The purpose of ether coin mining
Ethernet mining tutorial
1. Create a new folder on the hard disk, which is better than C: eth. Then all the mining software is stored here
2. Download the following software
1) geth -- select geth win download and unzip
2) ethernet -- download and unzip to the same folder and rename it as "miner"
3) ethereum wallet -- Download the win Ethereum wallet and unzip it and rename it as "wallet"
install all the software
3 Open the command prompt (click win and R at the same time, or click Start menu and enter CMD). The command prompt is a command line parser that allows you to execute command input software in the operating system
After 
, you will have Ethereum wallet. But there is no balance, so next you need to build an ethminer. It's time to minimize your wallet
Mining
do you remember what the consensus mechanism of bitcoin is? The consensus mechanism of bitcoin is pow. To put it simply, the more work you do, the higher the amount of computation you pay, the more likely you will be the first to find the correct hash value, and the more likely you will be rewarded with bitcoin
however, there are some defects in the pow of bitcoin, that is, it is too slow to process transactions, and miners need to constantly collide hash values through calculation, which is costly and inefficient. Friends who are interested in blockchain knowledge should see such a saying:
in order to make up for the deficiency of bitcoin, Ethereum has proposed a new consensus mechanism, called POS (this is the abbreviation of English, which means "proof of equity", also translated into "proof of equity")
POS simply means the same as its literal meaning: equity, equity. The more currency you hold, the more equity you have, the higher your equity
Ethereum's POS means that the more money you hold, the longer you hold it, the less difficult it will be to calculate and the easier it will be to mine
in the initial setting of Ethereum, Ethereum hopes to build a relatively stable system by using POW in the early stage, then graally adopt POW + POS, and finally completely transition to POS. So, it's true that the consensus mechanism of Ethereum is POS, but POS is only a plan or goal at the beginning of Ethereum's release. At present, Ethereum has not yet transitioned to POS, and the consensus mechanism adopted by Ethereum is still pow, that is, the pow of bitcoin, but it is slightly different from the pow of bitcoin
the amount of information here is a bit large,
the first information point is that the consensus mechanism currently adopted by Ethereum is also pow, but it is slightly different from the pow of bitcoin. So, what's the difference between the pow of Ethereum and bitcoin: in short, the mining difficulty of Ethereum can be adjusted, but the mining difficulty of bitcoin can't be adjusted. Just like our college entrance examination, because the teaching situation and the number of students in different provinces are not the same, so the college entrance examination is divided into national papers and provincial independent proposition
Ethereum said that I am in favor of the topic by region. Bitcoin said: No, it must be the same volume in the whole country. The difficulty is the same for everyone
the popular explanation is that bitcoin uses computer computing power to do a lot of hash collisions, enumerate various possibilities to find a correct hash value. The Ethereum system has a special formula to calculate the difficulty of each block. If a block is verified faster than the previous block, Ethereum protocol will increase the difficulty of the block. By adjusting the block difficulty, the time needed to verify the block can be adjusted
according to the Ethereum protocol, the dynamic adjustment method of difficulty is to make the time interval of creating new blocks in the whole network 15 seconds, and the network uses 15 seconds to create blockchain. In this way, because the time is too fast, the synchronization of the system is greatly improved, and it is difficult for malicious participants to launch 51% (that is, more than half) of the computing power to modify historical data in such a short time
the second information point is: in the initial setting of Ethereum, we hope to achieve the transition from POW to
POS through phased upgrade
dating back to 2014, at the beginning of Ethereum's launch, the team announced that the launch of the project would be divided into four stages, namely, Froniter, homestead, metropolis and serenity. In the first three stages, the consensus mechanism adopts pow (workload proof mechanism), and in the fourth stage, it switches to POS (equity proof mechanism)
