Planning Your Bitcoin Mining Operation

Planning Your Bitcoin Mining Operation

Operating  a Bitcoin mining facility can be profitable, but you need to treat it like a business. I operate a small Bitcoin mining facility, and there is a lot more that goes into it than just plugging in the equipment and letting it run.

It’s easy to set up a single Bitcoin mining device and run it. Scaling to something that can make a significant amount of money is a different story, however. To make a profit, one needs reliable revenue and low costs. This means low costs for all aspects of the operation:

Equipment

Electricity

Cooling

Infrastructure

Business Management

Operations and Maintenance

Equipment

Bitmain Tech Antminer S9

Bitcoin mining hardware is the first and most important part of the operation. If you can’t get good equipment at a good price, you might as well stop right there. At this point in time, the best equipment to buy is the Bitmain Antminer S9. You should be able to generate about 0.5 Bitcoin per month (as of July 2016, post-halvening).

The Bitmain Antminer S7 is a good choice to learn about mining. Depending on your electricity prices, it might be profitable for you to operate it.

The power supplies need to be purchased separately. If you have 110 Volt AC, get this setup from Centrix International. If you have 220 VAC, you can use either the Centrix setup, or get the power supply from Bitmain.

Electricity

The Bitcoin mining hardware basically convert electricity to Bitcoin. The lower your electricity costs, the better off you will be. For US Dollars, your electricity costs should be $0.10 per KiloWatt Hour or less to maintain profitability.

Calculating actual electricity cost can be a bit tricky, and if you have a choice of electricity suppliers, it is worth getting their rate sheet to determine the price at the usage. As a starting point, there will be different rates.

Residential – usually low price.

Commercial light – less than 200 amps or 30,000 KWHr per month

Commercial medium – less than 500,000 KWHr per month

Commercial heavy – everything else

Within these rates, there will usually be a few categories of costs. It is best to put together a spreadsheet, add all the costs together, then calculate an effective per KWHr rate in order to compare the two. The costs you will have to take into account are:

Monthly service fee

Usage fee – how many KWHr used

Demand fee – maximum Watts used at any one time

Demand peak – additional fee based on maximum Watts vs. average Watts

If you are in a location where electricity is included in the price of your location, you may be able to operate a single Bitcoin miner. I’ve found that you can turn the fan speed down to 40% or so if you operate in an air-conditioned environment, then it won’t be that loud, and you might be able to run it without anyone noticing…but if you operate more than one of the units the electrical usage will be probably be noticed by the building owner at some point. These devices use a lot of electricity!

One of the first questions I get is the possibility of using solar power. Yes, it’s possible, and let’s think about it for a minute. A solar panel can supply about 100 Watts when the sun is shining on it. Ten of the Antminer S9’s use 12,000 Watts, 24 hours per day. So you would need three times as many solar panels and a storage system. That’s 360 solar panels, and at $100 each, that’s $36,000 in panels! You would also need a place to set them up, wiring between them, and someone to keep them all running. That would be difficult and probably not the best use of your time.

Whenever you have the option, use 220 Volt AC instead of 110 VAC.  The power supplies for the miners run more efficiently at the higher voltage.

Cooling

Bitcoin miners put out a lot of heat. The fans on each of the Antminer units push through about 200 Cubic Feet per Minute (CFM) of air. The nice thing is, there are no hard drives in these systems, so they can run hotter than a typical server.

These systems are basically three cards, each running lots of ASIC’s, with heat sinks on the top and bottom of the chips. Here is one that’s open for cleaning.

Antminer open for cleaning.So the good news is that these boxes don’t need to be in an air conditioned environment, they just need a lot of airflow to get rid of the heat. In my first location, I put in place a large exhaust fan that was rated at 10,000 CFM. That size fan would be able to remove the heat generated by 50 Antminers because 50 x 200 CFM = 10,000 CFM. I had to match the intake vents to 10,000 CFM of airflow also, of course. That took up twice the space of the fan.

You will need a way to direct the flow of air so it does not bypass or recirculate around your Bitcoin miners. I built some air flow guides out of wooden 2×4’s with plastic sheeting stapled to it.

Infrastructure

This is all the stuff that you need to get the Bitcoin miners connected and working. It helps to have a little bit of data networking knowledge here. Easiest way to get that is to pick up a Cisco CCNA certification guide from the bookstore and use that as a reference.

Firewall and router

You’re going to need an internet connection. It does not need to be fast, but it should be reliable. The Bitcoin miners can only earn money if they can download the hashing puzzles from the Internet and upload the solutions.

It would be useful to have a firewall that has remote access VPN capability, so you would be able to access the equipment remotely. I really like the Cisco Meraki MX64W firewall. It’s everything you need, has top level security, and provides remote access VPN along with Wifi.

Network Switches

Each of the Bitcoin miners has a network connection. It needs to plug into something. You’ll need to buy a network switch to make it work. The switches don’t have to be fast. I prefer to buy used Cisco 48 port switches. You can get one of those for less than $100 on eBay.

Power Distribution Unit

The Bitcoin miners use a lot of power – did I say that already? You are going to need an electrician to run electricity to your miners. Tell him that you want a bunch of 220 VAC, 30 Amp connections, and you are going to be using NEMA L6-30P connectors (in North America).

Plan on each Antminer using 6 Amps of 220VAC power, which means if you get a 30 amp Power Distribution Unit (PDU), you can power 4 Antminer’s from it. You can try to power 5 from them, but you’ll pop circuit breakers. This Tripp-Lite PDUH30HV would a good one to get.

Power Cords

You’ll need to get the power cables that go from the PDU to the power supplies also. These can be tricky to figure out. You’ll need the IEC C14 to C13  connectors. There’s lots of different vendors for these.


This is a handy guide from APC to all the different types of power connectors that can be used in North America

Video Surveillance System

These are really inexpensive these days. Connect a cheap 4 camera video surveillance system up to your network. It’s nice to be able to quickly see that everything is working well while you are away. And if someone messes with your stuff, that’s nice to see also.

Shelves

I bought cheap shelves from Lowes and Home Depot. I like the ones from Home Depot better. You don’t need anything fancier .

Things You Don’t Need

There is stuff you could buy if you wanted to be extravagant. But I don’t think it’s worth it.

Smart PDU’s – I first started using these, because I thought it would be nice to be able to reboot the Bitcoin miners remotely. It turns out they are more trouble than they are worth.

Computer Server Racks – These are a waste of money. The Antminers don’t fit on them.

Air Conditioning – Too expensive to run

Uninterruptable Power Supplies (UPS’s) – Not needed, and way too expensive. If power goes down, you want your miners to shut down. When power comes back on, everything will boot and start running again.

Business Management

This is a business that makes money. There are things that need to be done for business management, both in the initial setup, and in the ongoing operations. It should be registered as a company so that business expenses are deducted from income, and any taxes will be paid only on the profits.

