Customized profit switching for ASICs via Stratu.ms

Profit switching is a feature that a lot of miners are flirting with it. On one hand, it seems like a great idea to increase profits and on the other hand, every miner knows that it takes a lot of time and effort to set it right and not lose on time, extra fees, price change, and similar.

1. Overview

Until recently there were only a few services that offered profit switching for ASICs. For GPUs you could find many mining software - either for Linux or Windows - and pools that integrated some sort of profit switching. ASICs, on the other hand, always stayed behind.

Today’s state of profit switching for ASICs can be divided into two categories: software-side switching and stratum-side switching.

1.1 Software-side switching

In this category, we put all ASICs management software that allows profit switching on the software side of things - this means by changing the configuration (pools and wallets) on the ASIC machine itself. As far as we know, such an automatic solution for ASIC machines is possible only by two software providers and one of them is minerstat.

The downside of this switching is the slow response of some ASICs machines. If the switch takes too long, you lose on the mining time.

1.2 Stratum-side switching

In this category, we put all providers that allow profit switching on the stratum’s side. This means that the machine connects to a stratum and the switching between different coins happens on the stratum’s side. The benefit of such switching is definitely the time that is saved by not changing configurations and the fact that experience from the ASIC’s point of view is seamless.

The providers can again be divided into two categories - first are actual pools and the second are services that work as a pool.

1.2.1 Profit switching pools

Recently, a lot of large pools that offer different SHA-256 coins, such as BTC, BCH, and BSV, offered a profit switching feature, which is usually completely automatic. You point your ASIC towards their special stratum and the pool takes control and switches between the coins that are possible to switch.

This is a service that is offered by F2Pool, ViaBTC, and Antpool among others. There are Mining Pol Hub, zpool, Zergpool, and similar that allows this with an option to auto-exchange to BTC or any other preferred currency. The Luxor pool implemented a similar feature for the Equihash algorithm with payouts in BTC, which is currently in Beta.

1.2.2 Profit switching services

On the other side, there are profit switching services, which are not actually pools but work as a pool.

The more known such service is NiceHash where you connect your ASIC towards SHA-256 pool and then your hashing power gets redirected to the pool the buyer of hashing power placed in his order on the hashing power marketplace. NiceHash pays you in BTC.

We would also put our new service Stratu.ms to this category with an exception that on Stratu.ms you don’t get any payouts. We will show you how to set up Stratu.ms to customize your profit switching experience in the continuation.

2. Stratu.ms

The main difference between Stratu.ms and other services is:

• You can put any coin or multi-pool to the switching process - including NiceHash or any of the mentioned switching pools.
• You decide which coins you want to add to profit switch and on which pools. This means that you can mine BTC on F2Pool and BCH on ViaBTC if you like.
• You can decide minimum mining time, so in case you want to minimally stay on one coin for a selected time, Stratu.ms will make sure you do.
• You can use Stratu.ms with any firmware - official or unofficial.
• Currently Stratu.ms support 5 different algorithms and new ones can be added by request.
• There are other additional benefits that aren’t relevant for this article, but you can read more about them on Stratu.ms' official website.

3. Setting up Switch stratum

1. Create a new account by registering here;
2. You will need to confirm your e-mail address before you can create a new stratum;
3. Click on [Create stratum] button;
4. Click on [Configure Switch] button;
5. Stratum configurator will open and you will be able to set up different criteria.

General stratum information

• Stratum name can be anything you like;
• Closest region should be the region that is closest to your mining machines;
• Algorithm should be the algorithm that machines are mining.

Coins and pools

• Coin is a coin or multi-pool option that is available under the selected algorithm. Make sure to include each coin only once.
• Pool is the pool on which the machines will go mining in case the coin is selected in the profit switching process.
• User is the user parameter of the associated pool.
• Worker name is the worker parameter of the associated pool.
• Password is the password parameter of the associated pool.
• Fee is the fee you are paying on the associated pool.

You can add as many coins you like, but for starters, we suggest focusing on two or three to see how the switch works.

Minimum mining time

Minimum mining time is the minimum time the switching process should spend on the current most profitable coin.

Create your stratum by clicking [Create stratum] button.

4. Connecting your machines to Stratu.ms

Once you generate your stratum, you can check the stratum’s profile to find the stratum’s address to which you need to connect your machines.

Make sure that you:

• Don’t enter the failover pools on the ASIC’s side. Otherwise, once you switch to another pool, the connection will drop and your machine will switch to the failover pool instead of continuing switching with Stratu.ms.
• Don’t forget XNSUB if needed.

Your ASICs are now switching.

Ready to switch with your ASICs and manage them on the go? Join Stratu.ms