Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Mobile Crypto Coin Mining

Quote from the movie Titanic:
"Remember, they love money, so just pretend like you own a gold mine"

The time that mining for crypto-currencies like bitcoin could turn into gold is far behind us.
Mining, or rather calculating new solutions for incorporating transactions into the ledger is done by high end computers or dedicated ASIC's. Mining with your own computer system, with or without making use of the computing power of the graphical interface does not always way up to the investment and/or cost of power.

For the few who are interested in the crypro-currencies there is a way to participate. Joining a mining pool, where the combined computing power is large enough to earn some coins is a possibility. There the found wealth is divided proportional to your contribution to the total calculating power.

And even if you want to participate, but do not have the programming skill or equipment to start with the mining process, there is the opportunity to mine on your mobile phone.
A high end mobile phone like the Octal-core Samsung Galaxy S6, hold just about equal calculating power than a PC with a Quad-core Intel-I3 processor.

The android app NeoNeonMiner can be used to perform the required calculations for multiple hashing algorithms. The software is optimized to be used with the ARM-Neon processor. A processor variant that can be found in most android devices. 

Is it fast? Well... no if you compare it to ASICs or high end computers, but steady and it beats visiting the various faucets to increase your crypto-currency wealth.





Getting started with NeoNeonMiner:
The NeoNeonMiner app is a stand-alone CPU based miner. In order to get rewarded for your contributions to the crypto-currency network the settings of the miner need to be changed to reflect your personal settings. Unchanged or invalid inputs in these fields will result in loss of your mining efforts. The settings you need depend on the mining pool you align yourself with. The default settings of the miner are the developers own credentials. If these are not updated your mining effort will be linked to the owner of these settings! Running with the default settings is appreciated, but will not be rewarded.

The settings of NeoNeonMiner:

Stored settings:
NeoNeonMiner can store up to 7 PreSets.
Each preset is a completed settings page. This feature allows quick switching between various mining pools and/or protocols, Each update on a PreSet needs to be saved using the STORE button on the bottom of this page.

Mining Server:
The URL of the mining server this PreSet will use to obtain it's work. Selection of the mining pool, usually based on profitability is an end-users choice.

Internet Port:
The communication port used.
The port needed can be found on the getting started sections of the various mining pools.
Some Internet service providers (ISP) block communication through some ports,

Internet Protocol:
This setting is provided by the mining pool. stratum+tcp is the most common settings used.

Mining Protocol:
Selection of this protocol is usually done based on profitability. The neoscrypt protocol holds the most speed optimized code. The App does support various other protocols. Selecting another protocol mostly requires another Internet Port as well.

Username:
This field is identifying you to the work you submit. Based on mining pool requirements the field value here could be. Roughly there are two variation here. There are anonymous pools that require you to use your Bitcoin (Altcoin) address. When a payment threshold is reached payment will made to the address listed here. These pools use the password field for other settings.
There are also pool that require you to register, These pool usually operate with a 'real' username/password setup. On your personal page of these mining pools the payment details can found and/or updated.

Password:
Used as password on mining pools that require registration. Can be used for settings on some anonymous mining pools. The d=8 in the screenshot stands for minimum a difficulty setting.

Number of Threads:
The max number of threads is equal to the total amount of CPU's in your device. Since the app is making the phone work hard it requires a lot more power (battery) than in idle mode. Also the phone's temperature will go up. Selecting less then the max number (not possible when only one CPU is present) can reduce the power drainage and temperature, but it will also reduce the hashing speed.

Please also check my getting started video on YouTube.

Note:
This app provides a possibility to register.
The app registration procedure can be found in the app after seven days post first activation, registration request in the comment section of this post will be ignored.

Registration will only do the following:

  • Cancel the advertisement.
  • Auto load the last used settings (unregistered will need to manually load @ each start),
Registration does not do:
  • Make the app perform different, the code execution is equal to registered and not-registered.
  • Make you/your phone part of a NeoNeonMiner network of miners.
  • Automatically update your settings or register your setting for payments.