This means you should engage with at least an accountant, so that you can capture the depreciation of the Bitcoin miners.

Business Setup

Form business as an LLC, register with the State

Get an Employer Identification Number from the IRS

Set up a bank account and fund it.

Lease a space for operations

Obtain a Certificate of Occupancy (pro tip – make changes to space after getting CO)

Get account with power company and internet service provider

Bitcoin Mining Operations

Get electrical pulled into space

Set up natural circulation cooling

Configure data network

Configure power distribution to Bitcoin miners

Operate miners and scale up

Keep track of all purchases and expenses for tax purposes.

Business Operations

Set up Bitcoin Miners to send Bitcoin to an account on an Exchange.

Sell Bitcoin on the Exchange to fund operations, send money to bank account.

Pay bills from bank account.

Keep equipment running.

Save enough Bitcoin or money to fund an equipment refresh every two years

Pay taxes as you need to. Understand depreciation. Get an accountant.

Operations and Maintenance

The first few months of operations will be great. As you add more Bitcoin miners, you’ll see your daily, weekly, and monthly income go up.

And then things will start to go wrong. Power, cooling, and other issues will crop up.

So you’ll have to start a regular schedule of maintenance and upgrades to the equipment. There’s many different things that will have to be done, but the biggest one is cleaning.

Get yourself a dust mask and an air compressor, and clean your Bitcoin miners out every few months.

Summary

Remember, keep your costs low. The two biggest costs are the Bitcoin miners and electricity. If you can control those, everything else will work out. If you are planning on setting this up as a legitimate business, plan for minimizing taxes right from the start. If you do it right, you can be cash flow positive yet have a tax loss to offset your other income…good luck!

Satoshi never imagined industrial-scale mining

“Satoshi never imagined industrial-scale mining

As he explained, when you put incentives out there, people learn how to use those incentives for making money in ways that are nearly impossible to predict. He pointed to bitcoin as a prime example, saying its creator probably never imagined bitcoin’s incentive structure would lead to industrial-scale mining pools.

Satoshi wrote this still in 2008: 

Quote

“At first, most users would run network nodes, but as the network grows beyond a certain point, it would be left more and more to specialists with server farms of specialized hardware. A server farm would 
only need to have one node on the network and the rest of the LAN connects with that one node.”

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1458.msg16906#msg16906

ribuck’s description is spot on.

Pool operators can modify their getwork to take one additional parameter, the address to send your share to.

The easy way for the pool operator would be to wait until the next block is found and divy it up proportionally as:
user’s near-hits/total near-hits from everyone

That would be easier and safer to start up.  It also has the advantage that multiple hits from the same user can be combined into one transaction.  A lot of your hits will usually be from the same people.

The instant gratification way would be to pay a fixed amount for each near-hit immediately, and the operator takes the risk from randomness of having more or less near-hits before a block is found. 

Either way, the user who submits the hit that solves the block should get an extra amount off the top, like 10 BTC.

New users wouldn’t really even need the Bitcoin software.  They could download a miner, create an account on mtgox or mybitcoin, enter their deposit address into the miner and point it at anyone’s pool server.  When the miner says it found something, a while later a few coins show up in their account.

Miner writers better make sure they never false-positive near-hits.  Users will depend on that to check if the pool operator is cheating them.  If the miner wrongly says it found something, users will look in their account, not find anything, and get mad at the pool operator.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1976.msg25119#msg25119

saying its creator probably never imagined bitcoin’s incentive structure would lead to industrial-scale mining pools.

I kinda feel  the same. 

Hashrate Distribution…

Sometimes it scars me thinking if they plan for a 51% attack. All you need is a syndicating in between few big mining farms. I am not sure if is is possible practically.

Actually, Satoshi did predict industrial scale mining he failed predicting pools because he was unaware of the amount of pressure toward pooling in his implementation of PoW based on the worst principle ever, winner-takes-all.

Industrial scale mining farms are not the threat, mining pools are. Satoshi disappeared in the same time that users were starting to complain about their variance and slush was kick starting his pool. He made just one comment (that op has quoted) regarding this issue which is very disappointing by the way as he is just talking about simple technical issues and avoids more sophisticated strategic implications of the proposal. He disappeared few days later, forever.

So, if it is about whether satoshi was kind of a god and predicted everything or not, the answer would be a big NO, Satoshi Nakamoto was an ordinary human being who made a lot of big and small mistakes designing and implementing bitcoin and this is why we should improve it instead of  being stuck with a legend. 

Cyberspace does not belong to legends (neither original ones like Satoshi nor the fake ones like Vitalik Buterin) it belongs to hard working, committed  mathematicians, developers, hackers  and advocates all over the planet. 

But, for the record, failing to predict the industrial scale mining is not in his failure list anyway.

Sometimes it scars me thinking if they plan for a 51% attack. All you need is a syndicating in between few big mining farms. I am not sure if is is possible practically.

I doubt they would plan a 51%, because the price would drop and they would lose their investment. Those pools are interested in bitcoin success.

Industrial scale mining farms are not the threat, mining pools are. Satoshi disappeared in the same time that users were starting to complain about their variance and slush was kick starting his pool. He made just one comment (that op has quoted) regarding this issue which is very disappointing by the way as he is just talking about simple technical issues and avoids more sophisticated strategic implications of the proposal. He disappeared few days later, forever.

So, if it is about whether satoshi was kind of a god and predicted everything or not, the answer would be a big NO, Satoshi Nakamoto was an ordinary human being who made a lot of big and small mistakes designing and implementing bitcoin and this is why we should improve it instead of  being stuck with a legend. 

Satoshi was a genius, because he knew when to disappear.
This is not satoshi’s blockchain. Satoshi’s existence would make bitcoin centralized on him.

As ethereum is centralized on vitalik Buterin. Vitalik’s blockchain.

The solution to those design issues with btc will come from the community. There are some proposals and one day there will be a solution.

Sometime ago I read something about Changing proof of work in a way that asic hardware would become less effective. I believe there are many interesting proposals out there and soon community will have a consensus about one.

Industrial scale mining farms are not the threat, mining pools are. Satoshi disappeared in the same time that users were starting to complain about their variance and slush was kick starting his pool. He made just one comment (that op has quoted) regarding this issue which is very disappointing by the way as he is just talking about simple technical issues and avoids more sophisticated strategic implications of the proposal. He disappeared few days later, forever.

So, if it is about whether satoshi was kind of a god and predicted everything or not, the answer would be a big NO, Satoshi Nakamoto was an ordinary human being who made a lot of big and small mistakes designing and implementing bitcoin and this is why we should improve it instead of  being stuck with a legend. 

The solution to those design issues with btc will come from the community. There are some proposals and one day there will be a solution.

The 51% attack fear mongering by giant mining corporations is unfounded.  if this happened the miners would take a massive financial hit and bitcoin would crash.  It would make no sense to do it  the negatives far outweigh the positives.  The only way is if some mad man, similar to the joker, just wants to watch the world burn and doesn’t care about the money.