on July 30, 2015, the first phase "frontier" of Ethereum was officially released. This phase is only suitable for developers. Developers can write smart contracts and decentralized application DAPP on Ethereum network, and miners begin to enter Ethereum network to maintain network security and get Ethereum coins. The leading-edge version is similar to the beta version, proving whether the Ethereum network is reliable or not
on March 14, 2016, Ethereum entered the second stage of "homeland". In this stage, Ethereum provides the wallet function, so that ordinary users can easily experience and use Ethereum. There is no obvious technology improvement in other aspects, but it shows that Ethereum network can run smoothly
in September 2017, Ethereum has reached the third stage of "metropolis"“ "Metropolis" is composed of Byzantine and Constantinople. The goal of this stage is to introce the hybrid chain mode of POW and POS, so as to prepare for the smooth transition from POW to POS. This is the latest popular "Ethereum Constantinople upgrade". In the Constantinople upgrade, Ethereum will make some changes to the underlying protocols and algorithms to lay a good foundation for the implementation of POW and
POS
how much reward will Ethereum get for mining? Miners who win the block creation competition will get the following income:
1. Static reward, 5 ethereums
2. The fuel cost in the block, i.e. gas, we talked about in the last issue
3. As a part of the block, it includes the extra reward of "Uncle block". Uncle is uncle of uncle, and each uncle block can get 1 / 32 of the mining reward as a reward, that is, 5 times 1 / 32, which is equal to 0.15625 ethereums. Here, let's briefly explain the concept of "TERT block". The concept of "TERT block" was proposed by Ethereum. Why should we introce the concept of TERT block? This also starts with bitcoin. In the bitcoin protocol, the longest chain is considered absolutely correct. If a block is not part of the longest chain, it is called a "orphan block". An isolated block is a block, which is also legal, but it may be found later, or the network transmission is slower, and it does not become part of the longest chain. In bitcoin, the solitude is meaningless and will be discarded later, and the miners who find the solitude will not receive mining related rewards
however, Ethereum does not think that isolated blocks are worthless, and Ethereum system will give rewards to miners who find isolated blocks. In Ethereum, isolated blocks are called "Uncle blocks", which can contribute to the security of the main chain. Ethereum's ten second block interval is too fast, which will rece the security. By encouraging the use of tertiary blocks, the main chain can obtain more security guarantees (because the isolated block itself is legal). Moreover, paying the tertiary block can also stimulate the miners to actively mine and actively use tertiary blocks. Therefore, Ethereum thinks that it is valuable.
Bitcoin uses SHA-256 encryption algorithm. When mining, it competes with computing power. In order to improve computing power, bitcoin has gone through four stages: CPU mining, GPU mining, FPGA mining and now ASIC mining machine mining, and the degree of specialization is getting higher and higher
Ethereum uses the ethash encryption algorithm. In the process of mining, it needs to read the memory and store the DAG file. Because the bandwidth of each read memory is limited, and the existing computer technology is difficult to have a qualitative breakthrough in this problem, so no matter how to improve the computing efficiency of the computer, the memory read efficiency will not be greatly improved. Therefore, in a sense, Ethereum's ethash encryption algorithm is ASIC resistant.
different encryption algorithms lead to great differences in mining equipment and computing power between bitcoin and Ethereum
at present, bitcoin mining equipment is mainly ASIC mining machine with a very high degree of specialization. The maximum computing power of a single mining machine is 110t / s, and the scale of computing power of the whole network is more than 120eh / s
the main mining equipment of Ethereum is video card miner, and there are very few specialized ASIC miner. On the one hand, the "ASIC resistance" of Ethereum mining algorithm improves the threshold of developing ASIC miner. On the other hand, after Ethereum is upgraded to 2.0, the consensus mechanism will be transformed into POS, and the miner can not continue mining
compared with the ASIC miner, the graphics card miner has two orders of magnitude difference in computing power. At present, the computing power of mainstream graphics card miner (8 cards) is about 420mh / s, and that of Ethereum is about 230th / s.
