The mining process consists in the extraction of cryptocurrency by PC or ASIC devices using various specialized programs. The program, following its algorithm, performs mathematical calculations to find hash blocks. The speed of the process depends on the power of the equipment used. For 1 block (data array) found, a certain amount of coins of the cryptocurrency that you mine is charged. Performance is measured in hashes/second. The more powerful your computer (processor, video card), the faster the process of finding blocks and the higher the profitability. By spending computing power in order to find new blocks, miners thus create new units of currency. Those. everyone participates in the creation and expansion of the blockchain network of a particular coin.
Cryptocurrency mining (forks, altcoins) consists of several stages, which we will analyze in detail within the framework of this material.
- Choosing a video card and processor
- Choosing a profitable fork
- Pool selection or solo mode setting
- Setting up the miner program and launching
- Exchange of mined coins for money
Cryptocurrency algorithms
Cryptocurrency mining can be implemented by video cards, processors and ASIC devices. The most productive are ASICs. This is a highly specialized electronic technical device designed only for the extraction of bitcoin or altcoins. The cost of those from $ 500, which not everyone can afford. So Cryptocurrency mining by ordinary users takes place on a home PC, which will be discussed next.
So, at the moment, most forks are mined on algorithms: sha-256, script, x11, CryptoNight, Dagger hashimoto, Equihash. Let's look at them:
SHA-256 is a cryptographic hash function, a pioneer among crypto algorithms. It was developed by the US National Security Agency. Bitcoin is based on it. The most expensive coin, but getting it on PC has not been profitable for a long time due to high energy costs and the level of complexity. Mined by asic devices.
Scrypt is a popular algorithm for mining on Radeon video cards starting from the Hd 5-x series. Most of the cryptocoins were previously mined on it. It is characterized by the highest energy consumption during the process. The speed is affected by the frequency and amount of video memory. The first scrypt coin, Litecoin, has good value, liquidity and capitalization. However, it is no longer cost-effective for mining on a computer.
Scrypt-n - Cryptocurrency mining on Radeon HD 5-x and higher graphics cards. It is more resistant to ACIS devices. The speed of the process is two times lower than in the script, but the payment for the found block of coins is on average higher. Energy consumption is 10-15% lower than in scrypt. IN this moment the scrypt-n algorithm has been taken off the market.
Algorithms X11, X13, X15– cryptocurrency mining is suitable for owners of nvidia and radeon video cards. Also mines on powerful top Intel processors core-i7, i5, amd Fx-8. The most profitable algorithm in terms of energy consumed / production rate. The speed is 3-4 times higher than scrypt, 30-40% lower energy consumption. Most popular coin: Dash (Darkcoin), Startcoin, Urocoin
CryptoNight - an algorithm that uses a lot of RAM, virtual and video memory, is not affected by asic devices. Energy consumption is less than in scrypt. The most popular and worthwhile coin: Monero. For owners of video cards, the radeon rx series is the best option.
Dagger hashimoto (Ethash) is essentially an algorithmic add-on over SHA-256 with great functionality. There is no detailed information on it on the Internet. It is important for us that the ethash dagger hashimoto is the most popular “strong” coin at the moment. Critical to the video memory of the video card (at least 2gb), mined on the top nvidia and radeon.
Equihash is an algorithm for transactions through the https protocol, which provides complete security and anonymity of translations. A profitable expensive coin is Zcash, the value of which will grow in 2108. More suitable for mining on cards from nvidia geforce.
Step 1. Cryptocurrency mining on a video card
The best choice of a video card for cryptocurrency mining is the top Radeon models, the best performance in terms of price / performance ratio is given by rx series cards. The 7-series cards will cost less, but their power consumption is slightly higher overall due to the 40mm chipset. Production on nvidia graphics cards ge-force is also possible starting with GTX 960. The most productive mining video cards are NVIDIA GE-FORCE GTX 1060/1070/1080, RADEON RX 470/480/570/580.
