- Steve Sokolowski
- Archived posts: 4559
- Joined: Aug 27, 2014
Increased start difficulty
The start difficulty for automatic difficulty miners has been increased to 2^16 for script and 1 for x11.
The change means that older miners will probably take longer to find their first shares. Difficulty does not affect how much money a person earns, so this change does not affect profit. It means that, on average, you will take four times longer to find a share, and each share will be worth four times as much.
Finally, the change to increase maximum difficulty to 2^21 (scrypt) and 2^5 (x11) was completed. SHA-256 will open with a maximum difficulty of 2^37, when available.
In addition, due to the excess capacity available now, Chris relaxed the maximum number of shares per second for static difficulty miners, as we had promised to do in July when that failsafe was added. This change was requested by NiceHash miners who want to use lower difficulties statically. Feel free to try out the new changes.
The change means that older miners will probably take longer to find their first shares. Difficulty does not affect how much money a person earns, so this change does not affect profit. It means that, on average, you will take four times longer to find a share, and each share will be worth four times as much.
Finally, the change to increase maximum difficulty to 2^21 (scrypt) and 2^5 (x11) was completed. SHA-256 will open with a maximum difficulty of 2^37, when available.
In addition, due to the excess capacity available now, Chris relaxed the maximum number of shares per second for static difficulty miners, as we had promised to do in July when that failsafe was added. This change was requested by NiceHash miners who want to use lower difficulties statically. Feel free to try out the new changes.