Cuckatoo32

Cuckatoo32 is a member of the Cuckoo Cycle family of memory-hard proof-of-work designs originally created by John Tromp. The variant number (32) refers to the bit-width of the underlying graph — Cuckatoo32 uses a 32-bit graph, balancing memory requirements (~4 GB) against compute throughput.Aeternity (AE) is the primary chain using Cuckatoo32 today. The algorithm’s intent was ASIC resistance via memory-bound computation; in practice, ASICs emerged anyway, but they’re memory-rich silicon with fundamentally different efficiency curves than SHA-256 hardware. The economics are stable rather than spectacular: AE mining yields moderate dollar-per-watt returns relative to majors, but the network has been operationally consistent for years.Goldshell’s AE Max and AE Max II are the current commercial-grade Cuckatoo32 ASICs. AE Max II hits 540 Mh/s at 1320 W — the efficiency frontier for this algorithm.