Difficulty of digging Ethereum

1. Now there are many professional miners who can really make money. Their investment is relatively large, and they need to be built near hydropower stations in remote areas, because mining consumes a lot of electricity, and the cost of electricity is almost the vast majority of the cost of bitcoin mining. Indivial investors, if there is a channel, can buy shares, otherwise in the city is almost unable to make money.

2. The token of Ethereum is proced in the process of mining, with a mining rate of 5 Ethereum coins per piece. The mining process of Ethereum is almost the same as that of bitcoin. For each transaction, miners can use the computer to run the unique title metadata of the block through hash function, and guess the answer repeatedly and quickly until one of them wins

many new users believe that the sole purpose of mining is to generate ether in a way that does not require a central issuer (see our guide "what is ether?"). It's true. The token of Ethereum is proced in the process of mining, with a mining rate of 5 Ethereum coins per piece. But mining is at least as important. Usually, banks are responsible for keeping accurate records of transactions. They make sure that money is not created out of thin air and that users don't cheat and spend money many times. However, blockchain introces a new way to keep records, the whole network instead of intermediary, to verify transactions and add them to the public ledger

Ethereum mining

although "no trust" or "trust minimization" monetary system is the goal, there are still people who need to ensure the security of financial records and ensure that no one cheats. Mining is one of the innovations that makes decentralized records possible. Miners have reached a consensus on the history of transactions in terms of preventing fraud (especially double spending on ether) - an interesting issue that hasn't been addressed before the decentralized currency works on the blockchain. While Ethereum is looking at other ways to reach a consensus on the effectiveness of the deal, mining currently keeps the platform together

how mining works
today, the mining process of Ethereum is almost the same as that of bitcoin. For each transaction, the miner can use the computer to guess the answer repeatedly and quickly until one of them wins. More specifically, the miner will run the unique header metadata (including time stamp and software version) of the block through the hash function (which will return a fixed length, unordered string of numbers and letters, which appears to be random), changing only the 'nonce value', which will affect the hash value of the result

if the miner finds a hash that matches the current target, the miner will be granted ether and broadcast the block across the network for each node to verify and add to their own ledger . If miner B finds the hash, miner a stops working on the current block and repeats the process for the next block. It's hard for miners to cheat in this game. There is no way to fake the work and come up with the right answer to the puzzle. That's why solving puzzles is called "proof of work."

on the other hand, others have little time to verify whether the hash value is correct, which is exactly what each node does. About every 12-15 seconds, a miner finds a stone. If the miner starts to solve the puzzle faster or slower than this, the algorithm will automatically re adjust the difficulty of the problem so that the miner can rebound to about 12 seconds of solution time

miners earn these ethers randomly, and their profitability depends on their luck and the computing power they put in. The specific workload verification algorithm used by Ethereum is called "ethash", which aims to require more memory, making it difficult to mine with expensive ASIC. Special mining chips are now the only profitable way to mine bitcoin

in a sense, ethash may have achieved this goal successfully, because dedicated ASIC is not available for Ethereum (at least not yet). In addition, as Ethereum aims to shift from proof of work mining to "proof of equity" (which we will discuss below), buying ASIC may not be a wise choice because it may not prove useful for a long time< However, Ethereum may never need miners. Developers plan to abandon proof of work, the algorithm currently used by the network to determine which transactions are valid and protect them from tampering to support proof of equity, which is guaranteed by token owners. If and when the algorithm is launched, proof of equity can become a means to achieve distributed consensus, and the consensus uses less resources.

3. Eth is easier. For example, you can dig one eth1 in a month with a video card miner, but you can only dig 0.00001 BTC in a year

4. It depends on the difficulty of the algorithm and the current currency price. The income is not fixed!

5. Mining doesn't need a good CPU, does it? CPU algorithm mining is too low, mining is mainly using graphics card mining

6. Core developer Mike Hearn: why bitcoin should be forked
2015-08-17 09:17:38 Views: key words: Mike

related reading: Mike Hearn: internal contradictions in the enterprise prevent Google from accepting bitcoin

