According to data from the CKB browser, the total network hashrate of Nervos CKB has exceeded 200 PH/s, reaching a new historical high:
For blockchain networks that use the PoW consensus mechanism, a higher total network hashrate means a greater difficulty in launching a 51% attack, indicating a more secure network.
In this article, I will briefly introduce the relevant knowledge of CKB mining. It is important to note that the legality of mining activities may vary depending on the national context, and mining profitability can be influenced by various factors. The main purpose of this article is to provide educational information and does not constitute any investment advice.
Introduction to CKB Mining Algorithm#
CKB adopts the PoW (Proof of Work) scheme, with the consensus protocol being NC-Max (an upgraded version of the Nakamoto Consensus). NC-Max retains the advantages of Nakamoto Consensus while improving its performance limits and resistance to selfish mining attacks. If you want to learn more about NC-Max, you can read "The Way of NC-Max" and "NC-Max: Making Nakamoto Consensus Great Again" (Part 1 and Part 2).
CKB uses the self-developed Eaglesong mining algorithm. If you want to learn more about Eaglesong, you can read "Recommended Equipment: Eaglesong - Nervos CKB Hash Algorithm".
CKB Mining Difficulty Adjustment Target#
In simple terms, the mining difficulty is adjusted every Epoch, with each Epoch lasting approximately 4 hours. The adjustment targets are:
- Current block time adjustment range: 8s ~ 48s
- Target uncle block rate: 2.5%
Currently, the mining difficulty of CKB is 2.29 EH.
Introduction to CKB Mining Reward Mechanism#
The block rewards for CKB miners include: base (issuance) reward, secondary (issuance) reward, commitment reward, and proposal reward, as shown in the following diagram:
The base reward comes from the primary issuance of CKB, with a total supply of 33.6 billion CKB, halving approximately every 4 years, similar to the issuance mechanism of Bitcoin. At the micro level, the base reward for each Epoch is a fixed value. When the block interval of an Epoch becomes longer and the number of blocks decreases, the block reward per block will increase, and vice versa.
The secondary reward comes from the secondary issuance mechanism of CKB, which is synchronized with the base issuance. The annual amount of secondary issuance is fixed at 1.344 billion CKB, and the portion allocated to miners is influenced by the CKB chain's state occupancy rate. The higher the state occupancy rate, the higher the proportion of CKB that miners can obtain from the secondary issuance.
For more information about the primary and secondary issuance mechanisms of CKB, you can read "Understanding CKB's Economic Model and Its Ingenious Design".
The commitment reward and proposal reward come from the transaction fees of transfers on the CKB chain. The reason for dividing the transaction fees into two parts is that NC-Max adopts a two-step transaction confirmation scheme to eliminate the bottleneck of block propagation delay, which will not be further explained here.
It is important to note that the block reward for a block at height N will be distributed through cellbase at block N+11.
Current Status of CKB Mining#
CKB mining started on May 18, 2019, after the launch of the CKB testnet Rylai and before the launch of the CKB mainnet Lina. CKB mining has undergone a transformation from CPU mining to GPU mining.
After the launch of the CKB mainnet, FPGA miners gradually emerged, and the composition of CKB network's hashrate was in a period of coexistence between FPGA miners and GPU miners. After March and April 2020, CKB mining gradually shifted to the era of ASIC miners. Currently, mining CKB requires purchasing ASIC miners developed by third-party manufacturers.
Due to the rapid update of ASIC miners, it is recommended to check the third-party CKB mining pool page to see which miners can mine CKB:
Source: https://www.f2pool.com/miners?currency_code=ckb
Mining Pools Supporting CKB#
Since a small amount of hashrate cannot obtain block rewards in CKB mining competition, mining pools have emerged: miners with CKB hashrate join together and collaborate to mine blocks, and rewards are distributed according to certain rules.
The mining pools supporting CKB mining are: