Guide to Solo GPU Mining Ethereum (ETH) on Windows

The ethash software algorithm used to mine the Ethereum cryptocurrency ensures a high mining speed for this coin. Taking this factor into account, any program for mining Ether must support working with this software algorithm, which is responsible for hashing the metadata of the cryptoblock within the cryptosystem, while using nonsense code. The nonce code is a random number that defines the hash function. New blocks within the blockchain set a target size for hashes. All Ether mining users use the computing power of the mining equipment to find the exact nonce value.

The cryptographic principles used for mining Ethereum and underlying such hashing reduce the likelihood of accidentally discovering a nonce value to zero. At the same time, programs for mining Ethereum must comply with the principle of using the computing power of video cards installed on a home PC or in a crypto farm to subsequently launch software hashing.

Probability of success of single alt mining

They say that mining without a pool only works for a few. Yes. But theoretically, there are a ton of calculations for each coin, and the answer to this question depends entirely on the network hashrate and the hardware power of your device.

Solo mining is like a lottery: you can either mine a block or never even make it through long-term mining. Someone faster will contribute blocks faster than you.

However, technically there is a possibility of mining a block if you maintain proper communication with the network.

We completely forget about Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Monero, Zcash and all other popular cryptocurrencies. Solo mining on them is not feasible without very large financial costs. It is possible to find a block of Bitcoin or Ether alone with a power higher than several Pth/s: and the probability is not 100%. It is also worth remembering that the largest pools belong to Bitmain, which produces ASICs. So what's the probability?

This solo mining guide only applies to coins that you can realistically expect results from.

The most suitable ones are the recently launched PoW altcoins, where the network difficulty will be quite low.

There are a lot of new coins that you can choose from, for example, by topics on BitcoinTalk. Not all of them have achieved widespread popularity, and not all of them still have well-functioning pools.

• Problem: you need to research the coin before giving it power. Your real costs must pay off: either the coin must have good liquidity in order to sell new coins for BTC or fiat and recoup spending; or you definitely have to see the future, believe in the project and save coins in the hope of a multiple price increase in the future.

If you feel that the coin is worth your time and resources, then quickly set up your equipment and start solo mining.

conclusions

You can try to mine coins yourself even using a desktop computer with a not particularly powerful processor. The main thing is to find a crypto coin of the required complexity. However, you should not count on high profits or even return on electricity.

For effective solo mining of any popular cryptocurrency, you will need to invest several hundred thousand dollars in equipment.

Mining little-known currencies will not even pay for electricity. Even if you are interested in some new cryptocurrency and want to acquire coins in anticipation of further growth in the rate, you should not rush the equipment. It’s cheaper to just buy coins through an exchanger and not spend money on electricity.

If you have $1000-3000, it’s worth buying equipment and earning crypto coins through any available pool.

Cloud mining should be considered only in cases where it is not possible to invest a large amount. In this case, you can pay to rent equipment in the cloud and use it to mine the most expensive and sought-after coins.

Process for 2022

This guide assumes you have hardware ready (CPU, GPU or ASIC). The solo mining process is very simple (let's briefly describe the steps first):

1. Find a new coin and make sure the network hash is low relative to your power,
2. Install a local wallet,
3. Create a config file, configure the RPC port, make sure the server is configured, etc.
4. Set up the miner,
5. PROFIT!

Precautionary measures:

• Make a backup of your wallet,
• Encrypt your wallet
• Never add an external IP address to the configuration file.

General settings

If you decide to try yourself solo, you need to complete the following settings before starting passive income:

1. Select a coin using personal observations or according to the recommendations of a special calculator.
2. Determine which wallet is designed to store it, install it.
3. Create a configuration file with the correct settings.
4. Select the appropriate miner and specify the necessary parameters.
5. Start mining tokens.

Equipment

The rule is that the larger the hash, the better. However, the equipment and the possibility of its use will depend on the complexity of the network and the specifications of the mining algorithm.

The most rational option would be to purchase several ASICs. There is a catch: ASICs come with presets for a specific mining algorithm. In the case of new coins, if you plan to change them frequently, it is better to choose devices that support several algorithms. Such options are provided by Baikal miner, for example.

PS According to some reviews, it is more profitable in terms of payback to mine on powerful video cards than to purchase ASICs. Look already from a specific coin and business plan!

Also take into account market volatility, dips in coin prices: to calculate payback, choose the most pessimistic scenario.

There are practically no cases of mining on an ordinary video card or CPU; there is a lot of competition. Without spending money on equipment, try running a masternode on new coins.

