This is a re-write of 'A Beginner's Guide to Claiming Your 'Bitcoin. Your BTG — only your BTG. Be Careful Good news: Bitcoin Gold enforces. Is bitcoin mining.

Did you hear that mining ZCash was easy and wanted to know more? In this article, I will list the different options that you can use to mine ZCash from your very own PC. In case you need to know more about this cryptocurrency, please read my. Getting started with ZCash mining is not very difficult.

It is probably one of the easiest cryptocurrencies to mine. You don’t even need to download the entire blockchain to your hard drive. Additionally, you can mine directly to a hardware wallet such as a While you can also mine to your wallet in an exchange, I would not recommend doing that.

Contents • • • • • • • • Choosing the GPU hardware Once you have decided to start Zcash mining, the first question you may ask is what hardware is the best for the task. Because there are many improvements in software and hardware happening all the time, this question is not easily answered. Mining can be performed in two main ways: • CPU mining: using your computer’s Computer Processing Unit • GPU mining: using a computer with one or several Graphical Processing Units In the past, you could effectively mine Zcash (ZEC) by using just a CPU.

However, advancements in software give now GPUs a huge advantage over CPUs. For this reason, today all of the serious miners use GPU rigs. There are two categories of GPU miners: • AMD brand GPUs • Nvidia Brand GPUs AMD GPU You need to choose a GPU card that provides you the best combination of price-to-performance-to-power consumption among the various GPU selection options available on the market.

If you are familiar with mining cryptocurrencies you might already know that, for Ethereum mining purposes on Ethash Algo, AMD cards can outperform Nvidia cards. However, when it comes to the Equihash algorithm, that ZCash uses, using the EWBF Miner, AMD is not able to beat Nvidia. AMD GPU based graphic cards are however more economical as compared to Nvidia graphic cards. NVIDIA GPU In order to be able to properly mine Zcash, you have to select an Nvidia GPU card with at least 1 GB of RAM.

On the other side, compared to Ethereum’s 3 GB requirement, EWBF supports GPUs with just 1 GB of RAM. Another issue to take into consideration is the fact that many older cards may not turn a profit because they are not energy efficient enough. I recommended to choose the. When it comes to mining Zcash, this GPU is able to beat even the powerful and fast. ZCash mining software options Finding the right software is an important step if you want to start mining Zcash.

There is an official Zcash miner software and several types of alternative software that can work with various hardware configurations. The official Zcash miner software is provided by Zcash. This is a complete package that allows users to mine with their CPU and run a full Node.

It also comes with a built-in Wallet for Zcash transactions. However, one of the biggest limitations of the official Zcash software is the fact that in order to mine it only takes advantage of your CPU.

The popular Zcash mining software options for each platform are: CPU • • AMD GPUs • • (Supports Linux and Windows) • Nvidia GPUs • (Supports Linux and Windows) • (Supports Linux and Windows) • – Only works with NiceHash mining pool (Supports Linux and Windows) Once you have your software and hardware set up working, you will need to connect your machine to a ZCash mining pool. ZCash mining pools For many users who are planning to start Zcash mining but don’t have a huge mining farm at their disposal, the way to get Zcash is joining a pool. Users contributing to the pool get a portion of the blocks won by the pool. The portion is based on the percent each users contributed to the pool. However, joining a pool has also some downsides.

You will have to pay pool fees in order to cover server costs. You will also have to trust the pool operator in being honest about the calculations. Some of the recommended Zcash mining pools are: • • • ZCash Algorithm You need to be aware of the fact that ZCash uses a different hashing algorithm than Bitcoins. This means that ZCash is incompatible with the special hashing hardware (ASICs) that has been developed for Bitcoin mining. The algorithm for ZCash mining is called Equihash. It is designed to resist the development of ASICs for ZCash mining, being a memory-hard algorithm. However, Equihash is best suited instead for GPU mining.

ZCash also differs from Bitcoin because it features a built-in privacy protocol that is known as zk-SNARKS. The privacy protocol has been designed to become the leading privacy-based crypto in the market, competing with other privacy coins such and Dash. Compared to Bitcoins’ 10-minute blocks, the block time of ZCash is 2.5-minute. Each ZcCsh solved block produces a block reward of 10 coins. Since its launch in 4Q 2016, the total network hashrate has been climbing rapidly. The amount of hardware dedicated to ZCash mining is rising. Up-to-date figures for current block times, prices, and network hashrates are provided on the website.

As mentioned above, there are many software configurations matching the hardware options for mining ZCash. Among them, we will focus in this guide to provide a step by step walk-through of using the popular Nvidia EWBF Miner.

