Shift Cryptosecurity BitBox02 Swiss Crypto Hardware Wallets

25 Oct
2019

Shift Cryptosecurity is a Switzerland-based company that is making harwdare crypto wallets called BitBox. Their latest model called BitBox02 is available in two versions, a Bitcoin (BTC) only edition as well as Multi edition that supports altcoins such as Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum (ETH) as well as ERC-20 tokens with both available for 109 CHF (Swiss Francs) or pretty much around $109 USD. The BitBox02 – Multi edition hardware wallet plugs directly to a USB port (Type-C by default or with an adapter for Type-A) and can also be used as a second factor authenticator (FIDO compliant U2F) to secure your accounts on Google, Facebook, Dropbox, GitHub and others. Backups are automatically saved onto the complimentary microSD card and the BIP-39 mnemonic seed can optionally be displayed to copy to paper. The device features an OLED display and invisible touch sensors for navigation (tap, slide and hold gestures).

The device is powered by an ATSAMD51J20A microcontroller (120 MHz 32-bit Cortex-M4F) with True Random Number Generator (NIST SP 800-22 and Diehard Random Tests Suites) and a secure chip ATECC608A with True Random Number Generator (NIST SP 800-90A/B/C). The companion software you need to use with the hardware wallet is called BitBoxApp and it is available for Windows, Linux and MAC OS operating systems. On the video above you can see the device in action, plugged in at a computer, the touch navigation along with the software it uses.

– For more information about the Shift Cryptosecurity BitBox02 hardware crypto wallets…

Mining the Bismuth (BIS) Python-Based Blockchain Project

24 Oct
2019

Bismuth (BIS) is apparently the first Python blockchain based around modularity and efficiency with ready-made decentralized applications. It is a project that has been available since 2017, but is not yet very popular with a sum 1 million USD market capitalization and a very low trading volume at the moment, so it might be worth digging a bit more about it. BIS uses a custom Proof-of-Work algorithm plus HyperNodes (PoS implementation), so it ban bi mined using GPUs and you can also stake coins that you have mined as well. The mining reward is dropping however and is scheduled to drop to 0 at block 7,100,000 (there is still time before that happens) and then it will become PoS only.

There are a few exchanges trading BIS, though thy are mostly smaller ones and a number of mining pools available. Do note that there is a GPU miner available for both AMD and Nvidia, with performance apparently scalling well from lower-end to higher-end GPUs. Every pool however uses its own dedicated miner, so you need to firs select a pool and then download the miner they have available. You can check out BIS Pool, EggPool and Noncepool if you are interested in mining. Nvidia miners will probably be more interested, especially with higher-end GPUs like the GTX 1080 Ti than AMD owners of RX 480/580. Bismuth (BIS) coins can be traded on the Graviex and qTrade crypto exchanges.

– If you are interested in checking out the Bismuth (BIS) Python-based crypto project…

Gulden (NLG) has Switched to a New CPU-friendly PoW Algorithm

20 Oct
2019

The Gulden (NLG) crypto project, an older one available for a few years already originally based on Scrypt Proof of Work algorithm, has switched the mining algorithm. Their new PoW algorithm targeted at CPU mining is called SIGMA and is designed to be ASIC/GPU resistant. The goal of the algorithm switch is to also attract new miners and users for the project as there hasn’t been much development for Scrypt mining for quite some time and mining hasn’t been largely become unattractive for a lot of users not having ASICs and cheap electricity.

SIGMA or Semi Iterated Global Memory Argon is a new and unique algorithm developed for NLG. The algorithm is designed to require more memory, making it impractical for implementation by ASICs rising the price, but not entirely impossible. It is also complicated to make fast hashing parallel on GPUs to achieve much faster performance than on CPU, so CPU mining for now is the only option for mining Gulden coins. It seems that CPU mining is getting a lot more attention lately with RandomX as well and other algorithms like SIGMA.

Moving back to CPU mining means that everyone with a low, or mid to high-end CPU will be able to mine new NLG coins, for the moment there is no pool mining for SIGMA and NLG. Mining is SOLO and done through the official local wallet, so for mining you need to download the latest version and you need to update it anyway if you had some Gulden coins stored in a wallet prior the fork. So make sure you update to the latest available version as there have been some fixes in the last few days after the fork happened on October 16th that fix issues. If you need a good crypto exchange where to trade NLG coins you can head on to Bittrex.

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