

! Disclaimer !



Don't purchase any ASIC miner expecting a full return on investment, chances are they won't provide a full return, regardless of the miner. But if you're wanting one just for fun, by all means buy one!

(This won't apply necessarily to scrypt asics, different ball game altogether but again do your homework)

Attention: With recent profitability numbers, you won't be able to mine and get a positive return with power rates higher than 0.1usd kWh, unless you use a GTX 750 Ti or asic setup.

*Don't rely on people's trading advice without doing your own research, and I mean it. You might incur in financial loss because of people's stupidity or even worse, agendas.

Welcome to the [Official] Bitcoin, Litecoin, Digitalcoin and all cryptocurrencies club and general information thread! We cover general discussion about cryptocurrencies and mining, as well as trading and investing tips. Feel free to hang out and ask away if you have any doubts.

Important!

Don't forget to check out Curecoin, the first cryptocurrency to have a useful byproduct: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=603757.0

(Click to show)

(Click to show)

All in one online Wallet

https://coinex.pw/ -- Currently down, use local wallets always, at least for most of your coins, or pool deposits.



List of Exchanges to trade your coins in Trading tips and info* www.babypips.com/school

www.investopedia.com

www.tradingview.com

www.bitcoinwisdom.com

www.cryptfolio.com

Alt coin trading sites www.btc-e.com

www.bter.com

www.crypto-trade.com

www.vircurex.com

www.mcxnow.com

www.cryptsy.com

BTC for cash sites www.localbitcoins.com

www.campbx.com

www.bitstamp.net

www.coinbase.com

www.mtgox.com GOXED :/ ​

Buy Steam games with your ALT Coins!

http://www.coingas.com/index.php?route=common/home

So, how does mining work?

(Click to show)

Disclaimer (Click to show) Bitcoin mining is not reccomended as it's not so profitable, and dedicated hardware becomes useless faster and impossible to resell as well.

This will be a summary of what is publicly available to view at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin



All you need to know is that your GPU can do math to "mine" Bitcoins, or other cryptocoins and those coins are traded in the world using their own stock exchanges.



Here you can see financial info, use technical analysis tools and check the prices out at any given time:



http://www.bitcoinwisdom.com/

http://bitcoincharts.com/





The rate at which a videocard generates Bitcoins is called a hash-rate.



Here is a chart of how various GPUs stack up:

https://litecoin.info/Mining_hardware_comparison

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison



An R9 280X makes about 750 Kh/s (Kilo Hash per second) while a GTX780 makes about 570-630 Kh/s making it inferior cost to performance wise for this type of compute work, unless you already have one of course. The lesser Nvidia cards are even worse for this.



Ok now, you can use that rate to estimate how many Bitcoins your Videocard can make (mining other alt coins and trading them for bitcoin) using the following online calculators: http://www.dustcoin.com

http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency

http://www.coinchoose.com

To get the process started, you need several things (Make sure to remember all your passwords and usernames!): Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show) (A) You need a Mining Client that manages the "mining process".

There are 5 main options: GUI Miner scrypt, cgminer, bfgminer, cudaminer and cpu mined coins and their programs.



I'd reccomend starting with cpu mining, everyone of us has a capable cpu...and most of us run them overclocked.

Head to www.beeeeer.org or ptsweb.beeeeer.org to get started. Lots of info in the links found there.



You can try VPS cloud mining too, but that's a little more advanced. (in case you don't own a decent cpu but you do own a credit card...) You can rent vcpus and use free trials to get you started and find the best performing vps service.

My favorite is Windows Azure and hpcloud.com, both have free trials and an excellent service.

For rental, I'd reccomend comparing those to the rates found at www.warriorvps.com, they offer 4770 equipped vps servers.



For gpu mining, a simple way to start is GUI Miner since it's the easiest.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=150331.0



Download it.



