Get Ready for the BEAM Hard Fork Scheduled for August 15th (Block #321321)

The BEAM Project is having a hard fork in about two days and you need to make sure that you are ready for it if you are mining it or are using a local wallet for BEAM. The BEAM Hard Fork is scheduled for block #321321 which should be reached sometime in August 15th and you need to mak sure your wallet is up to date as well as your miner. Make sure you get the latest BEAM wallet if you use a local wallet, if you rely on exchanges make sure they have updated their wallets after the fork before doing any transactions.

The BEAM Hard Fork will also come with changes in the algorithm used for mining, the PoW algorithm will change from Beam Hash I (Equihash 150,5) to Beam Hash II (EquihashR variation). And while the new algorithm is still a modification of the Equihash you would still have to use a new miner or an updated one with support for the new algorithm (EquihashR parameters n = 150, k = 5 and r = 3). The initial information suggests that the new BeamHash II algorithms should be faster in terms of hashrate and with lower power consumption on the same hardware compared to the still currently used BeamHash I (Equihash 150,5) algorithm.

The software miner with support for BEAM mining have already started updating with support for the new algorithm, though not all of them already have Beam Hash II available. Our preferred Nvidia BEAM miner – GMiner 1.55 already has support for both AMD and Nvidia miners for the upcoming hardfork and the new BeamHash II algo… there is even an auto-switch function built-in, so that it will switch to the new algorithm after the fork is detected. The latest lolMiner 0.8.6 for AMD GPUs has added support for the BEAM hard fork and there is also an auto switch option available to help you seamlessly move to the new Beam Hash II algorithm. Other popular miners with BEAM support should most likely follow soon with updates adding the new algorithm as well…