May is a crucial month for the crypto industry. The highlight of the month is the long-awaited Bitcoin halving that is held once every 210 thousand blocks, or roughly every four years. Then there will be Consensus Distributed, a world-famous conference. This time it’s going to be held online. But first, on May 6, Ravencoin RVN will switch to the new KawPoW mining algorithm. Let’s see what is featured in the update and how to set up the miner correctly.
Ravencoin Hardfork
We’ll start with the main features of the update.
When is the RVN fork due? On May 6, at 18:00 UTC.
What is the main feature of the update? Ravencoin will switch to the new KawPoW mining algorithm.
What is the reason for the update? It will protect the network against ASICs.
What should wallet users do? They should upgrade to the latest Ravencoin 4.1.0 version by clicking on this link.
What should miners do? They should download this archive for the new configured miner version. The archive password is 2miners.
Users must upgrade software in order to remain in the right chain after the hard fork. If they don’t do that, they may have problems with coin transfer and general issues when dealing with the cryptocurrency. It is mandatory to update the mining software for all the miners!
KawPoW is a new mining algorithm in the RVN network. It is like ProgPoW that was supposed to be implemented by Ethereum, but with special parameters for Ravencoin.
KawPoW is the third Ravencoin algorithm preceded by X16R and X16Rv2. Don’t get it wrong, the developers aren’t obsessed with constant updates. They perform forks and change algorithms to protect the network against ASICs. They don’t want ASIC owners to control it.
According to the official Ravencoin 4.1.0 release page, a new hashing algorithm is added to give power back to GPU miners. And it is truly so. The hard fork will make it possible to mine RVN using older GPU models with 2 GB of RAM. The network hashrate will not be distributed among ten ASICs and one GPU. Instead, the cryptocurrency operation will be ensured by a hundred different GPUs and zero ASICs.
Ravencoin Mining Settings on KawPoW
After the hard fork the following mining software will be available for Nvidia GPU’s:
We recommend Gminer. You can find the review here. The miner supports multiple algorithms and shows great results.
NBMiner is the only miner that supports AMD. If you ever need to find cryptocurrencies to mine with “red” graphics cards, you can use the 2CryptoCalc mining profitability calculator.
The latest mining software version is in this archive. The password is 2miners. Below you will find Ravencoin RVN mining settings on Gminer after the hard fork.
Here are PPLNS settings to mine RVN together with other GPU owners. miner.exe --algo kawpow --server rvn.2miners.com:6060 --user YOUR_ADDRESS.RIG_ID
Here are SOLO settings to find blocks individually. miner.exe --algo kawpow --server solo-rvn.2miners.com:7070 --user YOUR_ADDRESS.RIG_ID
Please remember to change YOUR_ADDRESS with your RVN wallet address. There are multiple wallets available for RVN that will support KawPoW network right after the fork. The most recommended is of course the official full node wallet. Light wallets that support RVN KAWPOW are:Trustwallet, Edge, Guarda, Flare. There are also paper wallets available.
Don’t forget that the mining settings provided will be operative only after the Ravencoin hardfork and the switch to KawPoW. It will be performed on Wednesday, May 6, at 18:00 UTC.
KawPoW Autoswitch
T-Rex miner supports autoswitch. You could set it up and go to sleep 🙂
Here are the settings for T-Rex:
@echo off
:start
t-rex -a x16r -o stratum+tcp://rvn.2miners.com:6060 -u YOUR_ADDRESS.RIG_ID -p x --fork-at kawpow=2020-05-06T18:00:00
goto start
pause
After the hardfork we expect a drastic decrease in hash rate – the overall computing power of the Ravencoin network. If the developers can really keep ASICs away from the network, RVN mining will be quite profitable for GPU owners. Even the weakest graphics cards with 2 GB of RAM that stopped mining Ethereum long ago will be able to mine RVN after the switch to KawPoW. It is a real chance to make money. We are waiting for you in the 2Miners mining pool.
The 2Miners pool co-founder, businessman, miner. In 2017 started mining cryptocurrencies and built many rigs on his own. As a result, he gained lots of practical knowledge and became interested in sharing it with others.
In his articles on 2Miners, he shares useful tips that he tried and tested himself. For example, Darek gives advice on how to buy hardware components for the basic mining rig and how to connect them to each other correctly. He also explained lots of complicated terms in simple words, such as shares, mining luck, block types, and cryptocurrency wallets. After the pool was launched, he published a series of articles ‘Crypto Mythbusters’ where he explained how to protect the network against 51% attack, talked about cryptocurrency mining difficulty and difficulties of launching your own node.
April 2020 Work Progress Report: 18 Languages Supported, Zclassic Delisting
May 1, 2020
2Miners Mining Pool Website Translated to 18 Languages, Bitcoin Gold halving, Zclassic delisting, DAG issue workarounds.
2Miners Pool Translation
We’ve successfully performed the new 2Miners translation from scratch. We’ve also added 2 new languages: Polish and Korean. The previous translation has been done almost 2 years ago and it was outdated.
2Miners is now available in 18 languages:
English 🇬🇧🇺🇸🇦🇺
Bulgarian 🇧🇬
Chinese 🇨🇳
French 🇫🇷
Hungarian 🇭🇺
Indonesian 🇮🇩
Italian 🇮🇹
Japanese 🇯🇵
Korean 🇰🇷
Polish 🇵🇱
Portuguese 🇵🇹
Russian 🇷🇺
Serbian 🇷🇸
Spanish 🇪🇸
Thai 🇹🇭
Turkish 🇹🇷
Ukrainian 🇺🇦
Vietnamese 🇻🇳
We want to thank all the translators! Some of them were the miners from our Telegram chat @chat2miners.
If you find any mistake in translation – please don’t hesitate to contact us. We would be glad to fix it immediately.
Bitcoin Gold Halving
Bitcoin Gold (BTG) halving has been performed on block 630 000 (April 18). The Bitcoin Gold block reward has been reduced 2 times from 12.5 BTG to 6.25 BTG. Read more on Bitcoin Gold official website.
Nothing has changed in terms of mining. Bitcoin Gold miners should not update their mining software or mining software settings.
BTG price has not been affected much by the halving procedure. In relation to that Bitcoin Gold Network Hashrate has been reduced 2 times.
This means half of the miners have left the BTG mining pools and spread their hashing power all over other cryptocurrencies. Thanks to 2CryptoCalc.com it is really easy to check the most profitable coins for your hardware.
Zclassic Delisting
On April 5th 19:00 CET we’ve stopped ZCL PPLNS and ZCL SOLO operation. The next day we have paid out all the miners’ balances and closed the pool. Unfortunately, nothing has changed in ZCL development community plans so we do not plan to start the pool again. ZCL was completely delisted from 2Miners in April. Why? Read more.
4GB GPU Mining Problems
The owners of the graphics cards with 4GB memory have started to report the problems with Ethereum Classic and Ethereum mining. This is caused by the continuously growing DAG file on Ethash algorithm. At the moment 4GB GPU’s could still mine ETH and ETC, just some adjustments are required. We’ve written a special post which helps to solve this issue My GPU Stopped Mining Ethereum. DAG Issue Workaround – 2Miners Tested Solutions.
