In recent times, Bitcoin’s hash rate has consistently been above 300 exahash per second (EH/s) as various mining pools dedicate significant hashing power to the Bitcoin blockchain today. Interestingly, some of the biggest bitcoin mining pools in the world are also using their hash rate to merge and mine other coins, and these networks have benefited from the increased bitcoin hash rate.
How Bitcoin Hashrate Benefits Other Crypto Networks
Bitcoin’s hashrate secures the network and provides rewards to miners who participate in the system, but mining pools also dedicate computing power to networks like Namecoin, Elastos, Emercoin, and Vcash. For example, Namecoin has a hashrate of about 187 U/s today, and some of the major bitcoin mining pools are merging and mining the network to acquire namecoin rewards (NMCs).
Merge mining is a process where miners can mine multiple cryptocurrencies at the same time at no additional cost. Combined mining is similar to a person playing Pac-Man and Asteroids at the same time, using the same joystick and earning rewards for both games. Namecoin was the first cryptocurrency project to be mined by merger, as it shares the same SHA256 algorithm as Bitcoin, and the first block mined by merger on the network was mined on September 19, 2011.
Bitcoin pools that dedicate hashrate to the Namecoin chain include F2pool, Viabtc, Poolin, and Mining Dutch. While F2pool is the fourth largest bitcoin mining pool in the last three days, it is the largest namecoin miner, dedicating its entire 44 EH/s to the Namecoin network. Viabtc dedicates 26.25 EH/s to the Namecoin chain and Poolin also targets 5.10 EH/s to Namecoin. At the time of writing, a single name coin (NMC) is worth $1.24 per unit and 12.5 NMC plus fees are distributed on each block reward.
Namecoin has the second largest hashrate among SHA256 blockchains, but the Emercoin (EMC) network is the third largest under BTC and NMC. EMC has 93.38 EH/s dedicated to the network, with Mining Dutch and Viabtc being the top miners of the coin. Viabtc, what is it? BTCThe fifth largest mining pool by hashrate also dedicates 26.76 EH/s to EMC. The Emercoin network leverages a hybrid proof-of-work (PoW) and proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. a single emercoin (EMC) is currently changing hands at $0.0088 per coin.
Meanwhile, Viabtc dedicates the same amount of hashrate to the Syscoin (SYS) network, another hybrid PoW and PoS blockchain. Today, a single SYSTEM is trading at $0.167 against the US dollar. In addition to the aforementioned PoW cryptocurrencies leveraging the SHA256 consensus algorithm, miners are also dedicating hashrate to networks like Xaya, Veil, Hathor, Elastos, and Vcash. Older cryptocurrency networks like Terracoin (TRC) and Unobtanium (UNO) also see a small fraction of the SHA256 hashrate.
F2pool dedicates 44.32 U/s to Vcash, but the native coin asset has no value listed on any of the major coin market aggregation sites. elastos has more 100 exhash dedicated to the chain, and major mining pools such as Antpool, F2pool, Viabtc and Mining Dutch are dedicating hashrate to the Elastos network. Current Statistics They further show that 100 exahash per second is also dedicated to RSK’s smart contract network.
What do you think the future holds for merged mining and the relationships between different blockchain networks? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
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