The software can work with AMD cards, however it is not optimized for them and therefore it is not your most profitable option. However, in case that you have Nvidia cards, then using the EWBF Miner for mining ZCash on Nvidia GPUs can be profitable. The software is highly optimized for Nvidia’s Cuda cores, being able to get the maximum performance. The process of downloading your miner, getting set up, setting up your batch file and configuring Windows, would take less than 20 minutes. Step-by-step ZCash mining instructions for Windows If you have a GPU that’s powerful enough, we will assume that you are running a Windows operating system. In this step-by-step guide, we will focus on instructions on mining ZCash on that platform.

My choices are as follows: • Hardware – Nvidia 1070 GTX GPU • Software – EWBF ZCash Miner • Mining Pool – Suprnova.cc Let’s get started with the step-by-step guide. • First step is to install your video card drivers You have to navigate to the URL address in order to get the latest Nvidia GeForce drivers. Click Start Search after entering your card info.

From the results, choose to download the current version. Your GPU drivers should be installed as you normally would.

Reboot your computer after the installation is done. If you go to Device Manager you can check if your GPU has been recognized correctly. No warning marks on your GPUs should appear in the Device Manager. Some miners have reported being successful in installing the drivers after installing all GPUs at once. Some others prefer to install just install first only one GPU card, then shut down the system after installing the drivers. After the system is restarted they install the rest of the GPUs. You may be successful with both ways of doing the GPU card install.

However, in case that you have problems with one method, you can just try the other method after deleting the drivers. You may use Guru3d.com’s Display Driver Uninstaller application in case that you need to remove your drivers. After uninstalling everything cleanly, you can start over. • Getting a wallet address for ZCash You will need to have a ZCash wallet address if you want to be able to make transactions with ZCash digital currency. The most reliable option is to visit the official Zcash website,, and download their Zcash client. You may also choose to use a hardware wallet such as, or Trezor. Another option is to mine directly to exchanges that have support, such as Bittrex.

• EWBF Zcash Miner download In order to be able to mine Zcash you need to have a Zcash mining software. We will focus here on the EWBF Miner. It is recommended to always download miners only from the. You will see several different download options if you scroll down. Choose the EWBF Miner. Locate its most recent version and use the Mega or Google drive link to download the zip file.

Allow the file run on your computer and extract it to your desktop once you have it downloaded. You need to be aware of the fact that Windows may provide a warning when you download self-contained miner files. • Before mining, tweak some Windows settings You have to modify some settings in Windows in order to get your system ready for mining. It is recommended to not allow your computer going into Sleep mode, because your mining will be interrupted.

Turn off/Sleep to Never in your Power Settings. Another tweak that is recommended for improving your Zcash mining performance is modifying your system page file by setting it manually to 16 GB or, more exactly, to 16384 MB. In order to do this, you have to right click from Windows Explorer on “This PC” and then click on “Advanced system setting” after choosing “Properties”. Under Performance, click “Settings” on the Advanced tab.

Under Virtual Memory, click “Change” then uncheck the option to “Automatically manage paging file”. For Custom Size, click the radio button. For the Initial size and Maximum size enter 16384, then click OK. You may also disable Windows Updates, in order to minimize the disruptions to your settings and mining. Frequent updates will stop your mining when rebooting your system. Also add an exclusion if you are running an antivirus program such as Windows Defender, so that it doesn’t flag the entire EWBF folder.

Who Has Mined The Most Zcash ZEC. • Configure your mining bat file and set up pool mining after joining the pool of your choice Until you have multiple GPU systems for mining, it is unlikely to make any ZCash with solo mining. For that reason, it is recommended to select a ZCash mining pool to join. There are many mining pool options to choose from.

Can You Actually Make Money From Gulden NLG Mining. My recommendation goes to. You will usually find instructions on how to mine on the pool by using the EWBF Miner. Create an account on Suprnova and add a worker.The information is available on the home page.

You will have to copy the miner script example and paste the string into the suprnova.bat file inside the EWBF Miner folder that you have extracted earlier. The miner application is run by the commands given by the bat batch file. Miner.exe –server zec.suprnova.cc –user suprnova.1 –pass x –port 2142 –cuda_devices 0 1 2 3 On the bat file called “suprnova.bat” you have to right click and hit Edit. This will open the file in Notepad.

