Book Image

Bitcoin Essentials

By : Albert Szmigielski
Book Image

Bitcoin Essentials

By: Albert Szmigielski

Overview of this book

Blockchain is being billed as the technology of the future. Bitcoin is the first application of that technology. Mining is what makes it all possible. Exploring mining from a practical perspective will help you make informed decisions about your mining setup. Understanding what the future may hold for blockchains, and therefore for mining, will help you position yourself to take advantage of the impending changes. This practical guide starts with an introduction to Bitcoin wallets, as well as mining hardware and software. You will move on to learn about different mining techniques using the CPU, GPU, FPGA, and ultimately the ASIC as an example. After this, you will gain an insight into solo mining and pool mining, and see the differences between the two. The book will then walk you through large-scale mining and the challenges faced during such operations. Finally, you will take a look into the future to see a world where blockchain-based applications are commonplace and mining is ubiquitous.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Bitcoin Essentials
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Pros and cons of FPGA mining


Mining with FPGAs has its advantages and disadvantages. Let's examine these in order to understand if and when it is appropriate to use FPGAs to mine Bitcoin. As you may recall, mining started on CPUs and then it moved over to GPUs; then people discovered that FPGAs could be used for mining as well.

Pros of FPGA mining

FPGA mining is the third step in mining hardware evolution. They are faster and more efficient than GPUs.

To summarize, mining Bitcoin with FPGAs has the following advantages:

  • FPGAs are faster than GPUs and CPUs

  • FPGAs are more electricity-efficient, per unit of hashing, than CPUs or GPUs

Cons of FPGA mining

FPGAs are rather difficult to source and program, and are not usually sold in stores open to the public. We have not touched upon programming FPGAs for Bitcoin mining, as we assumed you have acquired pre-programmed FPGAs. There are several good resources on the Internet regarding FPGA programming; electricity cost is also an issue with FPGAs, although...