How about those forces who do not want the banking system to be decentralized? They don’t care about value of bitcoin coz they have the printed money. 

I doubt they would plan a 51%, because the price would drop and they would lose their investment. Those pools are interested in bitcoin success. This logic make sense.

Cyberspace does not belong to legends 

For context, Slush Pool emerged in November 2010. It was an independent project, but created within the community.
I would say that the problem is when legends center the whole decision-making process. But Bitcoin always had several people contributing in a decentralized way, several projects arose and many thanks to the economic incentives.

The great advantage of truly decentralized projects is that no matter how much a legend is admired, because it has no coercive power to forbid parallel projects or forks, the project can continue independent of its will.

Ie financial incentives hinder future predictions.

It’s totally different from what happens with some projects like EOS or TRON.”

Fixed vulnerability explanation: Why the signature cache is a DoS protection.

Fixed vulnerability explanation: Why the signature cache is a DoS protection.

January 14, 2013, 02:23:44 PM

I read a transcript of  #bitcoin-dev (http://bitcoinstats.com/irc/bitcoin-dev/logs/2012/11/09) where jgarzik and, Sipa debated whether the signature cache was a performance optimization or a DoS protection and why.
The sig cache is both of them. But the sig cache was included before performance was a problem because of the DoS protection requirement.

The following attack against versions prior 0.6.3, e-mailed to Gavin on May-2012, explains it:

1. The attacker creates a transaction that pays 0.01 BTC to 100 different addresses. (The attacker must have 1 BTC). To avoid paying fees, the attacker can divide the transaction into slices, each one below 1 kilobyte.The attacker broadcasts the transactions and waits for confirmation.

2. Afterwards the attacker builds transactions grabbing 100 of his own prevouts and adding an additional prevout that he does not own.  This prevout is a coinbase that has not been matured (it does not need to have a valid signature, since the method exit point is before the script verification). To create many fake transactions, the order of the first 100 inputs is randomized. 

3. The attacker sends these transactions to the victim. The transaction size would be around 18 Kbytes. The transaction would take around 0.36 seconds to arrive (with a 50 Kbytes/sec connection).

4. The victim’s client app will go with the transaction straight through ConnectInputs() and successfully connect the first 100, and then fail to connect the last. The time required for this check in an average PC is approximately 100 * 4 msec = 400 msec  (an estimation). Then the attacker can hang the vitims app by sending these fake transactions at a rate of around 3 per second. The number of inputs used for the attack is arbitrary (can be as low as 10, giving 10! unique possible transactions).

Note that if the connection bandwidth is higher, then the attack is stronger. If the victim’s CPU is slower, then also the attack also get stronger.

I proposed the solution of a signature cache to Gavin at that time. It turned out that Satoshi himself had thought about adding the sig cache, but I think it was mainly for performance reasons.

Build Your Own ASIC Miner



Again, welcome, welcome, and welcome! Glad you’re here! There’s so much to do around these parts that it’s really hard to know exactly where to start… … so, I’ve made a bit of a guide for you so that you can feel the most comfortable digging in, learning about bitcoin, blockchain, and the many different cryptocurrencies, and getting to know the folks!

Also, here are some helpful suggestions on what to share in your introduction:

Who are you?

Where are you located?

What was the first cryptocurrency that you invested in and why?

What are you “TO THE MOON” goals?

What are you the most excited about in terms of our growing community?


Build Your Own ASIC Miner
 
 I would like to compile a list of resources on how to build our own ASIC miners. I think that this is important for the decentralization of mining power with the current centralization of miners in China and uncertainty of legality in that jurisdiction. Also, with recent controversial discussions of Bitcoin Cash.

According to some of the links below, creating your own ASIC miner is impossible. This will be a real challenge, but I think that it is possible based on information in other forums. We have a lot of brain power here. Sourcing the ASIC chips will be a challenge. If we have any electrical engineers here, I would appreciate your insight. I am setting up my first D3 ASIC miners next week so I will be looking forward to studying the design more closely. If you have any ideas, additional resources, or know anybody who has successfully crafted their own ASIC miner please share your knowledge below. Thanks for your interest 


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1221233.0 8.2k
It is POSSIBLE

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1926350.0 6.2k

List of places to possibly acquire the ASIC chips.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=555335.40 3.6k

Why ASICs instead of GPUs?

bitcoin.stackexchange.com 939


Can a competitive miner be crafted at home?

Challenges to overcome.

https://www.quora.com/Can-I-build-my-own-ASIC-from-parts-available-online 3.5k
task at “Level: ELITE”

https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-use-an-ASIC-chip-to-create-your-own-bitcoin-miner 2.3k


Basic design, to be developed to the last detail.

https://www.quora.com/Can-I-build-my-own-ASIC-from-parts-available-online2332

https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-use-an-ASIC-chip-to-create-your-own-bitcoin-miner

I think it is clear that we will not be able to manufacture our own silicon ASIC chips at home because that requires some million dollar equipment but I do hope to find a source of affordable ASIC’s to experiment with. I hope to learn along the way, without it being too costly. 


China: “Mining is illegal operation”

TL;DR 71% of mining is in China. Cheap electricity in China makes mining attractive. Chinese government may be locking down the miners as locals reported apparently(not confirmed yet).

” I know one of the principles at a company that IS designing their own Bitcoin ASIC – and the were talking MILLIONS to get it designed and into production.
THEN they get to add on the cost of the actual chips once they’re IN production.

I think the reason they went that route was the extreme shortage of “commercial” miners and “commercial” ASIC chips, even when you have enough money to wave under Innosilicon’s or Bitfury’s noses (Bitmain doesn’t sell chips at ALL afaik) to get the pre-existing chips – and for the quantity they wanted long-term it might actually cost them LESS to roll their own despite the up-front costs.”

I am definitely dreaming but the dream gives me steam, hehe.

“Good luck finding:


a.People very well-versed in laying out bleeding-edge IC design.

b.Said people also knowing how to route by-hand the SHA256 logic cores inside the chips. Foundry-supplied IP blocks will be useless aside from memory and coms.

c.Then convincing TSMC, GloFo or Samsung to sell you time to make some test wafers. IF they will even talk/work with you Foundry cost per test run will be several 100k$ up-front.

d. rinse and repeat ‘c’ several times until the chips works reasonably ‘close to specs’. Redesign costs/time for each test run – massive.

e. And this one is a doozy – gathering KNOWLEDGABLE investors willing to put up several 10’s of millions USD to do all of this. Given the horrific past history of companies ‘making’ ASIC-based miners using their own chips and then for various reasons – mostly pure and simple nefarious greed followed closely by them frankly totally blowing the chip and power design – all failing miserably, good luck with that…

f. Convincing your Foundry to allot production time for you to produce enough chips per-run to make all this worth while. That may be as hard as ‘e’…”

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=555335.60 173

All of this to say, I will do my best to incorporate my interest in cryptocurrencies and building ASIC miners into my studies, research projects, and interdisciplinary relationships at whichever university I am accepted and choose to attend. UC Riverside may be the most promising for ASICs research considering proximity to San Bernandino and materials research at UCR.

