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Recently I found out about cryptonight algorithms, Bytecoin in specific. I have about 20 Raspberry Pi’s here and I would like to know if cryptonight mining is possible on ARM processors.

I am also planning to join a pool, so the mining software needs to be compatible with pools.

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CryptoNight mining is possible using a CPU-based mining program (such as cpuminer-multi) on a Pi, and RasPiNews was able to set it up on a Pi 3. cpuminer-multi does indeed support pools, as required, and can mine many cryptocurrencies, including Bytecoin.

You will need to build cpuminer-multi yourself, using the instructions given in their README:

  • ./autogen.sh # only needed if building from git repo
  • ./nomacro.pl # only needed if building on Mac OS X or with Clang
  • ./configure CFLAGS="-march=native"
    • # Use -march=native if building for a single machine
  • make

However, it's unlikely to be terribly economical, and probably costs more in electricity, but it is possible to mine (slowly).

Surprisingly, though, one person reports that mining Monero (which also uses CryptoNight) is profitable with Raspberry Pi units running a CPU miner. Testing your hash rate and power consumption would evidently be wise in this case, as it might turn out to be modestly profitable, or might not.

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  • Will this be slow because the raspberry pi is less powerful or because the developers of the mining software haven’t yet found a more efficient way of making the raspberry pi mine efficiently?
    – SidS
    Commented Jan 7, 2018 at 20:50
  • A little of both. The Pi isn't really a powerful computer in the first place (even the Pi 3 only has a 1.2 GHz clock speed, whereas any modern desktop/laptop is nearer 3 GHz today). As well as that, mining software isn't currently able to utilise the Pi's GPU, because the APIs have only just started to mature, so some of the Pi's potential power isn't currently in use (see also raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/a/185/58316).
    – Aurora0001
    Commented Jan 7, 2018 at 20:57
  • I especially liked the conclusion - at the end - of the article at the link: "Despite its amazing specs as a tiny board, you still won’t make a single coin even while running it 24×7 for a couple of months because the hash rate is low as hell. This tutorial is purely for educational purposes and not geared towards making money using cryptocurrency mining with Raspberry Pi!" They might have led with that. :)
    – Brick
    Commented Jan 8, 2018 at 2:34
  • If you are using Pi3, try building AARCH64 (64-bit ARM) binaries (cryptonight are faster with 64-bit multiplications), but it seems that the official kernel shipped with Raspbian is 32-bit, so you may need to compile the kernel for yourself. Commented Jan 10, 2018 at 5:17
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You may want to try mining the Magi Coin... This coin is made so the lower the hash rate the bigger the reward. My Samsung Galaxy A 5 currently is mining at 5-10 Kilo hashes per second. With all three of my devices I have a combined hash rate of around 50(ish) Kilo hashes per second. I probably will get a coin in around 10-15 days at the rate I am going so far. Here is Magi's website. Here is its current value. And last but not least here is its Forum (Which includes a list of mining pools).

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  • +RPimaniac - thank you very much! I will surely look into this, but I have 2 questions... Does this coin use a SHA256 algorithm? And is there a good online wallet for this coin?
    – SidS
    Commented Jan 21, 2018 at 10:30
  • @SidS This coin uses the m7mhash algorithm. It is currently the only coin that uses this algorithm. This coin only has one very new online wallet. It hasn't been around long and it is probably better to download the wallet from their website. They have a miner available to download from their website but you will have to compile it if you use it on the Raspberry Pi.
    – RPImaniac
    Commented Jan 22, 2018 at 15:46

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