Nicehash and Phoenix Miner Scandal

[Nordithen]

Given that Nicehash has sponsored LTT in the past, I was wondering if we could get the team to weigh in on the recent turmoil with Nicehash's recent behavior regarding the Phoenix miner script, and the company's possible shady origins. There are a lot of accusations and potential ulterior motives flying, and I'm trying to avoid getting led astray by misinformation. I'd love to see you shed some light on the topic, perhaps on the WAN show?

[tikker]

I doubt they know more than the rest of us. They'll never say it's 100% fine, but a bit on the WAN show may be interesting.

 

What we know so far is it got deleted from mega, fake versions started popping up and that they concluded from this that PhoenixMiner might be compromised or they might have accidentally downloaded a fake version themselves. Here's PhoenixMiner's response: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2647654.msg56514824#msg56514824 Of course a hacker would say they're legit, so be careful and make your own judgement.

[Dogplanet Studios]

On 3/9/2021 at 9:48 AM, tikker said:

I doubt they know more than the rest of us. They'll never say it's 100% fine, but a bit on the WAN show may be interesting.

 

What we know so far is it got deleted from mega, fake versions started popping up and that they concluded from this that PhoenixMiner might be compromised or they might have accidentally downloaded a fake version themselves. Here's PhoenixMiner's response: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2647654.msg56514824#msg56514824 Of course a hacker would say they're legit, so be careful and make your own judgement.

I'd definitely play it safe then

[Sarra]

I've got PhoenixMiner uninstalled on my testing rig. I don't think it would run, anyway, seeing how I've got a 4GB card, but I'd rather play it safe.

[tikker]

10 hours ago, Sarra said:

I've got PhoenixMiner uninstalled on my testing rig. I don't think it would run, anyway, seeing how I've got a 4GB card, but I'd rather play it safe.

The miner doesn't care about VRAM, the coin/alogrithm does. 4 GB cards are useless or super inefficient at best for ETH anyway, regardless of the miner.

 

Eh, I'm sticking with PhoenixMiner. The developer surfaced and talk over at bitcointalk.org has my mind at ease: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2647654.msg56526051#msg56526051

 

I see no reason for myself to distrust them anymore than usual, Just make sure you get it from the legitimate download link.

 

NiceHash will keep claiming PhoenixMiner is bad, implies they are criminals and potentially are out to or have a "red button" to destroy NiceHash's reputation. PhoenixMiner claims it could just be MEGA purging miners, NiceHash overreacted and is spreading unnecessary FUD. In the end it'll be choosing the proverbial lesser of two evils. Do you trust NiceHash or PhoenixMiner? It's up to you.

 

 

[Sarra]

5 hours ago, tikker said:

The miner doesn't care about VRAM, the coin/alogrithm does. 4 GB cards are useless or super inefficient at best for ETH anyway, regardless of the miner.

 

Eh, I'm sticking with PhoenixMiner. The developer surfaced and talk over at bitcointalk.org has my mind at ease: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2647654.msg56526051#msg56526051

 

I see no reason for myself to distrust them anymore than usual, Just make sure you get it from the legitimate download link.

 

NiceHash will keep claiming PhoenixMiner is bad, implies they are criminals and potentially are out to or have a "red button" to destroy NiceHash's reputation. PhoenixMiner claims it could just be MEGA purging miners, NiceHash overreacted and is spreading unnecessary FUD. In the end it'll be choosing the proverbial lesser of two evils. Do you trust NiceHash or PhoenixMiner? It's up to you.

 

 

Yeah, it's just... A waste to have the card with no purpose. I could make back the $550 I originally spent on the card over the course of a year, so why not?

 

Hm, I might go ahead and readd the plugin. All I'd lose is some mining on a GTX 980? Why not.

[warriorscot]

3 minutes ago, Sarra said:

Yeah, it's just... A waste to have the card with no purpose. I could make back the $550 I originally spent on the card over the course of a year, so why not?

 

Hm, I might go ahead and readd the plugin. All I'd lose is some mining on a GTX 980? Why not.

