Dual Mining Ethereum Classic and Zilliqa

Learn how to set up simultaneous mining of Ethereum Classic and Zilliqa, which programs to choose (lolMiner, GMiner, TeamRedMiner), what real earnings are, why many services disable this mode, and what Zilliqa’s transition to Proof-of-Stake means. This article is easy to understand for miners of all skill levels.

The world of crypto mining is changing rapidly. Just yesterday, everyone was talking about dual mining ZIL and ETC as a solution to falling profitability, and today, Zilliqua is already moving to a new network. How can we make sense of this chaos?
This article is my honest account of real experience and facts that often get lost in the hype.

🎢 A little background and why ZIL is no longer mined

A couple of years ago, Zilliqa (ZIL) was one of the few coins that could be mined alongside another PoW algorithm with virtually no loss in hashrate. The secret was that ZIL mining only lasted one minute every two to three hours —the rest of the time, the equipment ran smoothly on the main algorithm. This allowed ZIL mining to be combined with Ethereum Classic or its forks, resulting in increased income.

However, in mid-2025, the Zilliqa team ended the PoW era. The Zilliqa 1.0 network terminated at block 4,770,087 in June 2025, fully transitioning to Zilliqa 2.0 and Proof-of-Stake . Dual mining, familiar to many, became a thing of the past: f2pool officially announced the end of support for ETC + ZIL on June 23, 2025, and asked users to withdraw their funds by the end of the year. ZIL can no longer be mined today, but understanding how this mechanism worked is useful for assessing the prospects of new projects.

🧠 What is dual mining and why was it once popular?

The idea of dual mining originated back in the GPU gold rush era. Dual mining is the simultaneous mining of two coins on a single graphics card : the primary coin uses most of the resources, while the secondary coin uses only the available memory or cores. The combination of ETC and ZIL was advantageous because:

ZIL consumed almost zero resources. Mining mode was only activated briefly, so ETC’s hashrate barely dropped.
Profitability could increase by 30–40% : the Crazy-Mining blog in 2022 indicated that a combination of ETC and ZIL on the Ezil.me pool yielded a boost compared to single-mining.
Low VRAM requirements. Caching a ZIL DAG file required just over 1 GB of memory. Modern cards easily accommodated multiple DAG files, and many programs (lolMiner, TeamBlackMiner) implemented automatic caching.

But the illusion of easy money collided with reality. Back in 2020, the 2Miners pool team conducted an experiment and discovered that dual mining isn’t always more profitable than solo mining : over a two-day comparison, pure Ethereum mining generated more profit than combined ETH and ZIL mining. The need for additional transactions and fees reduced the overall profit. After Ethereum switched to Proof-of-Stake, miners were forced to turn their attention to other coins: Ethereum Classic, Kaspa, Ravencoin, Ergon, and others.

How to set up dual mining on Windows: lolMiner, GMiner, and others

While the classic ETC + ZIL combination is no longer relevant, knowing how to set up dual mining helps you understand how to work with modern multi-miners. The most popular programs are lolMiner , GMiner , TeamRedMiner , NBMiner , and T-Rex .

💎 lolMiner — Flexibility and Triple Mining

lolMiner has long been known for its ZIL mode support. In the Crazy-Mining article about version 1.64, the author noted that the miner can mine three coins simultaneously: ETC, Kaspa, and ZIL, with almost no losses on ETC. The developer recommended using the Ezil.me pool for ETC and KAS, and WoolyPooly for Kaspa. An example run on Windows looked like this:

lolMiner.exe --algo ETCHASH --pool eu.ezil.me:3333 \ 
  --user ETC_Кошелёк.Worker --enablezilcache \ 
  --dualmode KASPADUAL --dualpool pool.eu.woolypooly.com:3112 \ 
  --dualuser KAS_Кошелёк.Worker

The secret to its efficiency is DAG caching for ZIL : this parameter --enablezilcacheallows storing the ZIL-DAG in video memory, eliminating the need to regenerate it every hour. When switching to triple mining (ETC + KAS + ZIL), ETC’s hashrate remained almost unchanged, KAS received approximately a quarter of the usual hashrate, and ZIL generated up to a third of the additional revenue.

🛠️ GMiner is a strong competitor

Version 3.21 of this miner added support for the ZMP protocol. Now, you can specify multiple servers at once and receive rewards for different coins. The Windows command included the parameters --zilserverand--ziluser , simplifying dual mining setup. It’s important to remember that GMiner had issues with voltage clamping on NVIDIA cards at the time, resulting in higher power consumption than lolMiner. The developers recommended waiting for a fix or choosing a different miner.