(B) Next you need a proper compute driver for AMD videocard to do the work before you start: AMD Stream SDK it's called. Latest version is 2.9 (but I reccomend 2.8 for cards like a 7970 or older):



http://developer.amd.com/tools-and-sdks/heterogeneous-computing/amd-accelerated-parallel-processing-app-sdk/downloads/



You can also try this modded 13.11 driver by our mate Blameless: http://www.sendspace.com/file/7kiiv4

Helps when you want to game on the mining rig from time to time, and also fixes problems related to crossfire and powerplay. (at the cost of increased idle power consumption and heat)



(C) You need a Wallet (think of this as your bank account), where you store ALL your bitcoins that you mine/trade.



You can use a Wallet from the desktop application such as this one:

http://bitcoin.org/

^ This has very low fees. If you encrypt this wallet, write down the password or you won't be able to ever get those coins back



Or use another wallet online such as www.blockchain.info



I like to use both to diversify, sometimes it's useful to separate your coins or even try paper wallets for cold storage. More about those here: http://blockchain.info/wallet/paper-tutorial



(D) Now the GUI Miner Client let's you attach yourself to various pools that mine alt coins together. Think of this like a bunch of factories that make the coins. It's too difficult to mine on your own so what happens is you team up many computers in the world and mine together. That allows us to generate bitcoins faster. The process is done automatically but the mining is done collectively and we get rewarded.



You need to register at your pool of choice, where you setup up your username and password and account. Each videocard in a system is called a "worker". For each new videocard in a system, you may or may not set up a separate worker unit: • Register your workers. It's useful to use separate workers for monitoring purposes.



Ok so now you have the GUI Miner (What helps you mine), the SDK Stream driver (what the videocard needs), the Bitcoin wallet (your bitcoin "storage/bank" account) and you have created Pool mining accounts.



What happens after is you can keep mining and put a threshold for how many coins you want to keep in the pool site before they get transferred to you, OR you can pay it out immediately to your Wallet or exchange site wallet (such as coinex.pw or a desktop for any given coin).



After you mine you can decide if it's a good idea to trade the coins for bitcoin or not. If you think it's a good time to sell, check the stock prices:

http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/mtgoxUSD.html



You can then either transfer the $ to your bank using the various btc to cash services posted earlier.



These are all the ways to convert Bitcoins into real dollars. You can sell them directly for the currency in the country you live in using any of these:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Selling_bitcoins



OR you can also just convert them to gift cards say using BTCBuy.info. All you'd do is similar to a bank wire transfer. You'll transfer the Bitcoins from your Bitcoin Wallet to the Payee's Bitcoin Wallet Address. 2-3 hours later you'll get a gift card with the amount that you paid in bitcoins.



You can even trade bitcoins for items or things:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Electronics

https://www.spendbitcoins.com/

Any Questions or concerns please feel free to ask me in thread or by Pm.



Have any information to Add to the Op? Please feel free to PM all information is always welcome!



Alt Coins



DigitalCoin

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show) Digitalcoin is meant to be a simple currency that keeps its value well and does not experience as much volatility as some other crypto currencies. This regard for stability is inherent in the design. It is optimized for performance and is one of the fastest ways to send and receive transactions in the world.



What It Is

-A digital currency

-A means to store value

-A fast method to send and receive money(almost instant)

-Transparent and open source

-Fair



Exchanges

1. Cryptsy.com

2. Crypto-trade.com



Related Sites

Main

Website: digitalcoin.co

Forum: http://digitalcoin.co/forum/

Wiki: http://www.dgcwiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page



Supporting:

Online Wallet: https://coinex.pw

Marketplace: http://dgcmarket.com/index.php

Advertising platform: http://digiclick.co

Online exchange Project: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=277241.0

Block Explorers: http://dgc.cryptocoinexplorer.com | http://dgc.p2pool.nl/chain/Digitalcoin

Statistics: http://dgc.p2pool.nl/stats/

Wallet generator: http://digitalcoin.co/paperwallet.html



Related Threads

Fountain(free coin): https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=212396.0

Advertising exchange: http://digitalcoin.co/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16&p=45#p45



Specifications

Algorithm: Scrypt



Block Time: 20 seconds - Enough time to minimize orphans but still provide almost instant transactions.