Yes, it's coming. The community is beginning to separate, and bitcoin is about to bifurcate: including software, and perhaps blockchain. The two sides of the split are bitcoin core and the micro variant program based on the same program, called bitcoin XT. On August 16, Beijing time, there is now a full version of bitcoin XT

this bifurcation has never happened before. I want to explain this from the perspective of bitcoin XT developers: it can't be said that it hasn't been communicated enough

bitcoin bifurcation, this topic may make many people curious, so this article is written for ordinary readers. It doesn't involve the knowledge that has been debated before

the original version of bitcoin was carefully arranged by Nakamoto, and has always been very clear. The debate is about growth. In 2008, he answered the first question about the design of bitcoin, saying:

visa processed 37 billion transactions in fiscal year 2008, or an average of 100 million transactions per day. So many deals require 100GB of bandwidth = 12 DVDs or 2 HD quality movies = about $18 of bandwidth at the current price

assuming that the bitcoin network reaches this scale, it will take several years. By then, sending two HD movies over the Internet may not be a big deal

at that time, he was more tired of bitcoin expansion than any of us. His plan is to make bitcoin popular from the beginning, and he knows that this success will change how people use his system. In 2010, he said, "it's good that we keep [blockchain] files as small as possible

the final solution will not care how big it (blockchain file) becomes

but now, while it is still small, keep it in a small state, and the growth of new users will be faster. When I finally implement client only mode, it's no longer a problem
"
in 2011, through a series of calculations, I expanded the expansion intuition of Nakamoto in detail: if bitcoin becomes so popular, will it completely replace visa? The answer is that his plan is credible - you don't need anything else but a computer, even if there's so much traffic. Before he left, I also implemented the model he talked about

it was Nakamoto's plan that brought us together. It has changed the lives of thousands of people around the world. Some of us give up our jobs, others devote their spare time to the project, others set up companies and even travel around the world. This is an idea that ordinary people can complete mutual payment through blockchain and create this global community

that's the vision I signed, and that's the vision Gavin Andresen signed, and that's the vision signed by millions of developers, founders of startups, evangelists, and users around the world

and this vision is now in danger. In recent months, it's clear that a small group of people have completely different plans for bitcoin. These people have never really understood Nakamoto's intention because they are worried about success, if the technology has never been improved, if people can't run bitcoin on their home computers? Doesn't this make bitcoin move away from centralization and more like banking? What if people start to rely on bitcoin, even if it's imperfect

now, Nakamoto has chosen to disappear, and they want to make a major change: substantially increase transaction costs, end support for mobile P2P wallets, give up unconfirmed transactions, and many things that have never been found in the project's founding documents

the so-called lightning network, which is about to be promoted as a substitute for Nakamoto's design, does not exist. The white paper describes that it was announced earlier this year, and if it can be realized, it will be a huge departure from the bitcoin we know and love. Pick one of the many differences, and a bitcoin address won't work. What they will be replaced with has not yet been worked out (because no one knows). There are many other surprising pitfalls that I mentioned in another article. What will it eventually proce to make our existing bitcoin network better? It is still extremely unclear

what happened to the free market

in theory, none of this should be a problem. Lightning network is built on the blockchain, but it needs a rather trivial upgrade process to achieve the best function. Of course, people are willing to explore this direction, which is entirely possible. If the jobs they set up are better than the existing ordinary bitcoin network, then the market will choose their way, if so... It is fair competition for them! The current design of bitcoin is unlikely to be the final version for payment. This is a reasonable imagination, one day it will be eliminated in the competition, or enhanced by something else

but our system is working today. It has an ecosystem, including developers, exchanges, wallets, ATMs, books, applications, conferences, and many people have learned how it works

if there was a free choice, would people decide to move to a completely different system

we don't know, but the people who are pushing these things don't want the market to make a decision. That's what happened

a long time ago, Nakamoto set up a temporary "mixed brand assembly computer": he limited the size of each block to 1 MB. He did so in order to keep the blockchain in a small state in the early days, until we now call it the creation of SPV wallet (that is, what Nakamoto calls "client only mode"). As mentioned above, when the time comes, it can be adjusted. It has never been said that it is permanent. In the end, it becomes irrelevant. In 2011, I wrote the first SPV tool with my respected colleague Andreas schildbach, and we built the first and most popular Android wallet together. Since then, SPV wallets have been used on major platforms. Therefore, Nakamoto's reasons for this temporary restriction have been solved a long time ago

with the continuous growth of bitcoin, its blocks are also growing. Reasonable traffic forecasts show that the block will reach the current system limit sometime next year, at the latest in 2017. Another bubble or pressure cycle will force us to exceed that limit before, and the result may not be beautiful.

so it's time to raise the upper limit, or delete it completely. That's our plan, and the problem starts: those who don't want to see bitcoin expand have decided to postpone the process. They saw a beautiful, one-time opportunity to forcibly transfer bitcoin's predetermined path to a completely different technological trajectory. They don't know what this alternative design will be, and of course they haven't built it yet. But it doesn't matter. They believe that by blocking the growth of the blockchain, they can "motivate" (that is, force) the bitcoin community to switch to different things, something more in line with their personal technical taste

why restrict blockchain

so far, I haven't explained much about these people or who they are. I think it's a very time-consuming and laborious thing to name names in this article, and it seems to be futile in the end. Presumably those who care about this matter already know it, and those who don't know it can't recognize the people who are involved in it