🐉 TeamBlackMiner — minimal commission

TeamBlackMiner (TBM) occupied a distinct niche thanks to its low fees (0.5% for ETC and ZIL). The Crypto-Mining blog noted that TBM supported Ethash and Etchash, could mine Ethereum Classic and Zilliqa, and cached DAG files for quick switching . Integration with HiveOS, RaveOS, and mmpOS made setup easy: simply select the miner in the interface and specify the pool addresses. Fine-tuning allowed control over temperature, voltage, and intensity, making TBM convenient for miners on Windows.

🧰 Other miners: T‑Rex, TeamRedMiner, NBMiner

The minerstat service published a series of guides on dual mining. In the T-Rex instructions, the miner suggested separating the ETC pool and the ZIL pool (for example, Ethermine and Ezil.me) and specifying the following parameters in the configuration coin: "etc+zil": , url2, user2. Separating the pools allowed for testing different platforms and flexible switching between them.

For TeamRedMiner, the instructions were similar: first, a simple configuration for ETC is created, then in advanced mode, a key is added --zil, the Ezil.me pool is specified, and a combined login is specified ETC_кошелёк.ZIL_кошелёк.Worker. A key advantage was the automatic selection of the optimal mode, ZIL-DAG caching, and core selection for 4 GB cards .

NBMiner also offered dual mining with different pools; setup consisted of adding -enable-dag-cacheand properly separating passwords in the configuration. The minerstat service emphasized that caching the ZIL DAG file required an additional 1 GB of video memory , so the mode might not work on older cards.

💡 Real profit and risks: is the game worth the candle?

Marketing articles often promised yield increases of tens of percent, but in reality, everything depended on market prices, pool fees, and electricity costs. Crazy-Mining estimated a 30–40% increase with a combination of ETC (or ETHW/ETHF) and ZIL. However, this calculation was made at the end of 2022, when the ZIL price was higher and the network was still running on PoW.

A 2Miners experiment in 2020 showed that the claimed 10% profit may be a myth : over two days of testing, pure Ethereum mining proved more profitable, especially considering the additional ZIL transactions and sales fees required. With Zilliqa’s transition to Proof-of-Stake in 2025, the profitability of dual mining became zero—mining ZIL is simply impossible.

Today, instead of ZIL, miners are considering combinations such as ETC + Kaspa, Ravencoin + Kaspa, Ergo + Kaspa , and others. Cool-Mining’s article on Kaspa’s prospects notes that GMiner 3.21, lolMiner 1.64, and RigelMiner 1.3.4 support dual and triple mining of Kaspa and ZIL . Kaspa uses the kHeavyHash algorithm and is suitable for combination with Etchash: the hashrate of the main algorithm barely drops, and coins are distributed fairly. However, everything again depends on the coin price and electricity costs.

🧭 Relevance in 2026: What to look for

Should you dual-mine ETC and ZIL today? The answer is simple: no , because ZIL is no longer mined. But it’s still useful to understand the mechanics of dual mining:

Understanding how DAG cache works helps optimize cards for other coins. The same approach is used in modern miners for Kaspa, Alephium, Radiant, and others.
Knowing how to set up pools and wallets is useful for any combination: it’s important to be able to differentiate between the primary and secondary pools and correctly generate addresses and logins.
Risk assessment will teach you not to trust advertising promises. In 2022, everyone was talking about dual mining, but by 2025, the system had disappeared. Always check the news on reputable resources, such as the Crazy-Mining blog , Crypto-Mining Blog , Cool-Mining , Crypto-Wallets , and the projects’ official channels.

🔚 Summary: Dual Mining Lessons

Dual mining ETC and ZIL was a shining example of creative use of GPU resources. It offered the chance to increase income with minimal investment and left behind numerous guides, commands, and life hacks. However, Zilliqa’s transition to Proof-of-Stake, market fluctuations, and increased mining difficulty demonstrated that a long-term strategy requires flexibility .

If you’re just planning on mining in 2026, consider Ethereum Classic, Kaspa, Ravencoin, Radiant, Alephium, and other PoW projects , choose reliable pools, and keep up with miner updates. And never forget: in the crypto world, yesterday’s rules may be nothing tomorrow.