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First Litecoin Block Reward Halving in About 8 Days
17, Aug 2015There is just a bit over a week before the first halving of the block reward of Litecoin (LTC) happens. In less than 5000 blocks or sometime on Tuesday, August 25th the block reward for LTC will go down from the current amount of 50 to 25 coins. This is the first block reward halving for Litecoin as the coin in planned to halve the reward every 840000 blocks, so it will not be the last one. If you are a miner you might be worried about the price and profitability of Litecoin (LTC) after the block reward halving occurs, though the Litecoin Association feels “it is critical to mention that the price of Litecoin (while exciting) is not paramount to the goal of what we are trying to achieve as a cryptocurrency”. They have even produced an educational video on it, you can watch the clip embedded in this article. If you are a miner that has invested in hardware and still needs to pay back for the hardware before starting to make profit, then an event such as the halving of the block reward cannot be overlooked. If the price of LTC remains at its current level when the halving occurs it will mean that you will be making half of what you are currently earning mining for Litecoin. This could mean that continuing to mine may not be profitable anymore when you add in the price of the electricity you need to pay for example. As a result of this some miners may stop mining and thus the difficulty will start to go down, or the price could go up and thing may balance out again in a couple of days after the halving occurs.
There is no way to actually predict what will happen, but we know that things will balance and the mining and usage of Litecoin will continue after the halving just as it has happened with Bitcoin already. There is still a concern about the future of Litecoin however and it is related to the mining process, as things have moved past GPU mining for LTC and we’ve moved to the ASIC mining period last year things were still progressing well. But we have not seen new ASIC mining hardware and the first generation of miners are already getting obsolete, so fewer miners are still mining LTC and not much new miners are starting to mine LTC (there are other Scrypt coins also). So the block reward halving is actually not a problem for the future of LTC, it is something that should actually help in resolving the issue with mining in one way or another. However as mining becomes more and more unprofitable for normal people mining LTC and only large mining farms remain things may not end up well for the crypto currency in the future if the situation with the lack of new mining hardware remains the same. This is already happening with Bitcoin and if Litecoin follows in its footsteps things may not end up so well with other new alternatives popping up such as Ethereum that can be mined by a regular users with a GPU.
What Bitcoin Cloud Mining Services We Are Using
4, Jul 2015
Time for an updated look on what cloud mining services are currently using, both older ones that have been available for quite some time as well as new ones that we’ve started checking out more recently. This quick overview will also cover some recent developments around the various services listed below that we are following. Also it seems that lately there is also a new alternative to traditional cloud mining that is gaining some interest from services such as HaoBTC or Bter that pay users interest based on deposited coins, interest that is generated by mining. These services offer lower profit over a longer term, but also the risk is lower than that of investing in a cloud mining operation. Also these services pay you interest on an hourly or daily basis and your deposited coins are not locked, so you can use them at any time you need them. Hashnest also tried something like an alternative to traditional cloud mining with their PACMiC offers, but their new v2 is not as attractive as their initial offer. But back to the traditional cloud mining services…
– Genesis Mining is the preferred Bitcoin cloud mining service in terms of transparency and reliability and we’ve been using it for about a year already. The company is open, their teams frequently take part in crypto currency events and they have published information on their mining operations including their hardware suppliers. Daily payouts, transparency, multiple ways to purchasing cloud mining hashrate, probably not the fastest ROI out there, but less riskier. Here is a special promotional code that you can use to get a 5% discount for hashrate purchases – CryptoMiningBlog5.
– ZeusHash is a bit controversial with their cloud mining offers over time that have been unprofitable, but with their more recent offers they seem to be doing much better. Their partnership with the large Halley China mining farm has allowed them to offer a good price for their cloud mining hashrate and their most recent offer for 30 day cloud mining contracts with the users getting back what they have paid initially plus what they have mined at the end of the contract was also an interesting opportunity.