Difficulty: Starts at 0.00024414 - It will take 6-8 difficulty adjustments (or ~13000 blocks) to reach desired difficulty of 1. It re-targets quickly to adjust to the environment, so stability should not be much of an issue. Miners should also find the system adjusts fast enough to be up to date, but not so fast as to make the environment unpredictable and unstable. 6 hours is target time. Every 1080 blocks(6 hours @ 20 seconds per block), the network scales the difficulty accordingly. Example: If target is 6 hours and it took 3 hours to find 1080 blocks, difficulty will increase 200%.



Reward: 20 coins per block, halved every 3 years - Consistent rewards encourage miners to support the network long term. Loyalty is rewarded. This also reduces volatility by setting the foundation on a stable path. Due to the fair launch policy, block rewards will grow in value until they reach the 20 coins per block reward. More details below. 4730400 blocks total.



Coin cap: 200 million.



Block confirmations: 5.



Fair Launch

Block

1080 - Difficulty up until here is 0.00024414. Block reward of 2.



2160 - Difficulty up until here is 0.00024414. Block reward of 1.



3240 - Difficulty up until here is 0.00097656. Block reward of 2.



4320 - Difficulty up until here is 0.00390624. Block reward of 5.



5400 - Difficulty up until here is 0.01562496. Block reward of 8



6480 - Difficulty up until here is 0.06249984. Block reward of 11.



7560 - Difficulty up until here is 0.24999936. Block reward of 14



8640 - Difficulty up until here is 0.98165069. Block reward of 17.



Difficulty will then rise to 1 and the block rewards to 20. The purpose of this is to give a period of time for miners to know about digitalcoin before others can mine too much of it and cause hoarding. The figures above can shift depending on the hash power of the network to smooth the difficulty rise to ~1 level.



Quick Start

Download the wallet and follow step 1 from the Solo Mining guide. Both found below.



That will get you connected to the network and synchronize your wallet.



Screenshot

Screenshot of the first software build:





Developers

Everyone is welcome to contribute to digitalcoin in any way. If you have expertise that you would like to contribute, please contact me. A stable network providing regularly near instantaneous transactions has potential for many exciting implementations.



Solo mining

1. Create a file called digitalcoin.conf and put it in the root directory of your digitalcoin files(Example Windows 7/8: C -> Users -> Username->Appdata

->Roaming->digitalcoin). *In windows, choose save as All files in Notepad to save it with a .conf extension.



Sample digitalcoin.conf contents:



COPY BELOW THIS LINE

rpcuser=yourusername

rpcpassword=yourpassword

server=1

addnode=24.138.46.123

addnode=76.79.201.54

addnode=198.245.60.126

addnode=93.186.200.124

addnode=107.20.222.119

STOP COPYING ABOVE THIS LINE



(COMMENT: Forward port 7999 in your router firewall and/or software firewalls and send me your IP if you would like to be added to the nodes.)



2. Mine with the digitalcoin-qt wallet by launching it, navigating to Mining and putting in the username(rpcuser), and password(rpcpassword) you chose above. For port number, use 7998. The server will be the local IP of your machine, oftentimes localhost also works in the server field.



Alternatively, mine with cgminer using a .bat file or a modified shortcut command line.



To do so, use the following command line:



cgminer.exe –scrypt -I 11 -s 1 –expiry 1 –queue 0 -g 1 -o 127.0.0.1:7998 -u 1 -p 1



Please note 127.0.0.1:7998 is one possible local IP and yours can be different. 7998 is the local port the rpc miner listens on.



Forward port 7999 if you would like more incoming connections.



Pool mining

To connect to a pool, use the same command line above, but substitute the pool IP for the local IP.



Example: cgminer.exe –scrypt -I 11 -s 1 –expiry 1 –queue 0 -g 1 -o EXAMPLEPOOL.COM -u username -p worker.password



Pools will often post optimal settings so make sure to check those.



Pools



Underlined pools directly support the digitalcoin development foundation.



