Abelian POW consensus protocol is based on ETHash algorithm but uses SHA3 for quantum resistant. Before the block height 56,000, Abelian POW consensus protocol was Nakamoto POW, which is not ASIC-resistant. For improving the decentralization of the network, the Abelian Foundation made a hard fork at the block height 56,000 and changed the POW algorithm to ETHash.

For ensuring a sustainable resistance of ASIC mining, the Foundation also makes the DAG size of the ETHash algorithm grow. This means when mining with GPU, the required vRAM grows as the block height increases. Below are the details of the growing schedule of the DAG. An equation is available below for miners to quickly calculate the vRAM requirement in respect to the block height.

Below is the Abelian’s DAG size for the first 16 epochs from block height 56,000:

Each epoch lasts for 4,000 blocks and takes about 12 days to mine.

For block height over 88,000, we can compute the vRAM size by the following formula:

Min. vRAM Size = 5 + Floor[(block_height — 88000)/4000] * 0.016 GB

For example, at block height 88,000, the minimum vRAM size is 5.0GB.

For example, at block height 117,400, the minimum vRAM size is 5.112GB.

For example, at block height 328,000, the minimum vRAM size is 5.96GB. Hence by the block height 328,000, it will reach the limit of those GPU cards which have only 6GB of vRAM. It is recommended to use GPUs with at least 8GB of vRAM for future-proofing.

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