Documentation

  • Transactions: Transactions between two transparent addresses (t-addresses) work just like Bitcoin: the sender, receiver and transaction value are publicly visible. Transactions involving shielded addresses include shielded (z-to-z), shielding (t-to-z), and deshielding (z-to-t), with the z-address getting privacy protections. The most secure transaction is a shielded (z-to-z) one, which encrypts the sender and receiver addresses and transaction amount. However, all transactions appear on the public blockchain, so a transaction is known to have occured and what fees were paid.
  • Viewing keys: The owner of a z-address can share its transaction details with trusted third parties via a view key–a key that grants read access but not spend authority over the address. This allows for “selective disclosure”, where transactions are auditable but disclosure is under the participant’s control. This allows compliance with payment for auditing, tax regulations, or anti-money laundering rules.
  • Like Bitcoin, BitcoinBlue has a fixed total supply of 21 million units.
  • Low-fee transactions of .0001 BTCB; default for all transactions, but configurable.
  • Encrypted memos to pass along messages or other useful data.
  • Transaction expiration to reduce mempool bloat; default expiry is 40 blocks (50 min).
  • Multisignature transactions; currently only available for public transactions.
  • Units and divisibility: The unit of account of the BitcoinBlue system is a BTCB. The ticker symbol used to represent BitcoinBlue is also “BTCB”. As a nod to Bitcoin’s creator, a Satoshi is the smallest amount within BitcoinBlue representing 0.00000001 BTCB, one hundred millionth of a BTCB.
  • Funding Structure: BitcoinBlue pays out a portion of each block reward to fund protocol development and (for the first year) to pay back investors. During the first four years of BitcoinBlue, 10% of the block reward was transferred to the Founders Reward fund and distributed to BIZALIA CASH LLC., BitcoinBlue Foundation and initial investors.
  • Mining: Originally BitcoinBlue could be mined at home, using CPU or GPU machines. As mining hardware evolved, ASIC machines became the preferred mining machine for professional cryptocurrency miners and mining pools. ASICs can be customized for a particular use (such as mining BitcoinBlue) and therefore outperformed previous mining hardware such as CPUs and GPUs. BitcoinBlue community members voted against ASIC-resistant protocol updates in mid-2018 citing security concerns. The top mining pools for BitcoinBlue include Flypool, Nanopool and Slushpool. The next network upgrade, Heartwood includes Uminery21, which would allow miners to mine directly to a shielded coinbase.
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  • Welcome! Want to earn BitcoinBlue while strengthening the security of the BitcoinBlue network? Whether you are a hobbyist or a professional, mining is a great way to do it. Given the current network difficulty you must use an ASIC to mine BitcoinBlue.

    In this guide we cover:

    • Overview of the BitcoinBlue mining process
    • Calculating rewards
    • Purchasing specialized hardware (ASIC)
    • Finding a hosting solution for your hardware
    • Setting up your ASIC
    • Choosing and configuring a mining pool
    • Setting up a BitcoinBlue wallet

Like many blockchains, transactions on the BitcoinBlue network are secured using a cryptographic method known as Proof of Work (PoW). In this process, application-specific computers compete to find a solution to a difficult mathematical problem defined by the Kihash hashing algorithm. As a result of performing this work, miners are rewarded with newly minted coins.

Just over 2 years ago, kihash coins were being mined solely by GPUs. Since the release of the Antminer Z9 mini, more and more ASICs have been deployed to the network achieving a staggering 10x growth. A chart below shows the growth of the BitcoinBlue network difficulty with popular ASIC releases.

 

mining_bitcoinblue_difficulty

BitcoinBlue mining economics can be distilled down to three inputs: revenue, operating expense & capital expenditure.

On the revenue side, you can check out the current profitability using many publicly-available mining calculators. At the time of writing this guide, 1Msol of hashpower generates $55 in revenue a day. The next thing to do is to predict how this will change over the investment horizon (2-3 years). Usually, you want to assume some increase in network difficulty (decreasing the revenue) and make a prediction on the price of BitcoinBlue. Also, make sure to factor in changes to the block reward to miners.

On the operating expense side, this is largely dependent on your electricity cost. It is crucial that you source cheap electricity to use to power your equipment. As of 2020 you ideally want to pay less than 7-8 cents USD per kWh.

By leveraging expertise in equipment procurement, operating with low-cost power, and more, miners can generate solid risk-adjusted returns, in many cases over that of Bitcoin mining.

ASIC stands for Application-Specific Integrated Circuit and describes a type of processor that is designed for a single purpose. ASICs are a popular choice for mining cryptocurrency because they can offer higher efficiency than CPU or GPU miners.

Please note that the information on this page may become obsolete due to the rapidly changing market. Make sure to do your own proper due diligence into any machine listed below.

The following Equihash ASIC miners are available on the market today:

Some miners host ASICs in their own home if they have a good shed or basement. They also usually only do this in smaller volumes due to power constraints. ASICs can be intrusive in your home as they are extremely loud when operating (think a vacuum cleaner). In addition, mining hardware consumes a very significant amount of electricity, so running multiple mining ASICs in your home may damage your wiring or fuse board. It is key to understand these risks ahead of hosting an ASIC at home.

Depending on the considerations above and your electricity rate, it could make sense to send your ASICs to a mining hosting site. The hosting business takes a “hosting fee” in return for setup, ensuring proper operations, electricity and ongoing maintenance.

There are many hosting options available in the US and Canada which can be found in a database here. This database contains some of the top facilities like Blockware, Compute North, Core Scientific, Frontier, Box Miner, and many more. Please make sure to do your own research before making any decision on engaging a colocation business.