Step by step:

1. See the current hardware on the market: for example, AMD RX 480 is better for Ethash, and GTX 1060 cards are more suitable for the Equihash algorithm.
2. Calculate its cost
3. Please take into account delivery times and possible problems with customs,
4. At this step, a) the choice of coin for solo mining depends on your financial capabilities; b) abandoning this idea in favor of a pool; c) complete refusal of mining in favor of PoS or masternodes.

Why miners prefer to work in a pool

The cryptocurrency asset market is developing, the number of owners of personal farms is increasing, and solo mining is becoming less profitable than mining in pools. Even with 2–10 “top” video cards, large players will not be able to compete with farms that occupy an area of ​​​​several hectares. The reward for forming a block goes to only one user, even if the other was one step away from the final calculation.

It is more convenient for miners to be in a large pool. Their share is always high, as it is proportional to the contribution of productivity. There is a guarantee of receiving cryptocurrency, albeit in a smaller volume. This tactic is especially relevant when working with cryptocurrencies from the Top 10 by market capitalization, where the difficulty of mining is too high. You can calculate the possibility using a calculator.

For example, let's talk about Bitcoin and why this coin is not listed in the results on WhatToMine . Mining with a hash of 1 PtH/s has a 95% success rate. The probability is high, but not absolute , so it is unwise to invest 200 thousand dollars in the hope of receiving 12.5 tokens in six months. At any time, the investment may not pay off.

Cryptocurrency for solo mining

For both this and the previous step, we will turn to WhatToMine (you can skip this section if you have experience with this site), and then we will provide a list of suitable cryptocurrencies for solo.

WhatToMine - instructions for beginners

There are certain factors that you should consider first:

• cost of electricity,
• complexity.

We wrote about electricity prices in this article. You look at the rest in receipts for rent, and convert this price kWh into dollars.

The difficulty of coins is constantly growing, this is a dynamic indicator. But WhatToMine updates the information.

WhatToMine.com is a cryptocurrency mining profitability calculator. It uses several data points and helps you decide which coin will generate the most returns based on your conditions. Before you get started, the only information you should know is your GPU (or ASIC) model and power cost.

1. Go to whattomine.com
2. At the top there are several fields for commonly used graphics card models: the top row is for AMD cards, and the bottom row is for NVIDIA.
3. If your card model is listed there, simply enter the number of your cards.
4. Let's assume we have prepared 3 GTX1060 cards. Enter in the appropriate field. Click on 1060 so that the button turns green (for AMD it will be red). If you have a combination of different models, enter their quantities in different fields.

On this site it is important to find out the entire hash that your equipment has for different algorithms.

Here you can open a random coin from the list and see the network hashrate and the profit from mining on your equipment:

Knowing your hash, look:

• network hashrate,
• complexity,
• block generation time.

You can search for specific coins sorted by network hashrate here (the site, unfortunately, is not very convenient). Let's provide some data from it here.

Neoscrypt Algo:

• DSR - 231.9 Mh/s,
• GOA - 1,179.6 Mh/s,
• VIVO - 1,196.1 Mh/s,
• FTC - 5,595.9 Mh/s

But the data quickly becomes outdated. It is difficult to give a real working list of cryptocurrencies for their evaluation. The best strategy is to watch announcements on BitcoinTalk for projects that support PoW. Coins based on Ethereum Classic and unpromoted ETH coins with the Ethash algorithm are considered suitable for testing.

We also wrote about new cryptocurrencies for mining in this article.

By the way, there is a separate calculator for calculating CryptoNight solo mining: https://solomining.net/

Advantages and disadvantages of the site

Speaking about 2Miners, you can without hesitation note its undeniable advantages:

A large selection of cryptocurrencies for mining, including both popular coins and developing projects;

Open statistics for all users for each pool;

Simple and intuitive interface;

Detailed instructions for setting up pools, thanks to which even a beginner can easily set up any device;

A large library of knowledge that helps miners improve their skills and earn more from mining;

Russian-speaking support and the ability to communicate both via online chat and email;

Telegram bots to control the operation of your farms and notify you about found blocks.

Having tested 2Miners from personal experience, we can say that no obvious shortcomings were identified. Let's see what regular pool users note. Is he really that perfect?

Technical details

Let us describe the standard procedure. In the example on the CPU, but the same applies to the GPU and ASIC. There are two methods:

1. using the same computer on which the wallet runs,
2. using a farm where the wallet is not running.

There is no need for a client for the pool. Just enter your address, username and password. However, for mining without a pool, you need to configure your local environment and enable the RPC port. Follow these steps.

