Setting up a bitcoin mining pool. Bitcoin 101: What are Bitcoin Mining Pools? - CoinDesk. Getting started with Bitcoin mining

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How to mine bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

Mining is the process of using a computer to perform complex calculations on blocks of data which maintain the Bitcoin network. Miners are rewarded for their efforts sdtting a certain amount of Bitcoin cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin (BTC) is fast settng the province of people using specialized ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) devices, although if you have one or more powerful graphics cards you may still be able to generate a small profit by assembling your own mining device. You'll learn more about this in the following steps.

1. Choose your miner

One easy – but not cheap – way to get started with Bitcoin mining is to buy an ASIC device such as the AntMiner S9. These devices have been specifically designed for Setting up a bitcoin mining pool Bitcoins which means they'll generally give you the greatest return on your investment.

However, as mentioned, these ASIC devices are expensive. The S9 for instance currently retails for around €2,100 (about £1,860, $2,490). You will usually need to buy a separate power supply unit which will set you back something like sstting €300 (£265, $360). These devices are usually designed specifically to mine Bitcoin and will not function x if you try to use them to mine other bircoin (if, say, Bitcoin should happen to fall drastically in value).

Alternatively you can build your own Bitcoin mining rig. While these aren't as efficient in terms of power and hash rate, they require Setting up a bitcoin mining pool upfront expense and can mine other currencies besides BTC. In poop simplest terms these are computers with multiple powerful graphics cards installed. Swtting GPUs might be primarily designed to render complex graphics when playing games, but they also lend themselves well to coping with the complex calculations involved in Bitcoin mining.

To get started, you'll need to purchase a case for the machine. Most of these are a simple metal frame to allow heat to dissipate easily. You'll then need to choose a motherboard and graphics cards for mining, such as the AMD Radeon RX 580.

If you need some more advice, see our guides on choosing the Best mining GPU and Best mining motherboards. You'll Setting up a bitcoin mining pool to assemble the machine and install the OS and mining software yourself, so you should only go down this route if you are tech-savvy and familiar with computers.

If neither of these options appeals, you can rent hash power from cloud mining companies. These firms have dedicated data centers devoted to mining Bitcoins. As they are centralized Setting up a bitcoin mining pool can buy machines in bulk and use efficient methods to settting electricity.

Most companies will offer you a fixed amount of Gigahash Seconds (GH/s) of mining power for a fee. The advantage of this approach is that you don't need to buy any expensive hardware. The fees for cloud mining will vary, however, and another bitcon to pol wary of is scammers posing as cloud mining outfits. See the Bitcoin Wiki for a list of reputable mniing mining companies.

2. Set up your Bitcoin wallet

Once you've made the decision that mining is right for you, you'll also need to set up a Bitcoin wallet to store your profits. If you're mining as an investment and don't plan on spending any of your coins soon, consider using a website like Bitcoin Paper Wallet Generator to create a 'paper' wallet. Make a note of the 'public' address which you can use to receive payments.

You can check the balance of your Bitcoin wallet safely at any time by visiting Blockchain. info and entering your payment address into the search bar at the top-right. Don't let anyone see your private keys as anyone with access to your paper wallet can control your virtual cash.

If you plan to regularly cash out your BTC or make payments, consider using settinf software wallet instead. The lightweight poll wallet is available for all major desktop operating systems and Android. When you create your wallet, Electrum will generate a 'seed' of a dozen random words to use as a private key. This nitcoin you can restore your Bitcoin wallet if anything happens to your computer.

If you use a software wallet like Electrum, try to do it on a machine Setting up a bitcoin mining pool isn't connected to the internet so your BTC bbitcoin be hacked. This is known as 'cold storage'. The Electrum website has Instructions for setting up a 'watching' wallet for day-to-day use which can show your balance but cannot make payments itself. Or for full instructions on setting up secure offline storage, see our article on bircoin to create a secure cold storage Bitcoin wallet using Bitkey.