The choice of a video card for mining depends on the power (kh / s or mh / s), power consumption (W / h) and price. When mining on any video card at full power, a lot of electricity is consumed, which must be taken into account when calculating the net profit. The vast majority of forks are not profitable to mine due to the fact that the payment for electricity exceeds the reward. There is an online calculator for mining many altcoins. In its fields, enter the power of your system, the value of the power consumed by it, the price per kWh in your region and get detailed information about net profit.
Step 2. Cryptocurrency mining. What to mine?
Perhaps the most difficult thing is the choice of fork. Due to the fact that cryptocoin rates are constantly changing, profitability and profitability also change greatly over time. Cryptocurrency mining pays off when choosing the most valuable altcoins with low mining difficulty and high cost. The value of forks is calculated in relation to the bitcoin currency, so you need to monitor the change in the price of the bitcoin. Exchange the mined currency for bitcoin, dollars or rubles. Repeat the exchange cycle periodically, tracking the best altcoin/bitcoin and BTC/$ rate. Do not store existing coins for a long time, monetize in a cycle. The most profitable coins now are Ethereum, Monero, Zcash.
Step 3. Choosing a pool for mining. p2pool. Mpos. Solo
Let's start with the fact that cryptocurrency mining can be carried out on your computer in local network or through an internet server.
You can get crypto coins:
- In solo mode
- By joining the pools.
- By connecting to the p2pool network
Solo cryptocurrency mining- this is an exclusive mode involving only your computer or local network. Everything mined is credited to your digital wallet. Solo mode is suitable for mining farms with multiple GPUs. It is possible to mine with one top-end video card, but due to lack of power, the process of finding one block of coins can take several days or months.
A pool is a server with a representative site, by connecting to which you participate in the collective mining of altcoins. Thus, your power is added to the power of other miners in the same pool, forming the overall performance of the pool's network. The remuneration is accrued to each participant in proportion to his contribution to the overall performance. That is, the more computing resources you have, the more share you get. Due to the high overall speed of the process, finding blocks and crediting funds is much faster.
In addition to the usual pools with one of the cryptocurrencies, there are multipools where you can mine several altcoins at the same time. MultiPool automatically switches between fork nodes and mines the most profitable crypto, then another from the list of crypto coins it supports. This approach is more profitable, but determining the best currency and switching time interval is sometimes not true.
A small minus of the pools is that they charge a commission of 1% from each payout to your crypto wallet. Also, unscrupulous pool administrators often come across, who actually pay several times less than you got. On most pools, you need to register and create a worker (worker). Worker will serve as a login for the miner when connecting to the pool server. All mined coins are displayed on your balance in your profile, from where you can withdraw them to your crypto wallet.
P2pool is a decentralized pool with direct connection without registration and worker creation. The login is the address of your crypto wallet. Thus, the mined coins are credited directly to your vault. Pool commission usually does not exceed 1%. When choosing p2pool, pay attention to the total power and power contribution of each member. If your card power is below the average p2pool performance, use the divisor value in your miner.
Step 4. Miner program and setup.
Cryptocurrency mining is launched through a miner - this is special program under different OS. There are several types of programs with similar settings. Most popular: cgminer, sgminer, cudaminer, claymore. For some forks, specific miners are used, which can be downloaded from the fork's official website. For example, ethminer is used for ethereum. The miner connects via the address of the pool server to the computer and starts the process. The miner shell has a console view with textual information about the speed of the process, iron temperature, data on the current block found and the state of the process.
Setting up the miner is very simple and is carried out in. bat file e, where the values \u200b\u200bof the parameters of the video card are entered, network address pool with port, algorithm name, personal login with password and other parameters. Edit the bat file with the simplest text editor. The miner is also launched via a bat file. Details on setting up and miner files are usually provided by the pool with which you will work. For example, Minergate suits me - a reliable popular multipool.
