# Alpha Release v0.11.2.z2: Equihash PoW and Founder's Reward
**URL:** https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/alpha-release-v0-11-2-z2-equihash-pow-and-founders-reward/515
**Category:** General
**Created:** [April 13, 2016, 7:13pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/alpha-release-v0-11-2-z2-equihash-pow-and-founders-reward/515 "2016-04-13T19:13:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@nathan-at-least](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/nathan-at-least)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2016, 7:13pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/alpha-release-v0-11-2-z2-equihash-pow-and-founders-reward/515/1 "2016-04-13T19:13:31Z")
We’ve just released a new alpha release that has the first pass at our Equihash PoW implementation and the Founder’s Reward mechanics. This is the first release that those interested in mining can really start to dig into, but beware that the current implementation isn’t optimized and the current algorithm parameters aren’t what we’ll use in the 1.0 launch. (The blog post links to tickets for these followup improvements.)
More details are on our blog: [New Alpha Release: Equihash and Founders' Reward - Electric Coin Company](https://z.cash/blog/new-alpha-release-equihash-and-founders-reward.html)
Please feel welcome to post issues, concerns, feedback here!
Thanks,
Nathan
---
### Author:  [@hud](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/hud)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2016, 11:36pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/alpha-release-v0-11-2-z2-equihash-pow-and-founders-reward/515/2 "2016-04-13T23:36:40Z")
Just fired up new testnet and mined 10+ blocks in a round with my laptop. Come on everybody, i dont want to be the only one testing this. By the way, how do i know hashrate my laptop are generating from RPC call? There is nothing similar to `gethashespersec` in bitcoin.
As i understand, Equihash requires only 700MB as ‘proof of RAM’ but how does that make this PoW ‘botnet resistant’ as white paper claimed? Most of PCs nowaday has 2+ GB of RAM.
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### Author:  [@zooko](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/zooko)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2016, 3:38am UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/alpha-release-v0-11-2-z2-equihash-pow-and-founders-reward/515/3 "2016-04-14T03:38:04Z")
_I_ never said it was botnet resistant. Don’t ask me – ask the authors of the paper.
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### Author:  [@Voluntary](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/Voluntary)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2016, 3:58am UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/alpha-release-v0-11-2-z2-equihash-pow-and-founders-reward/515/4 "2016-04-14T03:58:58Z")
Is it safe to assume that the proving keys I downloaded two weeks ago are still current?
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### Author:  [@str4d](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/str4d)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2016, 4:25am UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/alpha-release-v0-11-2-z2-equihash-pow-and-founders-reward/515/5 "2016-04-14T04:25:54Z")
Their reasoning (in the paper’s introduction) is that botnets will be wary of running computations that use large amounts of RAM, because such usage will be more noticeable by users of the infected machines, decreasing the half-life of the infection. Even with most machines coming with 4 GB standard, a single process using 700 MB of RAM is easily identifiable.
Also note that Equihash is not restricted to requiring 700 MB of RAM; the algorithm can be adjusted to a variety of target memory requirements, depending on the intended usage (such as the low target we are currently using for the testnet).
`gethashespersec` was [deprecated after Bitcoin Core 0.10.0](https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-reference#gethashespersec). Zcash is based on 0.11.2.
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### Author:  [@str4d](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/str4d)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2016, 4:26am UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/alpha-release-v0-11-2-z2-equihash-pow-and-founders-reward/515/6 "2016-04-14T04:26:05Z")
Yes, this release has not altered the circuit, so the previous proving keys are still valid.
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### Author:  [@appadude](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/appadude)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2016, 5:46pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/alpha-release-v0-11-2-z2-equihash-pow-and-founders-reward/515/7 "2016-04-14T17:46:04Z")
I am trying to test, but something is not right. I was mining blocks on the previous testnet just fine.
I recompliled and connected to node alphatestnet.z.cash (46.105.126.215) but no mined blocks, nothing in the rawmempool, no received coins from testnet faucets.
Can you post an example txid so I can confirm that I am on the correct testnet blockchain?
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### Author:  [@ebfull](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/ebfull)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2016, 1:49am UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/alpha-release-v0-11-2-z2-equihash-pow-and-founders-reward/515/8 "2016-04-15T01:49:14Z")
@appadude
`136316377d5cfe551f0828d03c1a12a45561c9571ea7989e0b78333591d0b69f`
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### Author:  [@LiteCoinGuy](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/LiteCoinGuy)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2016, 6:20pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/alpha-release-v0-11-2-z2-equihash-pow-and-founders-reward/515/9 "2016-04-15T18:20:32Z")
> [@nathan-at-least](#):
>
> Equihash PoW
ELi5 Equihash PoW ? What kind of proof of work is it exactly?