1 option

1. Download and install the wallet (client) for the coin you want to mine solo.
2. Wait for full synchronization.
3. Once the blockchain is completely downloaded, close the wallet and open its configuration file.
4. In the configuration file, enter the following commands:

   
   rpcuser=USERNAME rpcpassword=PASSWORD rpcallowip=127.0.0.1 rpcport=9999 server=1 listen=1 daemon=1

5. The name, password, and port can be changed as desired. rpcallowip — local IP address of the system. Only IP addresses connected to a private network can be allowed: type 127.0.0.1, 192.168.1.1, 192.168.1; rpcport is a way to identify a machine.
6. This data must be the same in the miners configuration file.
7. Download mining software that supports solo and configure it accordingly. For example, ccminer.
8. In the miner settings, specify the same IP, port, username and password as in the wallet config.
9. Save the batch file and run the miner.
10. You are mining!

Option 2

Mining from devices where the wallet is not configured.

For security reasons, wallets are usually not installed on equipment. For a solo miner, you need to connect it to the computer where the wallet is running. For this you will need:

1. The internal IP address of your PC on which the wallet is running,
2. Internal IP address of mining machines.

Your WiFi router will automatically assign a local IP address to your computer and each of your mining rigs. This local IP address is only accessible on a private network, so it is secure.

Find out your IP:

1. open command line,
2. In the command prompt window, type ipconfig and press enter (or options in Connection Properties)
3. You will see Ipv4, this will be the address of the specific machine.

4. Get this IPv4 address for both the PC and the rig. Next, follow these steps:
5. Close the wallet, open your wallet configuration file and resolve all received IPs: repeat the rpcallowip parameter with all addresses.
6. Save the file and keep your wallet open.
7. In the miner, enter your wallet's IP address in the URL field of the batch file.
8. Save it, then run it.
9. If it works, use these bat file settings for everyone.

Programs

When choosing a program (client application) for Ethereum mining, you need to study the product specification:

• for which cards it is intended (AMD or NVIDIA);
• for which OS (Windows, Linux and others);
• What are the royalties for using the software?

Claymore's Dual program for joint mining of Ethereum and Decred

Software for multi-currency mining. It is popular among miners, since the passive algorithm (Ethash is considered active) slightly (within 5%) reduces the hashrate of the main currency (Ethereum). An opportunity for additional income is created. The best option among additional currencies (ETC, SC, EXP, DCR, LBRY, Blake2s) is Decred.

The software is intended only for working in a pool; eth solo mining is not supported. There are versions for 64-bit Windows and Linux. The commission is charged in dual mode (ETH+DCR - 2%) and along when mining Ethereum (1%). There are no commissions for other altcoins, including Decred. Different versions have been developed for AMD and NVIDIA cards.

EthMiner miner program and its configuration

The miner is highly productive and is designed taking into account the specifics of Ethereum mining on NVIDIA chips and is compatible with AMD cards. The software has open GitHub code, is available for all popular operating systems, and updates are released periodically.

The setup consists of creating a bat file. Necessary:

• Create a file with the extension .bat.

• Write memory release commands:

• Write the main line of the script:

Explanation of parameters:

• G — GPU usage (for CPU, respectively, C);
• U - for NVIDIA cards, access to CUDA cores at startup;
• F — pool identifier (hereinafter referred to as address);
• login — login to EthMiner.

After the colon, the address specifies the port that should be open.

Then you need to do a test run, then fine tuning.

For fine tuning, change the line:

The cl-local-work parameter is 256 for profile devices, 128 for PCs.

Test command for AMD cards:

Test command for NVIDIA cards:

OpenCL commands need to be placed in a new bat file.

Functionality check

First, to make sure you are on the right path, check the height of the block. Open your wallet, go to the Debug console window and type getmininginfo which will give you the block height. In addition to this, you can also use the block explorer on the internet.

Further, unlike mining in a pool, you will not see accepted or rejected shares. When you succeed in obtaining a block, you see a corresponding message. The reward for the block you solved will be immediately reflected in the wallet you entered into the miner's batch file.

Frequent errors: Empty data received in JSON-RPC call, get_work failed, retry after 30 seconds // unknown option.

These are two common errors and mean that solo mining is not supported. Most new coins have removed the getwork command and only support getblocktemplate.

If you cannot find a miner that supports soloing, for such coins, either set up a node pool locally or join a pool.