from the time dimension of the past two years, bitcoin's computing power of the whole network is growing rapidly, while Ethereum's computing power of the whole network is growing relatively slowly
The ASIC mining machine of
bitcoin is monopolized by several major mining machine manufacturers, and miners can only buy it from the market; Although the graphics card miner of Ethereum is also manufactured by a special miner, the miner can buy accessories from the market and assemble them according to his own demand
Bitcoin mining is a process that uses computer hardware to calculate the location of bitcoin and obtain it
mining is an incentive process to record data in the bitcoin system. In the bitcoin system, indivial users have the right to pack blocks after calculating a specific hash value by using CPU or GPU to hash
and in order to reward this user for packing blocks, the system will give a certain amount of bitcoin as reward. Because this process is very similar to "mining" in real life, most people call this process mining. In addition to bitcoin, other electronic virtual currencies can also be obtained through mining rewards, such as Ethereum, Monroe and so on
extended data:
mining risk:
1, currency security
the withdrawal of bitcoin requires hundreds of keys, and most people will record this long string of numbers on the computer, but frequent problems such as hard disk damage will make the key permanently lost, which also leads to the loss of bitcoin
2, system risk
system risk is very common in bitcoin, and the most common one is bifurcation. Bifurcation will lead to a drop in currency price and a sharp drop in mining income. However, many cases show that the forking will benefit the miners, and the forked competitive currency also needs the miners' computing power to complete the minting and trading process. In order to win more miners, the competitive currency will provide more block rewards and handling charges to attract miners. Risk makes miners
Bitcoin is actually a virtual currency. When bitcoin first appeared, if you want to get bitcoin, you have to get bitcoin through mining. Therefore, bitcoin mining appeared. But bitcoin mining is more and more difficult, so it is very difficult to get bitcoin now
so now many people use Haru miner digs Ethereum, Monroe and other virtual coins. Most importantly, BTC can be directly equivalent in the end
many new users believe that the sole purpose of mining is to generate ether in a way that does not require a central issuer (see our guide "what is ether?"). It's true. The token of Ethereum is proced in the process of mining, with a mining rate of 5 Ethereum coins per piece. But mining is at least as important. Usually, banks are responsible for keeping accurate records of transactions. They make sure that money is not created out of thin air and that users don't cheat and spend money many times. However, blockchain introces a new way to keep records, the whole network instead of intermediary, to verify transactions and add them to the public ledger
Ethereum mining
although "no trust" or "trust minimization" monetary system is the goal, there are still people who need to ensure the security of financial records and ensure that no one cheats. Mining is one of the innovations that makes decentralized records possible. Miners have reached a consensus on the history of transactions in terms of preventing fraud (especially double spending on ether) - an interesting issue that hasn't been addressed before the decentralized currency works on the blockchain. While Ethereum is looking at other ways to reach a consensus on the effectiveness of the deal, mining currently keeps the platform together
how mining works
today, the mining process of Ethereum is almost the same as that of bitcoin. For each transaction, the miner can use the computer to guess the answer repeatedly and quickly until one of them wins. More specifically, the miner will run the unique header metadata (including time stamp and software version) of the block through the hash function (which will return a fixed length, unordered string of numbers and letters, which appears to be random), changing only the 'nonce value', which will affect the hash value of the result
if the miner finds a hash that matches the current target, the miner will be granted ether and broadcast the block across the network for each node to verify and add to their own ledger . If miner B finds the hash, miner a stops working on the current block and repeats the process for the next block. It's hard for miners to cheat in this game. There is no way to fake the work and come up with the right answer to the puzzle. That's why solving puzzles is called "proof of work."
on the other hand, others have little time to verify whether the hash value is correct, which is exactly what each node does. About every 12-15 seconds, a miner finds a stone. If the miner starts to solve the puzzle faster or slower than this, the algorithm will automatically re adjust the difficulty of the problem so that the miner can rebound to about 12 seconds of solution time
miners earn these ethers randomly, and their profitability depends on their luck and the computing power they put in. The specific workload verification algorithm used by Ethereum is called "ethash", which aims to require more memory, making it difficult to mine with expensive ASIC. Special mining chips are now the only profitable way to mine bitcoin
in a sense, ethash may have achieved this goal successfully, because dedicated ASIC is not available for Ethereum (at least not yet). In addition, as Ethereum aims to shift from proof of work mining to "proof of equity" (which we will discuss below), buying ASIC may not be a wise choice because it may not prove useful for a long time< However, Ethereum may never need miners. Developers plan to abandon proof of work, the algorithm currently used by the network to determine which transactions are valid and protect them from tampering to support proof of equity, which is guaranteed by token owners. If and when the algorithm is launched, proof of equity can become a means to achieve distributed consensus, and the consensus uses less resources.
as for the mined mines, the trading platforms can be traded on any platform. The most important thing is to see how you trade. Do you want spot trading or futures trading, because the main procts of each platform are different. If you really can't find a platform, you can try the coinplus platform. It provides a variety of transaction types, and can quickly match orders. It's very convenient to buy and sell. The key is that the service charge is still low.