Many people are already starting to wonder what the next “hot” mining algorithm will be for crypto currencies, after the Scrypt ASIC’s have been launched. To clarify, by Scrypt ASIC’s, I mean single devices pulling over 25 mhash/s, not GridSeed miners.
There are several candidates out there, so here’s my list of possible contenders :
Scrypt-N : An interesting algorithm. It requires a lot more memory than Scrypt mining, depending on the N-factor. GPU mining becomes less and less profitable as N-factor increases, so not a long-term contender in my book.
Scrypt-Jane : a real b*tch of a mining algo. GPU mining profitability can decrease by 50% , and keep on decreasing by 50% every so often. A good algorithm, but from my experience, only profitable to mine on coin launches.
SHA-3 Keccak : We’ve seen this with MaxCoin. It’s an interesting algorithm, a lot of people jump on it, and it works pretty well. Depending on how fast the coin difficulty rises, this can also become unprofitable rather quickly.
X11 : I really love this algorithm at the moment. I’m squeezing 2.15 Mhash/s out of both my GPU’s, which run at 55°c with fans at 31%. Not as memory intensive, and also using slightly less electricity by the looks of it. Still pretty profitable after longer periods of time (currently mining HiroCoin).
I’m sure we will see new mining algorithms pop up over time, but this is the shortlist for me personally. If you have any other algorithms you would like to add, feel free to leave a comment below!
Watch out for the Groestl, which has been implemented in Groestlcoin. This is the only coin with this algo and its highly energy efficient and CPU/GPU friendly. There are no multi-pools since its the only of its kind. The coin also has Dark Gravity Wave. Find more infos on https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=525926.0
I’m a little confused as to how Scrypt-N becomes less and less profitable?.. As N increases, everyone’s hash rate goes down, so your power stays the same relative to everyone else.
I don’t agree with you on Scrypt-N.
If you take a look at the time scheduled, between N has time around 2 years.
So, during that time, they must be new GPUs come out to the market, which keep the hashrate the same.
X11, it is able to do ASIC if you take a look at each algorithm in X11 but the cost will be expensive. But don’t forget when the ASIC for X11 comes out, it is done. Not the same as Scrypt-N which keeps changing all the time, which can guarantee that it will be always ASIC resistent.
Myriadcoin hosts all the hot algorithms – check it out!
Its quite odd You did not mention HeavyCoin with its HEFTY1 algo (+ combination of others). Power consumption is 50% compared to scrypt (and so are temperatures). And its also nVidia-minable
that why I said to comment if I didn’t mention a specific coin 🙂
Thanks for the info, a HeavyCoin article will be done today 🙂
Just point your GPUs at Myriadcoin! Skein, Groestl, and Qubit are minable.
Prime algo is now also GPU mineable http://primegpu.com/
My favourite for now is X13. Even better than X11 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=570744.0