A run of chips is around 2.5 million to start. Selling them commercially in the US opens you up to a lot of liabilities too. Chinese companies don’t have to worry about someone getting hurt by one of their machines.

That said. I’d still like to do it. A silent $20-30 plug and play 1 TH/s machine is along the lines of what I’m thinking.Getting something simple like that in homes would make a huge difference.

CoinMarketCap.com is LYING to everyone while profiting from it

CoinMarketCap.com is LYING to everyone while profiting from it

CoinMarketCap.com, the Number 1 website in the crypto-currency industry, is showing immensely fraudulent and scam information (on purpose) to its users. As a site that is used frequently for reference points by many news organisations, trading outlets, companies, informational sites and individuals, it would be in the best interest of the community to write about what has been really going on with this “trusted resource”.

The research indicates that multiple attempts to fix information by many coins on CoinMarketCap.com through contacting them through their support requests or online social media sites such as BitcoinTalk.org, reddit.com and other places has gone unanswered, ignored and/or explicitly overlooked/denied. By explicitly overlooked/denied, after contacting their support with up-to date and obviously correct information, they refuse to update the data. Many hundreds of coins on CMC are affected very negatively (or positively) by this. A lot of them have given up trying to get CMC to put correct data on their site, and have made sticky posts in their own respective forums as to this issue instead.

It is believed that there is massive insider trading going on with the employees, owners and others involved with CoinMarketCap. The research, including talking to multiple coin creators, shows anomalous buying of coins between times that the coin creators asked CMC to list their coin (through their google form) and between when it actually gets listed on the site. This could mean that CMC insiders know that certain coins will pump, and go on a buying spree to front-run the listing of the coin and the public market sentiment. This can be seen over and over again when analysing the action on coins when being listed.

Pump and dumps are also being actively allowed and managed by the team at CMC without the knowledge of the coin creators or coin communities themselves. This can be seen by the direct manipulation of the circulating supply of some coins. CMC puts the circulating supply as very high at certain points (increasing the market cap), then drops it down to a much lower number later (lowering the market cap). This moves these coins up or down their numbered list causing massive buys and sell offs at the whim of CMC. Luckily this fraud can only be made to happen once or twice with each coin as the public outcry from the coin communities (sometimes) usually puts an end to it one way or other.

There is also evidence of CoinMarketCap effectively “killing” off coins as it sees fit. How does it “kill” a coin? Well it removes it’s circulating supply to “?” or a very low number arbitrarily, and keeps it there for a prolonged period. As the coin goes lower and lower in the rankings, daily volume on the coin dies off until such a time that it is zero (even though the teams behind the coins are still active and growing their ecosystems). This leads to exchanges delisting the coin, and the ecosystem being entirely dead after a period of time. There is plenty of evidence of coin communities complaining and coin creators “begging” CMC to update their information with no luck. CMC literally decides which coin lives or dies with it’s own agendas. In defence of CMC, some coins do lose their circulating supply due to faults of the coins (the data end-points for circulating supply stop working on the servers provided initially by the coins), but many are brought down even with the objections and outcry of the coin creators and communities behind them.

Also of concern is the possible bribery of CMC officials and other nefarious behaviors that could very obviously be extrapolated from their current actions. What if one coin paid a handsome sum to CMC to make sure a “competitor” would have lower market cap? How do you make them have a lower market cap? Easy, refuse to update the circulating supply to what the real numbers are and instead show an arbitrary number of their choosing. This can also be seen on many of the coins listed on CMC. There is ample evidence of coins complaining publicly on many forums yet CMC taking it’s own numbers without any explanation or acknowledgement.

Another area of concern is the outdated/incorrect information of many of the coins listed on CMC. Official coin links being broken or unresponsive, including the main websites, wrong daily volumes (not updated in days or weeks), and hugely different circulating supplies (from those you can officially see on the respective blockchains of the coins themselves) are just some of the additional problems that ring alarm bells with us.

Because of these issues, (and many others including the pseudonymousnature of the founders and team members) we believe it is in the best interest of the entire community to get behind this initiative and make big noise until such a time that CoinMarketCap updates their site to show correct information, or another resource is created/promoted that shows correct and up-to date data on their website. Number 1 can go down to Number 0 very quickly in the space with the right community backlash.

Some may say that these issues may be due to incompetence of the team at CMC or them having limited resources. One of the parts of our analysis will take a much closer look at what kind of income CoinMarketCap really makes. You would be surprised. CMC is one of the most profitable businesses in the entire industry. The user is the product. The ads are the money maker. There are backroom deals, and much more happening beyond the scenes that the public does not know.

Most people here are concerned about centralised mining cartels, hardware producers, banks, governments, regulators and/or core developers being points of issues in this industry. We strongly believe that none of those come even close to comparing to the obvious fraud that has been going on at CoinMarketCap for many years.

The volume of money that is traded on information taken from CMC alone pales every other issue into oblivion. If traders are making buys and sells according to falsified data on CoinMarketCap.com, then they are being manipulated and lied to in one of the biggest frauds in the entire crypto-currency space.

You will be shocked at the level of incompetence, negligence, fraud, and outright lying that CMC perpetuates, but at the lack of information about this so far in this industry. For a community that prides itself on self-regulation through transparency and openness, it should be ashamed at not having blown this massive fraud into the public eye much sooner.

We owe it to the community to make sure resources (especially the Number 1 site in the industry) are not being placed in positions to freely commit fraudon this scale ever again.

This has been a very intense effort in data gathering, reporting and analysis.

Setup Your Own Mining Pool

Setup Your Own Mining Pool


This is a step by step guide on how to setup your own mining pool for things like bitcoin, litecoin, and other crypto-currencies.

This guide is meant to replace Novice’s Guide to Setting up a Crypto-Currency Mining Pool

Why the update? MPOS (Mining Portal Open Source) is very old now and NOMP (Node Open Mining Portal) has branched off into another project called uNOMP (Unified, Node Open Mining Portal). uNOMP has a very active development team and is updated on a regular basis. This not only ensures adequate support of new currencies, but also better security. uNOMP also has many things in one, and is easier to setup then the old MPOS/NOMP hybrid as described in the legacy guide.

I have ran several large mining pool operations, and helped out at several more. The purpose of this guide is to enable more people the opportunity to run their own pool, whether it be for their own miners or just out of curiosity to understand how it all works. This is by no means meant to be a guide so you can setup your own professional mining pool operation. Running your own mining pool that other miners other then yourself will use is not an easy undertaking, and requires extensive systems administration experience as well as a large budget, patience, troubleshooting skills, and a solid knowledge of how crypto-currencies work. This guide will not be going over any security features.