Paste there the above script you have copied from the suprnova website. When you are done, save your file with the.bat extension, as a batch file. Also do not forget to add your ZCash wallet address to the suprnova account settings page. • Start mining ZCash In order to start the miner, double-click your bat file. After starting, the miner will initialize each of your GPUs. Conclusion I hope that this guide will prove to be useful for you when you are planning to start mining for ZCash. Mining cryptocurrencies is always risky, but it can be a good investment based on your mining setup and the cost of electricity where you are located. Cryptocurrency mining is a very resource-intensive activity.

You may want to look at a system that is power-effective. Most miners operate bare-bone systems specially targeted towards mining also known as mining rigs.

The graphic adapters are slightly under-volted and sometimes over-clocked to reduce power consumption. This also provides better hash power.

You need to understand and assess if mining is really worth it. Let me know in the comments section, what you think of this guide to Mining ZCash. Also feel free to share this on your social networks, so your crypto friends can benefit.

This is a re-write of “”. Please note: Everything in this article is just advice based on our best understanding of the current situation. (also referred to as Bgold, and trading under the ticker BTG) November 12, 2017. Since the Bitcoin blockchain technically forked on Bitcoin block 491407, anyone who held bitcoin (BTC) on October 24, 2017 should have an equivalent amount of BTG attributed to their Bitcoin private keys.

In our, we explained how to secure your private keys so you could be sure to access your BTG and B2X. The B2X fork has since been by the leaders of that project, however, and it currently seems very unlikely to happen in any serious way. As such, this follow-up article explains how you can claim (and potentially use) your BTG — only your BTG. Be Careful Good news: Bitcoin Gold enforces strong replay protection. This means you can’t accidentally spend your BTC when you mean to spend BTG or vice versa.

As such, if you don’t care about BTG at all right now, you don’t need to do a thing. You can just keep using bitcoin as you always have. If you ever change your mind (and don’t lose your Bitcoin private keys in the meantime), you can still claim your BTG at any point in the future. Likewise, if you want to hold onto your BTG long term, you also don’t need to do anything right now. You can keep using BTC as if nothing happened; just make sure to never lose your private keys. (In both these cases, however, it could come in handy to keep a record of the Bitcoin addresses that stored your bitcoins at the time of the split. This is not strictly necessary, but your future self may thank you if you do it.

You should be able to find this information in your wallet of choice, though where you find it may differ a little bit from wallet to wallet. Alternatively, you could move all your coins to a new address. If you then look up all your transactions since October 25, 2017, and note which addresses spent coins since that date, you know which addresses held coins at the time of the split.) Now let’s assume you do care about BTG right now, at least enough to want to sell your share. (1 BTG is trading around 0.02 BTC at the time of writing of this article, so you could earn a 2 percent “dividend” on your BTC if you decide to sell.) If you followed the advice outlined in our beginner’s guide, the good news is that you should be in full control of your Bitcoin private keys. This means you now hold BTC as well as BTG. The bad news is that it’s not necessarily easy or safe to claim your BTG. If you’re using insecure (or even malicious) software, you may accidentally expose your private keys.

And because these are the same private keys that secure your BTC, this exposure could lead to your BTC being stolen. You stand to lose much more from losing your BTC than you stand to gain from selling your BTG. Therefore, you are going to want to take your time and make sure you understand what you are doing well enough to do it without exposing your private keys. Your BTG isn’t going anywhere. Accessing Your Coins In our beginner’s guide to surviving the Bgold (and SegWit2x) forks, we explained how to secure your private keys and recommended different wallet options. Here, you can find, per option, how to access your BTG.

Note that while it’s not strictly necessary in all cases, it’s probably best to first move your bitcoins (BTC) to a new address, or even a whole new wallet with a new seed, before you even touch your BTG. This way you don’t add any security risks, while it’s potentially also a bit better for privacy. (More on this below.) Update: It was to us that the Coinomi wallet is now. This means that you should definitely follow the suggested advice, and first move your BTC to a new address or a whole new wallet with a new seed before inserting your private keys into the Coinomi wallet!

Paper Wallet The first recommendation in our beginner’s guide to surviving the Bgold (and SegWit2x) forks was to use a paper wallet. This advice was given in the context of storing your coins long term in particular. But if you want to access your BTG, you can, of course, do this right away. However, the point of a paper wallet really is that your private keys are not stored in any device that could be hacked.

Therefore, if you’re going to upload your private key into a Bitcoin Gold wallet, you should definitely create a whole new paper wallet with a new private key for your bitcoin (BTC). It’s probably best to then first sweep your private keys with a Bitcoin (BTC) wallet, and then send the coins to this new paper wallet for BTC. And are two wallets that allow you to sweep Bitcoin private keys. Look for the “sweep” option in the menus of these wallets; that’s where you can scan the QR-code displayed on your paper wallet.