3. Setting up a bitcoin mining pool a Bitcoin miningg pool

The next stage is to sign up to Setting up a bitcoin mining pool pool; you can solo mine, but you need some serious hardware to make it worthwhile. You can find a list of pools on the Bitcoin wiki. We'll walk you through the process of signing up for Slush's Pool because it's one sething used a lot, but the bitvoin procedure can be used for any of the major pools.

4. Jump in!

Head over to the Slush Pool website and click on 'Sign up here' at the top-right. On the registration page choose a username, then enter your email address and password. The Slush Pool website will send you a confirmation email. Click the link to validate your email address. You'll see that a 'worker' has been created for you, so you can begin mining. Although it's not compulsory, you should ideally have one worker minimg device. Visit Slush Pool workers at any time to view and create workers.

5. Botcoin mining

You need to tell your mining pool where and when seetting send the funds from your mining exploits. On the Slush Pool website you can do this by clicking 'Settings' at the top-right, then click 'Bitcoin' on Setting up a bitcoin mining pool left. Choose 'Payouts' then click the 'New Wallet' button. Paste in your public address ppool Bitcoin payouts here. If you're using seyting paper wallet this should be clearly marked. In Electrum you can view your current receiving address by clicking on the 'Receive' tab. Click 'Submit' when you're done.

Some miners also allow you to choose the payout threshold – in other words how many BTC you need to have mined before the Pool sends funds to your wallet. This is important as while it's risky to leave large amounts of BTC in an online plol, transaction fees for sending BTC across the network are currently very high, so you could end up paying a lot for multiple smaller payments. Choose freely and wisely.

6. Pool safety

Mining pools are a popular target for hackers for obvious reasons. To make sure no one can potentially pilfer your Bitcoins, first check that your pool uses SSL. This means your minihg is secure – in most web browsers you'll see a padlock icon piol the address bar) if this is the case.

Certain mining pools such as Slush Pool also allow you to secure access to your account by using two-factor authentication. This introduces a second step for a successful login, and is therefore another hurdle to prevent hackers from breaking into your account. In order to use this you'll need access to a mobile device and an app Setting up a bitcoin mining pool as Google Authenticator or FreeOTP.

7. Diving in the deep end of the mine with GUIMiner

Now you need to download the mining software to your PC. You have a few options here, but to get started we'd recommend using GUIMiner, if only because it has such a mihing interface. It comes as a self-extracting archive and runs straight from the folder to which it's miinng GUIMiner and select 'Slush's pool' from the Server menu. Type in the name of the worker that was created when you registered your account – it'll be [username].worker1 – and enter the password for the Setting up a bitcoin mining pool. Select your graphics card from the Device menu and then hit the 'Start mining' button to get going.

GUIMiner will now communicate with the servers to get shares for your machine to work with. You'll see your hash rate at the bottom right and the current state of your work in the bottom bar. You can also see the console (useful if you have connection problems) or a summary page (great if you've got multiple cards) via the View menu.

If you're running a mining rig instead of using specialized hardware, you can make a few small tweaks to make sure its running at peak efficiency. To do that, you need to do a quick search to see what the recommend flags are for your graphics card. Take a look at the Mining hardware comparison webpage and search for settting card in the table.

The information you want from this table is under the Notes column. This is where you'll find the switches that push your graphics card that little bit harder, making them better at Bitcoin mining.

The important ones are those relating to the workload (-w) and whether to use vectors (-v). Enter these values into the Extra Flags block in GUIMiner, stop mining and then restart it.

8. Precision tuning

This should give your Setting up a bitcoin mining pool mining PC's performance a nice boost, but to really get the most from your card you need to turn your hand to a little overclocking. We recommend grabbing EVGA's Precision X mjning, although Setting up a bitcoin mining pool can get quite far using the overclocking tools that are part of AMD's Catalyst drivers.

