FPGA Mining

Introduction

The Proof-of-Work algorithm used by VeriBlock (vBlake) was designed to facilitate decentralization at every stage of the natural progression of mining hardware (CPU->GPU->FPGA->ASIC). The simplicity of the vBlake algorithm ensures that single developers or small development teams can produce near-optimal miners for any given hardware class, rather than allowing a single team or company make a massive breakthrough in the implementation and be the sole supplier of competitive miners.

Additionally, the algorithm is small enough to fit onto low-cost consumer grade FPGAs, rather than requiring expensive high-end chips. This allows hobbyist miners to mine VeriBlock in a cost-competitive way with large-scale mining operations. There are also plans to open-source an RTL implementation of vBlake in the near future to allow FPGA developers to easily add vBlake support to more FPGAs.

Pool Software

The built-in pool software included in VeriBlock's NodeCore software has a higher-difficulty setting to accomodate FPGA mining, see: HowTo_run_and_connect_to_PoW_Miner_pool#FPGA_Pools

Available FPGA Miners and Bitstreams

Bitstreams for BCU/VCU1525 cards are available from whitefire as well as from Allmine.

Additionally, the Blackminer F1 and F1-single (and likely F1+) support vBlake, as well as their upcoming entry-level F1 Mini.

FAQ

Is VeriBlock FPGA resistant?

No.

VeriBlock welcomes the most hashing power to secure the blockchain, and FPGAs are inevitable. Much like we are not "GPU resistant", we are also not "FPGA" resistant.