Siacoin (SC): decentralised storage and mining

Siacoin (SC) is the coin of the Sia decentralised storage network: people rent space on other providers' disks through the network and pay them in SC. New coins are created by mining on ASIC miners with the Blake2b-Sia algorithm. A block arrives roughly every 10 minutes, and the miner receives 30,000 SC for it. Since September 2026 the same machines have also mined BTCB2 – but a miner always mines only one of the coins, never both at once.

Summary

• Sia has been running since 2015. Renters pay storage providers in SC through contracts recorded on the blockchain.
• The miner receives 30,000 SC per block. Another 30,000 SC per block (paid out once a month) goes to the Sia Foundation.
• Today 1 TH/s earns 24 Kč a day on Siacoin and 131 Kč on BTCB2. Siacoin, however, has big exchanges and no reward freeze.
• Switching between SC and BTCB2 means changing the pool in the miner's settings. Check with the pool that it supports your specific model.

What Sia is and what Siacoin is for

Sia is a network for storing data without a central provider such as a cloud service. It has two sides:

• Renters want to store data. Files are encrypted, split into pieces and stored with many providers at once.
• Hosts offer free disk space. They receive Siacoins for storage and put up their own collateral in the contract, which they lose if they fail to keep the data.

The agreement between them is recorded on the blockchain as a file contract. The host must continuously prove that it really holds the data. Siacoin is therefore primarily a means of payment for storage; mining secures the network and the order of transactions.

Since 2021 development has been led by the non-profit Sia Foundation, which publishes the official software – among others the walletd wallet, renterd for renters and hostd for hosts.

How Siacoin is mined

Siacoin mining has gone through two important changes. In November 2018 the network added, via a hard fork, a new rule for the block nonce that excluded Bitmain's Antminer A3 and other ASICs apart from Obelisk machines. Since then it has been mined on machines that respect this rule – today mainly from Goldshell and iBeLink.

The second change was the v2 hard fork at block 526,000 (6 June 2025), the biggest change to the network in its history. The block header format, however, stayed the same, so existing ASIC miners continue to work. Later, an adjustment to the difficulty calculation was also added, which calmed fluctuations in block time.

Siacoin or BTCB2: what to mine on a Blake2b ASIC

BTCB2 is a Bitcoin fork that has used the BLAKE2b algorithm since 30 August 2026. It is mined by the same machines as Siacoin. They are, however, two completely independent networks. At any one time a miner sends work to one pool, so it mines either SC or BTCB2. The hashrate cannot be split so that one hash counts for both networks – merged mining as you know it from Litecoin and Dogecoin does not exist here.

On paper, BTCB2 currently earns roughly five times more. Its rewards, however, are frozen until the beginning of November 2026, the market is thin and the rules change on the fly – details in the article BTCB2 (Bitcoin BLAKE2b). Siacoin earns less, but you can sell the coins straight away on liquid exchanges.

Switching is technically simple: in the miner's interface you enter the stratum address of a different pool and the wallet address for the coin in question. Not every pool accepts every model and firmware, though. After switching, check that the pool shows your hashrate and accepts shares.

How much a Siacoin miner earns today

Calculation at the difficulty and exchange rate as of 18 October 2026, without the pool fee. Electricity is based on the cheapest location of our hosting at 1,13 Kč/kWh.

In hosting, all models come out in profit. At a household price of around CZK 5/kWh, however, the BM-S3+ would use roughly CZK 408 of power a day and would lose money on Siacoin. The machines run at 55–80 dB and are not suitable for a flat. The complete range can be found in the BTCB2 and Siacoin miners collection.

Pools and wallets

Sia's official overview lists pools such as Luxor, F2Pool and DxPool. Conditions change, so always check the fee and minimum payout directly with the pool. How payout types differ is explained in the article PPS, PPLNS and FPPS.

For payouts, use your own wallet, for example the official walletd from the Sia Foundation. Since the v2 hard fork in June 2025, older wallets and nodes that have not been updated do not sync with the network – if you have old software, update it.

Risks of mining Siacoin

• Low coin price: 1 SC costs a fraction of a heller and the price is volatile. Earnings change proportionally with it.
• Constant issuance: over 250 million new SC are created every month for miners and the foundation, which puts pressure on the price.
• Hashrate shifting: miners switch between SC and BTCB2 depending on earnings. Siacoin's difficulty can therefore change quickly in both directions.
• Hard forks: the network has already excluded a whole range of ASICs with a hard fork once (2018). Follow the Sia Foundation's announcements.

What next

• BTCB2 (Bitcoin BLAKE2b) – the second coin for the same machines, with higher earnings and higher risk.
• BTCB2 and Siacoin miners – Blake2b-Sia machines with an earnings calculator.
• ASIC miner profitability – a live comparison of Siacoin with other coins.

Sources

• Sia: Siacoins and issuance
• Sia: overview of hard forks (ASIC 2018, Foundation 2021, v2 2025)
• Sia documentation: v2 hard fork (block 526,000)
• WhatToMine: Siacoin – reward, block time, network hashrate