Miner since 2017, the 2Miners pool co-founder. Became interested in cryptocurrencies at the dawn of the latest bull run and bought his first graphics cards. After having built and set up a few mining rigs, he realized that existing mining pools didn’t satisfy him – that’s how the idea of creating the 2Miners pool was born.
John published a series of articles about the basics of cryptocurrency mining. He gave valuable tips on how to buy ASICs and GPUs from abroad and then shared their mining performance. On the website, you can find early articles about cryptocurrency mining, blockchain in general and mining pool operation principles. The readers gave positive feedback on John’s practical guides, such as building an Ethereum mining rig and Nvidia 1080ti overclocking.
Gminer is a popular miner widely used by the mining community. Its key feature is the support of multiple algorithms and cryptocurrencies. It supports Ravencoin, Aeternity, Ethereum, Beam, Grin, ZelCash, BitcoinZ, and even Nervos CKB, which hashrate has recently flown up. Let’s see how to setup the miner correctly and start using it.
What Is Gminer?
Gminer is a miner that supports multiple mining algorithms. The latest version is 2.06. The program works with both Nvidia and AMD, but it gives preference to Nvidia. As a result, most algorithms are compatible only with green GPUs – this is how Nvidia graphics cards are called.
It is a standard practice among developers to charge a fee for their product. Gminer is not an exception. Fees differ depending on an algorithm. For Ethash, used by Ethereum and Ethereum Classic, the fee is 0.65%. It is 3% for Cuckaroom29, 5% for Cortex, etc.
0.65% is a reasonable fee. For example, PhoenixMiner charges the same fee, while lolMiner charges 1%. So every 24 hours of mining graphics cards operate a little over 9 minutes in favor of Gminer developers. It is not much at all.
What to Mine on Gminer? Available Algorithms
Gminer works with many algorithms. The full list is as follows.
Ethash (Nvidia only)
ProgPoW (Nvidia only)
KAWPOW (Ravencoin and Nvidia only)
Ethash+Eaglesong (Nvidia only)
Ethash+Blake2s (Nvidia only)
Eaglesong (Nvidia and AMD)
Blake2b+Sha3 (Nvidia only)
Cuckarood29/Cuckaroom29 (Grin and Nvidia only)
Cuckatoo31 (Grin and Nvidia only)
Cuckatoo32 (Grin and Nvidia only)
Cuckoo29 (Aeternity for Nvidia and AMD)
CryptoNightBBC (Nvidia only)
BFC (Nvidia and AMD)
Cortex (Nvidia only)
Cuckaroo29s (Nvidia and AMD)
Cuckarood29v (MoneroV for Nvidia)
Blake2s (Nvidia and AMD)
Eaglesong (Nervos CKB for Nvidia and AMD)
Equihash 96.5 (Nvidia only)
Equihash+Scrypt (for Nvidia)
Equihash 125.4 (ZelCash and for Nvidia only)
Equihash 144.5 (Bitcoin Gold, BitcoinZ and ZelCash for Nvidia and AMD)
Beam Hash (BEAM for Nvidia and AMD)
Equihash 192.7 (Nvidia and AMD)
Equihash 210,9 (Nvidia)
Here is the recommended GPU memory for different algorithms to work with Gminer.
Cuckaroo29 — 3.8 GB
Cuckatoo31 — 7.68 GB
Cuckoo29 — 3.8 GB
Equihash 96.5 — 0.75 GB
Equihash 144.5 — 1.75 GB
Beam Hash — 2.9 GB
Equihash 192.7 — 2.75 GB
Equihash 210.9 — 1 GB
GPU Hashrates on Gminer
You can find current GPU hashrates for different algorithms in this table. All the information is up to date. It is provided by real miners in the 2Miners pool.
Here are GPU hashrates with standard settings according to Gminer.
Gminer offers a lot of algorithms and cryptocurrencies for different graphics cards. How to choose the most profitable coin? 2CryptoCalc, a mining profitability calculator, can help. 2CryptoCalc stores GPU hashrates, and knows when a miner can mine solo.
For example, today’s recommendation is ZelCash. Currently, it is the most profitable coin, and it can be mined with Gminer.
Where to Download Gminer?
You can download the miner on the official page on Github. There is also an easier way. You can download this archive with all the files and settings for mining. The archive password is 2miners
How to Setup Gminer for Mining?
Here is an example of how to setup Gminer to mine Bitcoin Gold in the 2Miners pool. The text below shows the correct bat-file content.
You should replace YOUR_ADDRESS with your own wallet address to receive coins. For example, GJjz2Du9BoJQ3CPcoyVTHUJZSj62i1693U. You should also replace RIG_ID with your rig name. You can use no more than 32 Latin letters, numbers, and symbols “-” and “_”. For example, rig-1.
Here is a video tutorial on how to setup the miner.
When you setup and launch Gminer, you will see the following window.
After a while you will see yourself in the Miners Online tab.
Or you can find yourself by the wallet address. You should enter the address in the upper part of the BTG pool page.
Miner since 2017, the 2Miners pool co-founder. Became interested in cryptocurrencies at the dawn of the latest bull run and bought his first graphics cards. After having built and set up a few mining rigs, he realized that existing mining pools didn’t satisfy him – that’s how the idea of creating the 2Miners pool was born.
John published a series of articles about the basics of cryptocurrency mining. He gave valuable tips on how to buy ASICs and GPUs from abroad and then shared their mining performance. On the website, you can find early articles about cryptocurrency mining, blockchain in general and mining pool operation principles. The readers gave positive feedback on John’s practical guides, such as building an Ethereum mining rig and Nvidia 1080ti overclocking.
My GPU Stopped Mining Ethereum. DAG Issue Workaround – 2Miners Tested Solutions.
April 14, 2020
In February we wrote about Ethereum ASIC miners that faced the problem of the constantly increasing DAG file. This time the 4GB GPU’s are in danger. In the past few days, we’ve received a lot of requests from our miners both in Helpdesk and in 2Miners Telegram Chat. All of them noted that their GPU’s are no longer mining Ethereum Classic or Ethereum due to the increased size of the DAG file. We’ve prepared for you the list of the possible workarounds depending on your mining software and mining rig setup.
In simple words, Ethereum mining requires a big file called DAG to be loaded to your mining GPU every time you mine. If you have multiple-GPU setup all of your GPU’s need to load this file. Without DAG loading Ethash mining doesn’t work. This is a basic principle.
DAG file constantly increases. 2GB GPU’s have stopped mining Ethereum at the end of the 2016 year. 3GB GPU’s have stopped mining Ethereum at the end of the 2018 year. This year (2020) 4GB GPU’s have begun to refuse ETH/ETC mining. However, don’t be scared. We got a solution for you.
Setting Up The Phoenix Miner
Phoenix Miner being the most robust and simple Ethash mining software is included in our Quick Start archive. Archive password: 2miners
Quick start archive could be found on the How to Start page of every coin which is presented on 2Miners pool.