This guide is going over how to setup a uNOMP (Unified, Node Open Mining Portal) pool. This is meant to setup a mining pool for a single crypto-currency. This is not a guide for a multipool.

• Table of Contents

• Guide Requirements

• VPS Setup

• Update Ubuntu

• Setup Swap

• Install Required Packages

• User Setup

• Reboot

• Litecoin Daemon Setup (Wallet)

• Mining Pool Setup

• Download and Update uNOMP

• Main Configuration

• Pool Configuration

• Start your Mining Pool

• Install Forever

• Conclusion

• Related

Guide Requirements

VPS with at least 2 Cores, 4GB Ram, 50GB Disk Space and Ubuntu Server 14.04 x64 (I used Vultr for this guide)

Putty

WinSCP

Very basic knowledge of Linux

While writing this guide I was using a Vultr Cloud Server Yes, those are referral links that we benefit from if you sign up.

If you are setting up a bitcoin pool, you will need more then 50GB of disk space because the blockchain is very large.

I am using a Windows 10 based PC, and communicate with the VPS using Putty and WinSCP.

This guide will probably take you a long time, especially if you are new to Linux. I highly suggest you be patient, and take it one step at a time.

This guide is meant for novices. If you are already an experienced systems administrator then head on over to the uNomp Github and follow their directions.

A lot of these commands will seem very redundant, especially all the blank “cd” commands. Since everything is split up into different sections, sometimes readers can loose track easily. Blank “cd” commands can put them on track and get them into the right directory.

I will be using Litecoin (scrypt), I will not be going into specific of how to host something like dash (x11) or other algorithms. After you understand the basic concept of how uNOMP works, you will later realize it is not hard to change algorithms.

If you have the ability to snapshot your VPS, then I suggest you do that every time you complete a step. It will save you a lot of time if you make a mistake.

All shell commands will be surrounded with a code box like this:

shell command

Information I want you to insert into a file, or somewhere else will be surrounded with a block quote box like this:

info for a file

VPS Setup

At this point you should have your VPS started, putty up and running and your logged in as root.

Let’s go ahead and setup the VPS before we get into the meat and potatoes.

Update Ubuntu

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade

Setup Swap

By default there is no swap setup on my VPS, it is required especially on a system with limited memory. I am setting up a 4GB swap, which is the most common swap size used for a VPS.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/myswap.swap bs=1M count=4000
mkswap /mnt/myswap.swap
swapon /mnt/myswap.swap

Now let’s add it into fstab so it will activate at boot.

nano /etc/fstab

Add the following line at the end of the file.

/mnt/myswap.swap none swap sw 0 0

Should look something like this:

Ctrl+O to save, and Ctrl+X to exit the nano editor.

Now your swap is setup, you can modify the size in the future if you need more or less.

Install Required Packages

apt-get install build-essential libtool autotools-dev autoconf pkg-config libssl-dev
apt-get install libboost-all-dev git npm nodejs nodejs-legacy libminiupnpc-dev redis-server
add-apt-repository ppa:bitcoin/bitcoin
apt-get update
apt-get install libdb4.8-dev libdb4.8++-dev
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.16.1/install.sh | sh
source ~/.profile
nvm install 0.10.25
nvm use 0.10.25

All required packages are installed, we may have to hit a few more later but for right now you are good.

User Setup

You never run things like your coin daemon (wallet), or other things as root!

Let’s create a user for your mining pool.

As root type:

adduser usernameyourwant

Use whatever username you want, I will be using “poolguide” for this guide just because it is simple.
Do not use the sample username I use, think of your own for security purposes.
You will be prompted for a password, please use a password that is different from your root password.
The other info it asks for you can either fill out or just leave blank and hit enter.

Now let us give that new user sudo access:

adduser usernameyousetup sudo

Reboot

A lot has been done to the VPS. Let us go ahead and reboot it as a good, safe practice.

reboot

That is it for the VPS setup, let’s move on.

Litecoin Daemon Setup (Wallet)

Now let’s setup the coin daemon, I will be using Litecoin.

Boot up putty and login to that new user we setup earlier.

cd
git clone https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin.git

Now let’s compile litecoin.

cd litecoin
sudo ./autogen.sh
sudo ./configure
sudo make
sudo make install

The compile process will take a long time, especially if you have a small VPS with only 1 or 2 vCores. Once you do the command “sudo make” I highly suggest you take a break or whatever it is you need to do, because it will be a moment until you are ready to do the next command.

Now let’s go ahead and run litecoind (the daemon) so it will create the .litecoin directory in your users home dir.

cd src
./litecoind

You will get a message stating there is no configuration file, and they suggest such and such rpc user/pass. We are getting to that.

Now we need to setup the config file for the litecoind.

I am going to start using WinSCP to edit/add files, yes you can use nano, gedit, vim, or whatever shell based text editor you want instead. However, when a novice starts editing as many files as we are about to edit it will be easier for them if they use graphic interface for all of it. It will also help a novice understand the file structure better.

You can get WinSCP here: http://winscp.net/eng/download.php

I will walk you through WinSCP with this litecoind config file, but after that you should be able to use it easily if I just list out what directory you need to go to. You will see here shortly.

Once you install WinSCP, you should be prompted with a login screen.

Select “New Site”

“File Protocol” will be SFTP

“Hostname:” is your VPS IP

“Port number” is your ssh port that you have been using with putty

“User name:” will be root

“Password:” is your root password

Fill all that out and it should look like this (with your server info in there):

Click login, make sure to accept the host key.

Now that you have logged in, you are in the /root folder. Double click the “..” to back out of it.

The file path is /home/username/.litecoin

Click on the “home” folder.

Click on the folder that is named after your username.

Click on “.litecoin” it will be grayed out like such:

Right click on the white area in WinSCP and Go to “New” and “File”. Should look like this:

Name the file “litecoin.conf”

A white text editor window should pop up, this is WinSCP’s internal editor and what we will be using to edit files. Now we’ll want to put some basic stuff into the configuration file. You should definitely use a different username and password then that I use in the guide. I am just using the ones that litecoind generated for me already.

rpcuser=litecoinrpc
rpcpassword= wdYMsDT4E61jCv8xx6zZd6PYF3iZkjD7t3NpuiGpn6X
rpcallowip=127.0.0.1
rpcport=2300
daemon=1
server=1
gen=0

I understand that some of these .conf settings are redundant for litecoin, however in the past I have ran into certain crypto-currencies that did not allow localhost to connect, etc… Just thought this was the best overall config for a multitude of scrypt coins since the users following this guide are probably not setting up a litecoin pool. I also changed the rpcport, which is just a simple security measure I like to take.

If you are setting this up for a PoS (Proof of Stake) currency ensure that you put “staking=0” into the config otherwise your miners may not be able to withdraw their matured coins if they start staking.

The default listen port for litecoin is 9333.