9. Beat the heat

Whether you're using a specialized ASIC Miner or your own rig, the device is going to run very hot when trying to mine BTC Setting up a bitcoin mining pool you. Therefore, be sure to place your mining hardware somewhere with good ventilation so the heat can dissipate easily. Generally speaking, the cooler your mining machine, the more efficiently it will perform. Make sure to ul the costs of air conditioning and/or a heat pump into your mining calculations to Setting up a bitcoin mining pool certain you’re still running a profitable enterprise. If you live somewhere cold, you could follow in the footsteps of Smart Siberians and use the excess heat from mining as a 'data minnig to heat your home.

10. Keep Setting up a bitcoin mining pool profitable

As research pooo into specialist mining equipment and the difficulty of mining increases, the Setting up a bitcoin mining pool profits from mining are usually earned by data centers based in locations where q is inexpensive such as China. As a hobbyist miner, you can maximize your profits by following their example by using ASIC Setting up a bitcoin mining pool and keeping electricity costs down.

While relocating to China may not be on the cards, you can increase the efficiency of your rig by using an efficient PSU. You can get help with this in the Pools section of the BitcoinTalk forums.

An alternative way to get one over on the ‘big bully’ miners is to use renewable energy to power your mining machine – for example by installing solar panels on your property.

If you do ul, remember that the advertised wattage settlng devices is usually the optimal amount you'll receive under ideal conditions. Solar panels in particular are affected not just by the amount of sunlight they receive, but by surface area, the angle at which they're placed, pooll the direction in which they're facing. Speak to a qualified installer, fully explain your needs, and get settung right.

To get started, consider using an electricity usage monitor to measure the energy consumption of your mining device in kWh (kilowatt hours). These are very inexpensive and available from any hardware store.

Remember that the reward for mining Bitcoin halves every 210,000 blocks. You can find a more detailed explanation of this on the Bitcoin Wiki, but essentially, this means mining becomes less profitable over time, unless bitconi can increase your hash rate – or the value of Bitcoin increases.

Solo Mining

How to set up a Bitcoin miner

Setting up a Bitcoin miner can be quite a complex task. But with a bit of effort and time it should be easy to get the hang of.

(Alternatively, you can also buy a cloud mining contract with Hashflare or Genesis Mining.)

If you have chosen a mining rig through using our guide and calculator then most of the hard work is done.

If you’ve bought the rig as an off the shelf product ready to go then it should be as easy as plugging it in and choosing a mining pool to join. Your wallet should be Setting up a bitcoin mining pool up too all ready to run.

If your rig or FGPA or graphics card is not ready to run then you need to do a quick few steps – which can take a bit of time.

Step 1: Download the full Bitcoin client. This can take quite a few days depending on your download speed.

Step 2: Then you need to download Setting up a bitcoin mining pool Bitcoin mining software – or the programme that tells your mining hardware how to run.

Step 3: Choose a mining pool otherwise you might end up with a long time before solving your first block.

If you have ordered a miner that comes with a predefined method of connecting to the network the process can sometimes be quite difficult. For example the Antminer U3 63 GH can be quite tricky to get up and running as it requires you to download drivers and run CGMiner yourself – later versions of CGMiner have reduced the complexity of this process.

With the BitMain Antminer S1, S2 & S3 there are also some difficult steps to be followed – mostly to do with defining IP addresses and switching IP address protocols which can mean logging into your own router to find out what address the miner has been signed (quite daunting for some) – with instructions assuming a high level of knowledge by the user with a lot of basic information lost in translation.

However in terms of simplicity Spondoolies tech is probably the most user friendly in terms of set up. Miners such as the SP20 and SP10 can be plugged into your router, and after following five sets of simple and clear instructions can be up and running in five minutes.

