node-stratum-pool/ALGO_RESEARCH.md

In order to implement a new algo in a pool you need three things

1. the C code to do the actual hashing - which I convert into a native node addon
2. the max difficulty (diff1) of the coin used to check if shares/blocks are valid
3. the share multiplier (2^16 for example) to determine the hashrate of a miner/entire pool

Most coins have diff1 in format like (~uint256(0) >> 20) I believe you can determine the hashrate multiplier by subtracting the 20 used in bitshift from the number 32 so it would be 2^12 for this one. or for (~uint256(0) >> 16) it would be 2^(32 - 16)

so really for every algo you simple need the bitshift on a zero value uint256.

I believe these are the true diff1 values that should be used on pools for each algo sha256d: 0x00000000ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff scrypt: 0x0000f0ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff scrypt-jane: 0x0000f0ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff scrypt-n: 0x0000f0ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff x11: 0x0000f0ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff quark: 0x0000f0ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff shavite: 0x0000f0ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff keccak: 0x000000ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff fugue: 0x000000ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff blake: 0x000000ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff hefty1: 0x0000ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff bcrypt: 0x00f8ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

To see how I generated these diff1 values see https://github.com/zone117x/node-stratum-pool/blob/master/diff1.js

So remember how that list to add a new algo had 3 items, well the maxcoin devs very unforutentely did something that added a fourth step: Step 4) Determine which parts of how work-generation / share-processing / creating-blocks work were arbitrarily changed and implement them....

Maxcoin devs, it seems, did not simply implement keccek in the way that litecoin devs implemented scrypt. Or how the darkcoin devs implements x11, or how the quarkcoin devs implemented quark. The maxcoin devs decided to change several parts of how the the currency works - so that instead of simply changing the block hashing from sha256d to keccak, you have to change a few other parts of the block creation/submission progress. I believe there is actually at least one coin that implemented keccak hashing normally - copperlark coin. Too bad its source and binaries are only on some sketchy russian site and neither will compile/run on my system.. Anyway, it looks like several coin devs forked this maxcoin and switched out keccak with a different algo. This group of max-tainted algos I believe to be: keccak, fugue, blake. There may be more, and there may be coins that implemented those algos the regular way instead of the maxcoin way. So.. for each of these max-tainted algos we may have to implement, for example, blake and blake-max, or keccak and keccak-max.

One of my goals is to create a single native node.js addon that has all the hashing functions. So many of them share the same C code. Also it appears that some coins slightly tweak the way an algo is used which renders the currernt native node addon for that algo useless unless modified. Seems much better to have one big native node addon with all the hashing algos, and each configurable for the needs of different coins. It would make the process of adding a new algo much more simple as well.

hefty1 https://github.com/heavycoin/heavycoin/blob/master/src/main.cpp#L40 00000000ffff0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 https://github.com/heavycoin/heavycoin-hash-python

keccak https://github.com/Max-Coin/maxcoin/blob/master/src/main.cpp#L42 https://github.com/wecoin/wecoin/blob/master/src/main.cpp#L44 https://github.com/phusion/node-sha3 https://github.com/GalleonBank/galleon

blake https://github.com/BlueDragon747/Blakecoin/blob/master/src/main.cpp#L38 https://github.com/BlueDragon747/Blakecoin_Python_POW_Module

bcrypt https://github.com/TaojingCoin-pd/Taojingcoin/blob/master/src/main.cpp#L35 https://github.com/TaojingCoin-pd/Taojingcoin/blob/master/src/bcrypt.cpp https://github.com/TaojingCoin-pd/Taojingcoin/blob/master/src/bcrypt.h

scrypt-n https://github.com/vertcoin/vertcoin/blob/master-0.8/src/main.cpp#L35 https://github.com/scr34m/vertcoin_scrypt https://github.com/ahmedbodi/stratum-mining/tree/NScrypt

max https://github.com/Prydie/maxcoin-hash-python https://github.com/ahmedbodi/stratum-mining-maxcoin

fugue https://github.com/fuguecoin/fuguecoin/blob/master/src/main.cpp#L40 https://github.com/fuguecoin/fuguecoin

SHAvite-3 https://github.com/inkcoin/inkcoin-project/blob/master/src/main.cpp#L38 f729f1070e/src/hashblock.h https://github.com/inkcoin/inkcoin-project http://www.cs.technion.ac.il/~orrd/SHAvite-3/ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=481516.0