Now that you have updated the litecoin.conf file, go ahead and click on the floppy disk icon in the top left of the WinSCP Editor.

Now that we have setup and saved the config file, let’s get back into ssh (putty) on your user that you created earlier.

cd
cd litecoin/src
./litecoind

You should get a message that states “Litecoin server starting” if for some reason you can’t get out of that command simply press Ctrl+C in putty and it’ll fix it.

Now let’s make sure it’s updating.

./litecoin-cli getinfo

You should see a bunch of info that looks like this:

Run that getinfo command several times, and you should see the “blocks” number updating everytime you run that getinfo command.

The wallet should be fully updated by the time this guide is over, however if you are quick or unsure simply run the getinfo command again and compare the block number to http://explorer.litecoin.net/ if the block number matches what’s on that site then you are good to go.

Now let us set the crontab so that the litecoin daemon (litecoind) will always start on boot.

crontab -e

Select “2. /bin/nano <—- easiest”

Use your arrow keys to scroll down to the bottom of the crontab.

Add this line below the # symbols.

@reboot ./litecoin/src/litecoind

Should look something like this:

Press Ctrl + O to save and Ctrl + X to exit

The Litecoin daemon will now start on boot.

Last thing we need to do is get a new address for our litecoin wallet.

./litecoin-cli getnewaddress

An address will show up, please keep record of this address. We will be using it later in the guide.

Mining Pool Setup

Now we are at the part you have been waiting for, actually setting up the mining pool. As mentioned earlier we will be using uNOMP for this. uNOMP already has the stratum server, webpage, payout system, and much more built into it.

You should have Putty and WinSCP up and running, you are logged in as your new username on Putty and root on WinSCP.

Download and Update uNOMP

cd
git clone https://github.com/UNOMP/unified-node-open-mining-portal.git unomp
cd unomp
sudo npm update

Main Configuration

cd
cd unomp
cp config.json.example config.json

Now let’s open up WinSCP.

Navigate to /home/username/unomp

Right click on config.json and select edit

Find “website”:

Underneath website, find “host”: and change the “0.0.0.0”, to your VPS IP

Save It!

Here is a picture example, what I had you change is highlighted in yellow. I used a fake IP but please use your actual IP.

The rest of the default settings in the config.json will work, however it is recommended you open it up on WinSCP after this guide is over and change things like your site title, admin password, stratum host, etc… For right now we will be using the default config settings to make the guide easier to follow.

Pool Configuration

Your asking, what do you mean by pool configuration? I thought we were doing that! Well yes, you are. However, the way the uNOMP works you can have multiple pools running on one instance. For this pool configuration portion of the guide you will be setting up the Litecoin pool. So if you want another pool for your currency of choice in the future, you can add another pool config into the pool_configs folder and you will have another pool running for a different currency (as long as you setup the coin daemon, make sure the coin.json is in unomp/coins/ and the settings are correct in the pool config).

cd
cd unomp/pool_configs
cp litecoin.json.example litecoin.json

Now let’s open up WinSCP.

Navigate to /home/username/unomp/pool_configs

Right click on litecoin.json and select edit

Find “enabled” and change it to true,

Find “auxes”: and delete everything inbetween the [  ], if you do not understand there will be pictures below.

Find “address”: and place that address we saved earlier from the litecoin daemon setup.

Find “paymentInterval”: and change it to 30,

Find “minimumPayment”: and change it to 0.01,

Find “daemon”: and underneath it find “port”: and change it to the user from your litecoin.conf (see litecoin daemon setup)

Find “user”: and change it to the password from your litecoin.conf (see litecoin daemon setup)

Find “password”: and change it to the password from your litecoin.conf (see litecoin daemon setup)

Scroll down to “daemons”: after ports and configure your litecoin daemon (same info as the past 3 steps)

Save It!

Here are picture examples, everything I had you change is highlighted in yellow.

Start your Mining Pool

Now it’s time to start everything up, fingers crossed!

cd
cd unomp
sudo node init.js

If you got an error somewhere, the first thing I suggest is while in the unomp directory, do a quick “sudo npm update” then try again. If it does not work, then read through the guide again and try to spot any mistakes. If that does not work, then use a search engine to lookup your error. Odds are there is a solution for it on github or somewhere else.

Now let’s see if your webpage is working, use your web browser and go to http://yourvpsip


Now fire up your miner, I am not going to go into specifics about setting up cgminer or what have you. If you don’t know how to setup a miner, you probably should of researched that long before you attempted to setup your own pool.

Details for your miner:

stratum+tcp://yourvpsip:3032
-u ltcpayoutaddress
-p anything

Open up SSH Terminal (Putty) that you used the command “sudo node init.js” in. You should see that your LTC address was authorized, should look something like this:

Overtime you will see accepted shares. You can also look at the statistics on your uNOMP webpage.

Now that you verified everything is working, go ahead and open up the Putty window again and “Ctrl + C” to stop the pool for the time being.

Install Forever

Forever will make it so you can start a nodejs application (unomp for instance) and close your SSH client (Putty) and it will still remain running.

cd
cd unomp
sudo npm install forever -g

Forever is now installed, now let’s run your pool.

sudo forever start init.js

You can now close out of Putty and your pool will keep on running.

You may want to read up on forever on their github page, https://github.com/foreverjs/forever. You can use forever to log all outputs of uNOMP, which will make life much easier if you run into an issue later on. You can simply read the logs and find the error.

If you want to stop uNOMP, simply go to the unomp directory again as your user and type:

sudo forever stop init.js

Conclusion

Congratulations if you completed this guide successfully, it is not an easy task especially if you are a novice with mining pools and linux. Remember that the best way to learn something is just to mess with it, and see what you can do. Push your mining pool to it’s limits, edit the software, mess with the database, etc… These things will make you more knowledgeable. I did not get to where I am at from simply following guides.

You can edit the actual uNOMP website by going to /unomp/website/. If you have a basic knowledge of HTML you should have no issues, the website is still in early development. Please remember that this guide has not gone over the security aspect whatsoever. You need to secure your VPS! There is plenty of guides about this on the internet.

If you have any issues, please review the guide again and make sure you have not missed anything before you start asking questions. It is a huge guide and you can easily miss a step. Also, search engines are your friend.

I get asked a lot about what sort of server power is required to run a mining pool. Based off of the scrypt algorithm, you want about at least 1 CPU Core and 1GB of Memory per 1 GH/s to be on the safe side. This is not including at least 1 CPU Core and 1GB minimum to run your frontend (website), which will also fluctuate depending on the amount of traffic. Internet connection wise, you want at least a 10Mbps port. Most VPS or Servers that you can rent usually have at least a 100Mbps port now-a-days. I would highly recommend SSD drives, especially if you plan on going over 1 GH/s on your pool. Mining pools love to use a lot of IOPS.

