Equihash: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It Matters in Crypto Mining

When you hear about Equihash, a memory-hard proof-of-work algorithm designed to level the playing field for miners using regular hardware. Also known as Equihash-BN, it was created to fight the dominance of ASICs in crypto mining and give everyday users a fair shot at earning rewards. Unlike Bitcoin’s SHA-256, which got taken over by massive mining farms, Equihash was built to be slow on memory but fast on computation—making it expensive to build specialized chips for it. That’s why coins like Zcash, Bitcoin Gold, and others picked it early on: they wanted mining to stay decentralized, not controlled by a few big players.

Here’s how it actually works: Equihash asks your computer to solve a complex math puzzle that needs a lot of RAM—think 2GB or more. The more memory you have, the better you can handle the task. This is the opposite of SHA-256, where speed matters more than memory. Because RAM is cheap and common in regular PCs and laptops, anyone with a decent machine could mine Equihash coins back in the day. But as demand grew, some miners started using high-end GPUs with tons of memory, and now even that’s getting harder. Still, Equihash remains one of the few algorithms that hasn’t been fully conquered by ASICs—unlike Bitcoin or Litecoin.

That’s why Equihash still matters. Even as most coins switched to proof-of-stake or other consensus methods, a few stubborn ones kept it alive. Zcash, for example, still uses Equihash and remains one of the top privacy coins. And while mining profits have dropped for many, the algorithm itself is a reminder that decentralization isn’t just a slogan—it’s something you can engineer into code. The posts below cover real examples: coins that still run on Equihash, exchanges that support them, and even how energy use and regulations are changing the mining game. You’ll find reviews of platforms where you can trade these coins, deep dives into mining setups, and updates on which projects are holding on to Equihash—and which are leaving it behind.