Crittografia e Mining = Cryptography and Mining

The aim of the work is to illustrate the analysis of mining feasibility. In the first chapter, some preliminary concepts sush as symmetric cryptography, public-key cryptography, hash functions are recalled, with particular attention to SHA and Keccak-256. The theory of Elliptic Curve Cryptosistems is mentioned, and in particular Secp256k1 is analyzed. After introducing the Blockchain, the protocols of Proof of Work and Proof of Stake are examined. The second chapter is focused on Bitcoin. Concepts such as block structure, Merkle tree, Merkel root, Difficulty, Hashrate, Bitcoin transactions and block speed validation have been deepened. In addition, several processes like verification of transactions, block validation, Fork and finally the process of creating Bitcoins have been investigated. The third chapter is structured as the previous one, but it focuses on Ethereum. The fourth chapter concentrates on Mining Pools. Particular attention was directed to the concept of share, fundamental for the mechanism of pool redistribution. Moreover, Stratum the communication protocol used by miners to communicate with pools through cleartext is investigated. Finally, the last chapter is based on the analysis of mining feasibility, where an overlooking was given on the concept of share, describing the difference between valid and invalid shares. The goal of this chapter was the derivation of a mathematical model that, given certain input parameters, returns the average profit deriving from the mining activity. During the period of analysis, I was serveral times, with the professor Antonio Di Scala (PoliTO) and the computer engineer Gabriele Vernetti (PoliTO), in Ping-s srl (Cuneo) to develop an experimental project. The goal of the project was the realization, at the client’s premises, of an experimental mining rig prototype, composed by 8 Nvidia 1080Ti (11GB GG DDR5X). We started drawing up the list of various hardware components that we would need (GPU’s, Motherboard, CPU, RAM, PSU, SSD, heatsink, fans). Note that the size of RAM used on mining machine does not have a direct impact on mining performance in most cases. However, there are some guidelines such as minimum OS requirements and motherboard form factor that must be followed to ensure your mining rig runs stable. Waiting for the arrival of all the material necessary for the rig assembly, we started with the preparation of the SSD disk, by installing the Hive OS operating system on the latter. Once the connection between the power supplies and the motherboard was completed, we began to assemble the first riser together with the first GPU, with the purpose of verifying the necessary connections. Once all the GPUs have been connected, we started to experiment a little more seriously with the overclocking and temperature control settings. We used an important function, the so-called "Autofan mode" , which is really useful for maintaining control over the temperature of the various GPUs. Through this function, actually, it is possible to establish the target temperature that is maintained trough HiveOS, which automatically adjusts the intensity of the fans of each video card. After trying several settings, we found the best hash/power ratio. Secondly, we focused on the implementation of a control system of electricity consumption andtemperature in the room dedicated to the mining-rig.