Pushpool:

http://digitalcoinpool.com - ethought | 1% | getwork, stratum | PPLNS | Nuremberg, Germany (HETZNER)

http://digitalcoin.scryptmining.com - nearmiss | 2% | stratum | PPS | New York, NY, United States (ServerStack)

http://dgc.cryptocoinmine.com - dreamwatcher | 1% | LP, stratum | PPLNS | Dallas, TX ,United States (SoftLayer)

http://digi.cryptcoins.net - MarKusRomanus | 0% | stratum | PPLNS | Quakertown, PA, United States (Verizon)

http://dgc.coinmine.pl - feeleep | 0% | stratum | PPLNS | Lodz, Poland (IWACOM)

http://digicoinpool.com - BigVern | 2% | getwork | PPLNS | San Antonio, TX, United States (Rackspace)

http://digitalize.bounceme.net - akabane | 1% | stratum | PPS | Paris, France (OVH)

http://dgc.epools.org - erundook | 1.5% | stratum | Prop. | Bucharest, Romania (Voxility)





P2pool:

http://p2pool-dgc.com:9500 - fenican | 1% | Ashburn, VA, United States (Amazon)

http://pool.bounceme.net:24397 - akabane | 0% | Paris, France (OVH)

http://95.211.25.2:24397 - akabane | 0% | Amsterdam, Netherlands (LeaseWeb)

http://p2pool.dsync.net:21111 - x3maniac | 0% | Yaphank, NY, United States (Optimum)

http://dgc.xpool.net:8810 - CartmanSPC | 1% | Irvine, CA, United States (SAVVIS)

http://p2poolmining.org:8001- schnebi | 1% | Cologne, Germany (HostEurope)

http://gldmine.info:9788 - schlopper | 1% | Quebec, Montreal, Canada (Protected.CA)

http://s01.plurapool.com:24397 - plurapool | 1% | Atlanta, GA, United States (Namecheap)

http://next.afraid.org:8119 - faraway | 2% | Paris, France (Free)

http://pool.1nusa.org:8119 - faraway | 2% | Portland, OR, United States (Amazon)

http://208.117.43.200:5400 - Decagrog | 0.5% | Chicago, USA (Geekstorage)

http://mineallcoins.com:19327 - napoleon2121 | 1% | Paris, France (OVH)





Start a Pool Options:

1. You can use the digitalcoin P2pool fork by akabane. Links: Github Repo | More Info



Download

Github: https://github.com/baritus/digitalcoinSource

Windows wallet executable: Download from Mega

Windows wallet executable git: https://github.com/baritus/digitalcoinQT

Mac wallet: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3lrk5gb7cyegc4w/Digitalcoin-Qt-0.6.3.0-Mac.zip



Games

1. Buy steam games for DGC: http://coingas.com

2. Dice: http://www.dgcdice.com

3. BitGrenade: http://www.bitgrenade.net/?coin_display=6

4. Slot Machine: http://alt-co.in/slots.php

5. Seal bomb: http://sealbomb.com



Donate for Development

DGC: DHgXvhswV9j3t9VTKu1QfAu6kYM1HHD5sJ

BTC: 1nkS5HuqfjDMRNtC7hpaKxzx1uq4Znoc4



Your donations increase the value of digitalcoin. We need donations to:

- Increase the value of digitalcoin

- Keep development going

- Fund new development

- Support efforts to expand digitalcoin's availability

- Run various services: domain, hosting, etc.

- Offer rewards for integrating digitalcoin into useful applications





Troubleshooting

Wallet:

If you have any wallet download, block chain, or any other issue with the connections, try the following first:

In your digitalcoin folder in AppData, delete everything but digitalcoin.conf and wallet.dat(backup whole folder just for safety). Edit digitalcoin.conf and make addnode=24.138.46.123 as your only node, relaunch. After one launch, your client should build a peer list with only good nodes. Forward port 7999 if you have no/low incoming connections.



LiteCoin

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show) What is Litecoin?

