Build an altcoin miner

All the Shark Mining rigs build by professionals. A good altcoin will have a solid team behind it. We need to find a mining pool for the coin we wish to mine.

Altcoin Miner Tags

Many of these cryptocurrencies have already made some sort of a name for themselves. A lot of bjild appreciate these so-called altcoins for their mining and trading value. In its simplest form, Litecoin is an almost identical spin-off of Bitcoin at least technically speaking. It altcoln one of the build an altcoin miner altcoins, coming into existence in mid The coin was created by a certain ex-Google employee named Charlie Lee. He created the cryptocurrency as an open-source project so that it could be decentralized and independent. It reached this price point after the great crash of crypto prices back at the beginning of

There’s a Coin for Everything in the Cryptocurrency World

Scrypt tends to be the more memory intensive of the two — however, home PCs with reasonably powerful graphics cards can still mine those cryptocurrencies quite effectively, as there are no dedicated ASICs to compete with — yet. This holds true, even if you have only a laptop with integrated graphics; though this may not prove terribly effective and is not a set-up we would recommend. Before you start mining, you will need a wallet to keep your hard-earned coins in see our guide to storing bitcoin. A good option is to head to the homepage of the currency you intend to mine and seek out the download link for the default wallet app. If you would like to do more research into litecoin specifically, we have a guide on how to get started. If you find yourself in need of help and advice, most altcoins have community forums, as well as their own subreddit.

Pool Mining Altcoins with a Specific Algorithm

And the best way to learn more is to start participating. Sure, you could hit up an exchange and drop four hundred dollars or more on a single bitcoin, but you can also get in for free by mining the coins. Here’s everything you need to know to get started mining altcoins. Because Bitcoin is open-source software, anyone with some development experience can copy it and create their own currency.

Of course, like Bitcoin, the value of any altcoin is equal only to how much someone will pay you for it. Some altcoins, such as Litecoin, Peercoin, and even Dogecoin have active communities and economies—you can view a list of altcoins sorted by market cap here —but currently none are even a tenth as valuable as Bitcoins.

The Bitcoin software works this way: Every time somebody spends a bitcoin, that transaction is recorded in a public ledger. For example, if you have 10 bitcoins in your wallet and send 7 to someone else, that transaction goes in the ledger, and everyone knows that your wallet only has 3 bitcoins.

For the system to work, the public ledger has to be completely trustworthy. It has to be impossible for anyone to record a fraudulent transaction. In order to incentivize people to participate in this transaction-verifying network, bitcoins are periodically generated and awarded to the machines engaged in maintaining the public ledger. As bitcoin values have soared over the last couple of years, bitcoin mining has become a very lucrative business.

As a result, companies have designed chips solely for running the cryptographic algorithms bitcoin uses for mining. You can then spend the altcoins or swap them for bitcoins at a cryptocurrency exchange. Turning altcoins into cold, hard cash is also more difficult than monetizing bitcoins. The mining process involves writing a short script to run in the command prompt.

First, select a currency to mine—you can find a list of the most active altcoins at CoinMarketCap. You can pick any coin you’d like we chose Litecoin for this articlebut the process will build an altcoin miner virtually identical for any other coin. Once the client is installed it will have to download the entire blockchain for the altcoin. You can join a mining pool before this process is done, but because you might need to run it overnight you should start.

The first is whether to mine solo or participate in a mining pool. This streamlines the reward structure and makes your payments more reliable. There are different pools for each altcoin, though some pools switch between different currencies, based on rising and falling values. GPU miners are much more efficient, but only if you have a discrete graphics card. You can even mine both ways at the same time, if you want to really get all the mining power you can out of your computer.

Just watch that heat and power usage! You specifically want version 3. GUIMiner-scrypt is an alternative that also supports altcoin mining and uses a graphical interface, rather than the command line. Make sure to update your graphics card driversand if you have an ATI graphics card, download the optional OpenCL driver. Cgminer works from the command line, but you can also run it using a batch file.

Not the one you plug into your browser, but the one specifically for mining. Any pool service will make this information readily available on the help or getting-started pages. Many have multiple URLs you can choose from, so you can pick the server closest to you. Port: The port number will also be provided by your pool service. Each worker has a name, either picked by you or assigned automatically by the pool.

In notepad, type the following in, substituting your personal info for the bolded words:. Windows will confirm you want to change the file type.

Say Yes. Finally, you can double-click on the. Cgminer will take it from there, displaying your progress as you mine altcoins.

Just like with cgminer, you’ll need to create a batch file by creating a new text file in the cpuminer folder, entering a short script, then renaming it to a. For cpuminer, your script will look like this:.

For now, though, mining is an interesting way to learn about a technology that could be most important invention of the decade, without putting your retirement fund on the line. Alex Castle is a freelance tech writer based in Honolulu, Hawaii. He specializes in Windows software, how-to articles, and PC peripherals. What is an altcoin?

The Dogecoin logo. What it means to mine a bitcoin or altcoin The Bitcoin software works this way: Every time somebody spends a bitcoin, that transaction is recorded in a public ledger. Why mine altcoins? So how do I mine altcoins? The Litecoin wallet.

Before you start mining there are two important decisions to make. To pool or not to pool, that is the question The first is whether to mine solo or participate in a mining pool. Worker password: Similarly, every worker has a password. In notepad, type the following in, substituting your personal info for the bolded words: cgminer.

For cpuminer, your script will look like this: minerd. Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. Related: Software Bitcoin.

Creating your own Altcoin Part 3: Blockchain Parameters/Mining Genesis Block

The need for speed

Why do you need to mine your own coin faster? Nic Raboy Nic Raboy is an advocate of modern web and mobile development technologies. Featured on Meta. There are hundreds build an altcoin miner others to choose. Not niner altcoins have such laudable goals. Ohanian and other bullish commentators are basing their predictions on the fact that applications can be built on top of the Ethereum network. A cryptocurrency network automatically changes the difficulty of the problems that need to be solved. If problem persists contact site administrator. I was wanting to make a pool so that my friends and I could mine it together from a Windows or a Mac computer. A good altcoin will have a solid team behind it.