Scrypt

What is Scrypt exactly, you may wonder? Scrypt is a password-based key derivation function (or algorithm).


This may not say much to you right now, but i’m pretty sure the next sentence will explain some of the mystery : it was originally designed to perform large scale custom hardware attacks. Now now, don’t give me that frown. It comes down to this : Scrypt was designed to decipher, or decrypt, encrypted messages.

If you paid close attention yesterday, you may remember that SHA-256 was designed to ENCRYPT messages and data, while Scrypt was designed to DECRYPT messages and data. Now, of course, if you have an encrypted piece of data, and there is absolutely no way to decrypt it, the data isn’t of much use to anyone, is it? But, as we all know, once you can decrypt things, you can use the algorithm to decrypt in a not-so legitimate way aswell.

I’ll throw some hacker lingo in here as well for you, because i know you’re on the edge of your seat by now. We have another term for large hardware attacks, that you may be familiar with : brute-forcing. See, i can tell by your smile that you’re getting it now. Or are you? Maybe the entire picture isn’t clear to you yet. Every one who mines Scrypt coins is basically brute forcing data blocks. Yes, i went there and dropped that pipe-bomb. Take a deep breath , then read on.

Ok, you’ve got a chance to calm down. I’m not accusing anyone of anything illegal here, you have to understand that. Mining Scrypt coins is basically brute forcing (or attacking) a huge chunk of data. We solve shares (pieces of data) , but to be able to solve the shares , the data has to be decrypted first, so we can see if it matches the details of our shares. Kind of like an employer looking at the work you’ve done all day, and then looking deeper to see if you actually did it properly.

Scrypt mining, or brute forcing, depending on how you look at it, means you submit a lot of data in the hopes of finding something that matches with the actual data we are trying to solve (or decrypt). As this is a very intensive process, it requires a LOT of memory. I’m not talking about RAM here, i’m talking about the actual memory on your CPU or graphics card.

Why a lot of memory, you wonder? Well, that’s simple to explain. As the data we send is being matched up to the big chink of data, the memory has to keep a constant flow of data going to the target. You can’t throw 100 possible combinations of shares at a block and then twiddle your thumbs for minutes, that’s not how it works. You have to keep pushing, and pushing, and pushing. Brute-forcing works in the same way : you try to flood the system and create a vulnerability which you can use. Each share we solve when Scrypt mining is a tiny chink in the armor of the actual block. The more chinks we can chip away, the better our chances of being successful in solving the block.

The ideal setup to start mining Scrypt coins, includes having one (or several) piece(s) of hardware with a lot of memory. This is where graphics cards will, for now at least, out perform any CPU. If you’re looking at purchasing one (or more) graphics card(s) to start mining Scrypt coins, you’ll have to look at Radeon video cards.

Nvidia cards are sadly under-performing in this area, but they sure make great cards for video gaming. You can’t be great at everything unfortunately.

In the end it comes down to this : SHA-256 and Scrypt both do the same thing on the surface : we solve shares in the hopes of getting a big payday , or if you’re pool mining, several smaller payouts which add up nicely over the course of the day. They do take different approaches though : SHA-256 relies more on the engine core of your hardware, the higher the engine, the better your chances with SHA-256. Scrypt, on the other hand, requires a lot of memory. The more memory you have, the better your chances with Scrypt.

To conclude, we need to talk some Scrypt coin examples of course! The best known one is Litecoin, but there are many others, including Feathercoin, Digitalcoin, Realcoin, and many , many more.

source: http://www.cryptonerd.co/

Scrypt