You don't need to use Nicehash or Phoenix, Ethermine (or others) as the pool with T-rex or lolminer would work. There are also other coins profitable, cortex is ok at the moment for example. 

[Sarra]

8 minutes ago, warriorscot said:

You don't need to use Nicehash or Phoenix, Ethermine (or others) as the pool with T-rex or lolminer would work. There are also other coins profitable, cortex is ok at the moment for example. 

Well, I'm just doing this to test the waters.

 

I'm liking it so far. The reason I'm using the 980 is that the card runs stupid cool at full load, even with a pretty punchy OC. I've hit power limits far before hitting thermal limits... It also doesn't get loud when it's at 70°c. The CPU fan on my Noctua D15S ramping up and down at idle on my R9 is louder than my 980 at full load.

 

Soon, I'll be starting to mine on my Vega 64. I would really like to toss the 64 in my old server, and put the 980 in spare parts storage, but I need a 6800XT first...

 

Anyway, what's the benefit for using Ethermin over NiceHash? I'm fine running it the way it is now, I like being able to pause mining really easily if I need to actually do anything on the rig (it's going to be a NAS eventually).

[Nordithen]

I don't see any reason to distrust Phoenix, but Nicehash itself worries me given it's founder's criminal history. Their post looks a lot like just trying to damage Phoenix's reputation in favor of their own Excavator miner. Thoughts?

[warriorscot]

37 minutes ago, Sarra said:

Well, I'm just doing this to test the waters.

 

I'm liking it so far. The reason I'm using the 980 is that the card runs stupid cool at full load, even with a pretty punchy OC. I've hit power limits far before hitting thermal limits... It also doesn't get loud when it's at 70°c. The CPU fan on my Noctua D15S ramping up and down at idle on my R9 is louder than my 980 at full load.

 

Soon, I'll be starting to mine on my Vega 64. I would really like to toss the 64 in my old server, and put the 980 in spare parts storage, but I need a 6800XT first...

 

Anyway, what's the benefit for using Ethermin over NiceHash? I'm fine running it the way it is now, I like being able to pause mining really easily if I need to actually do anything on the rig (it's going to be a NAS eventually).

Well you can always stop any miner any time without any real penalty, you just close the miner! 

 

Ethermine is larger and more reputable, it's a more traditional eth mining pool, nicehash as mentioned in this post is a tad shady, it's founders also a convicted criminal(don't mind it but having a hacker in the mix isn't great). Overall I would always prefer when given a choice a more reputable set of diverse solutions than a single potentially disreputable source. Son of a Tech or VoskCoin on youtube are worth a watch if you want more info.

 

Just keep both of them going I would say, as long as it generates profit run every bit of hardware you have. When the 980 can't do ether anymore it's likely to be able to manage some other altcoins ok. As long as you net out in the positive it doesn't really matter.

[Sarra]

1 hour ago, warriorscot said:

Well you can always stop any miner any time without any real penalty, you just close the miner! 

 

Ethermine is larger and more reputable, it's a more traditional eth mining pool, nicehash as mentioned in this post is a tad shady, it's founders also a convicted criminal(don't mind it but having a hacker in the mix isn't great). Overall I would always prefer when given a choice a more reputable set of diverse solutions than a single potentially disreputable source. Son of a Tech or VoskCoin on youtube are worth a watch if you want more info.

 

Just keep both of them going I would say, as long as it generates profit run every bit of hardware you have. When the 980 can't do ether anymore it's likely to be able to manage some other altcoins ok. As long as you net out in the positive it doesn't really matter.

With how cheap electricity is here, I could mine just about anything other than Dogecoin and make a profit on this, assuming it actually can run it, with only 4GB of VRAM.

[NCC1701JR]

Looks like NiceHash is covering it's tracks. It seems they downloaded and destributed a non official infected version of phoenix miner version 5.5d. latest official version is 5.5c.

[Jahus]

I second this. Since then, PheonixMiner dev has provided more details.

 

This is a post where the dev details his relation and communications with NiceHash regarding recent events. I believe that LMG should take a look at it and see how their recent sponsor behaved:

 

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