I would like to thank the developers that made  uNOMP. I had to cross-reference their guides multiple times to make this one. Please check them out on Github, and donate to them if you are using their software.

uNOMP.org
uNOMP Github

You are free to use my guide whichever way you want, just please give credit to my site BlockGen

ALT coin Stores and Services List

Are you a merchant who wants to accept Altcoins?

coinpayments – Payment Processor for merchants   
– https://coinpayments.net  &nbsp;

Stores selling goods :


NexWave – http://www.nexwave.ca

– Coin payments processed :

Coaex – Buy custom gold bars, gold bullion, silver and jewelry
– http://www.coaex.com/
– BTC, LTC, DOGE, BC, NOBL, FTC

   
CoinCable Mining Supplies   
– https://coincable.com  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC, PPC, NVC, XPM, YAC, PayPal Passthru


BitClit (18+)   
– http://www.bitclit.com  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC, FTC, NMC, BQC, CGB, DVC, GLD

Crypto Coin Wallet Cards   
– http://www.cryptocoinwalletcards.com   
– LTC

Register domain using Bitcoin and Litecoin   
– http://www.lovingdomains.com   
– BTC, LTC, NMC, PPC, NVC

Pay hosting with Bitcoin and Litecoin   
– http://www.lovinghosting.com   
– BTC, LTC, NMC, PPC, NVC


Amazonia Imports   
– http://btcpipeshop.com  &nbsp;
– 42, ANC, BTC, BC, BQC, CAT, CGB, DGC, DMD, DOGE, DVC, FRC, FRK, FST, FTC, GLD, LTC, MAX, MZC, MEC, NET, NMC, NVC, NXT, PPC, QRK, RED, SBC, SPT, STR, SXC, TRC, UNO, WDC, XPM, & ZET

Survival Supplies :

横山光輝 水滸伝 漫画

BTC, LTC, FTC, NMC, NVC, TRC, XPM, KGC, RED, ORB, BQC, CGB, DVC, CAP, DGC, GLD, YAC, QRK, ZET


NewsBam Usenet Services   
– http://www.newsbam.com  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC, STR, FTC, NMC, PPC, NVC, WDC, TRC, XPM, IFC, KGC, RED, ORB, BQC, CGB, DVC, CAP, DGC, GLD, YAC, SXC


Cryptobooks – Buy eBooks with with cryptocurrency   
– http://www.cryptobooks.com  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC, FTC, PPC, DVC, SXC


Bitezze – Buy precious metals with cryptocurrency   
– http://bitezze.com  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC, STR, FTC, NMC, PPC, NVC, WDC, TRC, XPM, IFC, KGC, RED, BQC, CGB, DVC, CAP, DGC, GLD, YAC, SXC, ADT, MEC, ANC, ZET, NET, PayPal Passthru


CryptoDirect   
– http://www.cryptodirect.cf  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC, FTC, PPC, NVC, WDC, XPM, IFC, DGC, ANC, QRK, ZET, NET, FRC


Cheap Miners – Cheap ASIC miners and accessories   
– http://www.cheapminers.com  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC, XPM


Dahms Weinversand – German Wine Home Delivery   
– http://www.dahms-weinversand.de

   
4:19 Store   
– http://www.419store.com&nbsp;

  
Crypto Game Keys   
– http://www.cryptogamekeys.com  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC, NMC, PPC, NVC, WDC, XPM, IFC, KGC, RED, ORB, BQC, CGB, DVC, CAP, DGC, GLD, SXC, ADT, MEC, QRK, ZET, NET, FRK, COL, SBC


VPS City   
– http://www.vps-city.com  &nbsp;
– LTC, PayPal Passthru


Thermostats, actuators and controllers   
– http://www.thermostatenshop.nl  &nbsp;
– BTC


Electric heating appliances   
– http://www.budgetheat.eu  &nbsp;
– BTC


Romer and 2HEAT far infrared panels   
– http://www.infraroodpanelen.eu  &nbsp;
– BTC


Outdoor- and ramp heating   
– http://www.opritverwarmingen.eu  &nbsp;
– BTC


Ceramic heating elements   
– http://www.keraheat.com  &nbsp;
– BTC


Distinguished Imports   
– https://distinguishedimports.com  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC, PPC


GameCardVN   
– http://gamecardsvn.com  &nbsp;
Verbena Products – Family owned online store specializing in bringing our customers high end Health and Beauty products at very competitive prices.   


– https://www.verbenaproducts.com  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC, PPC


Cryptocoin Stuff!   
– http://www.cryptocoinstuff.com  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC, FTC, NMC, PPC, NVC, WDC, TRC, XPM, IFC, KGC, RED, ORB, BQC, CGB, DVC, CAP, DGC, GLD, YAC, SXC, ADT, MEC, ANC, QRK, ZET, NET, FRK, COL, SBC, FRC


Retro Towers   
– http://www.retrotowers.co.uk  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC, FTC, NMC, PPC, NVC, WDC, TRC, XPM, IFC, KGC, RED, ORB, BQC, CGB, DVC, CAP, DGC, GLD, YAC, ADT, MEC, ANC, QRK, ZET, NET, FRK, COL, SBC, FRC
VPS4ME   


– http://vps4.me  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC, FTC, NMC, NVC, WDC, TRC, XPM, IFC, KGC, RED, BQC, CGB, DVC, CAP, DGC, GLD, YAC, SXC, ADT, MEC, ANC, QRK, ZET, NET, FRK


HostClub   
– http://hostclub.me

   
WaterIdo – Healthy Water Revitalizer   
– http://waterido.com  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC, FTC, NMC, PPC, NVC, WDC, TRC, XPM, IFC, KGC, RED, BQC, CGB, DVC, CAP, DGC, GLD, YAC, ADT, MEC, ANC, QRK, ZET, NET, FRK, COL 

  
Sarasota Slot Machines   
– http://sarasotaslotmachines.com  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC, IFC, MEC, PayPal Passthru


GRKreations Direct   
– http://grkreationsdirect.com  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC, FTC, NMC, PPC, NVC, WDC, TRC, XPM, IFC, KGC, RED, BQC, CGB, DVC, CAP, DGC, GLD, YAC, SXC, ADT, MEC, ANC, QRK, ZET, NET, FRK, COL, SBC, FRC, PayPal Passthru


Mining Hardware   
– http://www.mininghardware.co.uk  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC


DuinoBits – Arduino kits (UK & Europe)   
– http://www.duinobits.com  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC


Johnsbay Flooring Co. – Flooring Material including Carpeting, Wood flooring, Laminate, Tiles.   
– http://www.johnsbay.com  &nbsp;
– BTC


Hash Rate Store   
– https://www.hashratestore.com  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC


Coin Gas – Steam game codes for alt coins   
– http://www.coingas.com  &nbsp;
– BTC, CAP, DGC, FTC, GIL, LTC, NVC, PPC, WDC, CGB


sauce4coins   
– http://sauce4coins.com  &nbsp;
– BQC, BTC, LTC, BTB, CGB, FTC, CAP, VNC, DGC, XPM (and others if you email them)