I just want to say that they are very few people who have access to the bitcoin core code base, or those who are convinced by their arguments

therefore, we will not discuss these arguments here, which has been too much. Gavin and I have written articles to analyze the questions raised by everyone to refute them. Sometimes the answer is some common sense, some will be more in-depth, need more work, such as network simulation

the best place to understand these controversies is in Gavin's blog. I hope to find a link to a collection of opinions similar to those refuting Gavin's point of view, but none of them

to sum up, in the long and hard debate, several different opposition groups:

if bitcoin approaches this limit, we will be stimulated to create something better
the limit should be raised, but it is not ready (the actual time is not specified)
if bitcoin is expanded and becomes more centralized, it will no longer be bitcoin< Other people: if the objections you support are not listed above, please check Gavin's blog and find out the answer

the first point may become a reality one day, but it is not comparable with the theoretical system on paper. But no one who has seen any alternative solutions on the table thinks they can be implemented within 12 months (see another example in the last paragraph, for example)... Even assuming they are better. This is also an example of the nirvana fallacy:

the nirvana fallacy refers to the name of the informal fallacy of some unrealistic and idealized substitutes for something more practical. It can also refer to the tendency to think that there is a perfect solution to a specific problem, so it is also called perfectionism fallacy
it's obviously advantageous to create an imitative dichotomy for a current choice. But it's also totally incredible. One who uses the nirvana fallacy can attack any opposing idea because it is imperfect. According to this fallacy, the choice is not between real-world solutions. One is a realistic solution, and the other is an impractical solution, which is the "better" choice between the two

the answer to the second objection is too vague. It is reasonable to believe that the overall upgrade of each bitcoin node may take one year, and the actual bitcoin network capacity overload will cause serious damage. We really should be ready before that. In the bitcoin development mailing list, there are two people who have professional capacity planning experience, and both of them have

7. In short, this is the function of the central bank
new currencies are usually solved through open market operations. In other words, the central bank makes its own money flow out by buying Treasury bonds (issued by the Ministry of Finance), so that the money flows to commercial banks, and commercial banks make money circulate in the society through lending
first of all, understand currency: today's commonly referred to as currency is the paper money in our pocket. It is a medium and tool to facilitate the exchange and circulation of goods under the commodity economy. It has no value in itself and is issued and forced to circulate by the national bank. When you go shopping in China with us dollars, the shop owner will treat us dollars as a piece of waste paper, because US dollars must be converted into RMB through the central bank to be used in China
currencies of different countries cannot be circulated in different countries. Now, with the global economic integration, there are certain economic exchanges between countries. In order to solve the trade and currency problems between different countries, two concepts of foreign exchange and foreign exchange reserve are involved
as we all know, a country's wealth is not measured by the amount of its currency issued or owned, but by the amount of its commodities, which are the material needs of people's life, rather than money, that is, a country's proction capacity and gross domestic proct
trade between countries can be divided into export and import as follows:
in the case of export, if US dollar is used as foreign currency, that is to say, Chinese multinational enterprises sell their procts in the United States in exchange for the currency of other countries. For Chinese people, foreign currency is not allowed to circulate in the Chinese market, Therefore, in the Chinese market, foreign currency is equivalent to a pile of waste paper. Therefore, it is useless for Chinese export enterprises to sell foreign currency to the national bank to exchange it for RMB, and the state holds foreign currency. People's wealth is ultimately reflected in their material enjoyment, and money is only an intermediary and tool for material exchange, Our domestic enterprises give the goods they proce to the United States, while the United States only gives us foreign currency (bonds), thus forming a debt relationship: that is, China is the creditor, foreign countries (the United States) are the debtor, and foreign exchange (US dollars) is the debt relationship certificate

for the import situation, foreign currency reserves will not be affected. For example, if foreign businessmen sell foreign goods at home to earn RMB, the central bank will take the foreign exchange reserves (US dollars) to buy back RMB from foreign investors (because this part of RMB is circulating at home and is not counted as foreign exchange reserves), It may also be that foreign businessmen take RMB to their own country to exchange for their own currency, which also forms their own foreign exchange reserves (whether the actual process is like the above, I don't know, it's not studying economy, it's just speculation). Buy back is actually a hedging process (the real sense of hedging seems to be that the central bank takes foreign exchange to buy overseas). It can also be understood as follows: foreign goods are regarded as the goods proced by the central bank and sold in the domestic market. In this way, part of the foreign exchange reserve is returned to the people through the central bank, and the debt is also paid