Litecoin is a cryptocurrency that uses an alternative, memory hard hashing algorithm called scrypt that was devised by mathematics' prodigy Colin Percival. The algorithm utilizes SHA256 and a stream function called salsa20 to force devices that mine it to either use a lot of memory or use dramatically more ALU cycles to perform a hash. With the parameters used in Litecoin's implementation of scrypt (N = 1024; p = 1; r = 1), each thread uses approximately 64-128 KB depending on the settings for lookup_gap and thread_concurrency in the mining program when mining with a GPU. Because GPUs have such fast memory (bandwidth in the hundreds of GB/s) and roughly 128-512 KB of RAM per stream processor, they are ideal for mining Litecoin. This requirement for fast memory in order to mine quickly results in Litecoin being FPGA and ASIC resistant; although ASICs may one day come out for Litecoin, they are not expected to garner the same performance increases as for Bitcoin (two orders of magnitude more efficient).



Mining Litecoin



The major factor which impacts hash rate/hardware errors is the thread_concurrency. The second most important factor for some cards is the ratio of core speed to memory speed. Typically optimum values of thread_concurrency are a multiple of 64 and vary per card and per card family (see below). The (core speed/memory speed) quotient should be 0.8 or less for 5xxx/6xxx cards and 0.7 or less for most 7xxx/r9 280X cards. R9 290 and 290X use bigger TC values, but you would have to do your own testing to find the sweetspot. Some evidence suggests that different 7xxx cards may have different ideal core:memory clock ratios, too.



5xxx series cards

Use cgminer.

Command line to run:

Code:



cgminer --scrypt -o http://yourpool.comort -u username -p password --thread-concurrency ???? -I 18 -g 1 -w 256



You can use pretty much any thread_concurrency between 1536 and 8192 that is a multiple of 64. Some people recommend using 4 or 5 * the number of SPs. You can find those in the table here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_(GPU_family) (1st number in core config)



Recommended thread concurrencies for

57xx cards: 2368-4096 (3200 is common)

58xx cards: 4096-8192 (5600, 7168, and 8000 are common)

5970 card: 4096-8192 (5632 or 8000 are common)



6xxx series cards

Use cgminer.

Command line to run:

Code:



cgminer --scrypt -o http://yourpool.comort -u username -p password --thread-concurrency ???? -I 18 -g 1 -w 256



You can use pretty much any thread_concurrency between 1536 and 8192 that is a multiple of 64. Some people recommend using 4 or 5 * the number of SPs. You can find those in the table here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Islands_(GPU_family) (1st number in core config)



Recommended thread concurrencies for

67xx cards: 2368-4096 (3200 is common)

68xx cards: 3008-6144 (4800 is common)

69xx cards: 4096-8192 (5600, 7168, and 8000 are common)

6990 card: 4096-8192 (5632 or 8000 are common)



7xxx series cards

Use reaper or cgminer versions 2.11.3 and up (see update below). Set thread_concurrency to somewhere slightly below 64 * bus_width_of_card_in_bits. So, for a 7950, that would be 64 * 384 = 24576; ideal values are 21712 or 24000. Find your bus width here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Islands_(GPU_family)



To find the optimum thread_concurrency for your card, you will need to search above and below this estimate ideal value and see what is fastest.



If you'd like to use reaper, follow the steps below.



Make reaper.conf the following:

Code:



kernel reaper.cl

save_binaries yes

enable_graceful_shutdown no

long_polling yes

platform 0

device 0

# device 1

# device 2

# device 3



mine litecoin



device ? must be added for every card you have to avoid using the CPU as well to mine. Make sure when reaper starts that it states that the CPU platform is disabled. CPU mining does not work correctly and may actually slow down GPU mining with reaper.



Example configuration (550kh/s, 7950) of litecoin.conf:

Code:



host yourpool.com ### Do not add http://!!

port 8344

user username

pass password



protocol litecoin



worksize 256

vectors 1

aggression 20

threads_per_gpu 1

sharethreads 32

lookup_gap 2

gpu_thread_concurrency 21712



Save litecoin.conf and run reaper.exe.



The 7xxx series can be tricky, for instance the 7770 seems to have an optimum thread concurrency of 8000 and works fine with cgminer and an intensity of 16 (nets 191kh/s with those settings). The 79xx cards should be amenable to the configuration above and are the fastest possible cards you can mine with.