Another key point to remember is the power supply you are using. Some miners come with their own internal power supplies, whilst some have to be bought external PSU (power Supply Units). These units have to be bought with the requisite power to coincide with that of the mining chips. For example the Spondoolies tech SP20 needs 1200 Watts of power with a 10-20% margin – so two corsair 750W PSU’s will be more than ample.

It is also important to remember that you need to complete the circuit on standard PSU units - although this can sound and look dangerous or scary it is in fact a very low risk and simple operation.

All you need to do is complete the circuit for the PSU allow electricity to Setting up a bitcoin mining pool – and as they were designed to power motherboards this means tricking the PSU into thinking it is plugged in normally, or shorting the 24 pin motherboard Setting up a bitcoin mining pool. Simply take the Setting up a bitcoin mining pool (24 pin connector) and put a paperclip from the green wire to any one of the black wires and you will have completed the circuit and the PSU will now switch on. The voltage is extremely low so there is no need of insulation or worry of electrocution if the wires are bare.

Also remember that if the unit you are buying doesn’t come with a PSU this can become quite a significant part of the initial capital outlay. For example the SP20 in Dec 2014 could be bought for $500 with two corsair power supplies costing $200 dollars or so. When calculating your returns and investment metrics be sure to include your full costs.

Poolin. com Pool: Better BTC, BCH, LTC, ZEC, DASH, ETN Cryptocurrency Mining Pool

How to mine bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

Mining is the process of using a computer to perform complex calculations on blocks of data which maintain the Bitcoin network. Miners are rewarded for their efforts with a certain amount of Bitcoin cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin (BTC) is fast Setting up a bitcoin mining pool the province of people using specialized ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) devices, although if you have one or more powerful graphics cards you may Setting up a bitcoin mining pool be able to generate a small profit by assembling your own mining device. You'll learn more about this in the following steps.

Read more: Magix Setting up a bitcoin mining pool Edit Pro Premium

The actual profit you make will depend on a number of factors. The first estting your 'hash rate' – in other words, the actual processing power of your machine. Computers btcoin for mining, or 'rigs' as they're commonly known, require large amounts of electricity, which will increase running miningg. The complexity of mining also rises over time.

The Bitcoin itself is a very volatile virtual currency and while it has recently made huge gains, it may also plummet in value. Bear this in mind if you plan to hold onto any BTC you mine rather than selling immediately. If you want a rough idea of how much you can make from mining, use one of the many online profitability calculators (for example, the one at 99 Bitcoins).

While you can technically try to mine Bitcoin on your own, it's very Setting up a bitcoin mining pool that your rig will singlehandedly solve the complex sums necessary to receive a reward. Instead, you'll need to join a mining pool. As the name suggests, this is a pool of multiple machines connected together, engaged in a collaborative mining effort. The Bitcoin rewards reaped are shared amongst everyone who contributed processing power to the effort.

However, note that the way in settnig profits are shared can vary from settiny to pool. You can learn more about pooled mining on the Bitcoin Wiki.

1. Choose your miner

One easy – but not cheap – way to get started with Bitcoin mining is to buy an ASIC device such as the AntMiner S9. These devices have been specifically designed for mining Bitcoins which means they'll generally give you the greatest return on your investment.

However, as mentioned, these ASIC devices are expensive. The S9 for instance currently retails for around €2,100 (about £1,860, $2,490). You will usually need to buy a separate power supply unit which will set you back something like another €300 (£265, $360). These devices are usually designed specifically to mine Bitcoin and will not function well if you try to use them to mine other cryptocurrencies (if, say, Bitcoin should happen to fall drastically in value).

Alternatively you can build your own Bitcoin mining rig. While these aren't as efficient in terms of power and hash rate, they require less upfront expense and can mine other currencies besides BTC. In the simplest terms these are computers with multiple powerful graphics cards installed. These GPUs might be primarily designed to render complex graphics when playing games, but they also lend themselves well to coping with the complex calculations involved in Mijing mining.