Step 5. Crypto wallets and coin exchange.
To work with any coin, you need a digital wallet (wallet), which is downloaded from the official website of the cryptocoin you are interested in. The wallet address is a long string of numbers and letters generated by the wallet itself after it is first launched. It is also used for financial transactions between cryptocurrencies. A private key is automatically attached to each address, which ensures the security of information storage. You write it down on paper or a test file so that in which case you can restore the wallet with all the information.
Once installed and launched, the wallet is synchronized with the network and receives information about the current state. After synchronization, the history of the currency and the wallet.dat wallet file with a private code appear in the personal folder of your PC with the name of the altcoin. This file and the code for it must be backed up in a separate place, so that if something happens, it can be restored in order to avoid loss of funds. In addition to the altcoin wallet, you will need a bitcoin-wallet to convert to bitcoin. I recommend a fat wallet bitcoin core. Downloaded and installed on your PC, works properly without bugs.
All exchange operations are carried out on the relevant financial exchanges or exchangers, for example: Exmo. This reliable Russian exchange has been operating since 2013. I work primarily with her as a trader.
Consider how to mine bitcoins on your own home computer and whether it can be done.
All the advantages and disadvantages, as well as more profitable alternatives for mining coins.
Content:
Mining (from Mining - mining) is the only way to get crypto-money. Its essence lies in the fact that a computer or a network of computers perform mathematical calculations. The result of the calculations is finding new blocks of the chain of the cryptocurrency network (blockchain). for each block found, a reward is paid in the form of coins.
If you are still a novice user in the field of crypto, but you want to start mining and earn money on it, you need to study the current realities of this lesson. The complexity of the calculations does not allow us to talk about adequate profitability when working with low-performance equipment, such as a home PC.
The concept of home mining was popular in the early 2010s.
Today, stationary or cloud ones are being created, in which dozens or even hundreds of video cards are involved at the same time. However, this will not prevent you from starting mining on your PC. You should immediately prepare for the fact that the earnings will be very small, but with constant mining it can amount to several hundred dollars a year (subject to the active growth of the Bitcoin exchange rate).
How to start mining on your home PC
If you are one of those who heard a huge number of times about cryptocurrency mining, but did not dare to create their own mining system, first you need to decide how you will work and what currency will be the main one.
- Choose one of the cryptocurrencies . Further in the article, we will consider the mining of Bitcoin - the most popular cryptocurrency in the world, the capitalization of which is more than 171 billion dollars;
- Open a wallet for the corresponding currency . As a rule, the official website of the creator of crypto coins has all the information for registering a wallet;
- Choose which service will be used for mining . This stage should be well thought out, since with the increase in demand for cryptocurrency, the number of fraudulent services that use your PC resource for mining has also increased, but the earned funds are not sent to your wallet. However, there are also a lot of reliable and proven platforms. It is important to choose a pool with maximum performance;
- Download and install the application . After registering in the pool, you will be prompted to download a desktop mining program. Each service has its own program. As a rule, there are always basic computer requirements to consider;
- Start mining and earn Bitcoins. When the minimum withdrawal amount is reached (each service has its own threshold), you can withdraw coins by sending them to a pre-created wallet.
It should be remembered that without good hardware characteristics of the processor and video card, mining will be impossible or the number of coins will be minimal (if at all). If you have a good enough home PC, you can try to start mining.
Services that provide users with the ability to mine from only one computer, at the software level, combine the power connected to the network into a pool - a group of devices.
This association is necessary so that at the stage of mathematical calculations you do not compete with powerful stationary or cloud farms.
If the device pool performed a successful calculation and the reward was obtained, it is divided among all group members according to their capacities.
Less powerful PCs will get less money. In any case, participation in the pool is practically the only way to earn money.
If you don’t understand much about the principle of mining coins and don’t want to deal with a lot of concepts, work with automatic miners that you can simply run in the background.