Optimal thread concurrencies for 7xxx family:

7770: 8000 (200 kh/s, aggression 19)

7850: ????

7870: 15360 (400 kh/s, aggression 19)

7950: 21712 or 24000 (~575 kh/s)

7970 (cgminer): 22392 (~700 kh/s can be obtained with a core/memory ratio of 0.57)

7970 (reaper): 20992, 21712, or 24000 (~

7750: ????

7770: 8000 (200 kh/s, aggression 19)

7850: ????

7870: 15360 (400 kh/s, aggression 19)

7950: 21712 or 24000 (~575 kh/s)

7970 (cgminer): 22392 (~700 kh/s can be obtained with a core/memory ratio of 0.57) or 8192 (-g 2 -w 256 -I 13)

7970 (reaper): 20992, 21712, or 24000 (~650 kh/s can be obtained with reaper and core/memory ratio of 0.57, e.g. 900 MHz core and 1580 MHz memory. Over 725 KH/s can be achieved with memory overvolting.)



If reaper crashes periodically on a single card, use the following python script to keep it alive (starts reaper, runs for two hours, shuts it down, then restarts it):

Code:



import os, subprocess, time



while True:

print("Starting reaper...")

p = subprocess.Popen("C:\\Users\\my-pc\\Desktop\\reaper\\reaper.exe")

time.sleep(7200)

print("Terminating reaper...")

p.terminate()

time.sleep(10)



cgminer versions 2.11.3 and up can be used to mine with high thread concurrencies now. Follow these instructions:

WINDOWS: Open console and type

Code:



setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100



Now, close the console (it will not work if you open cgminer in the same window). Open cgminer using a .bat or a new console, high thread concurrencies will now work.



LINUX: Open terminal and type

Code:



export GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT=100



Now high thread concurrencies should work in cgminer.



TABLE OF USER REPORTED HASH RATES AND SETTINGS

https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/wiki/Mining-hardware-comparison



CARD MEMORY SPEED SETTINGS

Usually it is most effective to have the memory speed of the card equal to or greater than the core clock speed. For some cards this is more important than others, but this is generally true. From experimental data for a 7770, a (core speed)/(memory speed) ratio of 0.7 or less is recommended.



HETEROGENEOUS MIXTURES OF CARDS

CGMINER: Use a comma to separate thread-concurrency values, eg. --thread-concurrency 3200,8000. Values correspond to the card number in zeroeth order.

REAPER: Run multiple instances of reaper. To do this, clone the folder and then add "device x" to reaper.conf, where x is the number for the card in zeroeth order.



RAM REQUIREMENTS ON-MOTHERBOARD

The equivalent amount of system RAM as for the sum of all the vRAM used by the GPUs is required when mining with reaper. For instance, 3x 5970s mining with thread_concurrency values of 8000 each would require 3x 500MB = 1500MB system ram (plus additional RAM for the OS). The memory requirements for 7xxx cards are also higher because of larger thread_concurrency values, for instance a thread_concurrency of 24000 means 1.5GB system RAM per card is required.



THREADS PER GPU

Some people state that increased hash rates are experienced upon increasing the number of threads per GPU in 5xxx series cards (-g # in cgminer or threads_per_gpu # in reaper). That has not been my experience with 6xxx or 7xxx cards, but you can try it and see if it helps out your hash rate.



STRATUM LTC MINING

Supported by some pools (ltcmine.ru, notroll.in, coinotron.com) in order to reduce the number of stales. Typical results moving from JSON getwork to stratum is a reduction in stales from 1.5% to 0.5%. If you use reaper, you need to use a fork which is available here and a stratum proxy. Stratum mining works with cgminer for versions 2.10.3 and up using the "-o stratum+tcp://yourpool.comort" command.



POOL MINING

Go here and pick one: https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/wiki/Comparison-of-mining-pools

Other Links

Stilt's Custom Mining BIOSes / Fix for poor 7900/R9 280X hashrates