Step-by-Step Ethereum Mining Guide for GPU and CPU

The second most popular digital coin after Bitcoins is Ethereum. The main reason of its success is hidden in high price per coin and in the mining community support. As a rule, this cryptocurrency is perceived as the digital asset because it is the inflation coin.

This article will explain how to start the mining process, mention the procedure difficulties and equipment you can use to make it real.

Ethereum Mining Guide: Where to Start, Main Settings and Equipment

They mine Ethereum on devices called mining farms, and also on ASIC and in clouds. Most frequently, the currency is mined with the first method. Points to start with:

• Create a wallet to keep your cryptocurrency safe and initiate transactions. Experts recommend using the Ledger Nano S storage that supports over 1000 different tokens, is almost impossible to hack, not connected to the network, and coins are withdrawn through the special device looking like a USB flash drive.
• Install the special software and choose the pool. The participant needs to connect to the mining community, as it is impossible to mine currency alone.
• Choose mining hardware: AMD GPU’s (video cards), ASIC devices.

Before you start mining, it is recommended to calculate the profitability using calculators.

Pool Choice: What is That? Choosing Criteria

As we mentioned earlier, it is impossible to mine ethereum alone. To mine currency, users unite into special communities they call pools. The need to create such unions appeared because of the algorithms serving as basic ones for Ethereum mining. Such algorithms cut the possibility for someone to earn alone, so miners are made to unite with each other.

When choosing the pool, you should keep up with some important points:              

• Better prefer multicurrency pools allowing you switching to other currencies;
• Well-known communities should be prior. New pools may have insufficient power that causes negative impact on earnings;
• In 99% of all cases, pool should be online. It is recommended to avoid communities staying offline all the time;
• One of the important marks of a good and reliable union is openness. Every miner should have free access to data about other users’ currency mining.

It is critical to understand that the choice of the right pool will have positive impact on profits. Here are pools with good reputation: Nanopool and Ethermine.

Ethereum Mining Hardware

To start mining money, you need to get “armed” with specialized equipment. To start mining you’ll need GPU’s most suitable for Ethereum:

• RX470/480;
• RX570/580

You should build a farm on them consistent of: 1-19 video cards with at least 4 gigabytes of memory, RAM, a motherboard, a CPU, risers, a power supply unit, and an SSD or HDD drive.

How to Mine Ethereum on GPU: Step-by-Step Guide

The most effective Ethereum mining is possible with video cards having fast graphics memory. The algorithm is the following:

1. Install GPU drivers and set the computer up. If you use red video cards, then your driver is Adrenalin Edition. When using NVidia GPUs, you need the appropriate GeForce Game Ready driver software.
2. Get the Ethereum wallet address. It is possible to get on mining stocks or use official, partnership or hardware wallets.
3. Download the required software. To mine Ethereum, it is recommended to use the following apps: Claymore's Dual Ethereum AMD+NVIDIA GPU Miner or Phoenix Miner.
4. Connect to the community and start mining. To begin, you’ll need to set the Bat-file correctly or download software with everything set. In the latter case, you’ll only need to change the wallet address with your one.

To track the currency mining process, you need to enter the pool and provide the storage number. 10-15 minutes after the stats update, you’ll see first Ethereum mining steps.        

Ethereum Mining with a CPU: Algorithm

To mine on a processor, you should get quite powerful hardware exemplars, because mining with low-performance CPUs is senseless. Your power consumption expenses will be higher that incomes from such mining. All you need to start is to set the new processor into a PC and go through these steps:

• Get the wallet address;
• Choose the pool: register on the website, add a new worker and provide the wallet address;
• Download software, for instance the XMR-STAK-CPU app;
• Set everything up: open the config.txt, file present in the archive with the downloaded app, and enter the pool and storage addresses there. Then, save the file as .bat and launch it.

If the settings were done correctly, you’ll start earning money instantly. It is also possible to track all transactions via the console or the pool website by logging into your profile.

You should also remember that because software to store cryptocurrency is installed to your PC drive, there is the need to have enough free disc space on it.

Summing everything said above, you understand that every Internet user has the possibility to organize mining process at home with video cards or CPU’s. However, the difficulty with Ethereum mining is that the cryptocurrency field gets improved and updated with every year. So, you should keep an eye on all tech market innovations carefully and attentively to get stable incomes.