<blockquote>
  <p>are both these two algorithms different from each other?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Yes. Different algorithms with different (invention) purposes: SHA256's goal was to be extremely hard to be collided, while Scrypt aimed to be a RAM and CPU heavy algorithm.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>I read somewhere that this two algorithm is used for the different cryptocurrency. if that's true. then why?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Consider Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin Cash's hashrate is ~90% lower than Bitcoin's. However, profit maximizing miners switch to Bitcoin Cash when it's more profitable, and then jump back to Bitcoin. This causes Bitcoin Cash block times to be unstable, between 3 minutes and 60 minutes. If your coin uses a different kind of PoW, then that's not possible. Of course, you can improve the coin's difficulty algorithm to overcome these issues (DogeCoin is a little SHA256 coin, but its difficulty algorithm "DigiShield" is pretty great), however Litecoin prefers to use a different solution: to have a different PoW.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>which one is efficient as compared to another one.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>SHA256 in terms of energy and Hash / unit time.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-26T11:36:42.233Z
PoW stand for     ?
muneeb_ahmed
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-26T12:35:24.657Z
Proof Of Work, the job miners do to make their block accepted to the network. E.g. for Bitcoin, the hash of the block should be lower than the network difficulty.
MCCCS
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-26T09:49:31.120Z
2018-01-26T09:49:31.120Z
MCCCS
<p><strong><em>So in detail my question is:</em></strong></p>

<ul>
<li>are both these two algorithms different from each other?.</li>
<li>I read somewhere that this two algorithm is used for the different cryptocurrency. if that's true. then why?</li>
<li>which one is efficient as compared to another one.</li>
</ul>

<p>that would be much appreciated if you give me answer with some example.</p>

<currencies><sha256><algorithms><scrypt>
Difference between scrypt and sha-256 mining?
muneeb_ahmed
# Difference between scrypt and sha-256 mining?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-01-26)

***So in detail my question is:***

* are both these two algorithms different from each other?.
* I read somewhere that this two algorithm is used for the different cryptocurrency. if that's true. then why?
* which one is efficient as compared to another one.

that would be much appreciated if you give me answer with some example.

**Tags:** currencies, sha256, algorithms, scrypt


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2018-01-26. Score: 1 | Accepted answer

> are both these two algorithms different from each other?

Yes. Different algorithms with different (invention) purposes: SHA256's goal was to be extremely hard to be collided, while Scrypt aimed to be a RAM and CPU heavy algorithm.

> I read somewhere that this two algorithm is used for the different cryptocurrency. if that's true. then why?

Consider Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin Cash's hashrate is ~90% lower than Bitcoin's. However, profit maximizing miners switch to Bitcoin Cash when it's more profitable, and then jump back to Bitcoin. This causes Bitcoin Cash block times to be unstable, between 3 minutes and 60 minutes. If your coin uses a different kind of PoW, then that's not possible. Of course, you can improve the coin's difficulty algorithm to overcome these issues (DogeCoin is a little SHA256 coin, but its difficulty algorithm "DigiShield" is pretty great), however Litecoin prefers to use a different solution: to have a different PoW.

> which one is efficient as compared to another one.

SHA256 in terms of energy and Hash / unit time.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: PoW stand for     ?  
> **username_1**: Proof Of Work, the job miners do to make their block accepted to the network. E.g. for Bitcoin, the hash of the block should be lower than the network difficulty.  

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