2 GH/s PCI-E Lokotech Hashblade Scrypt ASICs Now Up for Pre-Order

10 Nov
2023

The next generation of Scrypt mining performance and efficiency comes from Lokotech, a Norwegian company, that has opened pre-orders for their Lokotech Hashblade Scrypt ASIC boards offering about 2 GH/s mining hashrate at just 145 Watts of power (about 0.0726 J/MH) and the mining boards come in the form of PCI-E cards. The device comes in the form of a PCI-E x1 board with 128 pieces of the S1 ASICs mounted on it, air or immersion cooled and powered by 2x 6/8-pin PCI-E power connectors, communication with the computer is done either over PCI-E x1 or USB cable. And now for the most important question – the price – it is currently set at $1999 USD per board for the just opened pre-orders with shipping expected in the second half of 2024. Lokotech is also offering for pre-order a complete mining system with 10 of their Hashblades inside giving you around 20 GH/s hashrate with around 1750 Watts of power usage, also shipping in the second half of 2024 with a price tag of $20199 USD.

We haven’t seen much of development from other already known manufacturers of Scrypt ASIC miners for a while now, so maybe Lokotech will help a bit in moving and shaking that space as well with their upcoming release that offers better hashrate and power efficiency. So, if you pre-order now it will be more than half a year before you get your mining hardware and you should have that in mind as a lot can and will probably happen next year in the crypto world. Some of you might know that earlier this year we’ve had another Litecoin (LTC) halving with the block reward going down from 12.5 LTC to 6.25 LTC and the next halving will be in 4 more years, so that is a while before mining profitability for LTC goes down significantly due to another halving. Then there is the merged mining of LTC and DOGE, so this is probably what most people will point their Scrypt miners at anyway, but then again you will also have the option to mine other alternative Scrypt-based crypto coins as well.

– For more information about the preorder of Lokotech’s Scrypt ASIC miners…

Using the Motorola Moto G Stylus (2021) Smartphone for Mining VerusCoin (VRSC)

30 Oct
2023

A quick look at the possible use of the Motorola Moto G Stylus (2021) smartphone for mining VerusCoin (VRSC) because of the great offer currently running on Amazon for Tracfone Motorola moto g Stylus (2020), 128GB, Gray – Prepaid Smartphone (Locked) available for just $49.99 USD. Do note that although the product page says 2020 model you are getting the slightly upgraded 2021 version instead (model XT2115DL). The Moto G Stylus is a large 6.8-inch smartphone powered by a Qualcomm SDM678 Snapdragon 678 (11 nm) chipset that has an 8-core processor (2x 2.2 GHz Kryo 460 Gold and 6x 1.7 GHz Kryo 460 Silver CPU cores), 128GB flash memory and 4GB RAM. It is a killer deal specifications wise for that price, so using the device for crypto mining (it is a locked phone!) does sound like a pretty reasonable idea, but the big question is what will be the performance it will offer for mining. It does even come with a charger in the package and not just a USB-C power cable.

The Motorola Moto G Stylus (2021) is a 64-bit hardware with 64-bit software, so good for mining. One thing to note on this model is that you need to have the SIM card inside the device during the initial phone initialization and then you can remove it, most other locked smartphones from Tracfone normally do not require the card to be in for the device initialization. The device itself does not have problems after the initial initialization and there is no need to have active Tracfone phone plan if you are going to use it for crypto mining. So, what about the hashrate that the Moto G Stylus 2021 can provide for mining VRSC? Well, it is very good at about 4 MH/s, slightly faster than what Samsung Galaxy A03s can provide. The drawback here from the larger display and the more powerful hardware – increased power usage compared to other smartphones we have tested such as the A03s for instance. Measuring the power consumption at the wall while the device is mining shows around 3.7 Watts, so efficiency wise not the greatest even though the performance itself is not bad.

Using the Samsung Galaxy A03s Smartphone for VerusCoin (VRSC) Mining

28 Oct
2023

One of the most popular and affordable smartphones to get if you are interested in crypto mining VerusCoin (VRSC) is the Samsung Galaxy A03s that is also easier to find and also widely available as a locked phone with some no-contract operators at great prices (you can use it for mining without activating a SIM card and getting a phone plan). With a regular price in the $50 USD range for locked phones available on Amazon from Tracfone, Total by Verizon and Simple Mobile and often going for as low as $30 USD when in promotion like it was for the Amazon Prime Day for example it is great way to get it for even less. It is definitely a great device to get you started with mobile crypto mining or if you want to give it a try before deciding should you get into it anyway, offering decent performance with a low power usage and with a killer promo price if you manage to snag a good deal. So, let us see what can you expect from the Samsung Galaxy A03s if you are interested in mining VRSC…

The Samsung Galaxy A03s has been launched in 2021 as a lower-end device with Android 11 operating system (updates to Android 13 are currently available) and decent hardware inside, though nothing too fancy. The device uses Mediatek MT6765 Helio P35 (12nm) chipset and has an 8-core ARM processor inside (4x 2.35 GHz Cortex-A53 and 4x 1.8 GHz Cortex-A53 cores), uses USB Type-C 2.0 interface that supports up to 15W charging and has a 5000 mAh non-removable battery inside. The model we have from Tracfone is with 3GB RAM and 32GB storage, though there are apparently other variations with different memory amount, so make sure to check which one you are getting. The device has a 64-bit processor and an operating system running in 64-bit, unlike some other smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy A13 5G that are simply no good for use as crypto mining devices at all. Considering the price point for locked A03S devices and the specs you are getting they actually do make a lot of sense to be used for VRSC mining, especially when you take a look at the performance numbers and power usage as well.

What about the most important thing here, namely the performance you can expect from the Galaxy A03s? Well, it is really great for a smartphone you can get for $50 USD or even $30 USD at times… of course if you are getting a Samsung Galaxy A03s that is not locked to a specific mobile operator it will cost you more, but you don’t need unlocked smartphone to mine with it if it is the only thing you are going to be doing with it. The average hashrate when mining VerusCoin (VRSC) with the Galaxy A03s is around 3.6 MH/s with a power usage of around 2.6 Watts measured at the wall (using Userland and ccminer, a bit slower when using VerusMiner), so damn good performance and very power efficient device. Not the fastest out there, however the price you can get it at is really the best thing here and for that price the performance is surprisingly good… almost makes you start thinking along the way of actually building a smartphone mining farm, though going for large scale mining with smartphones does present some unique challenges that still need to be addressed. You might also want to check out the Alcatel TCL A3 and TCL A3X Smartphones as they can offer similar performance for a lower or similar price point as the Samsung Galaxy A03s, although these devices do come with their own specifics as well, so make sure to check our review.

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