 0.43 Changelog:
– Added 192/7 Algorithm (Zero and SafeCash)
– Added support for zergpool Equihash 144.5 auto profit switching
– Added switch to disable memory check ( This allows 144.5 and 192.7 mining on Nvidia 3G and 4G GPUs )
– Fixed support for open source Linux drivers
– Fixed a bug with miner not starting without config file
– Fixed a bug with miner not starting up (hanging in setup)
– Shortened the target printing to the first 16 characters
– Added some colors (very subdued )

– For more information and to download the latest lolMiner 0.43 OpenCL Equihash GPU miner…

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