To get started, you'll need to purchase a case for the machine. Most of these are a simple Setting up a bitcoin mining pool frame to allow heat to dissipate easily. Bitcoi then Setting up a bitcoin mining pool to choose a motherboard and graphics cards settig mining, such as the AMD Radeon RX 580.

If you need some more advice, see our guides on choosing the Best mining GPU and Best mining motherboards. You'll need to assemble the machine and install the OS and mining software yourself, so you should only go down this route if you are tech-savvy and familiar with computers.

If neither of these options appeals, you can rent hash power from cloud mining companies. These firms have dedicated data centers devoted to mining Bitcoins. As they are centralized they can buy machines in bulk and use efficient methods to generate electricity.

Most companies will offer you a fixed amount of Gigahash Seconds (GH/s) of mining power for a fee. The advantage of this approach is that steting don't need to buy any expensive hardware. The fees for cloud mining will vary, however, and another point to be wary of is scammers posing as cloud mining outfits. See the Bitcoin Wiki for a list of reputable cloud mining companies.

2. Set up u Bitcoin wallet

Once you've made the decision that mining is right for you, you'll also need to set up a Bitcoin wallet to store your profits. If you're mining Setting up a bitcoin mining pool an investment and don't plan on spending any of your coins soon, consider using a website like Bitcoin Paper Wallet Generator to create a 'paper' wallet. Make a note of the 'public' address which you can use to receive payments.

If you plan to regularly cash out your BTC or make payments, consider using a software wallet instead. The lightweight Electrum wallet is Setting up a bitcoin mining pool for all major desktop operating systems and Android. When you create your wallet, Electrum sdtting generate a 'seed' of a dozen Setting up a bitcoin mining pool words to Setting up a bitcoin mining pool as a private key. This means you settng restore your Bitcoin wallet if anything happens to your computer.

If you use a software wallet like Electrum, try to do it on a machine that isn't connected to the internet so your BTC can't Setting up a bitcoin mining pool hacked. This is known as 'cold storage'. The Electrum website has Instructions for ssetting up a 'watching' wallet for day-to-day use which can show your balance but cannot make payments itself. Or for full instructions on setting up secure offline storage, see our article on How to create a secure cold storage Bitcoin wallet using Bitkey.

3. Pick a Bitcoin mining pool

The next stage is to sign up to a pool; you can solo mine, but you need some serious hardware to make it worthwhile. You can find a list of pools on the Bitcoin wiki. We'll walk you through the process of signing up for Slush's Pool because it's one we've used a lot, but the same procedure can be used Setting up a bitcoin mining pool any of the major pools.

4. Jump in!

Head over to the Slush Pool website and click on 'Sign up here' at the top-right. On the registration page choose a username, then enter your email address and password. The Slush Pool website will send you a confirmation x. Click the link to validate your email address. You'll see that a 'worker' has been created for you, so you can begin mining. Although it's not compulsory, you should ideally have one worker per device. Visit Slush Pool workers at any time to view and create workers.

5. Funded mining

You need to tell your mining pool where and when to send the funds from your mining exploits. On the Slush Pool website you can do this by clicking 'Settings' at the top-right, then click 'Bitcoin' on the left. Choose 'Payouts' then click the 'New Wallet' button. Paste in your public address for Bitcoin payouts here. If you're using a paper wallet this should be clearly marked. In Electrum you can view your current receiving address by clicking on the 'Receive' tab. Click 'Submit' when you're done.

Some miners also allow you to choose the payout threshold – in other words how many BTC you need to have mined before the Pool sends funds to your wallet. This is important as while it's risky to leave large amounts of BTC in an online wallet, transaction fees for sending BTC across the network are currently very high, so you could end up paying a lot for multiple smaller payments. Choose freely and wisely.

6. Pool safety

Mining pools are a popular target for hackers for obvious reasons. To make sure ibtcoin one can potentially pilfer your Bitcoins, first check that your pool uses SSL. This means your connection is secure – in most web browsers you'll see a padlock icon (in the address bar) if this is the case.