Phoenix Miner has a special parameter -rvram. It sets the amount of reserved GPU memory which could not be used for mining purposes. The default value of this reserved RAM is 384 MB on Windows OS and just 128 MB on Linux OS. In order to make your GPU mine Ethereum longer, we need to disable this memory allocation. To do so set the -rvram option to 1.
Add -rvram 1 to your Phoenix Miner bat file.
Miners from our Telegram chat also recommend for Windows OS installing 20.4.2 AMD driver and AMD-Compute-Switcher tool.
Setting Up The Claymore’s Miner
One of the most popular and famous Ethash mining software for both AMD and NVIDIA GPU’s is Claymore’s.
Claymore’s miner has a so-called -eres parameter. This option allocates GPU memory in advance for a number of epochs. For example if eres is set to 2 the mining software will allocate the memory enough for mining this epoch, and the next two epochs. After that, the miner will need to re-allocate the memory again. Each memory allocation procedure requires some time so powerful GPU’s with high amount of memory could use high eres values. For GPU’s with a low amount of memory you should do the exact opposite action – set the eres parameter to zero and don’t let your GPU’s to allocate more memory than required at the moment.
Add -eres 0 to your Claymore’s Miner bat file.
Unfortunately, Claymore’s miner is not operating on Windows with 4GB GPU’s anymore. Try PhoenixMiner or Linux OS.
Reconfigure Your Mining Rig
If your mining rig is built of different GPU’s, most likely some of them have more memory than others. Place the more advanced graphics card (with more memory) at the first x16 PCIe slot which is also called zero slot. For example, if you have 6 GPU’s with 4GB memory and 2 GPU’s with 8GB memory let one of the 8GB GPU’s be GPU0, place it to the zero slot. You could find the picture of the ASUS Z270-P motherboard below as an example.
Place 8GB/16GB GPU to GPU0 slot.
Switch From Windows To Linux
It is a known fact that Windows OS allocates more GPU memory than Linux OS. If you want to mine using 4GB graphics card the OS selection could play a critical role. Both Phoenix and Claymore’s miners are available for Linux. We do highly recommend you using one of the specially-built Linux distros such as HiveOS or SimpleMining OS. They provide the easy-to-use interface for mining. HiveOS has preconfigured setup files called “Flight Sheets” for all the 2Miners pools. Use Linux OS.
When Will 4GB GPU Stop Mining Ethereum?
Even if you do everything as we told 4GB GPU’s will stop mining Ethereum and Ethereum Classic someday. When exactly should this happen?
We expect 4GB GPU’s to stop mining Ethash coins on 375 epoch approximately (depending on your rig configuration and mining software).
It takes 30 000 blocks to change each epoch so 375 epoch starts on block 11 250 000.
The current network block height could be found on the main pool page for both Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.
Ethereum is now on block 9 871 779
11 250 000 – 9 871 779 = 1 378 221 (blocks left)
1 378 221 x 13s = 17 916 873s (average block time is 13s)
17 916 873 / 60 / 60 / 24 = 207 days to go
If we do the same calculation for Ethereum Classic which is now on block 10 187 286, we’ll find that 4GB card should stop mining ETC even earlier – in just 160 days.
4GB GPU’s will stop mining Ethereum in January 2021, Ethereum Classic in September 2020.
My GPU’s No Longer Mine ETH, What Should I Do?
If your GPU’s have already stopped mining Ethereum we still have a solution for you. Other Ethash coins such as CLO, ETP, PIRL, EXP have much lower mining epochs so their DAG file is much smaller. You could still mine these coins.
If you have NVIDIA GPU’s you are luckier than AMD owners. NVIDIA mining rigs are usually more flexible and they could mine different mining algorithms. However even AMD rigs with latest lolMiner mining software are powerful enough.
The 2Miners pool co-founder, businessman, miner. In 2017 started mining cryptocurrencies and built many rigs on his own. As a result, he gained lots of practical knowledge and became interested in sharing it with others.
In his articles on 2Miners, he shares useful tips that he tried and tested himself. For example, Darek gives advice on how to buy hardware components for the basic mining rig and how to connect them to each other correctly. He also explained lots of complicated terms in simple words, such as shares, mining luck, block types, and cryptocurrency wallets. After the pool was launched, he published a series of articles ‘Crypto Mythbusters’ where he explained how to protect the network against 51% attack, talked about cryptocurrency mining difficulty and difficulties of launching your own node.
March 2020 Work Progress Report: Nervos CKB ASIC Miners, Lucky Days on Ethereum
April 2, 2020
Nervos CKB ASIC miners, New firmware for Antminer E3, Lucky days on Ethereum, Important information on Zclassic mining.
Attention, Zclassic Pool Will Stop Working
Zclassic developers are planning to execute a huge update on block number 707000 (approx. April 7th). It is called TRIPLE HALVING. Countdown could be found on their website.
ZCL wants to update the code and make the Network protected from 51% attacks, keep it ASIC-resistant and many more.
What is very important for miners – Zclassic developers are decreasing block reward from 12.5 to 0.78 coins. Despite reducing the block time twice, the overall daily amount of mined coins would be decreased 8 times. Currently, 2Miners mining pool is making about 1000 ZLC monthly (the equivalent of $150). If this amount is reduced eight times it would become less than $20. Economically there is no sense to keep supporting Zclassic anymore.
On April 5th 19:00 CET we will stop ZCL PPLNS and ZCL SOLO operation. The next day we will pay out all the miners’ balances and close the pool. We could consider the ZCL cryptocurrency mining support in the future but at the moment is not reasonable to do so.
We recommend all the ZCL miners to use 2CryptoCalc and find the most profitable coins to mine in the nearest days.
Nervos CKB Hashrate Growth
Multiple ASIC manufacturers have prepared the ASIC devices to mine CKB coins. The first ASIC-miner released was Toddminer C1. It was followed by Toddminer C1 Pro and Antminer K5. ASIC appearance has caused the Network Hashrate and Network Difficulty growth.
Thanks to our Telegram community chat members we have successfully tested the new ASIC’s and set up our mining pools properly. From now on you could mine CKB using ASIC miners at 2Miners in both PPLNS and SOLO modes.
In February we’ve stated that Antminer Ethereum ASIC – E3 has stopped mining Ethereum Classic due to the limited amount of this mining device memory. Our article was re-posted many times by different media resources. Thanks to that Bitmain has heard it’s miners and released the new firmware which allows Antminer E3 to mine ETH till the end of the year.
In March Ethereum network load was huge. Some days were very profitable for our miners. 2Miners always pays to its miners all the transaction fees included in the block.
On the screenshot above the block reward was 8.26 ETH (instead of normal 2 ETH). 4 times more than usually. Not bad, right?
Join our Ethereum pool. The setup is simple, we also do have the video guide if you prefer.
