Topic: [Answered]Can you use Bitcoin ASIC hardware to mine SHA256 alt-coins? - page 2. (Read 10064 times)
August 26, 2013, 10:55:59 AM
Sorry to bump a slightly old thread, but on this topic when we see all the ASICs coming online and some people (n00bs) only mining BTC rather than some of the other altcoins the OP mentioned. Will the SHA256 based altcoins profitability rise compared to BTC as the BTC difficulty increases?
August 07, 2013, 12:57:15 PM
Yes. On those days when mining PPC is more profitable than mining BTC I switch over my ASIC USB. I'm hoping for a time when we can mine scrypt coins with ASIC.
Regardless of what else happens, you will never be able to mine scrypt coins with your current SHA-256 ASIC.
Scrypt ASICs may be developed, but they will do scrypt and nothing else, just like your USB thing does SHA-256 and nothing else.
August 07, 2013, 12:51:55 PM
Yes. On those days when mining PPC is more profitable than mining BTC I switch over my ASIC USB. I'm hoping for a time when we can mine scrypt coins with ASIC.
July 26, 2013, 03:37:15 PM
If I had a BFL Single right now, could I mine at a PPcoin pool using cgminer?
Yes.
July 26, 2013, 03:36:09 PM
If I had a BFL Single right now, could I mine at a PPcoin pool using cgminer? It sounds like GPUs are useless for mining SHA256 coins now.
July 26, 2013, 03:31:28 PM
Yes. Technically there is no such thing as a "Bitcoin" ASIC. The ASIC has no idea what it is hashing. You give it a blob of data, it adds a nonce to it, hashes it and checks to see if it meets a target. It then increments the nonce and tries again. When it gets to the last nonce is starts over.
Anything that uses the same hashing algorithm can be mined with a "Bitcoin ASIC. If the coin is merge mine capable (i.e. namecoin) you can mine both Bitcoin AND that alt-coin simultaneously.
As for FPGA & Scrypt based coins. Not at this time. In theory you could however someone would need to develop an efficient firmware and nobody has yet. It also probably would require a larger FPGA chip than the SpartanIV because the version of scrypt used in altcoins requries 128KB of cache as a scratchpad.
Anything that uses the same hashing algorithm can be mined with a "Bitcoin ASIC. If the coin is merge mine capable (i.e. namecoin) you can mine both Bitcoin AND that alt-coin simultaneously.
As for FPGA & Scrypt based coins. Not at this time. In theory you could however someone would need to develop an efficient firmware and nobody has yet. It also probably would require a larger FPGA chip than the SpartanIV because the version of scrypt used in altcoins requries 128KB of cache as a scratchpad.
July 26, 2013, 03:27:32 PM
Title says it all.
Namecoin, Terracoin, PPcoin, and a few others use SHA-256. Couldn ASIC devices (Avalon, BFL, etc) that are used to mine Bitcoins be used to mine other SHA256 based coins? Could you just use a BFL Single and have Cgminer point at a PPcoin pool to start mining away?
Like wise, could FPGAs used to mine Litecoin be used for other Scrypt coins?
Jan 24th 2014 EDIT:
Thanks guys!
But this sort of a necro thread everyone's been posting in. If you check the timestamp, I originally asked the question back in July 2013. This was when BFL started shipping their units and people started to receive some of the very first (SHA-256) ASIC miners. There was lots of questions and speculation back then, but it has mostly since become common knowledge.
Again, thanks for your answers and help. But this thread is getting kind of old...
Namecoin, Terracoin, PPcoin, and a few others use SHA-256. Couldn ASIC devices (Avalon, BFL, etc) that are used to mine Bitcoins be used to mine other SHA256 based coins? Could you just use a BFL Single and have Cgminer point at a PPcoin pool to start mining away?
Like wise, could FPGAs used to mine Litecoin be used for other Scrypt coins?
Jan 24th 2014 EDIT:
Thanks guys!
But this sort of a necro thread everyone's been posting in. If you check the timestamp, I originally asked the question back in July 2013. This was when BFL started shipping their units and people started to receive some of the very first (SHA-256) ASIC miners. There was lots of questions and speculation back then, but it has mostly since become common knowledge.
Again, thanks for your answers and help. But this thread is getting kind of old...
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