List of reliable applications for automatic cryptocurrency mining on a home computer:
Kryptex - here, after each successful calculation of coins, users have two options for working - send the amount to their crypto wallet or exchange the mined money at the current rate and then transfer it to their account electronic money( , and so on).
Go to the online calculator page and select the currency you want to mine. Then, in the new window, enter the previously calculated hashrate and click on Calculate.
This will allow you to understand whether mining will pay off. Also, the calculator window displays data on how much energy will be consumed during constant mining.
Is it profitable to mine on a home PC
With the rise of Bitcoin it became unprofitable to mine it on home computers.
If you are hoping to earn an income of several hundred dollars already at the initial stage, we advise you to take a closer look at concepts such as cloud mining or .
The work of the miner on a regular PC will bring up to hundreds of dollars in income per month. We recommend using this method only if you have a PC with a good level of performance and while working with it you do not use even half of the video card's resource. For example, you have a powerful gaming PC at your disposal, but you rarely run games on it and constantly use only the browser and simple programs. In this case, the periodic operation of the miner will not harm the system. Also, you should not mine bitcoins on your home PC around the clock. Limit yourself to 6-8 hours a day.
Types of mining
As mentioned above, mining is the only way to get cryptocurrencies, but There is different ways mining:
- - the most efficient and profitable way of extraction, but it requires investments. You will have to buy several and set them up at the same time. This method requires a separate room and will entail impressive light bills;
- - these are groups of computers that can be located in different parts of the world, but at the time of calculating and mining cryptocurrency, they will work together. A home computer is connected to the pool thanks to a mining program. You can independently configure the operation of several of your PCs through the pool;
- – the easiest way to get coins without "killing" your computer. The essence of this mining method is that a third-party program uses the resource of your video card to calculate mathematical operations. The computer can be or be used by the utility as the only link in the mining network;
- CPU – today, the method of mining coins using the computing power of processors has become a relic of the past. It is much more profitable to work with video cards, as they are able to mine coins faster, and in the event of a breakdown, the computer does not stop working - all computing operations are switched to the video card that is built into the central processor;
- ASIC miner- microprocessor equipment created exclusively for the extraction of BTC and coins mined on the same algorithm. Asics provide maximum processing power and are reliable enough for long-term use. The disadvantage is the high cost and the inability to use this equipment anywhere except for the mining of specific cryptocurrencies.
Cryptocurrency mining software
All mining programs work on the same principle. Only the conditions of the mining site can differ.
Before installing the application, read the terms and conditions on the developer's website.
List of the most popular programs for mining Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies:
- CGMiner;
- Bfgminer;
- SGminer;
- ccminer;
- Claymore miner.
Is it worth it to mine on a laptop?
This question sounds very often, therefore, as part of the review, it is necessary to answer it. You should not mine Bitcoin on laptops.
Firstly, the power of even the most powerful model is not enough to mine coins, the cost of which will cover the amount of a laptop purchase.
Secondly, the laptop cooling system is not ready for constant maximum loads on the GPU.
And finally, replacing a burned-out video card in a laptop is possible only with the replacement of the main board, which is equivalent to purchasing a new one.
What is the difference between mining on a PC and a farm - which is more profitable?
Regular mining on a PC can only use one video card. If you use a video card farm, earnings will increase proportionally.
For beginners, it is more profitable to use a regular PC for mining, since you do not need to invest any money in creating a system.
If you are determined to earn a decent amount and invest money in business, buy several video cards and. As world practice shows, it pays off in 6-9 months after the start of work.
conclusions
You can create your own at home.
Today it is realistic to develop a farm for the extraction of cryptocurrency, which will pay off in about 5-6 months and begin to generate a stable income.