– GigaHash is still one of the smaller Bitcoin cloud mining farms that we see a good opportunity for growth in. Started as a private mining investment and after that offering cloud mining services to broader audience with their mining farm expanding all the time, lately based on AntMiner S5 ASICs. Daily payouts, useful and clean custom interface, good and timely support when there are some kind of issues, so worth checking out even though we’ve started using the service more recently.
– Mining Sweden is another relatively new entry in the cloud mining scene, starting as a smaller mining operation with plans to grow with the help of its users. The service offers Mining Shares (currently sold out) that are only for cloud mining and VIP Shares that give you not only cloud mining hashrate, but percentage of the profits of the mining operation. The service also offers users to buy BitMain AntMiner S5 ASIC miners and have them hosted in their data center. Could be a good long term investment as things seem to be working pretty well so far. Here is an extra 10% discount code from the regular prices that you can use, just enter ms10 during checkout.
– HashFlare is another more recent service apparently operated by a bit controversial Bitcoin ASIC manufacturer. So far it seems that the service is working just fine and is paying out without any problems, but still you might want to be careful with larger investments just in case. If you want to try it out, here is a promo code for 5% off for purchases over 250 GHS – HF15SMMR5P2 or 20% off for purchases over 2500 GHS – HF15SMMR20P2.
– Eobot is a service that has been available for quite some time already, according to their website since 2013, but we’ve just recently decided to check it out and so far it seems everything seems to be running fine and as promised. Initially it did not consider their offers of much interest, but their GHS 2.0 Bitcoin cloud mining contracts do not seem so bad at the moment with the current market situation. They also do have some other interesting services such as Cloud Folding and their own mining pool, so you might want to take a look, just stay away from their mining app.
A bit of warning in the end, stay away from the Bitcoin Cloud Services as they have suddenly stopped paying about a month ago, but their website is still online and they are still “accepting” payments form new users that never get hashrate or any payment in return, so do not throw your coins there! Another service that has been available for quite a while called Scryptcc has also had trouble recently claiming to have been hacked and a few hundred Bitcoins stolen from them and although they have returned and seem to be back online we would advice to stay away from the service for the moment, as they have lowered the mining income users are getting in order to get back what was apparently stolen from them. Until they resume normal operation with normal mining rewards for their users we would advice to stay away from them.
SFARDS Technology has successfully developed and produced the first FD-SOI 28nm SHA-256 (Bitcoin) and Scrypt (Litecoin) dual-mode mining chip SF3301, as we have previously reported. After more than one month evaluating, prototyping, and extreme-condition pressure testing, the first 28nm dual-mode miner, SFARDS SF100 is about to start mass production.
SF100 dual-mode miner has 24 SF3301 chips that support the following modes:
1. Dual mining mode, Bitcoin hashing power 1700 GHS + Litecoin hashing power 47 MHS, the power consumption at wall of whole miner is 960W.
2. Bitcoin single mining mode: Hashing power 1700 GHS, power consumption 770W.
3. Litecoin single mining mode: Hashing power 47 MHS, power consumption 180W.
With 0.45W/GHS + 3.8W/MHS, the power efficiency of SF100 is showing really good potential. It is also possible to overclock to certain extent (Sha-256: 2 THS, Scrypt: 55 MHS). Based on recent Bitcoin and Litecoin price, a dual-mode SF100’s revenue is similat to that of a to a 2.8-3.2 THS pure Bitcoin miner, which makes it equivalent to 0.3-0.34W/GHS power efficiency when it is dual mining. Taking June 19th price for instance, one SF100 generates 4.2 USD from Bitcoin and 3.8 USD from Litecoin, or a total 8 USD per day (without the costs for electricity deducted).
SFARDS Technology will start selling the SF100 dual-miner to public in July, though there is still no official end-user price announced and the first batch quantity is limited. The SF3301 dual-miner ASIC chips will be available for sale on August to people interested in using them in their own miner designs, again no pricing has been announced yet.