How To SOLO- or Party-Mine [KDA]

In this article we are covering how to SOLO and PARTY Mine Kadena (KDA) on Icemining.ca — The Cool Pool

What is Kadena?
Kadena’s blockchain enables enterprises across industries to efficiently transact and share data in a decentralized manner. Kadena’s technology aims to solve the challenges with current generation blockchains — issues such as speed, scalability, and security by running accross multiple sidechains.

FPGA Mining / What is a Bitstream?
FPGA’s is specialised Hardware to serve many purposes utilized by miners, to set them up for another Algorythm/Coin Users need to aquire it’s “Bitstream” (Basically the “Miner Code” the FPGA should run)

There are diverse FPGA Manufacturers out there, here we are specifically refering to a 54-core, 35 GH/s Kadena bitstream for VU9 compatible cards (BCU1525, BTU9P, BTU9P-Pro, TPS-1530, ECU200, U200) developed by whitefire

90-cores coming soon! Also coming soon are optimized bitstreams for Forest Kitten, Jungle Cat, CVP-13 and U250 cards!

Where to get the Bitstream?
To get the Kadena Bitstream from whitefire you will need to Register and verify yourself with an emailed picture of your Rig/Card.
For more Information, to register or to get the Bitstream visit Zetheron.com

About Icemining
Icemining has worked with whitefire to develop the most highly optimized KDA Mining experience possible. Orphan rates as less then 2% typical compared to 10–15% mining to a chainweb node directly.
A lot of work has gone into the solution to ensure maximum possible profit given the fast network dynamics.

Payments are made continuously on balances over 5 KDA, and are paid out from the pool chain id with the greatest balance in a greedy fashion.

Solo and Party Mining — what’s the difference?
Pool Mining is like a Group Lottery, each Share is a ticket and you will be rewarded proportional to the amount of Tickets you had.
But if you had a Huge number of Tickets — why would you share your potential rewards?
This is why you might want to start SOLO- or Party-Mining.

SOLO Mining is like mining on your own private Pool.
You receive all rewards (minus poolfees) from the Blocks you found, but you will not receive any Blockrewards of others.

Party Mining is similar to the ususal DPPLNS Mining, but you share your tickets with a choosen group of other Miners. Basically you are SOLO mining but just with a choosen group of miners which group together.
This is optimal for smaller Miners who wish to reduce their variance by mining with similar power level miners.

What mode to Mine should you choose?
This is a common Question, it boils down to the following:

DPPLNS Pool Mining:
Miners with a small Hashrate who want to earn a steady income

SOLO Mining:
You should only SOLO Mine with a considerable Amount of Hashpower to ensure you find enough Blocks. This is usually best for Farms or Nicehash Miners if they don’t want to Party-up.

Party Mining:
The Party will want to ensure each miner is capable of solving at least 1 Block or more a Day in order to be most profitable. If you accept miners with too little power they will just suck out profits and the group would have to be running much longer to average out.

You can see how many Blocks you solved on your miner dashboard under “Last Block found” by looking at your 7 day numbers.

Parties will not want to invite just anyone due to efficiency, only join with similar Power Level Miners capable of solving Blocks!

Start Solo Mining

1. replace the Password in your Batchfile to m=solo
2. When you connect to the Pool using the password m=soloyou will get 98% of the rewards if you find a Block, but only if your ticket finds the Block ;)
3. You can Doublecheck if your Miners are in Solo Mode by checking the Workers Page of your Wallet. The Miners should be listed as “[SOLO]”

Start Party Mining

Make sure you have the “Party password” of your party, to create a new Party choose any password and share it with Friends!

1. Once your Account was created, replace the Password in your Batchfile to m=party.%partypassword%
(You need to do this for all workers which should Mine in the Party, If you got 3 Rigs and all should be in the Party, replace the passwords on all of them)
2. When you connect to the Pool using the password m=party.%partypassword%you will get proportional rewards to your Shares compared to the Total Party Shares as soon as your Party finds a Block.
3. You can Doublecheck if your Miners are in Party Mode by checking the Workers Page of your Wallet. The Miners should be listed as “[Party]”

Furthermore you can see how other Party Members are doing in terms of Hashrate contribution and found Blocks by checking their anonymized Values in the “Parties” Area right above your Miner stats:

Switching back to Pool mining
To switch back to pool mining simply choose another password and start mining again!

1. Setting any other password than m=soloor m=party.%partypassword% will get you back into DPPLNS Pool Mining

Did I get a Reward?

You will see Rewards on your Wallet Page Listed with a blue “SOLO” or a red “PARTY”in the Status section YAY! (Illustrated with the last blocks found by the Pool in below Screenshot)

FAQ:

Q: Why did the Pool find Blocks but I didn’t receive a reward?

A: Most likely the Block found was found in another Mining Mode.
So if you were DPPLNS Pool mining it’s likely it was a SOLO or PARTY Block where you don’t receive Rewards.
You can imagine it like multiple pools in one, where you only receive the rewards of your “Pool” (of your Mode/Party)

Q: Why didn’t I receive a reward in a long time?

A: If your Miner is showing up in the GUI and has no Errors it’s quite likely it’s the same reason as above. Your Mode probably just didn’t find any Blocks in this time.

A Work in Progress Guide by MrT with many thanks to InfiniteImp and the whole Icemining Comunity for the constructive Feedback!
Happy 🧊⛏️ Everyone =)