cryptocurrency

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments on Colorful C.J1900A-BTX Plus V20 Bay Trail Motherboard Takes 8 Graphics Cards for Cryptocurrency Mining

Colorful C.J1900A-BTX Plus V20 Bay Trail Motherboard Takes 8 Graphics Cards for Cryptocurrency Mining

Intel Bay Trail processors are mostly found in tablets, 2-in-1 hybrid laptops, and mini PCs, and they’ve often give placed to Cherry Trail processors, and in some cases Apollo Lake ones. x86 compatibility, low cost and low power are the main selling points of the Bay Trail processor family. Colorful has found a different use case, as they designed a motherboard with 9 PCIe x16 slots, one for a card powered by an Intel Celeron J1900 processor, and 8 to add graphics card in order to mine cryptocurrencies. The blue PCI slot takes a PCI CPU card with an the following specifications: SoC –  Intel BayTrail J1900 quad core processor @ up to 2.42 GHz with 2M Cache, integrated Intel HD graphics; 10W TDP Memory – 1×DDR3L SO-DIMM, DDR3L 1333MHz/1066MHz Storage – 1x mSATA slot, 1x SATA 3.0 connector, 1x 4-pin SATA connector Video Output – HDMI Connectivity – Dual […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments on OpenDime is a Bitcoin USB Stick based on Microchip SAMD21 MCU, and ATECC508A Security Chip

OpenDime is a Bitcoin USB Stick based on Microchip SAMD21 MCU, and ATECC508A Security Chip

The first time I heard about crypto currencies, specifically Bitcoin, was probably around 2011, and later in May 2012, I noticed a “micro-payments with Bitcoin digital currency” talk at a Barcamp. I did not think much of it at the time, but with hindsights, I should definitely have started to mine some Bitcoins considering the price was $5. Nevertheless, cryptocurrencies appear to be here to stay, and while most transactions occurs over the Internet, Opendime project has made a hardware USB dongle to store Bitcoins, and earlier this year, announced version 2 of their “Verified Bitcoin Credit Stick”. Hardware specifications of OpenDime v2.0 / v2.1 USB stick: MCU – Microchip / Atmel SAMD21 Cortex M0 MCU Security Chip – Microchip / Atmel ATECC508A Crypto chip with support for SHA-256, TRNG, and public key signing (ECDSA) USB 2.0 interface to connect to a computer Bitcoin seal The USB stick works like […]