ethereum Archives - benchodroff.com

Validating Ethereum2 with Lighthouse in Docker

August 23, 2021August 23, 2021 Benjamin Chodroff

Ethereum is shifting from Proof of Work “mining” to a Proof of Stake “staking” blockchain. This stake requires 32 ETH per validator to validate directly, but there are many custodial pooling services that allows those who have less to still participate with little investment or effort. However, I enjoy participating directly. I learned quite a lot in the process running my Ethereum GPU mining rig since 2017, and wished to do the same with staking. These are my quick notes how how I set up docker containers on Ubuntu Linux 20.04 LTS for Geth, Lighthouse beacon node, and a Lighthouse validator client. Using this setup, I am yielding about 6.5% APY this year on my ETH. As long as your computer is online more than 50% of the time, you will increase your Ethereum while helping participate in the decentralization that secures the network.

Building a six GPU Ethereum Mining Rig

January 31, 2018 Benjamin Chodroff

I have been working with blockchains since 2013 but always wanted to know more about how the mining process worked. Last year, I fell in love with Ethereum and was excited to learn the project uses a GPU friendly algorithm. I convinced my wife to allow me to spend some money to build a GPU mining rig. At the time I built the rig, I calculated it would take over a year to break even in mining Ethereum. Luckily, the Ethereum project has taken off in a big way. The rig paid for itself in a few months, and continues to deliver. I had a lot of fun building the rig and learned a lot about how Ethereum works in the process. My rig does about 160 million hashes a second and dual mines Ethereum and Decred. Here are some details on the setup.
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Python cryptocurrency trading bot

November 18, 2017February 29, 2020 Benjamin Chodroff

As a fun toy to explore trading, I built a “flipper” cryptocurrency trading bot in python for the Bittrex exchange. It has a trading strategy of attempting to flip between two cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum and NEO, in hopes to obtain a small position growth each time it flips. Of course, this is just a very basic “strategy” and you will certainly need to modify it to avoid getting stuck on a losing bet.