Hello. And so, the first article on this site, or rather instructions for mining monero on a processor. Many people ask, what about cryptocurrency mining on a CPU (processor), so I decided to write. Here we will describe in detail. Mining Monero on a CPU is not much different from mining on a video card. We will configure the miner, select a pool and wallet. You can also mine Monero on a Video Card.
Updated!
There was another hardfork, if you see the message you must update your xmr miners before block 1685555 (October 18th) or they will stop working, we need to update the miners, we will redo the article in the near future.
Monero has switched to the new cryptonightv8 algorithm. We have reworked the article for this algorithm.
Why is Monero worth the attention of new miners?
The RandomX algorithm mentioned above has helped maintain its popularity among miners who are not ready to invest in purchasing an ASIC, and, according to the developers, this powerful equipment poses a threat to the XMR ecosystem.
The potential centralization of the network, which poses a threat to the privacy of the cryptocurrency, is what the creators of Monero feared, and it seems they have succeeded in fulfilling their goal. At this point in time, mining this digital currency on a CPU looks much more profitable than if you use an ASIC or GPU to complete this task.
Accordingly, now the answer to the question “how to mine Monero?” looks obvious and, of course, this cryptocurrency looks extremely attractive to novice miners.
System Requirements (Windows)
If the application does not launch as expected, make sure that the Visual Studio libraries are installed. You can download them from https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=746572
The miner console looks like this:
program console
In the folder with the program you will find instructions in Russian and an example of a bat file and configuration:
program files
How to mine Monero on a CPU?
First of all, before you start mining equipment, you should get a wallet to store this cryptocurrency (of course, if you don’t already have one). Everything is simple here - choose between GUI Wallet, Exodus Wallet, Monerujo, MyMonero, Monero Paper Wallet or even Ledger Nano. Of course, we would recommend that you give preference to GUI Wallet from the Monero developers.
Next, you need to decide whether you are going to mine alone (solo) or join a pool. Choosing the first option is not advisable, since due to the impressive competition, the difficulty of the Moner network is quite high, which means you will almost certainly have to wait a long time to find a block and receive a reward.
Using pools for mining Monero is an order of magnitude more profitable solution (it’s easy to set up and “stabilizes” income). Here are some interesting projects that you should pay attention to (data at the time of publication of this article):
| Name | Pool hashrate |
| 2miners | 18.35 MH/s |
| Minergate | 12.6MH/s |
| Minexmr | 853 MH/s |
Once you have decided which mining pool you are going to use, you will need to download the Monero mining software. Please, the two best options are XMR-STAK-RX and XMRIG . You can find and download both software absolutely free on github.com.
Features of Monero mining
A simple algorithm for mining Monero
The Monero platform operates in accordance with the PoW (proof of work) algorithm, the CryptoNight mining protocol using obfuscation (functions of obfuscation of the source code of the program - bringing it into a form that preserves functionality, but makes it difficult to understand the algorithm of work, analysis and modification during the decompilation process ).
The volume of Monero emission is not limited, but after the number of coins reaches 18 million, the amount of payments to miners for confirming a block will decrease to 0.6 XMR.
The difficulty of mining Monero, as well as other cryptocurrencies, is constantly increasing. The network difficulty adjustment mechanism works as follows:
- every 2 minutes a new XMR coin is mined;
- when new monero miners (computing power) are connected, block confirmation occurs faster;
- as the network complexity increases, the mining interval returns to its original value (2 minutes);
- As the confirmation time for a new block increases, the opposite situation occurs.
At the beginning of April this year, the difficulty of mining on the Monero network reached a record level of 129.6 Gh\sec. At this point, special adjustments were made to the network protocol to combat ASIC miners released by Bitmine. When the goal was achieved and Monero mining on the new equipment became unprofitable, the network complexity returned to 32 Gh\sec, and after some time stabilized at 50-60 Gh\sec.
How to mine Monero (best processors and video cards)?
You definitely shouldn’t have any problems setting up the programs, because if the ones mentioned above are more suitable for experienced users, then there is a considerable amount of software completely for beginners, where you just need to enter your wallet and select a currency before the mining process itself.
But a very important aspect is the selection of equipment. Considering that you can mine Monero even on a home PC (laptop), without creating a farm for this, you can simultaneously use the productive power of the processor and video card. As we said above, GPUs will be less profitable, but since the functionality allows it, it would be a sin not to take advantage of it, especially if it does not cause any harm to the equipment.
