50% of Ethereum's computing power is going to shut down? The DAG file problem is more terrible than halving!

In 2017, Ethereum undoubtedly made great achievements with its ICO. After Bitcoin halving, many people believe that Ethereum 2.0 will once again play the role of a "bull market catalyst." Because apart from this, there seems to be no more exciting stories in the cryptocurrency circle.

However, the DAG file of Ethereum 4G graphics card is about to reach 4G, which means that 4G graphics card will no longer be able to mine! Ethereum may face 50%-60% of the computing power fleeing.

Coin hoarders may not feel it, but miners are already having a headache. It is easy to give up, just sell the graphics card and quit the mining industry. It is difficult to continue, and spend a lot of money to upgrade the 4G video memory to 8G.

Miners are the most realistic group of people in the entire cryptocurrency industry. Whether they leave or stay is all about interests, not beliefs, and interests are all about game.

4G graphics cards can no longer mine

Ethereum has not been conquered by Asic mining machines because its consensus algorithm Ethash consumes a lot of video memory. This memory-intensive algorithm makes Asic chips that are good at computing have almost no advantage in mining Ethereum.

However, the Ethash algorithm also has disadvantages. It will generate a DAG file (directed acyclic graph), which will be stored in the video memory. Every time a block is produced, a new DAG file will be generated, and this file must contain the encrypted information of all previous blocks. As a result, the DAG file becomes larger and larger.

The DAG file grows by 520MB per year. According to investoon.com, the current DAG file size for Ethereum is 3.59GB and that for Ethereum Classic is 3.67GB. Based on this calculation , by the end of December 2020, the DAG file size will reach 4GB.

▼Data shows that 4G graphics cards will no longer be able to mine by the end of the year

This means that existing 4G graphics cards can no longer mine. However, according to calculations, these graphics cards will not be able to wait until the end of December . They will basically be out of the game by the end of November or the beginning of December.

At present, the mainstream 4G graphics card chips include AMD 4 series (474, 484) and 5 series (574, 584) and Nvidia P104.

Wu Junjie is the brand director of the cloud computing platform Bishide, which is also a large Ethereum mining farm. According to him, 4G graphics cards currently account for more than 60% of the total Ethereum computing power. It is expected that starting from July and August, these 4G graphics cards will gradually encounter situations where they cannot mine.

Why is it one after another? It's very simple. GPU mining machines currently have different operating systems, such as Windows 10, Windows 7 and Linux systems. The memory usage rate decreases in turn. The Linux system can last about one month longer. In other words, those GPU mining machines using Windows 10 systems are the first to encounter the problem of being unable to mine.

4G graphics card is "old", these methods make it "fight on the battlefield again"

At present, we have collected some methods that may be able to extend the life of 4G graphics cards, which are roughly as follows.

1. Modify the system, that is, upgrade the GPU mining machine to Linux system.

2. Upgrade the mining software. Zhang Songqing, co-founder of minerOS, told Babbitt that for the P104, the physical video memory of the card is 8G, but in order to reduce power consumption and stability, it was flashed with 4G BIOS when it left the factory. Now it can be upgraded to 8G through the minerOS software.

3. Chip transformation and upgrade.

This involves hardware modification, and there are many solutions. For example, you can replace 8 512M (4G in total) video memory chips with 8 1G video memory chips (8G in total). For example, extract the chip and install it on a PCB with 8G video memory chips. Or, connect an 8G video memory in parallel with multiple 4G graphics cards to share the video memory.

According to Wu Junjie, the idea of ​​Bishide is also to upgrade the hardware. In short, it is to replace the 4G video memory with 8G video memory and then flash the modified BIOS.

It is easier said than done. Wu Junjie attributed the difficulty to the following points:

1. Manual modification is theoretically feasible, but the yield rate of non-professional modifiers is very problematic. BGA-packaged memory chips require professionals from PCB packaging factories to ensure a certain yield rate. The modification of large quantities of graphics cards requires very cumbersome preparatory work. The simple mechanical labor of large-scale board cleaning is not something that an average team can complete.

2. Efficiency issue: If the modification time is delayed too long, resulting in the GPU mining machine being idle for a long time, this is a disaster for miners. The efficiency of the modification is critical.

3. The cost and price of video memory chips determine whether the cost of transformation is acceptable to everyone. Currently, the price of 256M*32 video memory chips is 5-6 US dollars, and the cost of 8 chips is 350 yuan (RMB), which is just the cost of basic materials.

▼This is the PCB board used to install chips and video memory

Wu Junjie said that at present, BEST is still trying to improve the hardware solution and reduce costs. According to him, according to the plan, their mine is expected to complete the upgrade of all models in July-August.

There are many solutions to upgrade 4G graphics cards. As Wu Junjie said, the technical challenges are generally similar. Currently, companies like Bishide and Shenlang Miner are planning their own solutions.

The 4G graphics card upgrade is a major attraction of Ethereum GPU mining, but considering today’s coin prices, upgrading is obviously not an easy decision.

4G graphics cards will eventually become second-hand game cards

It is estimated that 4G graphics cards account for about 60% of the total Ethereum computing power. It is still unknown how many miners can accept the graphics card modification. However, miners speculate that 50% of the computing power will eventually withdraw from the arena.

Where will these obsolete graphics cards go? It is estimated that most of them will return to the second-hand market and become high-performance gaming cards in Internet cafes or in the hands of individuals. They may also be recycled, with some of the usable parts being reused.

Another place is to mine small mining coins. In fact, many project parties have already set their sights on these eliminated computing powers, but in reality, this is not all smooth sailing.

First, although the application range of graphics card mining is relatively wide, the algorithms of different public chains are different, and the mining efficiency of different graphics cards is different. In fact, there are not many small mining coins that can be mined by these graphics cards.

Second, 50% of the hashrate is equivalent to about 90T, which is very large and a devastating blow to small currencies. A large influx of hashrate may cause a surge in the amount of coins produced in a short period of time. Miners without loyalty will sell coins, directly suppressing the price.

At present, platforms like AE, BEAM, and Grin may be a place to eliminate computing power.

In the field of mining, Asic has always been the dominant force. This can be seen from the mining machine manufacturers, Bitmain, Jianan Creative, Shenma Mining Machine, Ebang International, all of which are Asic manufacturers without exception. The public's awareness of GPU mining machines is much lower. In fact, GPU mining machine manufacturers often do not produce chips themselves, but mainly assemble mining machines.

In the graphics card market, the competition for chip upgrades is not as fierce as that for Asic mining machines, so the speed of upgrading mining machines is relatively slow, especially after the price of ETH fell from its high point, the shipment of new mining machines slowed down, and even almost stagnated. The upgrade trend of GPU mining machines is almost strongly related to DAG files.

Currently, the Ethereum public chain alone supports almost the entire GPU mining market. Therefore, even if so much computing power is involved, security should not be a problem for Ethereum. In the cryptocurrency circle, no one can lay out a computing power that can destroy Ethereum in a short period of time.

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