generally, the amount of money in circulation of a country corresponds to the amount of goods proced by the country Material wealth corresponds to the amount of money)
Chinese enterprises export goods, which can be seen as: China proces too many domestic goods (that is, the corresponding currency is not enough),
domestic enterprises get foreign markets for commodity sales and exchange through the form of export, and can exchange domestic goods for foreign goods, but because of the existence of foreign currency, In fact, these foreign currencies are equivalent to the debts of foreign consumers to China's export enterprises, and these debts are uniformly assigned to the name of the national bank. This has become the country's foreign exchange reserves. The more foreign exchange reserves, the more money the state will lend. Lending is equivalent to issuing money. If a country releases too much money, it needs to issue a large amount of money, which may cause inflation (there are not enough goods, but a lot of currency in circulation). At this time, the country purchases goods from overseas through the international market, and consumes foreign goods in exchange for goods, so as to achieve the goal of stabilizing and balancing the economy. It can also be understood from another perspective that the central bank releases a large amount of money to exchange for foreign exchange reserves. The increase of this kind of money is not caused by the "invisible hand" of the market rules, but by the Central Bank of the government. If we zoom in, the increase of money will actually be inflation, and the money on the hands of the people will be devalued, The devalued part is occupied by the central bank free of charge. Therefore, it can be understood as: foreign exchange reserves are liabilities of the central bank, not assets, because it is exchanged by the central bank from the people's hands with RMB, then the people will want to cash this asset one day
as China's foreign exchange currency is mainly US dollar, once the US economy fluctuates and leads to the depreciation of US dollar, China's foreign exchange reserves will have the risk of devaluation. The devaluation of foreign exchange reserves is also the loss of China's assets< In a word, foreign exchange reserve is a kind of debt relationship between the people and other countries (reserves are not national assets, but the money of the working people), and the people, as one of the creditor's rights, transfer the creditor's rights to the National Central Bank and hang them in the name of the central bank

foreign exchange reserve refers to the foreign convertible currency held by a country's monetary authority and can be used for external payment, which acts as an international reserve asset. The amount of foreign exchange reserve mainly depends on the status of import and export, the scale of foreign debt and the actual use of foreign capital. Foreign exchange reserves are used for trade with other countries
in order to increase foreign exchange, we need to issue RMB to buy, and the supply of RMB will increase, which may cause monetary expansion in the domestic market. A certain amount of foreign exchange reserve is an important means for a country to adjust its economy and realize the economic balance at home and abroad. When there is a deficit in the balance of payments (more imports, the domestic market full of foreign goods, causing domestic monetary tightening), the use of foreign exchange reserves can promote the balance of payments; When the domestic macro-economy is unbalanced and the total demand is greater than the total supply (the consumption demand increases and the goods are not enough), we can use foreign exchange to organize imports, so as to adjust the relationship between the total supply and the total demand and promote the macro-economy balance
at the same time, when the exchange rate fluctuates, we can use the foreign exchange reserves to intervene the exchange rate and make it stable
the performance of foreign exchange reserves is to hold a kind of financial claims expressed in foreign currency, not put into domestic proction. This leads to the problem of opportunity cost, that is, if the monetary authorities do not hold reserves, they can use these reserve assets to import goods and services, increase the real resources of proction, and thus increase employment and national income, while holding reserves gives up such benefits
the increase of foreign exchange reserves should expand the money supply. If the foreign exchange reserves are too large, it will increase the pressure of inflation and increase the difficulty of monetary policy
holding too much foreign exchange reserves may also cause losses e to the depreciation of foreign exchange rate
because foreign currency can not circulate in the domestic market, the central bank not only releases a certain amount of money (through export and foreign capital) in China, but also reserves a certain amount of foreign exchange on behalf of the country. At this time, RMB is used in China, while foreign exchange itself is independent of the domestic economic operation, and is used by the central bank to maintain and increase value in the international financial market.

8. This is very necessary, installed a good graphics card without driver will greatly rece the performance of the graphics card

excessive overclocking

e to the use of components with higher technical parameters, some graphics cards have excellent overclocking capability, so many players advocate overclocking graphics cards to improve performance. However, there are both advantages and disadvantages. Overclocking can also lead to a significant increase in the heat of the chip. When it reaches a certain level, it will cause the problem of splash screen and crash. Even if not, it will also cause instability in some applications, such as games. Therefore, overclocking must be moderate. four