So, in order to more clearly demonstrate to you the benefits of mining Monero on the best models of video cards and processors for this business, we have prepared two tables with calculations, which the cryptocalc.online profitability calculator helped us to cope with.
For processors the picture looks like this:
| Model | Profit per day, $ | Profitability per month, $ |
| AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X | 1.64 | 49.07 |
| AMD Ryzen 5 3600X | 0.38 | 11.44 |
| Intel Core i5-7600K | 0.12 | |
| AMD RYZEN 9 3950X | 0.86 | 25.89 |
| AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3960X | 1.64 | 49.14 |
And here are calculations of the profitability of XMR mining using Nvidia or AMD video cards:
| Model | Profit per day, $ | Profit per month, $ |
| AMD Radeon VII | -0.31 | -9.40 |
| AMD Ryzen 5 3600X | -0.33 | -9.83 |
| AMD Vega FE | -0.35 | -10.42 |
| GTX 1080 Ti (2037/11800 MHz) | -0.28 | -8.47 |
At first glance, it may seem that the situation with the GPU looks completely deplorable, but this is far from the case. It’s just that at the time of publication of this article, the XMR coin was valued at $274.96. Accordingly, as soon as the value of this digital currency increases, mining will at least reach self-sufficiency.
It may be hard to believe, but not so long ago it was possible to mine Monero even on a mobile phone, but due to the growing complexity of the network, the profitability, and with it the popularity, of this option for obtaining cryptocurrency dropped sharply to zero.
conclusions
Mining Monero on a CPU is an accessible method for everyone to earn cryptocurrency. The setup process will not take much time. But it’s not worth doing this kind of mining for the sake of making money. CPUs are not able to compete with video cards, and therefore the profit from them is minimal.
This method of obtaining Monero is suitable for people who want to understand the process itself. It can also be tried by crypto enthusiasts who want to know how to mine coins before ASIC and GPU.
If the user already has a powerful processor that is rarely used, you can try to mine some XMR. But even in this case, mining will bring additional electricity consumption and wear out the chip.
Algorithm, complexity and block generation time
Logo.
CryptoNote has a high degree of anonymity; the protocol uses the following technologies:
- ring signatures;
- obfuscation (complicating the code in order to make it more secure).
The Monero code can be viewed on Github github.com/monero-project/monero. The blockchain uses a Proof of Work (PoW) consensus mechanism, which means that cryptocurrency can be mined. XMR emission is not limited.
According to the PoW algorithm, Monero mining can be carried out using the following computer technology:
- CPU. Not the most cost effective option.
- GPU Gives more profit, but also requires some investment.
ASICs for Monero have not yet been assembled.
Formula for calculating the difficulty of mining Monero.
The difficulty of mining Monero is calculated using this algorithm. And this is more difficult than learning how to mine ripple.
Setting up Windows for Monero mining
Before you start mining Monero cryptocurrency, you should disable two system parameters:
- Automatic sleep mode. It is recommended to disable the option in the “Set up power plan” item in the control panel menu.
- Automatic system update. It is recommended to disable Windows Defender and automatic download and installation of updates to save disk space.
Owners of powerful antivirus programs should add the mining client to the exclusion list so that the PC continues to hash blocks stably.
Monero cryptocurrency: brief description
Monero (XMR) is a cryptocurrency focused on increased transaction anonymity. The currency was released in 2014 and initially operated on the CryproNote algorithm. It was this protocol that Bytecoin was based on, and Monero is its popular fork.
It is very interesting that because of this protocol, mining is not compatible with application specific chips (ASICs). It requires more RAM, which contradicts the use of ASIC chips.
The CryptoNight algorithm allows for less expensive calculations, but without loss of power. The subsequent block depends on earlier calculations. Such a system requires the use of two megabytes of RAM.
Pros of XMR mining
- Unlike Bitcoin, there is no limited fixed supply, but it slowly declines over time;
- Minimum periods between intervals (blocks are generated approximately every 2 minutes);
- To obtain power from a PC, both video cards and a processor can be used;
- High profitability;
- There are no ASIC miners, which allows the computational complexity to increase gradually.
The main advantage of Monero (and for some, a disadvantage) is anonymity. This led to its widespread use on the Darknet.
Cryptocurrency has high liquidity, so you can trade on almost all major platforms. In addition, XMR can be exchanged not only for Bitcoin, but also for fiat currency, mainly the dollar.
In general, the advantages for mining are obvious. In addition, it makes sense for novice miners to start with this crypt.
The complexity of the Monero network - does it really matter?
