Ether Mining

        Amit Kumar Jaiswal                        Vipin Rathi              

Google Summer of Code Intern@CNCF        Google Summer of Code Intern@CERN

                  Twitter : @AMIT_GKP                                               Twitter : @vipin_scs

What

• Ether is the fuel of the Ethereum Blockchain
• Pays for smart contract execution in the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)
• Also a standalone cryptocurrency (Gemini recently licensed for trading it by NY regulators)

Why?

• Speculation
  • Where will Ether be in a year?
• Fun
  • Combines DIY, computer hardware assembly, operating system installation/management, scripting + Ethereum

USD/ETH Price History

How does it work?

• Miners continually trying to verify blocks for the blockchain
  • 5 ether reward for each solution
• Based on Cryptographic hash function
  hash(<block>) => a7ffc6f8bf1ed76651c14756a061d662f580ff4de43b49fa82 d80a4b80f8434a
• Miners applying hash function millions (mega) of times/sec = MH/s
• Single GPU generates 5-30 MH/s
• CPU ~ 0.25 MH/s

Ethash Algorithm

• Ethash Proof of Work algorithm (formerly Dagger Hashimoto)
  • SHA3-256 variant hashing function
  • Memory-hard computation
  • Memory-easy validation
  • Can't use ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuits)
  • Uses 4GB directed acyclic graph file (DAG) regenerated every 30000 blocks by miner

Proof of Work Difficulty

• Hashing Blocks
  • Difficulty - dynamically adjusts parameter defined originally in genesis block (one block produced every 12s)
    • Started at 0x400000000 (0.017 TH) 
    • Now at 0x3205AF767000 (55 TH)
• Simplifies example:
  nonce = random int
  while hashimoto(block, nonce) * difficulty > threshold
       increment nonce
  return nonce
   

Genesis Block

{

      "nonce": "0x0000000000000042",
      "timestamp": "0x0",
      "parentHash": "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
      "extraData": "0x0",
      "gasLimit": "0x8000000",
      "difficulty": "0x400000000",
      "mixhash": "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
"coinbase": "0x3333333333333333333333333333333333333333", "alloc": { } }

Ohh...It's too much Technical

Let's take me to Mining!!!!!!!

Subtitle

Profitability

Ether mined * ETH Price

-

(Hardware + Software + Power + hosting + your time)

= Profit

Hardware

Parts:

• 4-6 x GPUs - NVIDIA Zotac GTX 1060 6GB
• Motherboard - lots of PCIe slots
• PCI Risers (try fitting > 2GPUs on a single board)
• Decent power supply ~ 1000W for 3 GPUs
• Cheap CPU
• 4-8 GB RAM
• Power switch

Motherboard

ASRock H81 Pro

Motherboard quirks

Risers

Motherboard can only hold 1-2 GPU cards

Case

• Build or buy?
• Considerations
  • Budget
  • How comfortable are you with DIY?

Case - Wood*

Cost ~ $25 AUD

* Combusts at ~300 degree celsius

Mining Rig

Case - Wood & Metal

Cost ~ $50 AUD

Or even milk crates...

Case - Buy

$200 USD from GPU Shack

Software Installation

OS

• Linux
  • Ubuntu 14.0x/15.0x with AMD/NVIDIA GPU driver
• Windows 8/8.1/10
• EthOS (Paid ~ $40 USD)
  • Ether mining Linux OS from GPU Shack

Software - Ethereum

• Geth/Eth
  • Run full ethereum node
• Or
  • Connect to a mining pool (see next slide)
• ethminer
  • C++ mining client
  • Connects to Geth/eth

Mining Pools

• Block reward is 5 ether
  • For small rigs => long wait (weeks)
  • Steady stream of income (pool splits block reward between contributing members)
• ~ 1% fee of all ether mined
• Minimum payout ~ 1.01 Eth
• Provide UI for monitoring workers
• Usually go via a proxy (eth-proxy/qtMIner)
  • Provides automatic failover in event of pool failure

Begin Mining w/Pools

• Claymore mining through Dwarfpool

  • For Windows : https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2Q0hpvh6Wm4ZzlnbmUyWVFNYVk

  • For Linux : https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2Q0hpvh6Wm4amM0c2psOTV4b1 

  • Edit "start.bat" file and replace it with "ethminer -G -F http://eth-eu.dwarfpool.com:80/{YOUR_WALLET_ADDRESS}/MINER_NAME

Begin Mining w/Pools

• Start proxy:

  • $ python eth-proxy.py

  • Start the miner

    • ethminer --farm-recheck 200 -G -F http:// 127.0.0.1:8080/<node-name> 

Mining

Other considerations

Title Text

Power

How much are you paying per kWh?

• Indian plans often have an advertised rate cap - e.g., quaterly cap of 4000 kWh
• 1 x 1000 PSU (3-4 GPU rig) running24/7:
  • 1 * 24 * 30 = 720 kWh/month

Power Meters

Measures:

• Current Consumption (W)
• Consumption used (kWh)

Cost ~ 1800 INR

Managing Failure

Multiple points of rig failure

• Hardware - GPU X 4-6, risers x 2-5, motherboard PCIe slots => lots of variables
• Software - problematic device drivers
• Time consuming trial and error to isolate issues - e.g. jumper cables required on some model PCIe slots

Monitoring

Various components:

• Node or pool connectivity
• ethminer
  • it occasionally falls over
• GPU temperature
  • On linux requires X server to be running
• CPU temperature
• OS Crash

Monitoring

• You will need to write various scripts (or use EthOS)
• Take action
  • Send alearts - SMS/Email
  • Restart component
  • Power off rig

What about the Cloud Mining?

You'll need lots of AWS Credit....

AWS Spot instances

• g2.8xlarge instance contains 4 x NVIDIA GPUs
• Hashrate of 24 MH/s
• 0.0077 Eth/hr ~ $0.10 USD/hr
• Low spot instance price $2.66 USD/hr

Proof of Stake

• Nodes with greater stake (e.g. total # of ether, duration of holdings) more likely to generate valid block
• No longer possible to profitably mine ether (if it ever was…)
• Expected in 2017

Thanks

Resources

• Mining algorithm • https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/blob/master/Dagger-Hashimoto.md
• https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Ethash
• Costs - http://etherchain.org/api/statistics/price - Ether price history
• Mining calculator-  https://etherscan.io/ether-mining-calculator
• http://gpushack.com/collections/gpushack - ready made rigs (US based)
• https://github.com/Atrides/eth-proxy
• Rig Building: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jnp9Ka8WVpA