Skip to content

Hardware Requirements

Scottcjn edited this page Mar 7, 2026 · 1 revision

Hardware Requirements

RustChain runs on virtually any hardware with a CPU and network connection. The miner is written in Python and supports Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Supported Architectures

PowerPC (Highest Rewards)

Platform Multiplier Notes
PowerPC G4 2.5x PowerBook G4, Power Mac G4 MDD, Mac mini G4
PowerPC G5 2.0x Power Mac G5, Xserve G5
PowerPC G3 1.8x iBook G3, Power Mac G3 Blue & White
IBM POWER8 1.0x+ Server-class PowerPC, massive thread counts

PowerPC miners run the standard Python miner on Mac OS X Tiger/Leopard or Linux. A legacy TLS proxy is available on the Sophia NAS (192.168.0.160) for machines that cannot negotiate modern HTTPS.

x86 and x86_64

Platform Multiplier Notes
Pentium 4 1.5x NetBurst architecture
Pre-Core x86 1.4x Pentium III, Athlon XP era
Core 2 Duo 1.3x Merom, Conroe, Penryn
Nehalem 1.2x First-gen Core i series
Sandy Bridge 1.1x 2nd-gen Core i series
Modern x86_64 1.0x Haswell and newer AMD/Intel

ARM and Apple Silicon

Platform Multiplier Notes
Apple M1 1.2x MacBook Air/Pro, Mac mini
Apple M2 1.15x Second-gen Apple Silicon
Apple M3 1.1x Third-gen Apple Silicon
Generic ARM 1.0x Raspberry Pi, ARM servers

Anti-Emulation Fingerprinting

RustChain uses a 6-check hardware fingerprint system to verify that miners are running on real physical hardware. Virtual machines, emulators (SheepShaver, QEMU, Basilisk II), and containerized environments are detected and assigned near-zero reward weight.

The 6 Checks

  1. Clock-Skew & Oscillator Drift - Measures microscopic timing imperfections unique to each physical oscillator
  2. Cache Timing Fingerprint - Sweeps L1/L2/L3 cache latency to produce a hardware-specific "tone profile"
  3. SIMD Unit Identity - Tests AltiVec, SSE, AVX, or NEON pipeline timing biases
  4. Thermal Drift Entropy - Captures entropy across cold boot, warm load, and thermal saturation
  5. Instruction Path Jitter - Maps cycle-level jitter across integer, FPU, and branch units
  6. Anti-Emulation Behavioral Checks - Detects hypervisor scheduling, time dilation, and flattened distributions

Additionally, ROM fingerprint clustering detects when multiple "vintage" miners report identical ROM dumps (a hallmark of emulation).

Minimum Requirements

  • Python 3.7+
  • 256 MB RAM
  • Network access to attestation nodes
  • Any physical CPU (no VMs)

Getting Started

Download the miner and wallet from rustchain.org or see Getting Started for step-by-step instructions.

Built by Elyan Labs | Videos at bottube.ai

Clone this wiki locally