Mining
In current occasions, Bitcoin’s hashrate has been persistently above 300 exahash per second (EH/s) as a number of mining swimming pools dedicate vital hashpower to the Bitcoin blockchain in the present day. Curiously, a few of the world’s prime bitcoin mining swimming pools are additionally utilizing their hashrate to merge-mine different cash, and these networks have benefited from bitcoin’s elevated hashrate.
How Bitcoin’s Hashrate Advantages Different Crypto Networks
Bitcoin’s hashrate secures the community and supplies rewards for miners taking part within the system, however mining swimming pools additionally dedicate computational energy to networks like Namecoin, Elastos, Emercoin, and Vcash. For instance, Namecoin has a hashrate of round 187 EH/s in the present day, and a few of the prime bitcoin mining swimming pools merge-mine the community to amass namecoin (NMC) rewards.
Merge mining is a course of through which miners can mine numerous cryptocurrencies on the identical time with none further price. Merged mining is much like an individual enjoying Pac-Man and Asteroids on the identical time, utilizing the identical joystick and incomes rewards for each video games. Namecoin was the primary cryptocurrency venture to be merge-mined, because it shares the identical SHA256 algorithm as Bitcoin, and the primary merge-mined block on the community was mined on Sept. 19, 2011.

A visible of how merge-mining works created by Tari Labs College. In easy phrases, an ASIC mining rig executes the merge-mining course of by performing the identical hash calculation for each blockchains. The crypto miner builds a block for each blockchains and assigns work items primarily based on this block to different miners. If a miner solves a block at both or each issue ranges, the finished proof of labor is re-assembled and submitted to the proper blockchain, making certain that each hash the miner does contributes to the full hashrate of each currencies.
Bitcoin swimming pools that dedicate hashrate to the Namecoin chain embody F2pool, Viabtc, Poolin, and Mining Dutch. Whereas F2pool is the fourth largest bitcoin mining pool during the last three days, it’s the biggest namecoin miner because it dedicates its complete 44 EH/s to the Namecoin community. Viabtc dedicates 26.25 EH/s to the Namecoin chain, and Poolin factors 5.10 EH/s towards Namecoin as nicely. On the time of writing, a single namecoin (NMC) is value $1.24 per unit and 12.5 NMC plus charges are distributed in every block reward.
Namecoin has the second-largest hashrate amongst SHA256 blockchains, however the Emercoin (EMC) community is the third-largest underneath BTC and NMC. EMC has 93.38 EH/s devoted to the community, and Mining Dutch and Viabtc are the highest miners for the coin. Viabtc, which is BTC’s fifth-largest mining pool by hashrate, additionally dedicates 26.76 EH/s to EMC. The Emercoin community leverages a hybrid proof-of-work (PoW) and proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. A single emercoin (EMC) is at present altering arms for $0.0088 per coin.
In the meantime, Viabtc dedicates the identical quantity of hashrate to the Syscoin (SYS) community, one other hybrid PoW and PoS blockchain. As we speak, a single SYS trades for $0.167 in opposition to the U.S. greenback. Along with the aforementioned PoW cryptocurrencies that leverage the SHA256 consensus algorithm, miners are additionally dedicating hashrate to networks akin to Xaya, Veil, Hathor, Elastos, and Vcash. Older cryptocurrency networks like Terracoin (TRC) and Unobtanium (UNO) additionally see a small fraction of SHA256 hashrate.
F2pool dedicates 44.32 EH/s to Vcash, however the coin’s native asset has no listed worth on any of the highest coin market aggregation websites. Elastos has over 100 exahash devoted to the chain, and prime mining swimming pools like Antpool, F2pool, Viabtc, and Mining Dutch are dedicating hashrate to the Elastos community. Present statistics additional present that 100 exahash per second can also be devoted to the RSK good contract community.