Posts Tagged ‘XMR fork’

Monero (XMR) Has Successfully Switched to RandomX CPU Mining

1, Dec 2019

The expected hard fork of Monero (XMR) happened without issues and now the mining part is being done with CPUs (mostly) using the RandomX mining algorithm as opposed to CryptoNight R that was mostly GPU mined prior the fork. Currently the hashrate of the Monero network is around 500 MH/s with XMR drawing a lot of CPU mining resources from other crypto projects that were already unprofitable to mine anyway, so as a direct consequence some of these might become interesting for mining again with the focus on Monero. The big question at the moment is where all the GPU mining power that was focused on Monero will go now as these were mostly AMD mining GPUs, so most likely other CryptoNight-based projects will have to deal with the extra computing power. After checking a few of the more popular CryptoNight-based projects we don’t yet see big jumps in terms of hashrate after the fork of Monero, and that could easily mean that XMR already had a lot of “free” CPU mining going on even on the old CryptoNight R algorithm.

With the current network hashrate of about 500 MH/s the estimated daily coins you can mine with a single AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU that has about 6 KH/s of hashrate on stock settings is around 0.019 XMR at the moment or a bit over $1 USD if you exchange it for fiat at the current rate. This is better than we could get with the same CPU mining other RandomX coins yesterday. It is about double than mining LOKI yesterday, which was the most profitable one using the RandomXL algorithm, today however things also look different for LOKI as the mined equivalent is actually more profitable than Monero at $1.28 USD with the current difficulty after the outflow of hashrate to XMR. ArQmA (ARQ) is also up almost double in terms of mined equivalent in USD, and WoWnero doesn’t seem to be much affected in any way, remaining the least attractive of the RandomX crypto pack.

One Day Left Until Monero (XMR) Hardfork to RandomX

29, Nov 2019

Monero (XMR) will be hardforking tomorrow, November 30th, at block number 1978433. The fork will change the current CryptoNight R algorithm for mining to the new Random X PoW algorithm, essentially moving the mining of the coin to CPU. There are already a few RandomX miners out there that you can use, links below, and although some f them also support AMD or Nvidia GPUs, you would probably want to stick to CPU mining with RandomX as the algorithm is optimized for processors and GPU mining performance is far to low currently to be considered. Also as already noted AMD’s Ryzen 3000 series of processors is doing great for Random X and performance wise it is much better than recent Intel alternatives.

Another important thing to note regarding the upcoming for is if you are mining directly to an exchange using a paymentID. Since after the fork support for PaymentIDs will be discontinued, in order to continue successfully mining after the network update you need to also update your mining address. Alternatively you can just update to the latest v0.15.0.1 wallet and use a local wallet address for mining after the fork. For an up to date pools for mining XMR you can check the list at MiningPoolStats, they should all be ready for the fork by now.

Mining software with RandomX support:
– XMRig 5.0.0
– SRBMiner-MULTI 0.1.7
– XMR-STAK-RX 1.0.0

Monero (XMR) to Hardfork to the RandomX Algorithm on November 30th

27, Sep 2019

Monero (XMR) will be once more changing its PoW algorithm for mining in an effort to attract regular miners CPU/GPU miners and drive away FPGA/ASIC miners. Testing on the private RandomX testnet has concluded successfully and RandomX PoW mining will move to public testing on the XMR testnet later today. There is quite some time left before the fork happens though, it is scheduled for block 1978433 that should hit sometime on November 30th, so there is time for you to get familiar with the new RandomX algorithm by then. If you are interested in checking out the performance of your CPUs, then you might want to check the official RandomX Benchmark app (link for download below). There is also a not so optimized OpenCL miner available that works on both AMD and Nvidia GPUs available as well, though performance might be disappointing compared to that of higher-end CPUs at this point.

It is interesting to note that the RandomX algorithm apparently favors CPU mining due to its design even GPUs might not do so well initially with it, though we are probably going to see better optimized GPUs miners soon enough. All in all this might make CPU mining attractive to miners around the fork date, though there are other factors to take into account as well, so we will have to wait and see. AMD’s Ryzen CPUs are doing particularly good in the initial benchmarks of the RandomX algorithm as it is already being used by the new project Epic Cash (EPIC). You can see that the AMD Ryzen 9 3900X is doing particularly good in terms of performance with its big number of cores and low power consumption, though it is also an expensive and still hard to find product.

– To download the RandomX Benchmark CPU app (Windows and Linux)…
– To download the XMRig CPU miner with RandomX support (Windows and Linux)…
– To download the RandomX OpenCL GPU miner (Windows only)…


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