Beginners guide to mining?

GhengisKhan

Supreme [H]ardness
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May 16, 2005
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I have not been able to figure out what I need to start mining. Has anyone written or found what would be considered a beginners guide to crypto mining?
I am not looking to get into it for anything more than a few extra bucks to spend on stuff like maybe buying a new PC game every so often, or small in-game purchases (skins and crates in CS:GO, etc...), and as a learning experience.
Current rig has an AMD 8320E @ 4.4GHz and an ASUS ROG Strix 1070 8G @ 2063MHz
I have no plans to buy any additional hardware.
Power cost is very low, I only pay 1/2 of the electric bill, and even then it's only about $0.065Kw/h.

1) What type of coins should I consider mining with only the hardware listed above?
2) How would I go about creating a wallet, and what options are there?
3) How do you go about spending / withdrawing money from these wallets?
4) How is mining done anyway? What software, and where would I get it from?
 
So, I will take a stab at this -

<As of the post date of this message>
  • What type of coins should I consider mining with only the hardware listed above?
CPU = Cryptonight (XMR)

NVidia = Tier 1 Algorithms : [ Equihash / Neoscrypt / Lyra2RE2 ]
Tier 2 Algorithms : [ Cryptonote / Ethereum Dual ]

Forget about mining out individual coins until you have a good "feel" for things in general.
  • How would I go about creating a wallet, and what options are there?
Online service = Use Coinbase / Kraken (US) / Blockchain.org (wallet only for now)

Offline = paper wallet to put your coin in cold storage
  • How do you go about spending / withdrawing money from these wallets?
Coinbase or Kraken account can cash out to bank account (KYC laws apply)

Gyft (gift cards)
  • How is mining done anyway? What software, and where would I get it from?
Individual miners (the software) i.e. DSTM / EWBF / CCMiner / Claymore / XMR_Stack / SGMiner / Excavator all are tuned individually to mine out specific algorithms.

Nicehash (NH) - Fire n Forget Route

Download their Nicehash Legacy Miner and configure it to hit a specific set of algorithms generally most profitable for your card. NH will automatically mine out the best profit coin of the algorithms you have enabled. NH then auto-converts to btc and your deposits in your "internal" wallet. Read up on how they handle fees, this internal wallet, and how their internal wallet differs than a real bitcoin wallet.

Other Options - Manual

Awesome Miner handles your local miner, its pool connection, and profit-switching. Same concept as NH, except more manual in the sense you need to manage pools (different types of coins).


 
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I used nicehash before, and am currently using MiningPoolHub.com with EWBF miner, and I am enjoying mining zcash directly and having it auto-switch to VTC... no minimums really and constant VTC payouts :)
 
The type of coins you should be mining will vary from person to person. I'm personally on the Electroneum bandwagon. They have a great dev team behind them and just pushed out their mobile app a few days ago. They should hit at least a dollar by the end of the year.

I'll be pulling in around 100 coins a day by next Tuesday when I get my other RX 56.
 
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