Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape Alex Biryukov, Daniel Feher - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape

Alex Biryukov, Daniel Feher

University of Luxembourg

April 29, 2019

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Outline

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Outline

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Cryptocurrency Mining

◮ Core element of several currencies ◮ Dominated by mining pools ◮ Different hardware per currency based on used PoW

(GPU, ASIC)

◮ GPUs have many variants

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Mining Terms

◮ Mining Farm can consist of multiple rigs ◮ Workers are manually set up partitions of a miner’s farm ◮ A worker can consist of a single or multiple rigs

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Data collection

◮ Some large pools have open APIs (BitFly, Nanopool) ◮ Only need the address of a miner for their worker data

◮ The data contains the name and the last 24h average

mining power of every active worker

◮ Blockchain scanning for miner addresses (Ethereum,

Zcash)

◮ Extract data based on worker names (using the GPU

names)

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Ethereum Hardware

20 40 60 80 100 Mhash/s 5 10 Number of Workers

GTX 1050

20 40 60 80 100 Mhash/s 20 40 Number of Workers

GTX 1060

20 40 60 80 100 Mhash/s 5 10 15 20 Number of Workers

GTX 1070

20 40 60 80 100 Mhash/s 20 40 60 80 Number of Workers

RX 580

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Zcash Hardware

200 400 600 800 1000 Sol/s 0.0 2.5 5.0 7.5 10.0 Number of Workers

GTX 1050

200 400 600 800 1000 Sol/s 10 20 30 40 Number of Workers

GTX 1060

200 400 600 800 1000 Sol/s 5 10 Number of Workers

GTX 1070

200 400 600 800 1000 Sol/s 5 10 15 Number of Workers

GTX 1080

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Overall Numbers of Hardware

Hardware Num Hardware Num Hardware Num GTX1050 631 GTX1050ti 856 GTX1060 5800 p106 1543 GTX1070 3327 GTX1070ti 616 GTX1080 855 GTX1080ti 1023 RX460 656 RX470 3713 RX480 1650 RX560 1084 RX570 6068 RX580 6273 Table: Ethereum Hardware Num Hardware Num Hardware Num GTX1050 327 GTX1050ti 183 GTX1060 1783 GTX1070 791 GTX1070ti 207 GTX1080 918 GTX1080ti 617 GTX970 157 Table: Zcash

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Outline

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Introduction of ASICs

◮ Zcash uses Equihash hashing algorithm ◮ Designed to be ASIC resistant, mining only with GPUs ◮ Late May, 2018 multiple ASIC (application-specific

integrated circuit) miners were announced for the version implemented in Zcash

◮ Was there hidden ASIC mining in Zcash? ◮ Similar circumstances in Monero, where the likelihood of

hidden mining was high

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Comparison of GPU Mined Coins

2000 Msol/s 1000 Msol/s 3000 Msol/s 4000 Msol/s 5000 Msol/s

Dec Mar Jun Sep Dec Mar Jun Sep Dec

2018 2017

Figure: Sum of total power of (formerly) GPU-mined blockchains (Purple:

Zcash, Dark Blue: ZenCash, Light Blue: Bitcoin Gold, Green: Zclassic, Orange: Monero, Yellow: Ethereum)

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Developer Fees

◮ Most used mining software have built-in developer fees ◮ Developer fee is payed by mining 2% of the time to the

developer’s address

◮ Find the addresses of developers ◮ Approximate mining power, extrapolate for entire chain

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners Dec Mar Jun Jul Oct Jan Feb Apr May Aug Sep Nov Dec Jan Apr Feb May 2017 Mar 2018 400 Msol/s 200 Msol/s 600 Msol/s

Hashrate

1.0 0.75 0.5 0.25

Figure: Lower bound of GPU mining power based on the developer fees

(Green: Claymore, Blue: EWBF, Purple: dstm, Light Blue: Bminer, Orange: Optiminer, Red: Remaining Hash rate)

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners 5.0 × 108 1.0 × 109 1.5 × 109 2.0 × 109

June August October

Figure: The recent change in the projected mining power from dev-fees for

the overall Equihash hash rate

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Number of Miners Receiving Payouts Every Day

10 000 20 000 30 000 40 000 50 000 60 000

Number of Miners Per Day

June August October

• Less than 5ksol/s
• Less than 35ksol/s
• More than 35ksol/s

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Outline

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Approximating Hashing Rate

◮ Approximating hashing rate based on mining pool payouts ◮ Function of time, value and global hashing rate ◮ Miners can be individually tracked

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Recorded Hash Rates from Zcash

Approximate the hashing rate of every miner based on payouts

500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 Sol/s 2500 5000 7500 10000 12500 15000 17500 20000 Number of Records

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Recorded Hash Rates from Zcash

Approximating the hash rate of a single user over time

1000 800 600 400 200 Time Example for Changing Mining Power Sol/s

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Countermeasures

◮ Increase payout threshold ◮ Frequently change addresses ◮ Use shielded addresses if supported

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg

Mining Hardware Landscape Introduction of ASICs Privacy of Miners

Summary

◮ Study of mining hardware popularity ◮ Lack of proof for hidden ASIC mining in Zcash ◮ Mining rewards leak relevant information

Portrait of a Miner in a Landscape University of Luxembourg