Let us remind you what is the difficulty of Monero? This is a special parameter that determines the probability of finding a new block. It functions as a regulator for the issue of new coins, like Central Banks in the real economy. In addition, it does not provide the ability to concentrate most of the loot in one hand, known as the “51% Attack”.
The parameter increases every 2 thousand blocks, the Monero difficulty graph does not have sharp jumps, which allows you to mine for a long time without a major system update.
In December 2017-January 2022 there was a sharp increase, and the opinion arose that it was too late to invest in Monero and that you should look for something simpler. From the point of view of everyday logic, everything is correct - the more complex, the longer and less profitable.
But for cryptocurrencies, this approach does not work - the difficulty of mining Monero is changed not in order to confuse the miner, but so that, as mentioned above, there is no strong “stuffing” of coins. The time to find the next block always remains at the same level.
But the rewards are falling? Yes, this is true, but it is credited in XMR, and how many rubles or dollars in reality it will depend solely on the exchange rate. The current 12.5 BTC became a huge amount of money only when Bitcoin crossed the $10 thousand mark, and even at $100 it was of little interest to everyone. And the complexity of the network has absolutely nothing to do with it.
It is not possible to mine Monero on ASIC devices, now or in the future. This is the principled position of the developers, for which the algorithm is constantly modified. If ASIC developers find a way to bypass the minor changes, a large-scale hard fork will be made to remove their benefits.
What to do if the equipment power is not enough
Of course, we could buy more video cards and expand the farm, but we will do things differently.
In street racing, chipping is a popular way to speed up a car. This is a reset of all restrictions that are placed on the car. In this way it increases its power.
In mining, you can also overclock your equipment. To do this, install the necessary software:
- ATIWinflash
- Polaris Bios Editor
- GPU-Z
And then the memory frequency performance increases (the main parameter affecting the hashrate).
Second place: AMD Threadripper 3960X
Cores/threads : 24C/48T | Base frequency : 3.8 GHz | Boost frequency : 4.5 GHz | TDP: 280 W | Average hashrate : 25 kH/s.
Pros:
- Excellent value for money and quality.
- Works well at low voltage.
- Very good results in games.
- Supports ECC memory.
May not like:
- It's difficult to overclock.
Prices for Yandex.Market
AMD Threadripper 3960X
If the Threadripper 3990X is too expensive and you want something more affordable for mining Monero, the Threadripper 3960X is the perfect choice. This sub-$1,500 workstation processor has 24 cores and 48 threads and can offer much better price/performance compared to its more powerful brother, the Threadripper 3970X. The 3960X can provide a hashrate of 20 to 27 kH/s on the XMRig 6.6.2 algorithm, which can give a good monthly income.
The great thing about this processor is that it works well at low voltage, but it requires several super-fast DDR4 modules to mine effectively. Overall, the Threadripper 3960X will be a much better replacement for the Threadripper 3990X than the 3970X. It can offer very good mining performance for a reasonable price.
Mining RandomX using the Xmrig program
Similarly, you can use the Xmrig program.
Example batch file for processors:
:start xmrig -a randomx -o pool.supportxmr.com:5555 -u 44tLjmXrQNrWJ5NBsEj2R77ZBEgDa3fEe9GLpSf2FRmhexPvfYDUAB7EXX1Hdb3aMQ9FLqdJ56yaAhiXoRsceGJCRS3Jxkn.rig1 -px —donate-level=1 goto start
Example batch file for AMD:
:start xmrig -a randomx -o pool.supportxmr.com:5555 -u 44tLjmXrQNrWJ5NBsEj2R77ZBEgDa3fEe9GLpSf2FRmhexPvfYDUAB7EXX1Hdb3aMQ9FLqdJ56yaAhiXoRsceGJCRS3Jxkn.rig1 -px —donate-level=1 —open cl goto start
Example batch file for Nvidia:
:start xmrig -a randomx -o pool.supportxmr.com:5555 -u 44tLjmXrQNrWJ5NBsEj2R77ZBEgDa3fEe9GLpSf2FRmhexPvfYDUAB7EXX1Hdb3aMQ9FLqdJ56yaAhiXoRsceGJCRS3Jxkn.rig1 -px —donate-level=1 —c uda goto start
All other configuration examples and downloading xmrig - see the full instructions
Mining XMR tokens on a PC running Windows OS
Due to low technical requirements, XMR can be mined on a modern home PC. Block hashing is possible under Windows, Linux or Mac OS operating systems; the most common is Windows 10.
