The rise and development history of "mining"

Due to the high price of virtual currencies, more and more people participate in the "mining" activity, so that the "mining" requirements for computer computing power have also been relatively improved. As of now, the hardware equipment used by "mining" has undergone multiple upgrades and transformations, from the initial CPU "mining" to GPU "mining", and then from FPGA "mining" to ASIC "mining "". At the same time, due to the increase in the number and scale of mining machines, the harm of "mining" is becoming more and more obvious.

The development of mining machine equipment

CPU "mining" (2008 ~ 2009)

In November 2008, Satoshinakamoto, a Bitcoin developer and founder, published a Bitcoin white paper "Bitcoin: A Point -Patient Electronic Cash System" on the P2P Foundation website, which put forward new ideas for electronic currencies and laid a foreshadowing for Bitcoin's birth. Essence On January 3, 2009, he developed the first software program that implemented the Bitcoin algorithm and performed the first "mining", which obtained 50 Bitcoin, marking the official birth of the Bitcoin financial system. After that, cryptocurrency mining machines used to tap Bitcoin gradually appeared in the market, and "mining" entered a preliminary development period. From 2008 to 2009, the cryptocurrency mining machine on the market was mainly CPU mining machines.

GPU, FPGA "Mining" (2010 ~ 2012)

From 2010 to 2012, Bitcoin's attention gradually increased, the number of miners continued to increase, the difficulty of "mining" was significantly increased, the competition for computing power became more and more intense, and the requirements for the configuration of the computer became higher and higher. Due to the low computing power of the CPU, the "mining" income is too small, the CPU mining machine has gradually been eliminated by the market, and the GPU mining machine and FPGA mining machine that further improves performance gradually appear.

Although both CPUs and GPUs can be calculated, they are good at different aspects. There are fewer CPU cores, but it has complex logical control units and is better at complex operations. The GPU has a large number of cores, the architecture is relatively simple, and it is very suitable for high -density calculations with large throughput. The computing power required for "mining" is often completed by hash, decryption and other algorithms. This type of algorithm has the characteristics of low degree of complexity, but its strength is extremely large. Therefore, the GPU "mining" is faster and more efficient. Your own mining machine.

In addition, the increasing price of Bitcoin has continued to increase the enthusiasm of miners' "mining". Miners hope to have a stronger mining machine, dig more bitcoin to get more income. Therefore, the advanced "mining" equipment -on -site programming door array (FPGA) came into being. In the middle of 2011, the first FPGA Bitcoin mining machine appeared on the market. This is the first time that the professional chip design for "mining" has appeared. In simple terms, FPGA "mining" is to take out the core cells of the GPU, and then integrate multiple core cells into the same device for "mining". However, because the development of FPGA is too difficult, this "mining" method has not been popularized.

ASIC "mining" (2012 to the present)

As the number of miners has increased, the price of Bitcoin has continued to rise, the competition of "mining" has gradually become hot, and more professional mining machine equipment has begun to appear. During this period, professional mining machine represented by ASIC officially entered people's vision. ASIC is an abbreviation of Application Specific Integrated Circuit, which is an electronic circuit (chip) specially designed for certain uses. When it is designed for "mining", an ASIC mining machine is generated, which is equivalent to integrated circuit devices specifically for digital currency mining. In addition, there are no other functions and functions.

Since only specific algorithms are run, compared with GM integrated circuits, ASIC has the advantages of smaller volume, lower power consumption, improvement of reliability, improvement of performance, increased confidentiality, and reduced cost. As far as the "mining" computing power is concerned, ASIC "mining" is tens of thousands of times or more than the CPU and GPU "mining".

From CPU to GPU, from FPGA to ASIC mining machine. In order to improve operational efficiency, Bitcoin mining machines have gone through these stages of development. So far, cryptocurrencies, including the SHA 256 algorithm, are basically using ASIC for "mining".

Upgrade and change of the "mining" mode

When Bitcoin just emerged, everyone could use the CPU and GPU "mining" on individual computers to obtain the corresponding income. However, due to the increase in the number of miners year by year, the probability of digging Bitcoin has become very low after the computing power of the entire network has increased to a certain extent, and individual miners have become increasingly not dominant in terms of computing power and energy efficiency. Therefore, the mining pool that integrates a large number of computing power resources quickly emerged in the market. The mining pool breaks through the restrictions of geographical location, connects the computing power scattered around the world and the "mine" computing power, and cooperates with "mining". Compared with a single miner with low computing power, the chance of success is much higher. When a mining pool is successfully dug out of the block, all miners in the mining pool will receive Bitcoin rewards. The reward quota is proportional to the contribution of the miner to the computing power. At the same time, the mining pool also charges fees in this process.

In addition, due to the expensive equipment and complicated operation and maintenance operations, cloud "mining" has gradually become the choice of certain individual miners. Cloud "mining" refers to the process of using the computing capacity of rented by a third party (Yun "Mining" service provider) to generate cryptocurrencies. Each miner purchases a certain number of "hash computing power" from the service provider, which is equivalent to participating in a "mine" (remote data center dedicated to encrypted mining). As an exchange, the provider will be awarded them with the computing power share of the miners. Because mining operations are carried out through clouds, miners do not need to worry about computer equipment maintenance, noise, calories or energy costs. After finding a reliable cloud "mining" service provider, the miners only need to choose the type and required period of the contract they want to sign, and the provider will set up everything required for them. The harm of "mining"

First of all, the "mining" of virtual currencies requires a large amount of power support. Energy consumption and carbon emissions are surprising. It is not conducive to the realization of new development concepts and is not conducive to the realization of national carbon peaks, carbon neutrality.

Most of my country's virtual currency "mine" are distributed in areas with sufficient power resources and cheap electricity, such as Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Sichuan, and Yunnan with sufficient thermal power resources. However, the high energy consumption of virtual currency "mining" has caused high alertness of local governments. Since this year, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has adopted a number of policies and measures to clear the "mining" project of virtual currency, and as of the end of April, 35 "mining" enterprises have been closed. According to preliminary statistics, the 35 "mining" enterprises of Qing retreating can save 5.2 billion kWh annually, equivalent to more than 1.6 million tons of standard coal.

Secondly, "mining" disturb the normal financial order and even social order, often becoming a tool for illegal and criminal activities such as money laundering and illegal transfer of assets; more criminal gangs can purchase virtual currency "mining" equipment to the public, or lease it with leasing As the "mining" computing power, it attracts investors to buy computing power, deceived the personal money of residents, and affects the stability of social order.

Third, "mining" consumes a lot of computing resources to operate the system, software and application services slowly. Once the personal computer or server is controlled by the "mining" program, it will cause data leakage or infection virus, which will easily cause network security issues. The "Simple Technical Analysis of the" Mining "Trojan Horse in Harbin Institute of Technology and CERT Laboratory disclosed that the" mining "Trojan will affect the operating speed of the organizational system of government and enterprise institutions, occupying computer resources, and other related equipment and campus network operations. Even scientific research has a certain impact. In addition, the "mining" Trojan generally close the firewall, obtain the authority of the administrator, and implant the back door. It is used to steal other network attacks such as stealing core business data and launch ransom.

Organ: Wang Yajing

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