Shift (SHF), the First Altcoin Forked from Ethereum

1 Sep
2015

shift-shf-gui-wallet

The first alternative crypto currency that is based on the Ethereum code called Shift (SHF) has been launched and you can currently solo mine it if you are willing to check it out (source). Since Shift uses the same mining algorithm as Ethereum you can mine the coin using ethminer just like you will do with Ethereum, you can check our Quick Guide on Solo GPU Mining Ethereum on Windows if you need some help. The Shift client is based on geth (Go Ethereum Client) so it is pretty straightforward if you have used it for Ethereum already. The most notable difference with Shift is that they have launched a simple GUI wallet that works requires the shift client also working, but it makes things like knowing your balance and sending transactions much easier than just typing commands in the console. There are already pre-compiled binaries available for Windows and Linux for the client and the GUI wallet, so there is no need to compile from source to get things started.

Update: The first mining pool for Shift is now available – shift.suprnova.cc, pool mining is the same as for Ethereum – help on pool mining. There is also a basic block explorer for Shift (SHF) now also available that may come handy, even for quickly checking your balance when you have no direct access to a local wallet for example. The first crypto currency exchange that has added Shift (SHF) is Bleutrade.

– For more information about Shift (SHF) check the coins announcement thread…

BitMain AntMiner S7 Batch 1 Now Available for Pre-Order

31 Aug
2015

bitmain-antminer-s7

After the recent announcement of the new BitMain BM1385 ASIC chips for mining Bitcoin or other SHA-256 crypto currencies BitMain has started taking pre-orders for their first miner based on the new chips – the Antminer S7. The new BitMain Antminer S7 miner has a more dense configuration than previous Antminer machines, using 162 chips in the same space that the S5 used only 60 in. The S7 uses just 1210 watts of electricity to deliver 4.86 terahashes per second of mining power per unit, so specification wise the new miners looks very attractive, especially when compared to older hardware.

antminer-comparison-chart

BitMain AntMiner S7 Specifications:
1. Hash Rate: 4.86 TH/s ±5%
2. Power Consumption: 1210 W (at the wall, with APW3, 93% efficiency, 25C ambient temp)
3. Power Efficiency: 0.25 J/GH (at the wall, with APW3, 93% efficiency, 25°C ambient temp)
4. Rated Voltage: 12V+5%, should not be less than 12.0V
5. Chip quantity per unit: 162x BM1385
6. Dimensions: 301mm(L)*123mm(W)*155mm(H)
7. Cooling: 2x 12038 fan
8. Operating Temperature: 0 °C to 40 °C
9. Network Connection: Ethernet

You can get the new miner for $1823 USD or roughly 7.896 BTC with the current exchange rate. When you add a suitable power supply like the 1600W APW3-12-1600-B2 that Bitmain sells for $155 USD (0.671 BTC) and you factor in the cost of shipping and custom taxes, electricity and the slowly increasing network difficulty you are already looking in probably 8-9 months at least to get back what you have paid for the miner. So although specifications wise the device looks very good it is still slow to ROI in the current not so great for Bitcoin conditions, but then again this is probably the best Bitcoin mining hardware available to end users at the moment. You can already pre-order a BitMain AntMiner S7 from Batch 1 with expected shipping date announced as late September of 21~30 with a possible delay of up to 10 days extra.

Updated Ethminer 0.9.41 OpenCL and CUDA for Windows

31 Aug
2015

ethereumpool-statistics-hashrate

Since Ethereumpool has updated their Ethereum mining pool in a way that it requires the use of the latest version 0.9.41 of ethminer and we’ve got requests to post the latest version, we have prepared a package including ethminer 0.9.41 CUDA by Genoil (source) as well as the official ethminer 0.9.41 from the master branch (source) for Windows (64-bit is required!).

Do note that the CUDA version of the miner does support OpenCL mining as well and not only CUDA on Nvidia cards, the OpenCL support should function on both Nvidia and AMD GPUs. The ethminer 0.9.41 CUDA version is based on the new CUDA OpenCL PTX branch that requires at least Compute 3.5 capabilities from your Nvidia-based video card, so it may not work on older video cards. If you are having trouble running the new CUDA miner in CUDA mode on older Nvidia GPU you can revert to an older version or try using ethminer in OpenCL mode. Additionally to get better performance you can try adding the following command line parameters to the ethminer OpenCL and CUDA version:

For OpenCL: --cl-global-work 16384
For CUDA: --cuda-grid-size 8192 --cuda-block-size 128 --cuda-turbo

We have tested the two versions of ethminer version 0.9.41 and they both seem to work well as well as to report the actual hashrate you get when mining using the Ethereumpool mining pool regardless of what hashrate (difficulty) you set via the command line for running the miner software.

– To download the latest ethminer 0.9.41 for OpenCL and CUDA for Windows (64-bit only)…

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