Cryptocurrency mining requires constant PC operation; a stable Internet connection is required; it is recommended to install an uninterruptible power supply and an additional cooling system. The best option for XMR mining is the MinerGate program.
Mining in the browser
We cannot recommend programs through which Monero is mined in the browser; even the most famous of them, Moneromine, turned out to be a scam.
And there is not a single example where such services did not start to scam some time after their launch. Particularly dangerous are programs that offer not just to watch an advertisement, but to download something. If you receive such a request, you should immediately close the tab and scan your computer with an antivirus, and then open the Task Manager and check the operation of the system. There are malicious scripts that stop executing when the Manager is launched, but they are not installed on browser miners; Trojans are simpler there.
Launching the XMR miner
Applications for hashing Monero blocks start working after opening the executable file (.exe extension). Mining is interrupted after a reboot, antivirus actions, or the PC goes into sleep mode. It is recommended to check the stability of your Internet connection before starting the program.
Tracking results
Monero mining can take place in the background on a home or work PC; the user should monitor productivity and heating indicators of the equipment. The total mining hashrate, operating temperature and the number of coins received are reflected by the mining client or MinerGate statistics.
SRBMiner-MULTI
SRBMiner-MULTI CPU is a program for mining cryptocurrencies using various algorithms for the processor.
AMD GPU Miner is a miner for mining cryptocurrencies on AMD family video cards.
Both programs are included in one release.
Download and configure SRBMiner-MULTI:
In order to start mining we need to create or edit a file with a .bat extension. Specify the following commands in it:
- SRBMiner-MULTI.exe - command to launch the SRBMiner application
- —algorithm randomx — specify the algorithm for mining
- —pool xmr-eu1.nanopool.org — specify the pool address
- 14444 — specify the pool port
- —wallet 44tLjmXrQNrWJ5NBsEj2j77ZBEgDa3fEe9GLpSf2FRmh336xPvfYDUAB7EXX1Hdb3aMQ9FLqdJ56yhk6436eGJCRS3Jxkn.5d3c802ee0f8e12e4eb9792722df3246g54a 42178aa29ef7477c138d2340c55648d indicate coin wallet + Payment ID after the dot. The wallet can be obtained either from the exchange or by installing a Monero cold wallet.
- —gpu-target-temperature 70 — the program will strive to maintain this temperature
- —gpu-off-temperature 83 — the miner will turn off when this temperature is reached and turn on when it drops
- —send-stales — send outdated shares to the pool (some pools partially pay for them or award bonuses).
- —enable-restart-on-rejected — automatically restart the miner if there are too many rejected shares
Sample batch file:
setx GPU_MAX_HEAP_SIZE 100 setx GPU_MAX_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1 setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100 setx GPU_MAX_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT 100 @echo off cd %~dp0 cls set LOGTIME=%date:~10.4%_%date:~4.2%_%date:~7.2%_ %time:~0.2%_%time:~3.2% set LOGTIME=%LOGTIME: =% set LOGTIME=%LOGTIME:,=.%.txt SRBMiner-MULTI.exe --algorithm randomx --pool xmr-eu1 .nanopool.org:14444 —wallet 44tLjmXrQNrWJ5NBsEj2R77ZBEgDa3fEe9GLpSf2FRmhexPvfYDUAB7EXX1Hdb3aMQ9FLqdJ56yaAhiXoRsceGJCRS3Jxkn.5d3c802ee0f8e12e4eb9792722 b7816a42178aa29ef7477c138ddb940c55648d.rig1 pause
The program starts as usual, by double-clicking on the file with the .bat extension
After launching the program, we will see the following window:
We wrote in the batch file only those commands that will help you connect to the pool and start the process of mining cryptocurrency. However, to improve performance, you may need to configure some other command line arguments, depending on your hardware type.
Video card prices in 2022
Today there are no professional video cards on the market designed for mining. However, the reader can always purchase equipment secondhand, which will be much more profitable.
If it is impossible to find top-end Radeon Pro Duo or Radeon R9 290X2 video cards in hardware stores, then we will try to find out for the reader what can replace them on the primary market.
Mining has become an extremely popular activity and therefore today there are very modest proposals left:
Figure 4.5 - the cost of video cards on the primary market From the cards that can be found on the primary market today, you can assemble a good farm that will pay for itself within 4-6 months.
However, you can always purchase equipment with higher performance. We recommend buying video cards from gamers (preferably with a warranty), because the condition of their video cards is much better than that of the owners of mining farms.