Miner since 2017, the 2Miners pool co-founder. Became interested in cryptocurrencies at the dawn of the latest bull run and bought his first graphics cards. After having built and set up a few mining rigs, he realized that existing mining pools didn’t satisfy him – that’s how the idea of creating the 2Miners pool was born.
John published a series of articles about the basics of cryptocurrency mining. He gave valuable tips on how to buy ASICs and GPUs from abroad and then shared their mining performance. On the website, you can find early articles about cryptocurrency mining, blockchain in general and mining pool operation principles. The readers gave positive feedback on John’s practical guides, such as building an Ethereum mining rig and Nvidia 1080ti overclocking.
Confessions of a Miner: How Much I Made in a Few Years of Mining
March 24, 2020
Most of you have probably read books about the success of famous people like “Screw It, Let’s Do It” by Richard Branson or Steve Jobs’ biography. But most of them are just beautiful stories about the best and most successful people in the world. What about real people with their faults? Nobody writes about them. You have probably always wondered, whether mining is worth it. How much money can you make? What are the chances of losing money? Today you have a unique opportunity to read the story of a real miner with as much as $200,000 worth of hardware.
The miner decided to share his story anonymously.
Mining Epidemic
Today we are in the middle of the coronavirus outbreak, and once there was a mining epidemic. Mining epidemics, to be precise. The biggest one happened in 2017. What provokes such epidemics? Of course, it’s the growth of cryptocurrencies in value. 2017 was no exception. In spring 2017 Bitcoin grew from $1,000 to $3,000, and Ethereum grew even more. It leaped from $10 to $300.
Suddenly, mining became an extremely profitable business. Everybody talked about it. Literally every one. The Internet was exploding.
What is mining? How to mine? I didn’t know anything. I called my friends and they didn’t know anything either. So I decided to try mining on my own.
For those who are far from the mining industry, I will specify that in 2017 it was already impossible to mine Bitcoin using anything but special ASIC miners. At the same time, you could and still can mine Ethereum using GPUs. That’s right, the same graphics cards that you use to play League of Legends, Grand Theft Auto V or Fortnite.
First Mining Rig
ASICs were hard to choose. I had no idea how they work and was not convinced by the photos on the Internet. They looked like those typical “Made in China” devices of poor quality. I decided to opt for GPU mining. Several graphics cards, usually six or eight, are combined to form a single computer/rig. And you are good to go. Here comes the first problem. Graphics cards cost way too much. The mining epidemic caused an increase in prices by at least two times.
I somehow managed to get eight Nvidia 1070 graphics cards, paying $400 for each, and began to build my first rig. What a nightmare it was. Now there are more resources, like 2Miners Blog 🙂 but in the past, you had to read those awful forums and gather information bit by bit.
Luckily, I knew how to build a computer, so I didn’t have problems with installing a processor into a motherboard or installing Windows OS. So I finished my first rig. I just had to setup BIOS, changing settings this and that way, until Windows finally detected all of my eight graphics cards. I should say that changing BIOS settings to make eight graphics cards work on Windows was a real adventure. I downloaded the mining software. Now I had to get a wallet.
Ethereum Wallet
What would any sane person do? Google “Ethereum”, go to the official website and download a cryptocurrency wallet. That’s what I did. I launched the wallet and was asked to wait. It said that I needed to synchronize blocks. So I did that.
By the way, the rig wasn’t working, because I didn’t have a wallet yet.
I went to work, and when I came back in the evening, the synchronization wasn’t over yet. The wallet took up the enormous amount of my computer memory. I found a way to close the sync window, and only then I found out that I could simply copy my wallet address without waiting for the whole blockchain to load. So I copied the address. I added the wallet address to the mining program, and the process started. I put the rig in the hall so that it didn’t disturb my sleep.
When I woke up, I checked the wallet and saw that the synchronization was still going on. I decided to Google the problem. They said that a regular hard disc wouldn’t do and you needed an SSD. Forums advised getting Jaxx, a multi-token wallet. Instead of storing a blockchain on the computer, the wallet stores it somewhere on its own server. Paranoid as I am, I didn’t like it. But I had no choice. I wanted those precious coins on my wallet so bad. I downloaded and installed the wallet, copied the address, reconfigured the miner. And then I went out. When I came back in the evening and opened the wallet, I saw something. Success!
I was so excited. So I said to my wife: “Open that bottle of red wine from the birthday party. Let’s celebrate!” “What an idiot,” she thought, “Keeps this damn noisy thing in our apartment and is so happy about it!”
Too Late to Start Mining
One week passed without any problem. I was regularly getting Ether on my wallet. I calculated expenses on electricity and discovered that the rig was bringing me $10 per day. So it was supposed to pay off in one year. I knew well that cryptocurrency exchange rates are extremely unstable, but at that point, I couldn’t be stopped.
I was making money out of air. Every single day. And most importantly, a pay-off period was just one year. Where else could you find anything like this?
Now, sorry if I say something stupid in terms of economics, but who would offer you a 100% annual interest rate? I was convinced that nobody would. On the Internet people were saying that soon it would be over, it was too late to start mining, only those who started a year ago were making money, etc. But I was unstoppable.
I started looking for cheap graphics cards because I didn’t want to overpay. Motherboards, PSUs and other parts were easier to find because they were always available in regular shops. Sometimes risers that I wanted were out of stock, so I had to buy poor-quality models. A month later, I already had five mining rigs in my apartment, and I was making $60 per day. At that point, there were rigs not only in the hall but literally everywhere.
For the night I put them in the hall and in the kitchen with the window wide open. Otherwise, it was impossible to sleep because of the heat and the noise.
One day I woke up at night to go to the bathroom, but then I stopped in the hall. I smelled something electrical burning. I thought they were my rigs, but then I realized that the problem was somewhere else. The wire going into my apartment was hot as hell, and the plastic around it was melting off. I quickly turned off the rigs. I was glad I didn’t burn anything. But I couldn’t go on like this. It was time to find a place for my rigs.
Mining Equipment Room
Yes, I needed to build an equipment room. What other choice did I have? I couldn’t say to a landlord that I wanted to mine cryptocurrency. So I called factories and industrial areas explaining that I needed space for a small data center (server room). Preferably with a window and 20 kW of power. I opted for old factories because I thought they would have fewer problems with power.
A week later I found the space and relocated my rigs there. The room was small, 15–20 square meters, but with two large windows that I had to open right away to cool down my rigs. Otherwise, everything was heating up badly, and keeping the door open was not an option. What if someone would steal my cards?
That’s how I started a large-scale mining business. Just joking. People put the billions worth of equipment right next to power stations. And I was not even close.
First ASIC Miner
I built a couple of new rigs, but I wanted more. I was really curious to try ASIC mining. Besides, it’s best to diversify. What if Ethereum mining died? Bitcoin, on the other hand, had been around for almost ten years. I decided to try.
I bought my first ASIC and launched it. I can’t even describe how much noise it was making. Good thing I didn’t keep it at home. It would have been unbearable for me and my neighbors. ASIC setup was super easy. I just added the mining pool address, my wallet, and that was it. Much easier than with rigs. A pay-off period was less than a year.
