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What is Dual Mining?

John Williams

John Williams

— 4 min read
What is Dual Mining?

Dual mining was one of the most popular mining approaches in 2017. The reason for that was high profit with an average amount of investment. To find out what is dual mining and how beneficial it is nowadays, firstly, the definition of the term must be given.

What is Dual Mining?

The name of dual mining speaks for itself – it is a form of parallel mining of two different cryptocurrencies. A miner has to choose the first, the main coin, and the second one in addition. Increased load makes graphic cards busier, but earning is growing with it. There is direct opportunity to get two different coins at the same time using only one set of equipment, and it is the main advantage of this method that makes it attractive for miners.

It’s also needed to know that as dual mining generates two different cryptocurrencies, a miner needs to make two separate wallets to collect them.

cryptocurrency-is-the-best-for-dual-mining">Which Cryptocurrency is the Best for Dual Mining?

What coin is suitable for dual mining is also a frequently asked question. There are no so many options yet.

Ethereum is known as the best choice for the first dual mining coin. It can be easily combined with Ethash, Siacoin, SiaCoin, Lbry, Keccak or Blake2s. The most popular pairs for dual mining are Ethereum-Zilliqa and Ethereum-Siacoin.

To find the most rentable option miners use profitability calculators. To set up the work miner should fill the form with asked values such as mining speed and energy cost.

For example, on AMD RX470-570 there are about 28 Mh/s, RX460/560 provides 13 Mh/s, Nvidia GTX 1060 with 3-6 gigabyte performs on 19-24 Mh/s. Some cards works slower for the particular cryptocurrency. For example, Decred gets 2-3 times less mining speed on Nvidia.

It’s important to remember that when it comes to new and not well known cryptocurrency there could be problem with support on some exchanges platforms.

How to Start

To set up dual mining for Eth or any other cryptocurrency there must be downloaded, installed and configured all the drivers and programs. The process of setting includes work with video cards parameters in order to archive the maximum performance that’s possible. Then miner should adapt them for pool’s requirements and set the fan controlling to avoid overheating. Right settings help to reach the highest possible efficiency with lowest losing.

Commonly using programs for dual mining are:

  • PhoenixMiner
  • Gminer
  • NBminer
  • TeamRedMiner
  • T-Rex

They work for the most type of video cards and considered as the fastest software for Ethereum. They can increase possibility of high receiving with minimum speed loosing. The programs provide detailed background setting information for every type of video card. They also include wide spectrum of options that helps to automatize the mining process. All of these programs have versions for Linux and Windows.

Dual Mining in Pools

Decent amount of miners choose dual mining as the favorite mining approach. Therefore, there are functioning mining pools. To pick the best one miner should look for statistic information about how gainful the pool is. Often pools proclaim that dual miners will get 10% of advantage in final profit. They provide this bonus in purposes of getting double calculating power.

Needed parameters for successful mining should be listed in the BAT batch file. For Ethereum there are such items as:

  • EthDcrMiner64.exe that shows path for current mining;
  • epool pool_adres.com – parameter that gives essential information about the address and port of the pool;
  • ewal username.worker_name represents miner’s username;
  • epsw worker_password is the parameter that shows the miner’s password;
  • esm 2 is a parameter for pool’s setting;
  • dcri 22 is a special parameter for the second coin’s setting. It represent intensity of work, the value stays for 30 by default and could be changed.
  • dcoin coin_name refers to the second cryptocurrency name;
  • dpool pool_adres. Com shows the path and port for the second cryptocurrency;
  • dwal username.worker_name is the name parameter for second coin;
  • dpsw worker_password is the user’s password for the second cryptocurrency;
  • allpools 1 is parameter for development fee;
  • allcoins -1 is a parameter that specifying in which order miner will work;
  • gser 1 or 2 – parameter in command line that helps to smooth out working graphic cards and reduce overclocking;
  • mode 1 or 0 is the parameter that can switch mining for one cryptocurrency or turn mining off.

K1Pool is one of the best Ethereum mining pool https://k1pool.com/pool/eth providing a comfortable switching between coins with only 1 click. Furthermore, it is the essential service developing mining of a unique pair – ZIL and RVN, together with T-Rex miner’s team.

Is Dual Mining Worth It?

The common misconception about this scheme is that two cryptocurrencies means double profit.

Read the article "ETH + ZIL Dual Mining = Double Profit?"

First of all, often the second coin gets lower rate than in solo mining in average condition. That is happening because the general force of graphic cards falls on the main cryptocurrency, so productivity for the second coin could be not very high.

To be effective dual mining requires specific system settings in order to be more productive on high load. It could be difficult to archive optimal parameters for inexperienced miners.

One of the most important parts is a temperature control system. Heavy load causes overheat that’s affects negatively on the whole technical equipment. Miners also should expect high noise level during the whole working process.

Also there are not so many cryptocurrency that supported by double mining systems yet. For today there are Ethereum, Siacoin, Ethash, SiaCoin, Lbry, Keccak and Blake2s.

Although dual mining has some significant pros.

This method considered as eco-friendly and saving type of mining. It’s happened because this scheme could be profitable by short amount of time per only one interaction. It’s requires much less energy than non-dual mining. The speed of mining is also can stay the same for each pair of cryptocurrency with right settings.  But if miner decided to turn double mining, for example, for an hour it will lead to increased energy consumption in 20-25%.

Dual mining is also appreciated for reasonable system of coin distribution. When it comes to mining in pool, every miner can expect to get fair payment for number of individual amount of work. But the commission fee for joining a pool is twice as many that pool costs in average condition.

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