List of Equihash coins, by implementation parameters

[MentalNomad]

(Explanation of terms below the charts.)

Approximate Equihash Minimum VRAM requirements

Params	Min VRAM	Standard Name?
96, 5	2.5 MB	—
200, 9	144 MB	Equihash (Classic?)
210, 9	288 MB	Equihash 210_9
144,5	2.0 GB	Equihash (Zhash?)
192,7	2.5 GB	Equihash Zero (Heavy?)

List of known coins and implementations

Coin	Coin Name	Params	Pers String	Algo Name Used	Notes
MNX	MinexCoin	96, 5	—	Equihash 96/5*
—	—	—	—	—
BCI	Bitcoin Interest	200, 9	ZcashPoW	Equihash
BTCP	BitcoinPrivate	200, 9	ZcashPoW	Equihash
CMM	Commercium	200, 9	ZcashPoW	Equihash
HUSH	Hush	200, 9	ZcashPoW	Equihash
KMD	Komodo	200, 9	ZcashPoW	Equihash
ZCL	Zclassic	200, 9	ZcashPoW	Equihash
ZEC	Zcash	200, 9	ZcashPoW	Equihash
ZEL	Zelcash	200, 9	ZcashPoW	Equihash
ZEN	Zencash	200, 9	ZcashPoW	Equihash
—	—	—	—	—
AION	Aion	210, 9	—	Equihash 210_9
—	—	—	—	—
BTCZ	BitcoinZ	144,5	BitcoinZ	Zhash	Effective 2018-6-15
BTG	Bitcoin Gold	144,5	BgoldPoW	Equihash-BTG	Effective 2018-7-3
BZE	BZEdge	144,5	BZEZhash	Equihash 144,5	Effective 2018-9-16
LTZ	LitecoinZ	144,5	ZcashPoW	Equihash	Effective 2018-6-21
SAFE	Safecoin	144,5	Safecoin	Equihash 144,5	Effective 2018-6-18
XSG	SnowGem	144,5	sngemPoW	Equihash	Effective 2018-7-5
—	—	—	—	—
ZER	Zero	192, 7	ZERO_PoW	Equihash 192_7
—	—	—	—	—

Grouped by Params in Min VRAM order; groups sorted alphabetically by Coin.

Explanations

Params:

Equihash provides for the following Parameters: (n, k)

For example, the classic Equihash first used by Zcash used n = 200 and k = 9, so it was Equihash (200, 9).

The n and k values create enormous differences in the minimum memory requirement, and create enormous differences in how the actual mining software is coded in order to do the mining.

Min VRAM:

The minimum amount of memory necessary for efficient mining; having less than this would require laboriously recalculating values that could be otherwise stored and quickly referenced over and over.

Pers String:

Equihash provides for a Personalization String. The classic Equihash first used by Zcash used ZcashPoW as the string.

Names

Standard Name:
An attempt to identify a common name for the given Params.

Algo Name Used:
The name used by the coin team.

---

History

There’s some confusion and naming concerns due to the growth in adoption of the Equihash algorithm for PoW (Proof of Work) mining with various implementation parameters. These parameters make an enormous difference in the code for the mining software as well as the validation code for pools and wallets.

Many coins adopted the Equihash algorithm after Zcash, and to maintain easy compatibility in the software, many adopted the same Parameters and Pers as Zcash. In the chart above, we refer to this combination of Params and Pers as “Classic.”

Because of concerns over safety and the intrusion of ASICs in the space, many coins have switched to different parameters, and have made unique Personalization Strings.

This page has been created to help track and differentiate among them and to help the community reach some sort of agreement on what “common names” to use for these variants.

[MentalNomad]

IMHO: we should have a single naming standard for things like Equihash (144,5) across coins, and we should reserve coin-specific names for the combinations of algo with Personalization string.

For example, if we all decided to call Equihash (144,5) by the name EQ1445, then Equihash-BTG could mean EQ1445 with pers BgoldPoW and Zhash could mean EQ1445 with pers BitcoinZ.

[MentalNomad]

Note: we welcome comments from the Community and from all coin team devs regarding coming up with a good naming convention.