“Wow, this thing really works,” I thought, “I need to get more.”
More Mining Equipment. Transition to Linux OS
I built a few more rigs and ordered different ASICs from China. Antminer L3+ to mine Litecoin, Antminer S9 to mine Bitcoin, and Antminer D3 to mine Dash. I also bought Antminer A3 for SIA, but it happened a year later.
At that point, I had both Nvidia and AMD rigs. Sadly, to make AMD cards mine correctly, I had to upgrade each card separately. Upgrades (timings) were not always easy to find. And even after upgrading I had to spend a lot of time to configure GPU overclocking in Afterburner so that a graphics card gave out a maximum hash rate. Moreover, AMD cards heated everything ten times as much as Nvidia cards. It depended on the model of course, but generally, they were super hot. Devil, for example.
I couldn’t control my rigs anymore. There were constant errors, GPU bugs, unexpected Windows updates. Then TeamViewer suspected commercial use and limited my connection time to five minutes. And then I had to wait for ten minutes. Instead of having dinner with my wife, I had to go to my equipment room and reinstall an operating system.
I installed Linux on all of my rigs. The first installation took me some time, but I did the rest pretty fast. I was sorry I hadn’t done it earlier. It was so simple. Online monitoring for just a couple of dollars a month for each rig.
Okay, now let’s end the boring part. Everybody wants juicy details.
How Much Money I Could Have Made with Mining
I could have made tons of money. Did I make tons of money? Rather no than yes. Because I made a lot of mistakes. But they do say that you learn from your mistakes, right?
How much money did I spend on mining equipment? 200 thousand dollars. That’s right, I could have used that money to buy a nice apartment.
How much money could I have made? No less than 400 thousand dollars. I could have recouped the cost of equipment and earned as much on top.
What mistakes did I make? Why did I earn much less?
Mistake One. I wasn’t selling cryptocurrency.
What is mining? Mining is the process of getting a reward for calculations. You buy hardware with the purpose of making money, real dollars. You must make them every day.
I wasn’t selling my cryptocurrency because my living conditions allowed me to do so. Exchange rates were constantly going up. So I held my cryptocurrency. My savings were growing by leaps and bounds. I was dreaming of buying one Tesla, then another one. Suddenly, all went down. In spring 2018 Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies fell even more.
A year later I hoped that Bitcoin would go up, but it didn’t happen. I was losing money every day at the same pace I was earning it in 2017. I didn’t want to sell Bitcoin for $10,000. Not so long ago it was valued at $20,000. Selling for $8,000 was just foolish. I was sure it would grow soon. Then it went down to 3 thousand. At that point, there was nothing left to sell. I was trapped.
Conclusion: Once you get cryptocurrency, sell it.
Mistake Two. I started investing.
I was actively trading my Ether and building my cryptocurrency portfolio. I had never traded in the stock market, and this was a new niche, exciting and unknown. I was researching cryptocurrency projects and buying their cryptocurrency or tokens. I invested in ICOs. One ICO brought me twice as much, another one – three times as much.
Wow, I was born to be an investor!
Later I realized that anyone could be outstanding in the rapidly growing market. Even the worst investor would gain profit. But then I fell so bad.
After a year and a half of my cryptocurrency adventure, by the end of 2018, I realized that there is only one coin that rules. It’s Bitcoin. Others are just rip-offs. Okay, maybe Ether is also fine. But that’s it.
Conclusion: Mining and investment are not the same things.
You can’t do it all. You can either mine or gamble on the exchange. Everyone must do their own thing. In order to gamble on the exchange, you don’t have to mine, and vice versa. In order to mine, you don’t have to be an investor.
Mistake Three. I was mining shitcoins.
Euphoria is a dangerous thing. In 2017–2018 cryptocurrency projects were growing by leaps and bounds. I was getting bored, so I was always searching for something new. There were a lot of new coins to choose from. Those who were good at programming copied Ethereum or Bitcoin, changing a few words in the code or even leaving it as is.
The same wallet, the same infrastructure. They changed only a logo. I mined a lot of coins. WhaleCoin, PegasCoin, Musicoin, just to name a few.
I held everything. Sometimes I waited for an exchange to add a new coin and sold at once. I was making a good profit. I was happy back then, but now I realize that I could have made much more money if I had mined Ethereum.
Conclusion: Mine liquid coins that are easy to sell.
If you are willing to mine something new, exchange it for something decent (Bitcoin) at once or sell it for fiat money (dollars).
Mistake Four. I was greedy and careless.
Bitcoin hard forks were happening all the time. Every month there was a new fork – Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, etc. And every time I wanted to get new coins. I was curious.
When Bitcoin Gold (BTG) was launched, there was a lot of hype around it. The launch price was $300, if I remember correctly. Everyone was looking forward to it, including myself. I wanted to see how many BTG coins I could get. I just needed to enter the private key to my wallet on the “official” Bitcoin Gold page. I entered the key. And I saw how much I would get.
Now I realize that I was such a fool, but back then I had no clue. As you might have guessed, I didn’t see bitcoins on this wallet ever again. Neither BTG, nor BTC. I was smart enough to use the empty wallet on the BTG website, but later I got a payment on it. And of course, I didn’t see it.
How much did I lose? A whole lot, much more than 1 BTC. I don’t remember exactly. I just try not to think about it.
Conclusion: Keep the private key to your wallet safe and don’t show it to anyone.
Mistake Five. I kept money on crypto exchanges.
This one is obvious. Everybody knows it, from Andreas Antonopoulos to a fifth-grader. Just don’t keep your coins on exchanges. Create a wallet, exchange cryptocurrency and transfer your coins out. This is the only possible way. An exchange may close sooner or later. It happened to a few exchanges. The case of Cryptopia was the most sensational. I didn’t lose much on this exchange, I think it was Pirl. I see that now there are still those who mine it. I wonder why.
Same thing with Nicehash. It is a platform that rents mining power. My ASICs worked through it for a while. The coins were stored on the Bitcoin wallet on Nicehash. Suddenly, Nicehash crashed. The money of all the users was stolen. The company apologized and came up with a program to compensate its clients. They compensated a little over 80%.
How much did I lose? A whole lot, around 0.5 BTC.
Conclusion: Don’t keep money on cryptocurrency exchanges.
Mistake Six. I lost control over my hardware.
I had as many as two incidents. The first one is as follows. A friend of a friend of a friend offered me to buy mining rigs in the place with cheap electricity. Not just rigs, but hosting as well. They sell you mining rigs and promise to keep them in the special room equipped for mining and maintain them. You pay only for electricity. Because I somewhat knew the seller, I decided to go for it.
For a few months it was going well, then the problems started. At times there was no electricity, then he had to move the rigs to a different place, and so on. So I told him to return my rigs. I barely managed to get back half of them.
The second incident happened in 2018. ASICs were slowly losing momentum. A friend of a friend offered to keep my rigs. I was supposed to pay $0.01 per kWh. I said yes, because the rigs were not bringing profit at my place. This time I decided to be smarter. I sent only Antminer D3 that had no value to me. Why? You’ll find out in the next chapter. I sent my ASICs and never heard from the man ever again.