Definition

First you need to understand what is behind the words “solo mining”. This is a cash mining process where only the user’s own equipment is used. The miner takes on all the risks, as well as the reward if the block was able to be formed. One thing is clear: if the computer power is too low, it is better to find a suitable pool and become part of a single team.

When people uninterested in cryptocurrency hear about mining, the first thing they associate is Bitcoin. Indeed, the two most popular virtual currencies not so long ago went to miners without divisions in the pool.

Even a home computer could process encrypted data, and the user would receive payment in the form of a few coins, the value of which is now hundreds and thousands of times higher than it was then.

The difficulty increases regularly due to the large flow of people who want to make money on cryptocurrency without buying it. This has led to the fact that such mining is now only relevant for new tokens that have great potential, but a low price, unless there are huge farms, which is a priori inaccessible to the majority.

How to setup

One of the advantages of ASICs over video cards and FPGAs is that they do not need to be configured, since they are already tailored to a specific algorithm. The only thing you need to do is check if the connectors are connected correctly. After this, you can turn on the ASIC.

Before the equipment is in operating mode, the Fault indicator may flash. However, this will take a few minutes. Then you need to find out the IP of the device and enter it in the address bar of the browser. This will take you to the ASIC web interface (similar to a Wi-fi router). Default access: login and password - root.

The interesting point is that if everything is connected correctly, the miner will immediately start working by connecting to the manufacturer’s pool. To fix this, you need to enter your data so that you, and not the equipment supplier, earn money.

To do this, you need to first register on the pool and create a worker there. After connecting the miner, in its settings you need to enter your data instead of the pool specified there. Next, you reboot the ASIC, and it starts working for you.

Bottom line

Mining cryptocurrencies like Ethereum is a really difficult process. Therefore, I wish you to carefully understand all the nuances, assemble the system as quickly as possible and find your favorite pool. Do not forget to double-check the program and bat settings, because this is fraught with failures, and as a result, loss of time, or even equipment breakdown. Be careful, because every mistake is a step back. But the number of blocks only goes forward.

Successful mining to you, and let the coolers work without interruptions!

Maximum effect

The right approach is very important for maximum profitability at the lowest cost. Not every build allows you to earn large sums, even if it is very productive.

The choice of brand does not particularly affect production, so you can buy both Nvidia and Radeon video cards. Similarly with the choice of processor: Intel and AMD will be equally good (although the first is recommended more often due to stability). However, you need to select a specific model. For this, it is best to consult with experts as they know the ins and outs of each card or CPU in relation to many cryptocurrencies.

Characteristics of Ether production

If you are reading this article, then you already know very well what mining is in general. Therefore, I will immediately tell you about the technical details of ETH mining. The Proof-of-Work protocol is used to confirm the solution of each block. Thus, in order to mine Ether, you will need to use the processing power of your computer or mining equipment.

Since Ether is called the second generation of Bitcoin, it would be logical to compare the main indicators of their mining. After all, every miner loves ETH very much, since solving its blocks is many times easier than BTC.

Source: bitinfocharts.com (03/05/2018)

Ethereum mining is superior to Bitcoin in all respects. Due to the short time it takes for new blocks to appear and their small size, the solution occurs relatively quickly, which attracts miners.

One reason for this speed is the hashing algorithm - it proves that computing power was actually used to do the work. This algorithm is called ethash and is a kind of alternative to SHA3-256. It uses a nonce code, which implies a random binary number. This is what sets the unique hash value.

Thanks to this, random selection of the required code for a solution is impossible, so you need to cycle through all the solutions until you select the right one. This search constitutes the Ethereum mining process.

Simplified hashing

The Cryptonight algorithm was developed to increase the anonymity of transactions. This is achieved thanks to a certain darkening of several sections of the code of each coin, as well as the so-called “mixing”. Thus, tracking transactions is much more difficult.

As for mining, the load on the equipment is significantly reduced. Your system will solve blocks efficiently despite average or even low performance. This is achieved due to the fact that it is not based on computing power (the speed of solving functions), but on the speed of access to the memory of the equipment.

What is Ethereum Classic?

This is a fork of regular Ether, which was formed several years ago, due to the disagreement of many people with the Dao hard fork. Let's step back from the organizational issue. We are not historians who speak in quotes from Wikipedia. In simple words, Ethereum Classic is the same blockchain as its “dad”, it is a large virtual machine that supports applications with smart contracts (transactions).

In fact, at the moment, Ether Classic is the same regular Ether in 2016-2017. It is characterized by the possibility of mining on graphics accelerators, there is protection against ASICs, the difficulty bomb is remote, and the small size of the DAG file.