Comments from other coin team devs or interested parties in the space (all made elsewhere & copied here for discussion; I’ll leave out attribution unless they tell me they want to be identified):

@coin team dev

200,9: Equihash Classic
192,7: Equihash Heavy
144,5: Equihash – Since most are forking to this or name is Equihash Mid/Pro
If all the coins can agree to naming standardization, the naming conventions will catch on fairly quick

@miner dev

Although the tripplet parametrization with N,K and personalization is not too confusing imao. But then add different block times (timeout behaviour of stratum waiting for new work) and different stratum flavors (i.e. aion) to the list and it gets indeed confusing

@miner dev

For wtm it may be no difference between two equi variants sharing same n,k because that makes no difference in speed - since at any time new variants can pop up (168/6 or 150/5 or whatever) it may be best for them to stick to the number pair

@other miner dev

whateverHash is a bad name for this PoW, since it’s not a hash function
i’d have used 10x20 instead of 200,9 since it uses 10 20-bit digits
and 144,5 would be 6x24

This guy is nuts if he thinks that would be less confusing.

But he has a solid point in that Equihash is not a hash function, strictly speaking. It spreads a lot of hashes (Blake2b hashes) across memory, and then requires work be done across that memory to find solutions. I don’t know the thinking behind the original name, but this is why Equihash rates are referred to in many places as Sols (Solutions) per second, not Hashes per second.

If we’re going to make a big change in the naming, now might be the right time, since many are currently changing their algorithms.

@coin team dev

minimum is spelled wrong

Got me there; I edited the OP to fix it.

@mining site dev

While those numbers are obvious to the devs, they are confusing for the simple miners. People tend to remember words better than set of numbers.

Also a valid point.

[MentalNomad]

More updates from discussions:

Some of us like the idea of using “Blake” or “Blake2b” or “Wagner” in the name - EquiHash a two-part algorithm which starts with using the hash function Blake2b to fill a big memory space, and then using Wagner’s algorithm to find a matching solution within that memory space. However, we recognize that a radical change in name is difficult and confusing.

Also, while we see that involving numbers in names is less memorable to many people in the community than a name, the EquiHash space is really differentiated by the implementation - the numbers in the parameters and the resulting algorithm/memory demands. Also there can (and almost certainly will) be future EquiHash parameter sets.

This proposed naming convention is gaining some traction:

Name	Min VRAM	(n, k) Params	Traditional Name
EQ-16x5	2.5 MB	(96, 5)
EQ-20x9	144 MB	(200, 9)	Equihash
EQ-21x9	288 MB	(210, 9)
EQ-24x5	2.0 GB	(144,5)
EQ-24x7	2.5 GB	(192,7)

(Note: I’m using “EQ” as a filler, here. It’s the number approach that is gaining traction.)

The new numbers describe the number of bits matched in each round for the algorithm, and provide a relative measure of the “hardness” of the algorithm. (You can calculate the number from the n and k as so: n/(k+1) )

Because these numbers lend themselves to sorting in the order of memory “hardness,” it’s a natural way to show the progression - the progression is not readily apparent in the (n, k) parameters.

Alternate version:

Name	Min VRAM	(n, k) Params	Traditional Name
EQ-16x6	2.5 MB	(96, 5)
EQ-20x10	144 MB	(200, 9)	Equihash
EQ-21x10	288 MB	(210, 9)
EQ-24x6	2.0 GB	(144,5)
EQ-24x8	2.5 GB	(192,7)

Here, the first number is n/(k+1) and the second is k+1 - this may be a better reflection of the overall “hardness” impact, where the second number reflects something akin to the number of “rounds” in the work. It also may make clear that the numbers are not the same as the (n, k) parameters.

[inudemon]

updates

BZE BZEdge 144,5 “BZEZhash” Equihash 144,5 Effective 2018-9-16

https://getbze.com/

[MentalNomad]

Thanks, added to the OP.

[max]

@MentalNomad

Zhash could mean EQ1445 with pers BitzoinZ .

i checked the above table, and the Pers String would be ‘BitcoinZ’
*small typo, i know, but it rubs my inner-ear the wrong way.

[MentalNomad]

Ok, I fixed the typo… but history has rendered this discussion moot.

“Zhash” was generlly adopted for the name of the algo, since the first coin to deploy it in prodcution called it that (BitcoinZ). So BTG is using algo Zhash or Equihash 144,5 with personalization string BgoldPoW.

[max]

Better moot than moat