Conclusion: Don’t trust anybody. This is the harsh reality of life.
Mistake Seven. I didn’t know how to choose mining hardware.
Today everybody is smart. Back then I was randomly buying ASICs available on Bitmain. Antminer D3 worked for only a month and a half. Mining difficulty increased instantly. Profitability was close to zero. Antminer A3 lasted even less. Maybe for a week. At the time when it was delivered, it had already become obsolete. I didn’t want to pay the rest of the sum for it, but as it had already arrived, I felt bad. Besides, I already paid the bigger part when placing an order.
You don’t necessarily have to buy expensive graphics cards. Nvidia 1060 and 1050Ti perform quite well, and you may also consider getting pre-owned graphics cards or mining rigs, if they can be checked. Many wanted to recoup money by selling their rigs cheaply. I had the chance to make a good deal, and I did so a couple of times.
Conclusion: Choose mining hardware wisely. Do your own calculations.
Don’t put warranty in the first place. During my years as a miner, I changed only two graphics cards on a warranty, and both were defective from the beginning. Graphics cards can work for years without maintenance.
End of Mining
Everything inevitably comes to an end. My mining business is no exception. Sadly, considering current exchange rates, an electricity price for industrial consumers in my country ($0.06–$0.07 per kWh), associated costs (a rent, equipment maintenance, the replacement of faulty parts), I barely make any profit.
I turned off my last ASICs at the beginning of 2019. Antminer S9 devices worked longer than others. Then they were just standing there. I have no idea what to do with them. For now, they are just cluttering my garage. I am trying to sell them. ASICs lost 90–95% in value, but I can’t sell them even for 5–10% of the original price. There is no demand.
I turned off my GPU rigs in January 2020. Profitability reached zero. I was surprised that I managed to sell almost all graphics cards individually at a good price. I think graphics cards lost 50% in value. So you can sell them for half of the original price. I used the cheapest motherboards, RAM and processors, so they were impossible to sell. I was lucky to sell at least some of the parts as a set for about $20.
So how much money do I have left?
As I mentioned earlier, I spent $200,000. I recovered around $150,000. I plan to sell $50,000 worth of graphics cards. I have around $40,000 in Bitcoin. I decided to hold this sum in Bitcoin and see what will happen in five or ten years. Who knows, I may buy a house somewhere in Miami one day. Or I may lose everything.
But I have nothing to worry about. I didn’t lose any money. Again, if I had been smarter, I could have easily made two times more money.
Future of Mining
The King is dead. Long live the King!
Mining is not dead. Today mining is a large-scale business run by professionals. Objectively, mining is a profitable business. But in 2017 it was profitable for everyone. In 2018 countries with expensive electricity dropped out. In 2019 everybody else dropped out. In 2020 you can mine only if you have cheap electricity. Mostly it’s China and Russia.
Everybody knows that the electricity price in Irkutsk is $0.013 per kWh. But I don’t want to go there and organize mining. It won’t work without supervision. Some put enormous rigs right next to power stations and use electricity basically for free, but we are talking about large-scale businesses. Others steal electricity, which is definitely not for me. Miners believe in karma. Bad guys don’t get blocks.
Mining from Home
What about mining from home?
Fair question. Mining from home is very much alive. In Russia, for example, the average electricity price is around $0.03–$0.04 per kWh. You can make a good profit by keeping a few rigs at home. If you build a rig using regular PSUs for desktop computers rather than server PSUs (that’s what miners often do to save money), rigs won’t make almost any noise. As if you had a regular desktop computer running 24/7. Each rig consumes 1 kWh, that is, a little less than an electric kettle. Wiring in most buildings should easily handle a few extra kilowatts. But this is not financial advice so think with your own head. If your wiring burns, it won’t be my fault. Make sure to check everything beforehand.
As for me, I could have left a few rigs at home, but honestly, I lost interest. In the past I was always in search of the most profitable coins for mining, there was always something new to explore. And what now? You just have to setup Ether mining and forget about your rigs for a year. Boring. Plus, I have a dog now, and I have no wish to remove fur from the GPU coolers every week. If nobody buys my graphics cards, I will build a rig and use it to heat my garage or my parents’ country house in winter. I’m sure it heats better than a regular radiator.
I would like to thank everyone who has made it to the end, as well as the 2Miners blog editors for letting me pour it all out and for your work. When somebody asks me about cryptocurrencies, I always share the link to your blog. I also thank the 2Miners pool itself. You have the best interface, you taught me how to mine Solo, and your Telegram chat is the best mining chat ever.
Miner since 2017, the 2Miners pool co-founder. Became interested in cryptocurrencies at the dawn of the latest bull run and bought his first graphics cards. After having built and set up a few mining rigs, he realized that existing mining pools didn’t satisfy him – that’s how the idea of creating the 2Miners pool was born.
John published a series of articles about the basics of cryptocurrency mining. He gave valuable tips on how to buy ASICs and GPUs from abroad and then shared their mining performance. On the website, you can find early articles about cryptocurrency mining, blockchain in general and mining pool operation principles. The readers gave positive feedback on John’s practical guides, such as building an Ethereum mining rig and Nvidia 1080ti overclocking.
Nervos CKB Network Hashrate Increased. ASICs Are the Cause
March 21, 2020
The 2Miners pool users have noticed an increase in the hash rate of the Nervos CKB network – that is, in the overall computing power of devices that mine this cryptocurrency. The increase is significant. On March 5, the hash rate was 198.32 Th/s, today it’s 1.99 Ph/s. A ten-fold increase means that there is a problem that is most likely caused by ASIC miners.
Nervos CKB Mining
Nervos CKB mining on the 2Miners pool started right after the launch of the main net in mid-November. Mining was going well, and the coin often ranked first by profitability, according to 2CryptoCalc. Since it was the most profitable coin, users were actively mining it.
At that time the coin even ranked third in SOLO on the 2Miners pool. And today the three most popular coins among miners are Ethereum Classic, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Gold.
In order to mine Nervos CKB, you need Nvidia or AMD graphics cards. As for the software, we recommend Gminer – we already mentioned it in our mining tutorial. Basically, anyone could make a decent profit from this coin. This ensured the safety of the network – the overall hash rate was provided by a great number of graphics cards located in different parts of the world. This is what decentralization looks like.
Nervos CKB Hashrate Issues
But now everything has changed. Since the hash rate increased ten-fold, it has become more difficult to mine CKB. And the profits went down. On November 19, 2019, three hundred Nvidia 1070Ti graphics cards were bringing $410 per day on Nervos CKB. Today it is much worse. According to 2CryptoCalc, today the same graphics cards would be bringing $4.46 per day.
Only two weeks ago profitability was ten times higher because the hash rate at the beginning of the month was much lower. Check the Nervos CKB Hashrate chart.
Why Has Nervos CKB Hash Rate Increased?
