Topic: [noob] dual/merged mining ? (Read 464 times)

Ah, I must have looked at an incomplete list. Thanks for pointing that out.

According to whattomine Zcash, Hush, Zclassic, Komodo and Zencash use the Equihash algorithm.

The big pairs are BTC/NMC and Litecoin/Dogecoin, neither of which would work well for CPU/GPU mining at this point.

https://mergemining.com/ lists some other coins that can be mined alongside BTC.

I haven't yet seen anything that can be merged-mined with Ethereum, but I haven't looked too hard since my graphics cards don't meet the memory requirements for Ethereum anyways. I also haven't seen any coins besides Zcash that use the Equihash algorithm, so Zcash is alone in that respect for now.

Thank your very much for the explanation. Which coins are known for merged mining then ? Is there a spreadsheet or something  ?

You can dual mine any coins if the hardware supports both of them individually. This may or may not produce better overall results than mining only one of them. The simplest version of dual mining just involves running two separate mining programs, one for each coin, and having them utilize the same hardware. This reduces hashrates for both.

Claymore has developed dual-mining software that supports ETH and one other supported cryptocurrency. His thread is also in this subforum: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/claymores-dual-ethereum-amdnvidia-gpu-miner-v150-windowslinux-1433925


Merged mining is a special case, where work done towards mining on one blockchain is "reused" on the other in a way that results in minimal performance decrease when mining either coin. (This obviously isn't a super in-depth explanation, but I think it'll suffice for what you're looking for.)

Back on the Eclipse MC pool a long time ago, Bitcoin and Namecoin were often merged mined together.
In order for merged mining to be possible, the two coins do need to use the same algorithm for mining. However, that alone doesn't guarantee merged mining can be done. Since you're relatively new to mining, if you're really interested in merged-mining, try to find a pair of cryptocurrencies that are widely known for supporting merged-mining, rather than trying to pick and choose two individual currencies that meet all the exact conditions necessary for it. (Still no guarantees that a pair you find would be more profitable than only mining an entirely different currency. For example, merged mining Bitcoin and Namecoin on a CPU would not be more profitable than just mining a CPU coin.)

Im relatively new to mining but find it hard to get information on dual/merged mining. can you guys shed some light on it for me ? Is it even the same thing ? Can I dual mine any coins on the same card at the same time or just coins that run on the same algorythm ? Is 2 the maximum of coins that can be mined at the same time by a single card ?  I read a pretty old announcement that DMD and GRS can be dual mined because they both run on groestl for example but I wouldnt know where . Thanks for your help