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### Author:  [@ebfull](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/ebfull)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2016, 6:25pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/alpha-release-v0-11-2-z2-equihash-pow-and-founders-reward/515/10 "2016-04-15T18:25:43Z")
Equihash is a memory-hard proof of work. Check it out: [Why Equihash? - Electric Coin Company](https://z.cash/blog/why-equihash.html)
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### Author:  [@LiteCoinGuy](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/LiteCoinGuy)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2016, 6:29pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/alpha-release-v0-11-2-z2-equihash-pow-and-founders-reward/515/11 "2016-04-15T18:29:58Z")
thank you, that is what i need 🙂
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### Author:  [@farallon](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/farallon)
#### Post date: [April 24, 2016, 12:59am UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/alpha-release-v0-11-2-z2-equihash-pow-and-founders-reward/515/12 "2016-04-24T00:59:33Z")
Hi All,
I’m in the same boat as appadude, running and mining but I have not generated any coins nor have I received any from the faucet. This is a fresh install of zcash v0.11.2.z.2 on a new copy of Ubuntu 16.04. Installing and compiling when smoothly. I have been running for a day now.
I have two questions: 1. What is a reasonable amount of time before I should expect to see the faucet coins in in my “balance” when I do a zcash-cli getinfo? 2. I have run the daemon with -gen but I’m am unsure what to look for that indicates I’m generating coins. zcash-cli getmininginfo returns the following: {
“blocks” : 12902,
“currentblocksize” : 1000,
“currentblocktx” : 0,
“difficulty” : 0.00000048,
“errors” : “”,
“genproclimit” : -1,
“networkhashps” : 4,
“pooledtx” : 0,
“testnet” : true,
“chain” : “test”,
“generate” : true
}
getinfo returns this:
{
“version” : 110200,
“protocolversion” : 70002,
“walletversion” : 60000,
“balance” : 0.00000000,
“blocks” : 12902,
“timeoffset” : 0,
“connections” : 8,
“proxy” : “”,
“difficulty” : 0.00000048,
“testnet” : true,
“keypoololdest” : 1461424436,
“keypoolsize” : 101,
“paytxfee” : 0.00000000,
“relayfee” : 0.00005000,
“errors” : “”
}
---
### Author:  [@farallon](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/farallon)
#### Post date: [April 24, 2016, 1:36am UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/alpha-release-v0-11-2-z2-equihash-pow-and-founders-reward/515/13 "2016-04-24T01:36:54Z")
More information from getwalletinfo:
{
“walletversion” : 60000,
“balance” : 0.00000000,
“unconfirmed\_balance” : 0.00000000,
“immature\_balance” : 441.00000000,
“txcount” : 11,
“keypoololdest” : 1461424436,
“keypoolsize” : 101
}
I see i have an Immature\_balance of 441 so it seems that I am mining? I suppose it just takes longer to get verified in our test net since there are not a whole lot of miners?
---
### Author:  [@hud](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/hud)
#### Post date: [April 24, 2016, 2:08am UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/alpha-release-v0-11-2-z2-equihash-pow-and-founders-reward/515/14 "2016-04-24T02:08:57Z")
Yes you mined 440 coins which means 11 blocks. That 1 zec is probably tx fee. You need to wait 100 blocks for for mined coins to be mature.
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### Author:  [@keepwalking1234](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/keepwalking1234)
#### Post date: [April 24, 2016, 5:58am UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/alpha-release-v0-11-2-z2-equihash-pow-and-founders-reward/515/15 "2016-04-24T05:58:42Z")
how can we check the mining speed of my computer?
thank you very much.
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### Author:  [@str4d](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/str4d)
#### Post date: [April 24, 2016, 9:18am UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/alpha-release-v0-11-2-z2-equihash-pow-and-founders-reward/515/17 "2016-04-24T09:18:23Z")
> [@Dilla](#):
>
> I just started mining, I haven’t read into Khovratovich’s paper on the protocol but I was wondering if anyone could tell me if I am doing this right. I am running **./src/zcashd -gen** and it seems like I m currently mining. But when I look at my system monitor it is my CPU which is capping out at 100% (on 2 threads) and my ram only at 7%. This is striking me as somewhat odd since equihash should be heavy on my memory rather than my cpu?
This is expected: the testnet is currently configured with low-memory parameters because the implementation is not optimised yet (this being a new PoW, the initial focus was on having a base implementation against which optimisations could be done). Parameters targeting a higher memory usage will be selected once the optimisations are in place.