It is a rule that ASICs or FPGA’s are to blame for a sudden increase in the hash rate. Since ASICs are specifically designed to mine a certain algorithm, their mining performance is better than that of GPUs. They have a significantly higher hash rate – accordingly, they also have higher profitability.
This time Antminer K5 by Bitmain, that we first heard of at the beginning of March, may be responsible for the changes in the network performance. It is an ASIC for Eaglesong – the very algorithm on which Nervos CKB works. Its hash rate is 1.13 TH/s, and the consumption is 1580 W. By comparison, 300 Nvidia 1070Ti GPUs give out 0.22 TH/s. 2CryptoCalc confirms this information.
But Antminer K5 is not yet available to regular users. We have checked it: now it is listed on the Chinese version of the Bitmain website, but sales are planned to start in the first half of April. Here are the specs.
Even the WhatToMine calculator states that the miner is not available yet.
By the way, note the estimated profitability. $18.21 daily per miner at the electricity cost of $0.05 is 4.6 times higher than the profitability of 300 Nvidia 1070Ti GPUs. This is crazy.
Just a week ago the profit was as high as $200 per miner. In the 2Miners Telegram chat users were asking whether to buy this device. Clearly, the profitability will keep going down.
It seems that the first batches of ASICs are ready and being “tested” right now. This is one of the biggest known faults of ASICs. Sadly, nothing can be done about it. The devices are in the hands of the manufacturers, so they decide when to start shipping.
Why Nervos Developers Stay Silent
The silence of the Nervos CKB team seems especially strange. We checked their Twitter posts in March, and they don’t mention a sudden increase in the network hash rate or how to solve this problem. But they do announce collaborations, presentations, and listings on different platforms.
Why is it a problem? As mentioned above, the Nervos network hash rate has increased ten-fold since the beginning of March. It is likely that new Bitmain monsters are behind it. In this case, these ASICs account for 90% of the network. They are probably not interested in organizing a 51% attack – they are just making money. But this goes against the principles of decentralization in the crypto industry. The network must be supported by miners in different parts of the world rather than by one factory. And with much less power.
Nervos could follow Grin’s example – its developers performed a hard fork in June that secured the network against ASICs. Grin developers are constantly making changes into the mining algorithm to discourage manufacturers from making ASICs. After all, creating a new model every six months and throwing away the previous one is not the most profitable business. However, Nervos developers have never claimed their algorithm to be ASIC-resistant.
2Miners Has Decreased the Minimum Payout
The minimum payout for Nervos mining was always 500 CKB ($1.7). We realize that many Nervos CKB miners were forced to leave the pool due to the increased mining difficulty. For this reason, today (March, 21) we are performing the one-time payout for all the miners whose balance has reached 100 CKB (5 times less than the standard payout threshold).
Update. Toddminer C1 for Nervos CKB
We’ve just received the information from our miners that they have already received the new Todek Toddminer C1 for Eaglesong mining algorithm.
Toddminer C1 hashrate is 1.55 TH/s, and the consumption is 1380 W. The specifications are even better than Antminer K5. Both Antminer K5 and Toddminer C1 could be the cause of the sudden Nervos CKB hashrate increase in the past days.
What to Mine With GPU’s?
Sadly, today Nervos is not the best cryptocurrency for GPU mining. According to 2CryptoCalc, the best coins for mining today are ZClassic, ZCoin, and ZelCash.
We hope that Nervos developers will soon take the situation under control and CKB will regain its top position among the most profitable cryptocurrencies for mining. When mining profitability experiences such a drastic drop, developers must interfere. Otherwise, miners would turn away from the project and start mining other coins.
Miner since 2017, the 2Miners pool co-founder. Became interested in cryptocurrencies at the dawn of the latest bull run and bought his first graphics cards. After having built and set up a few mining rigs, he realized that existing mining pools didn’t satisfy him – that’s how the idea of creating the 2Miners pool was born.
John published a series of articles about the basics of cryptocurrency mining. He gave valuable tips on how to buy ASICs and GPUs from abroad and then shared their mining performance. On the website, you can find early articles about cryptocurrency mining, blockchain in general and mining pool operation principles. The readers gave positive feedback on John’s practical guides, such as building an Ethereum mining rig and Nvidia 1080ti overclocking.
Why You Should Not Use BitForex Exchange – 2Miners Pool Experience
March 4, 2020
2Miners pool developers have come across the incompetence of other members of the mining industry. Bitforex exchange has accidentally lost coins of a pool miner and failed to find them. The dispute has dragged on for a while, but we have realized that dealing with this platform is a risky business. We would like to tell you what happened and how it all ended.
How to Choose a Wallet for Grin
GRIN crypto network has always had a problem with wallets. Sadly, the developers don’t have their own GUI wallet. Neither for desktop PCs nor for mobile devices. If you want your coins to be as safe as possible, you must opt for a wallet with a command line (that is, without visual interface), learn commands and so on. For an average user, this is a nightmare. There is also an open source grin++ wallet, but it is not compatible with all wallet versions.
In order to perform a transaction in GRIN, wallet versions must coincide. If one user has a new version, while the other has an older version, it is unlikely that the transaction will go through.
As a mining pool, we must always choose the wallet version that works with as many other wallets as possible. Usually, we strongly recommend not to store coins on crypto exchanges. However, in the case of mining GRIN, we recommend to use addresses generated by crypto exchanges. Why is it so?
In the case of GRIN, both sending and receiving wallets must be online at the moment of transaction, otherwise, it will not go through. Most cryptocurrencies allow you to simply send coins to a certain address. And it doesn’t matter whether a user is online or whether he has a private key from this wallet. You can send coins abroad to a complete stranger even if he didn’t ask for it.
2Miners Pool Payout System
2Miners payouts are automatic. As soon as a miner reaches the minimum payout, the coins will be transferred to his address. The amount differs from coin to coin. For GRIN it is 3 coins.
Then in the course of two hours, the pool sends the reward. The system is fail-proof. The exception is BEAM and GRIN cryptocurrencies, where both sending and receiving wallets must be online. If a receiving wallet is offline, the pool will try to send the reward every two hours until it succeeds.
Recommended Cryptocurrency Exchanges
Every cryptocurrency on 2Miners pool has a page with settings where we also list recommended wallets and crypto exchanges. Again, we don’t recommend using exchanges to store funds, but many of our users still like it. As a pool, we can easily send payouts to any type of wallet. I doesn’t matter who owns the wallet, a miner or an exchange, that is not our business.
How do we choose which exchanges to recommend? First of all, nobody pays us for placement on the assistance pages mentioned above. We choose top-rated exchanges. We test platforms personally and if they work properly, we list them. We are not responsible for neither hardware wallets nor exchanges. Their developers are responsible for them. But we do take responsibility for our work because we value our reputation.
As they said at the beginning of GTA2: “And remember, respect is everything”.
GRIN has a long list of recommended exchanges. It’s because not all crypto exchanges support the automatic reception of GRIN coins, so we made sure to list all compatible exchanges. When GRIN was launched, there were only two such exchanges, then there were eight. It doesn’t mean that we personally like all of them. We just tested them and notified our miners that they work properly.
