Does solo mining with multiple computers require different generation transaction addresses?

I've heard that what prevents the fastest computers from almost always dominating pools is that each miner is hashing different data because of the generation transaction. However, if I solo mine with many of my own computers running miners connecting to a bitcoind I'm running, it seems like I'm going to redo the same work across all miners because the generation transaction address would be the same. Or should each miner have its own address? Or should bitcoind generate a new address for each getwork request?

ConstableJoe

Posted 2012-10-10T01:19:06.237

Reputation: 615

Are all of the miners doing their getwork() requests from the same instance of bitcoind? – David Perry – 2012-10-10T03:18:42.133

1The threshold where solo mining doesn't make sense is currently anything below tens of GHashs/s. Perhaps nearing 100 Ghash/s soon. Are you sure you want to solo mine? – Stephen Gornick – 2012-10-10T05:05:12.803

Sorry for not being clear; this question was purely theoretical.

@DavidPerry Yes, as if I'm operating a pool just for myself. – ConstableJoe – 2012-10-10T17:57:42.927

Answers

Bitcoind will of course give different data to each of the miners connecting to it. Otherwise using multiple miners would be pointless.

It needn't necessarily give a different address (though normally it does) - it's enough to change the extraNonce field.

Meni Rosenfeld

Posted 2012-10-10T01:19:06.237

Reputation: 18 542

It really does not matter. The nature of mining is random. Whether you will use different addresses or the same one, your hashing will be different from the other people's hashing. As long as an identical work is not assigned to two people (both in term of nonces and merkle root), the results will be the same.

ThePiachu

Posted 2012-10-10T01:19:06.237

Reputation: 41 594

But typically the normal transactions will be the same (whatever is known at the time), and all nonce values are tried sequentially. The only thing that is reliably random between miners is the generation transaction, meaning the extraNonce and reward address. – Meni Rosenfeld – 2012-10-10T08:48:00.400