Thematic videos:
Cryptocurrency mining in the workplace is no surprise anymore. Employees of large enterprises, where the volume of infrastructure exceeds hundreds of workstations, also sin with this. During the mining boom in 2017, there were cases of mining among employees of Sberbank, Rosatom, Transneft and Vnukovo airport. In a large network, the volume of information is so large that it can no longer be handled by a manual control method. To identify incidents and unauthorized actions, automatic analysis of traffic in the enterprise network is required.
A harmless side job or a real threat?
On the one hand, mining cannot be perceived as a direct threat information security enterprises, how difficult it is to hold the miners themselves accountable. Cryptocurrency mining software does not serious damage to ICT infrastructure is not viruses, cyberattacks or data theft. Mining requires only powerful equipment and electricity. On the other hand, the financial losses of the company will be significant:
- Operating costs for equipment and resources - non-targeted consumption of capacities and consumption of electricity during non-working hours.
- The salary of an employee who does not perform his job functions while mining cryptocurrencies.
- Maintenance and repair of equipment that is more likely to fail due to continuous operation.
With expertise in network infrastructure security, Garda Technologies has developed a solution for detecting miners in an enterprise network. Functionality implemented on the basis of Garda Monitor, a system for detecting and investigating network incidents.
Network Forensics in Mining Investigation
"Garda Monitor" collects and records data on all ip-connections, detects various signs of malware and suspicious activity in network traffic. The solution allows you to detect even those incidents in the network that have passed by active systems security. The complex is often used by large enterprises as a “last chance system” when an incident occurred despite all existing security systems, and it is necessary to restore the course of events in order to understand what happened, how and why, and what to do to prevent incidents from recurring.
Detection of illegal mining is one of the most demanded tasks in recent times for solving this class.
The practice of identifying miners
One of our clients with a large corporate network of over 3500 computers asked for help in identifying miners in their network.
It is worth saying that mining itself is difficult to attribute to obvious financial risks or security incidents. Here, it is rather a waste of company resources on the part of employees, as well as viruses and adware that users, out of inexperience, install under the guise of mining software.
But the danger is that mining can be carried out and without the knowledge of the employee. For example, cryptocurrency mining malware is embedded in other installed software or executed directly in the victim's browser, and a computer on the company's network becomes infected. Then this is a serious IS problem.
Garda Technologies engineers, together with the customer's information security department, using the Garda Monitor complex, studied the organization's traffic in detail. We started by searching for hits to the addresses of mining pools - servers that combine the power of the equipment of many miners at once to increase the probability of finding a block and divide the reward for its mining among all participants.
No such traffic was detected.
Therefore, we complicated the conditions - we searched the list of ports that mining software uses to interact with mining pools - but found only non-mining TCP streams. The search for the Stratum protocol, which miners use to connect to the pool, also did not yield any results.
But, in the process of studying traffic in the organization's network, the Garda Monitor system revealed the use of the TOR protocol - anonymous network virtual tunnels, providing encrypted data transfer. The use of the TOR protocol on the network is in itself an extremely suspicious event. This means that one of the employees is deliberately trying to hide something, or indicates the presence of software that is trying to hide something, possibly without the knowledge of the employee.
The investigation into the incident continued. At the network level, it became clear from which computers information is transmitted using this protocol.
The fastest and in a simple way further investigation was the use of the capabilities of the DLP system - a solution for protecting against information leakage. In our case, the customer has been using the Garda Enterprise DLP system for quite a long time, the capabilities of which made it possible to conduct a retrospective analysis of corporate communications for the required period.
As a result of the analysis of the actions of employees on computers that transmitted data via the TOR protocol, it turned out that ~ 20 computers have been working 24/7 for several months, while over the past few weeks they have not had logins / logouts, switching application windows, and even movements mouse and keyboard clicks. With the help of a retrospective analysis, it turned out that among the latest activities was the launch of software with parameters command line, similar in format to a cryptocurrency wallet address. The situation was similar on all computers connected to TOR.