Transactions in GRIN Network
GRIN is a safe and “hidden” blockchain. GRIN doesn’t have a so-called blockchain explorer that provides information about the network operation. Transactions are hidden from unwanted eyes. Only the sender and the recipient can check whether the transaction went through (provided they have a transaction ID).
Cryptocurrencies don’t have customer support or “cyber police”. It means that if your funds were stolen or you sent a transaction to the wrong address, no one would be able to help. In traditional blockchains like Bitcoin or Ethereum you can always go to the blockchain explorer and find out who is right and who is wrong. You will see who received coins, how many, from which address and when.
So let’s take another look at the two main features of transactions in GRIN:
A receiving wallet must be online for the transaction to go through.
There are no blockchain explorers. It is impossible to check whether someone’s transaction was really performed.
Bitforex Issue
On January 9, 2020 the pool sent 59.08800 Grin to the Bitforex exchange address as a reward to the miner. Transaction ID (Txid) is 11476547-b7ee-4531-7adc651dee0c. The funds haven’t reached the exchange. We always try to help our users, so we contacted the exchange.
First, we tried to find out what happened through the official Bitforex Telegram channel. We got in contact with administrator Kate. Honestly, her answers were embarrassing. It was clear that she was completely incompetent in the matter. We have tried a few times to find contact information of senior managers, but every time we were refused with an inconclusive reply.
Here she tells us that the transaction was 4 GRIN instead of 59.08800 GRIN and attached the following screenshot.
After a simple comparison of transaction IDs, it becomes clear that this is not the transaction we were asking about.
Then she tells us that on January 8 Grin deposit was closed for one day. First of all, the transaction we are talking about was not performed on January 8, but on January 9. Second, the transaction can’t go through if the receiving wallet is offline. You can’t send coins into thin air. If it were possible, we wouldn’t have a TX ID.
3. And here is the funniest response of all. Quote: “Hello, unfortunately, we haven’t received this transaction, we can’t find it in our system, so the coins can’t be transferred. Screenshot is attached.”
Why is it so funny? Because we already sent this very screenshot to her. Previously a 2Miners employee sent this screenshot from our wallet. She saved it and then sent it to another 2Miners employee as if it were a screenshot from the Bitforex exchange wallet.
That’s right, the exchange employee saved our screenshot and resent it to us as proof making it seem like it was sent by the tech department.
Our discussion ended with the following quote. I am sorry that you were not able to get in contact with the team. I am sorry for the user, I really did everything I could, my only responsibility is to quickly pass information to the tech department. And over the course of a long period of my work this is the first time when coins are not transferred. If the coins were sent successfully, the exchange would transfer them to the user with a probability of 1000%. I am sorry, but I don’t have access to any technical details.
As a rule, exchanges always manage to find coins that belong to users and in case of a problem they transfer them provided you have a TX ID. On the contrary, the employees of the platform refused to do so saying that they didn’t receive any coins.
So we thought that maybe it was just a misunderstanding caused by incompetent employees, translation difficulties, etc. We decided to try again. We wrote to support@bitforex.com – the official tech support. Six days with no answer. Nothing at all.
Then we wrote to the official tech support through their helpdesk. Five days – no answer. We only got an automatic notification that our message had been received. But it was all in vain.
Who Is to Blame and What Is Next?
The answer is simple – we don’t recommend using Bitforex exchange. If the exchange can’t admit its fault and can’t reply to the message for five days, and the administrators of the exchange chat write complete nonsense, then you can’t trust your funds to such a platform.
We have deleted Bitforex from all recommendations on 2Miners pool. It is not about money, it’s about professionalism and respect to clients. Our miner has spent one month trying to solve the problem, but hasn’t received any feedback. Same happened to us.
We took this problem to heart. We decided to pay to our miner 59.08800 GRIN lost by Bitforex exchange from our own funds. Unlike Bitforex, we value our reputation.
Miner since 2017, the 2Miners pool co-founder. Became interested in cryptocurrencies at the dawn of the latest bull run and bought his first graphics cards. After having built and set up a few mining rigs, he realized that existing mining pools didn’t satisfy him – that’s how the idea of creating the 2Miners pool was born.
John published a series of articles about the basics of cryptocurrency mining. He gave valuable tips on how to buy ASICs and GPUs from abroad and then shared their mining performance. On the website, you can find early articles about cryptocurrency mining, blockchain in general and mining pool operation principles. The readers gave positive feedback on John’s practical guides, such as building an Ethereum mining rig and Nvidia 1080ti overclocking.
February 2020 Work Progress Report: MOAC Delisting, Monitoring System Revealed
March 3, 2020
MOAC delisting, new 2CryptoCalc features, Ethereum ASIC’s news, Updated stratum protocols, 2Miners monitoring system revealed.
MOAC Delisting
We’ve stopped MOAC pools on February 3rd due to the network problems. All the situation was covered in our post MOAC Network is Under Attack. We’ve observed multiple denial-of-service attacks on the network. Blockchain was split many times. Unfortunately, MOAC blockchain developers have done nothing in nearly one month so we have decided to delist MOAC coin from the pool.
2CryptoCalc Mining Calculator Updates
Mining Profitability Calculator 2CryptoCalc is becoming better everyday. This month we’ve added such features:
GPU Memory check. If GPU is not able to mine a specific coin, this coin is not shown in the list;
Specific GPU and algorithm pages;
We are working on GPU ranking page, new design and many more awesome features.
2Miners Pool Monitoring System
Our CTO Erik Van Daal has written amazing post Monitoring for Health. He thoroughly explains many problems encountered by the mining pools and how do we monitor them. Blockchain splits, DDOS attacks, Orphan blocks and more problems are described in this article.
We’ve successfully tested newly-built Innosilicon A10 ASIC machines. We’ve upgraded our pools to support these devices.
Innosilicon A10 is 2 times more effective than previously available ASIC’s and GPU mining rigs. It consumes 750W providing 500MH/s hashrate on Ethash mining algorithm. Check Innosilicon A10 Specs, Profitability and Setup Guide.
Nicehash and ASIC Stratum Protocol Updates
We have updated our pools to support native NiceHash and ASIC-compatible Stratum protocols. This allows our miners to be more efficient both using Nicehash rented hashpower and ASIC’s. Why is this important? Read here NiceHash and ASIC-compatible Stratum Protocols on 2Miners.
Miner since 2017, the 2Miners pool co-founder. Became interested in cryptocurrencies at the dawn of the latest bull run and bought his first graphics cards. After having built and set up a few mining rigs, he realized that existing mining pools didn’t satisfy him – that’s how the idea of creating the 2Miners pool was born.
John published a series of articles about the basics of cryptocurrency mining. He gave valuable tips on how to buy ASICs and GPUs from abroad and then shared their mining performance. On the website, you can find early articles about cryptocurrency mining, blockchain in general and mining pool operation principles. The readers gave positive feedback on John’s practical guides, such as building an Ethereum mining rig and Nvidia 1080ti overclocking.
