Bitcoin Core Version 0.11.0 Has Been Released

13 Jul
2015

bitcoin-core-v-11

A new major Bitcoin Core version 0.11.0 is now available for download bringing both new features and bug fixes, so it is recommended to upgrade to it if you are running a full Bitcoin node or a local Bitcoin Core wallet. This release also addresses the recent issues with the network being flooded with low-fee transactions resulting in slow processing time of Bitcoin transactions. Now you can change a few configuration options to work around this issue and more robust solutions are being worked on for a follow-up release.

Among the notable changes is the Block file pruning that allows running a fully validating node without maintaining a copy of the raw block and undo data on disk which is good for running a full node with more limited space, but does not work with local wallets yet. Block pruning allows Bitcoin Core to delete the raw block and undo data once it’s been validated and used to build the databases. Experimental support for big-endian CPU architectures was added in this release. There have been many changes in this release to reduce the default memory usage of a node. This release also improves the algorithm used for fee estimation.

– For the list of new features with additional details about the Bitcoin Core 0.11.0 release…

Litecoin is Still on the Rise, Testing $8 USD

9 Jul
2015

litecoin-price-on-the-rise

The exchange price of Litecoin (LTC) is still on the rise with the alternative crypto currency already testing the $8 USD target and this has caused a lot of speculation about the reasons behind this recent rise. Some people say it could be due to the recent high load on the Bitcoin blockchain and transactions processing slow due to a lot of unconfirmed ones in the backlog. Other say the reason could be just another pump and dump scheme by a big player with a lot of coins. Another plausible possibility is due to the upcoming fist halving of the LTC reward at the end of August, or the unfavorable situation in Greece at the moment or that on the issues with the China stock markets and the list goes on and on…

Regardless of the reason behind the jump in the exchange rate it is already causing increased demand for Scrypt ASIC miners and services offering Scrypt cloud mining, however nowadays these are scarce and had to find. The best thing you can probably get at the moment is an Innosilicon A2 Scrypt ASIC miner at a discounted price if you manage to find yourself a good deal for a SilverFish Scrypt Blade miner. With Bitmain Tech and ZeusMiner canceling their Scrypt ASIC projects last year (maybe they can restart them if the trend continues) and KnCMiner stopping to sell their Titan Scrypt ASICs and any other ASIC miners to end users there is just one new interesting option coming up. The new SFARDS SF100 Dual-Miner ASICs that are supposed to be available later this month, though SFARDS is still keeping silent about their pricing and expected availability is said to be July.

In the end it is good that we are finally seeing some movement surrounding LTC along with some other Scrypt crypto currencies as nothing much has been happening around Litecoin in the last few months, so the recent price jump and revived interest is definitely a good thing for people that are into altcoins. Especially now that Bitcoin mining is moving away from home miners and more and more towards large mining farms, whereas Scrypt mining is still at a phase where it is still focused mostly in the hands of small mining operations. So we are keeping a close eye on the development around Litecoin and so should you…

Updated Windows Binary of the ccMiner 1.5.54-git Fork by SP for Maxwell

8 Jul
2015

ccminer-1-5-54-git-spmod

Time for a new Windows binary release compiled from the latest Git source code of the ccMiner 1.5.54-git SP-MOD fork of the Nvidia GPU miner optimized for the latest Maxwell-based video cards by SP (source). The new updates are mostly focused around the improved djm34 Lyra2RE performance code that was made available, so his work is integrated and further small increase in performance is also achieved with additional optimizations. We are seeing around 150 KHS performance increase with the default settings on the GTX 980 and GTX 980 Ti GPUs over the djm34 release, on slower GPUs the performance increase is lower. Do note that this 54 release may have some issue with local wallet mining as it appears we are having some trouble with that, so if you do experience a problem you should go back to the 53 release that works properly at least for us. The SP-MOD fork of ccMiner is designed for Nvidia Maxwell GPUs such as the already available GTX 750, 750 Ti as well as the newer GTX 960, GTX 970, GTX 980 and GTX 980 Ti and GTX Titan X. The Windows binary release we have made available here is with support for Compute 5.0 and Compute 5.2 GPUs or with other words only for Maxwell-based cards compiled with CUDA 6.5 and VS2013.

– To download the latest ccMiner for Maxwell version 1.5.54-git by SP for Windows OS…

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