BottleCaps Store – Itunes cards and World of tanks tokens   
– http://bottlecapstore.weebly.com  &nbsp;
– CAP’s and LTC – Canadian Orders for Itunes only


cryptosextoys   
– http://www.cryptosextoys.com  &nbsp;
– BTC, CAP, DGC, FTC, LTC, NVC, PPC, CGB, SXC


dailybit – Daily special something new everyday
– http://dailybit.net  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC, XPM, FTC,CAP, IFC, WDC, NVC, NMC, TRC, KGC, PPC, RED, STR, WDC, Peercoins and Paypal 


REDCOINSHOP – Herbal pills remedies   
– http://REDCOINSHOP.com  &nbsp;
– RED


pythonpills- Male enhancement pill   
– http://pythonpills.com/red  &nbsp;
– RED


bitcoinprbuzz – Press Release services for crypto projects – Copy Writing and content creation – Business consulting   
– http://bitcoinprbuzz.com  &nbsp;
– BTC, DVC,BTC, CGB, LTC and FST


finite by design – Coins, Pendants etc   
– http://www.finitebydesign.com  &nbsp;
– CGB


cryptothrift – Online Thrift Shop   
– https://cryptothrift.com   &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC


Litehosting- Web Hosting   
– http://Litehosting.org  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC, NMC, XPM


ltcasics – All kinds of gift cards   
– http://ltcasics.com  &nbsp;
– LTC
Altcoin TIP

   
– http://reddit.com/r/ALTcointip  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC, PPC, NMC, FTC, and XPM

 DirectVoltage – alternative energy retailer 
– http://DirectVoltage.com  &nbsp;
– BTC, LTC, FTC, PPC


Sex Stories   
– http://erotica4sxc.tk/about-2  &nbsp;
– SXC


Porn Database   
– http://www.porndatabase.co.uk  &nbsp;
– SXC


3D Porn   
– http://www.lynortis.com/alt-coins.php  &nbsp;
– SXC


coinaxis   
– https://coinaxis.com/  &nbsp;
– LTC


dvc4giftcards – Giftcards   
– http://dvc4giftcards.us  &nbsp;
– DEV


Bitcora – Bitcoin templates and themes
– https://bitorca.com

   
Epawnatl- Pawn Shop   
– http://Epawnatl.com  &nbsp;
– FRK, BTC


Etsyshop   
– http://www.etsy.com/shop/InnovoDesign  &nbsp;
– DOGE, IFC, COL,LTC


Open Source Solutions   
– http://www.iquidus.co.nz  &nbsp;
– BTC, MEC, LTC, Earthcoins


LEALANA PHYSICAL LITECOINS…and BITCOINS
– http://www.lealana.com
– LTC


Evonym
– http://evonym.us/
-BTC, LTC, TRC, PPC.


Minecraft Server
– https://alt-co.in/minecraft/
– GME


Sexslam
– http://sexslam.com
– RED


All Things Luxury
– http://www.allthingsluxury.biz/
– BTC, LTC


7 Pay In – Pay for mobile and ISP services/ecash/WoT/Steam/whatever
– https://7pay.in/
– BTC, LTC, CL and NVC


CryptFolio – CryptFolio lets you keep track of your cryptocurrencies
– http://CryptFolio.com
– BTC, LTC, CGB, XPM, paypal


Tagbond.com – Merchant site hosting
– http://tagbond.com
– BTC, TAG
– LTC

– BTC, LTC

Dog Training – French pet dog trainer and behaviorist.
-www.psychodog.eu and www.psychodog.be
-DOGE
– EAC


BitCoinPINS!!
– http://www.bitcoinpins.com/
– EAC


Polish SEO company
– http://dodawanie.com/
– EAC


FlightSchool! Commercial pilot and flying instructor
– http://www.paul-bradley.com
– EAC


ribbit.me
– http://ribbit.me

The list is always changing as the sites can go down or new ones might apear !!!

DEX: Decentralized Exchanges List

DEX: Decentralized Exchanges List

• AirSwap


AirSwap is a token exchange platform that can be used to trade or convert Ethereum based assets and ERC20 tokens.

AirSwap allows for much of the trading activity to take place off-chain and operates faster than blockchain-only based exchanges.

AirSwap is currently compatible with MetaMask or Ledger
https://coincodex.com/crypto/airswap/

• Altcoin.io

DEX powered by Plasma. (smart contract on the Ethereum network which locks value and provides proof of locked value (i.e. tokens) to a sidechain.)

• Barterdex

DEX powered by Atomic Swaps technology (Currently in Beta phase)

• Bancor Protocol

Bancor is a decentralized liquidity network that allows you to hold any token and convert it to any other token in the network, with no counter party, at an automatically calculated price, using a simple web wallet.

• Bisq

Bisq is an open-source desktop application that allows you to buy and sell bitcoins in exchange for national currencies, or alternative crypto currencies

• Blocknet

Blocknet empowers the passionate communities behind every coin with atomic swaps on a truly decentralized cross-blockchain platform.

Blocknet serves as a connector between blockchains, markets, and communities

• Catalyst

Catalyst is an algorithmic trading library for crypto-assets written in Python. It allows trading strategies to be easily expressed and backtested against historical data

• Etherdelta

decentralized trading platform for [Ether](https://ethereum.org) and [Ethereum-based tokens]

• Forkdelta

ForkDelta is a decentralized Ethereum Token Exchange with the most ERC20 listings of any exchange.

ForkDelta currently acts as an open source, updated interface for EtherDelta’s smart contract with an active and public development team

• Gnosis Dutch Exchange

Decentralized exchange for ERC-20 tokens based on the Dutch auction principle

• Herdius

Herdius intends to build a new infrastructure layer on top of all blockchains. Through our vertically scalable chain and distributed virtual wallet network, Herdius aims to tackle identity & interoperability as well as create a crypto asset agnostic decentralized exchange

• Hodl Hodl

Hodl Hodl is a P2P cryptocurrency exchange that allows users to trade directly with each other and it doesn’t hold user’s funds — locking it in multisig escrow instead — which minimizes the possibilities of crypto assets theft and reduces trading 

• IDEX

IDEX is a decentralized exchange for trading Ethereum (ERC-20) tokens. IDEX combines the speed of centralization with the security of blockchain settlement.

• KyberNetwork

IDEX is a decentralized exchange for trading Ethereum (ERC-20) tokens. IDEX combines the speed of centralization with the security of blockchain settlement.

• Legolas

LGO Exchange incorporates a decentralized ledger within its proprietary centralized platform in order to neutralize front-running and guarantee the unalterability, temporality, and transparency of the order book

• Loopring

With Loopring, traders will have complete and total control of their crypto-assets. This means there is no need to go through the pesky and risky process of depositing money to centralized/custodial exchanges.

• Waves