A brief history of bitcoin mining hardware - TNW

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Dear Investors!
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We have already announced the official Tkeycoin network release date - April 5, 2019. The days are passing by and the release date is getting closer, meaning it’s high time to talk about the mining of TKEY cryptocurrency.
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The first publication on the subject is already available on our Facebook page (just in case you missed it). We talked about the PoW algorithm, Bitcoin mining history and mining hardware evolution, Tkeycoin mining features etc. The article was really informative, and we recommend you to read (or re-read) it before you start the second part.
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Today we will talk about some mining issues that we haven’t yet mentioned. Let’s start with SHA-256 algorithm, as it will be also used for Tkeycoin mining. It stands for Secure Hashing Algorithm, developed by The US National Security Service. The main advantage of this algorithm is its ability to efficiently compress data and the zero probability of collisions. In simple words, SHA-256 is safe, quick and universal.
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According to the US law, SHA-256 may be used by both individuals and commercial organizations. It is not surprising that SHA-256 was applied to cryptocurrencies - this algorithm allows to encrypt any amount of data, converting it into a compact line of cryptographic hash. It is very important for mining, as miners can encrypt all the transactions in one block, producing an output hash value of the fixed size. When miners manage to find the right hash, the block is considered solved and is added to the blockchain. This is exactly how cryptocurrencies are mined.
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As the process is actually based on random guessing, miners with more computing power are the first to find the right hash. As we have already mentioned, SHA-256-based mining is possible with CPUs, GPUs and ASICs. And if the first 2 options (processors and video cards respectively) are familiar to everyone, the third one may be confusing both for beginners and experienced miners.
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ASIC (application specific integrated circuit) is a type of hardware customized for a specific computer task. ASIC miners are suitable only for cryptocurrency mining. They use the circuits specifically created for efficient solving of hash puzzles. Even ASIC physical design meets the basic needs of mining - for example, they normally have very efficient cooling systems.
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ASICs pay off pretty quickly, feature less energy consumption (compared with GPU analogs) and bigger hashrates. Also, as we have already said, they are provided with better cooling systems. Naturally, this type of mining hardware has its drawbacks, too. For instance, you can only use it for mining one or several cryptocurrencies, based on a certain algorithm. Besides, ASICs are fast to become obsolete. But, despite all this, they are normally a profitable investment.
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To mine Tkeycoin you may use a wide variety of ASICs by Bitmain (Antminer S9, S11, T15), DragonMint T1, Ebang Communication, WhatsMiner M3 etc. It’s important to note that you will also be able to mine TKEY cryptocurrency with already ‘obsolete’ hardware, because in our case the network difficulty will be comparable with the early stages of Bitcoin existence. We will publish more details and numbers soon, after we have tested the network and made the preliminary calculations.
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Anyway, you still have enough time for choosing your mining hardware, as ASIC and GPU mining will be unavailable during the first month of the network existence. Our team will need a certain amount of time for public network testing and tuning. Until this process is over, it will only be possible to mine Tkeycoin using PCs, laptops and smartphones.
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As soon as we have completed all the necessary tests and stabilized the mining process, all the users will become able to mine the coins with ASICs, cloud-mining services, and GPU rigs - whatever option they prefer or can afford. For your convenience, we will also release a special mining profitability calculator that will help you choose the perfect hardware for your needs, resources and desired profit level. Until then you may use for this purpose any of the dozens calculators already available online.
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About mining pools. As we mentioned earlier, we will start an official Tkeycoin mining pool that will let TKEY miners unite their computing powers. Besides, we plan to publish the source code, thus allowing thousands of enthusiasts worldwide to create their own pools for Tkeycoin mining.
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In conclusion, there will be no limits for Tkeycoin mining. So far, we have received a lot of questions concerning this issue. No, there will not be any limits (like 3000 coins or whatever). Tkeycoin mining will be available for anyone, we mean it.
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Don’t forget to subscribe to our social media pages and follow the news of the project. Soon, we will come up to you with some tech specs and more related details, including the size of reward for solving a block.
Check your news feed regularly not to miss anything!
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See you soon!
Your Tkeycoin Team