(Alternatively, you could type in the private key.) Once you’ve done this, send the bitcoins to the new paper wallet. Once your bitcoins are stored safely on the new paper wallet (ideally after at least one confirmation), the old paper wallet still holds the BTG.

Now, the same trick must be repeated to access your BTG. Electrum does not support BTG, but Coinomi does. Coinomi also published a explaining exactly how to access your BTG.

This includes instructions for paper wallets. Regular Wallet Our second recommendation was to use a regular wallet, as listed on. How to access your BTG if you were using a regular wallet differs from one wallet to the next. But in most cases, Coinomi is once again the best wallet to import your keys into. While originally written for Bitcoin Cash, explains exactly how to make that switch for a number of wallets. (Just mentally replace “BCH” for “BTG” wherever relevant.) Full Node Wallet Our third recommendation was to use a full node wallet, like.

These wallets store your private keys in a dedicated folder on your computer. You can make a backup of this folder using the menu in your wallet and select “Backup wallet.” Once you’ve done this, you should be able to import this backup into the Bitcoin Gold full node. But once again, it’s a lot easier (and possibly even safer) to export your private keys from your Bitcoin full node and import them into the Coinomi mobile wallet. While originally written for Bitcoin Cash, explains how to do that for BTG as well. (Just mentally replace “BCH” for “BTG” wherever relevant.) Hardware Wallet We also recommended using a hardware wallet to keep your private keys secure — though we also noted that these wallets don’t necessarily make it easy to access your BTG. Indeed, at the time of writing, no hardware wallet has enabled access to BTG.

However, and have published blog posts indicating that they will be working on it. If you use either of these wallets, keep an eye out for announcements on their social media or blogs. and have also published blog posts on the Bgold fork, suggesting they might support it; but they don’t support it yet.

Keep an eye on their social media and blog to see if that changes. Other (Non-bitcoin.org) Wallets, Exchanges, etc. If you did not follow our advice and instead stored your BTC in any other wallet, or on an exchange, or anywhere else, you may or may not still be able to claim your BTG. In this case, you’ll have to figure out for yourself whether this is the case or not, and how to do so. This may, once again, be of help for some wallets.

(Just mentally replace “BCH” for “BTG” wherever relevant.) Using (or Selling) Your BTG Once you have claimed your BTG, you can use it however you please. Just like any other altcoin, you could, for example, sell it for BTC or perhaps spend it somewhere if it’s accepted for payment, etc. If you decide to sell your BTG, there are a number of exchanges where you can do this. The Bitcoin Gold website lists most of them. (Which of these you decide to trust is up to you; we’re not giving any particular advice.) But there are three more factors to keep in mind before doing so.

The first factor is privacy. Your public keys (which are linked to your BTC and BTG addresses) are identical for BTC and BTG. This means that whenever you spend your BTG (for example, to send them to an exchange), you do not only reveal your BTG addresses but also your BTC addresses. This can, in turn, reveal a lot about your current holdings as well as your past and future transactions and can even, by extension, reveal other data about people or entities you transact with.

Make sure you are comfortable with giving up this privacy if you are going to send your BTG to an exchange or anywhere else. The second factor is mostly theoretical at this point but worth a quick mention nonetheless: security. By revealing your public key when spending BTG, you strip away one layer of cryptographic security, even for your BTC addresses. This doesn’t mean that your BTC are insecure right now, but there is an increased chance that your BTC won’t be secure at some point in the (far) future when this particular cryptographic standard is weakened. It is, therefore, best to move your BTC to a new address, at least some time within the next couple of years. The third factor was already mentioned but bears repeating: If you’re using insecure software to claim your BTG, your BTC may be at risk. It’s probably best to move your BTC to a new address or even a whole new wallet with a new wallet seed before you even start meddling with BTG — regardless of which wallet you were using.

That way, if you do mess up with insecure BTG software, you shouldn’t lose your BTC. So, to Recap 1. You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to, and there is no rush. If your private keys are secure, your BTG is secure.

If you want to use your BTG in any way, it’s probably best to first move your BTC to a whole new address that you control, or even to a whole new wallet generated from a new seed. (But don’t lose your old private keys or seed: These still hold your BTG!) 3. Once you know what you’re doing, upload your private keys into a Bitcoin Gold wallet, like Coinomi. Then you can keep it, spend it, perhaps send it to an exchange to sell or whatever it is you want to do with your “free money.” The post appeared first on.

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