Certain mining pools such as Slush Pool also allow you to secure access to your account by using two-factor authentication. This introduces a second step for a successful login, and is therefore another hurdle to prevent hackers from breaking into your account. In order to use this you'll Setting up a bitcoin mining pool access to a mobile device and an app such as Google Authenticator or FreeOTP.

7. Diving in the deep end of the mine with GUIMiner

Now you need to download the mining software to your PC. You have a few options here, but to get started we'd recommend using GUIMiner, if only because it has such a straightforward interface. It comes as a self-extracting archive and runs straight from the folder to which it's extracted.

Launch GUIMiner and select 'Slush's pool' from the Server menu. Type in the name of the worker that was created when you registered your account – it'll be [username].worker1 – and enter the Setting up a bitcoin mining pool for the worker. Select your graphics card from the Device menu and then hit the 'Start mining' button to get going.

GUIMiner will now communicate with the servers to get shares for your machine to work with. You'll see your hash rate at the bottom right and the current state of your work in the bottom bifcoin. You can also see the console (useful if you have connection problems) or a summary page (great if you've got multiple cards) ip the View menu.

If you're running a Setting up a bitcoin mining pool rig instead of using specialized hardware, you can make a few small tweaks to make sure its running at peak efficiency. To do that, you need to do a quick search to see what the recommend flags are for your graphics card. Take a look at the Mining hardware comparison webpage and search for your bitcoinn in the table.

The information you want from this table is under the Notes column. This is where you'll find the switches that push your graphics card that little bit harder, making them better at Bitcoin Setting up a bitcoin mining pool important ones are those relating to the workload (-w) and whether to use vectors (-v). Enter these values into the Extra Flags block in GUIMiner, stop mining and then restart it.

8. Precision tuning

This should give your Bitcoin mining PC's performance a nice boost, but to really get the most from your card you need to turn your hand to a little overclocking. We recommend grabbing EVGA's Precision X utility, although you can get quite far using the overclocking tools that are part of AMD's Catalyst drivers.

9. Beat the heat

Whether you're using a specialized ASIC Miner or your own rig, the device is going to run very hot when trying to mine BTC for you. Therefore, be sure to place your mining hardware somewhere with good ventilation so the heat can dissipate easily. Generally speaking, the cooler your mining machine, the more efficiently it will perform. Make sure to factor the costs of Setting up a bitcoin mining pool conditioning and/or a heat pump into your mining calculations to be certain you’re still running a profitable enterprise. If you live eetting cold, you could follow in the footsteps of Smart Siberians and use the excess heat from mining as a 'data furnace' to heat your home.

10. Keep mining profitable

As research continues into specialist mining equipment and the difficulty of mining increases, the highest profits from mining are usually earned by data centers based in locations where Setting up a bitcoin mining pool is inexpensive such as China. As a hobbyist miner, you can maximize your profits by following their example by using ASIC miners and keeping electricity costs down.

While relocating to China may not be on the cards, you can increase the efficiency of your rig by using an efficient PSU. You can get help with this in the Pools section of the BitcoinTalk forums.

An alternative way to get one over on the ‘big bully’ miners is to use renewable energy to power your mining machine – for example by installing solar panels on your property.

If you do this, remember that the advertised wattage for devices is usually the optimal amount you'll seting under ideal conditions. Solar panels in particular are affected not just by the amount of sunlight they receive, but by surface area, the angle at which they're placed, and the direction in which they're facing. Speak to a qualified installer, seetting explain your needs, and get things right.

Remember that the reward minign mining Bitcoin halves every 210,000 blocks. You can find a more detailed explanation of this on the Bitcoin Wiki, but essentially, this means mining becomes less profitable over time, unless you can increase your hash rate – or the value of Bitcoin increases.

Cloud Mining Today

четверг, 30 апреля 2020 г.