Since 2012, Bitcoin mining has been using the Stratum protocol to allow miners to communicate with each other. Now, however, things are changing with the arrival of its second version, the Stravum V2, after 10 long years.
The idea is supported by Block, Jack Dorsey’s company, and mining company Braiins. However, both believe that it will not be easy to convince other players to adopt the update.
“Miners know all too well the benefits of upgrading to Stratum V2, but pushing the entire mining industry over some of the remaining hurdles to development and adoption is a big task”Jan Capek, co-founder of Brains told CNBC.
What are the improvements of Stratum V2?
Simply put, Stratum is the protocol miners use to show their work to the pools and then get rewarded. However, this model has been in use for 10 years without any changes.
According to Steve Lee of Spiral, one of the improvements of the Stratum V2 has to do with the poor internet quality in some parts of the world. As such, it promises to make Bitcoin mining even more decentralized.
“In total, much less data needs to be sent between miners and pools, and this could help miners in remote regions of the world with poor internet.”
To solve this, Stratum V2 uses a proxy that merges all connections and establishes only one to the pool. That is, it is not necessary for each individual installation to have a connection to the pool.
In addition, there are other improvements to the security vulnerability in this new protocol. For example, the introduction of a security mechanism with authentication between miners and pools to solve problems with hashrate theft.
Bitcoin hash rate up? Thank Ethereum
Despite the price being almost static, Bitcoin’s hash rate hit a new all-time high this week. According to a Bloomberg report, this is due to Ethereum’s discontinuation of Proof-of-Work last month.
In short, major Bitcoin miners were also engaged in Ethereum mining. Therefore, removing graphics cards from their shed gave way to more Bitcoin ASICs.
“Rack space for Bitcoin miners was limited, freeing up space makes way for previously disconnected machines to be plugged in”Ethan Vera of Luxor Technologies told Bloomberg.
In addition to space, mining Ethereum was also energy-intensive because it was less efficient. So now mining giants can take advantage of this new slack to focus solely on Bitcoin.
Source: Live Coins
John Cameron is a journalist at The Nation View specializing in world news and current events, particularly in international politics and diplomacy. With expertise in international relations, he covers a range of topics including conflicts, politics and economic trends.
