A Guide To Mining Monero – The Only Cryptocurrency You Can Realistically Mine At Home

Kishore Hore

Guides

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When we talk about crypto mining, perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is Bitcoin. It employs one of the most challenging mining processes known in the industry. It is incredibly energy intensive and requires advanced computer equipment. So much so that Bitcoin mining is usually something that only large companies can afford to do.

However, not all cryptocurrencies have such a difficult mining process. It would be hard to believe, but you can mine a particular cryptocurrency at home, using the CPU you currently have. You don’t have to go broke buying all the fancy mining equipment. And if you can get an AMD GPU, that would be an added bonus. Otherwise, you don’t even need that to mine one of the top 30 digital currencies: Monero.

What is Monero?

Monero (XMR) is an open source digital token. It was launched in 2014 and rose to popularity thanks to the anonymous transaction feature it offers. While it is similar to Bitcoin in many spheres, it distinguishes itself by having strong privacy features, making your transactions untraceable. Its underlying blockchain hides the identity of the merchant and the amount of the transaction.

It is one of the top 30 coins with a market cap of over $2 billion and uses a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism. Its developers strive to maintain its decentralization by allowing even amateur miners to participate in the mining process. They have kept specialized machines like application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) away from the mining scene. For this reason, CPU mining is the best way to mine Monero (XMR).

What is XMR mining?

XMR mining is the process of verifying transactions on the Monero blockchain. The miners get rewards in the form of XMR coins. The mining process works the same as Bitcoin, except with a greater focus on privacy.

Monero mining rewards

As of January 2021, miners receive 1.26 XMR for every block they add to the blockchain, and a new block is mined every 2 minutes. Depending on your CPU/GPU, this can amount to around $0.45 to $1 in profitability, per day per mining system.

Coins generally have a maximum circulation limit. For example, Bitcoin has a limited supply of 21 million coins. Once BTC reaches this hard cap, miners will no longer receive new coins for producing new blocks. They will only receive the fees attached to each transaction.

Monero, on the other hand, does not have a hard cap per se. It is scheduled so that once the circulation reaches the 18 million mark, miners will get a fixed reward of 0.6 XMR infinitely. This is called queuing and is designed to keep miners motivated.

How to mine Monero?

As mentioned above, you can mine Monero on any operating system using the hardware you have at your disposal. However, there are different ways to mine this privacy coin. They include:

  • Solo Mining – While solo mining, you can keep the full reward. However, you will get less frequent rewards compared to mining pools.
  • Monero mining pools – Monero mining pools charge a 0 to 2 percent service fee, and the rewards are split among all participants. Additionally, the software you use for mining may also ask for a small fee. However, you are rewarded more often in this case. Some of the most popular mining pools are:
  • com
  • com
  • nanopool.org
  • P2Pool: Peer-to-peer pools or P2Pool is the Monero sidechain. It offers the best of both worlds: solo and pool mining. It gives you frequent payouts, similar to pool mining, without having to rely on a centralized pool.How to startHere are some basic steps to follow to start mining Monero:
  • Get a Monero walletNote: The first step is to download and set up a wallet that supports Monero. Some options include MyMonero, Edge, Cake Wallet, Monero GUI0, Trezor, etc.
  • Install mining software: Most people prefer to use XMRig or CSminer to mine Monero. You can download the software from their website and extract the zip files.
  • choose a pool: Most likely you don’t have a strong enough CPU to mine on your own, so this is the stage where you choose a mining pool.
  • Generate the config.json fileNote: In XMRig, you need to generate a file needed to start mining. It’s a simple process and there are several tutorials and guides online on how to do it.Things to consider before mining MoneroWhile Monero is one of the easiest cryptocurrencies you can mine, you may need to consider whether it’s worth it. One way to do this is to check your profitability. To do this, you need to consider your mining hash rate, energy costs, and pool maintenance fees and compare them to your rewards. You can also use an XMR mining profitability calculator to determine if it’s worth it.Read also | Nearly $100 Million in Crypto Stolen in Harmony’s Horizon Bridge Heist; what we know so far

    • To make it work in your favor, you may want to increase the processing speed of your device. Mining is a game of speed; the faster you solve the puzzles, the more rewards you can earn. Solo mining with just one CPU may be possible, but may not be financially viable, in which case joining a pool is your best bet.

    (Edited by : Abhishek Jha)

    First published: IST

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