After analyzing the launch parameters of the software, we found out that this is software for mining the ZCASH cryptocurrency.
INFO
ZCASH is the first open and censorship-free cryptocurrency that can fully protect the privacy of transactions using cryptographic method with zero knowledge. The system developer is Zerocoin ElectricCoin Company (ZECC). Its rate, as of July 2018, is $223.9 for 1 ZEC
The complexes "Garda Monitor" and "Garda Enterprise" operated in the organization gave a completely clear picture of what is happening. We identified a specific employee who organized a mining farm at the workplace. Next was the next stage of work with this employee ...
But that's a completely different story.
Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin have been buzzing around for a few years now. You can consider it just another pyramid scheme or a fatal threat to an established banking system, but one way or another, this is money that can also be earned while sitting in the office. We are talking about mining, the alleged profit from which encourages people to use computers in their workplaces to receive electronic tokens. And this means that there are serious risks for each specific company.
Examples - the sea. So, recently a group of scientists was detained in Russia who were trying to mine bitcoin on the country's largest supercomputer. In the US, Tesla was compromised, whose AWS cloud storage was also used to obtain cryptocurrency tokens. And the supercomputer of the US National Science Foundation was not just tried, but was already used for mining.
The emergence of new types computer viruses also did not keep you waiting. There was a recent story in the press where a special mining script was surreptitiously downloaded to the computers of visitors to individual websites, including, for example, the sites of the national health insurance system in the United States and an education loan company in the United Kingdom. Individually, users' computers generated quite a few tokens, but the hackers expected that it was teamwork tens of thousands of infected computers.
What is mining?
To understand the issue raised, it is necessary to have at least a general idea of what cryptocurrency mining is and how it works. People who want to make a fortune in cryptocurrencies should have the following resources:
powerful computer;
Internet access;
access to a source of inexpensive or free electricity.
The way to get bitcoin is quite simple: the power of the user’s computer is used to generate blocks of transactions that go through a special confirmation procedure and are included in the blockchain on which the cryptocurrency is based (“proof of work”).
Together, these blocks form both the cryptocurrency itself and the infrastructure for maintaining an international decentralized secure exchange and payment system that does not require classic banking mechanisms and does not provide for large commissions for cross-border currency transactions.
However, participants in the process are faced with tasks that can only be solved with the help of powerful computers, which is why only arrays of the latest graphics cards are used to work in this area.
electricity price
How more powerful computer the more electricity it consumes. Of course, you can continue to mine on the old PC in your bedroom, but then, most likely, you will pay more for the consumed electricity than you earn on cryptocurrency.
“The economics of bitcoin is such that most miners need access to a reliable source of cheap electricity no more than 2-3 cents per kilowatt hour. Therefore, they often move closer to the hydroelectric power station, it is cheaper there, ”Sam Harnett of the Rocky Mountain Institute explained in an interview with The Washington Post.
The world's largest mining farms are built in close proximity to solar and hydroelectric power plants in China. A Russian billionaire recently bought two power plants to power his own mining farms. In Iceland, where about 80% of all electricity consumed is generated by hydroelectric power plants, power grid operators are seeing an explosion in demand for power from mining farms and are openly talking about an impending power shortage in the local market.
It is problems with access to sources of cheap electricity that push hackers to create malicious software that would allow using the power of computers of website visitors. This also explains the desire of company employees to secretly use work computers for mining, since in this case they do not pay out of their own pockets for either electricity or electricity. Maintenance PC.
What are the risks?
There are several reasons why companies should take care to protect work computers from being used for cryptocurrency mining.
Computers on which cryptocurrency mining software is installed work slower, which negatively affects the speed of business processes within the company.
The company incurs unreasonable losses by paying ever-increasing electricity bills.
The increased load associated with the calculation of new blocks of the blockchain leads to a reduction in the life of processors, power supplies and batteries, which directly leads to additional costs for maintenance or replacement of failed computer equipment.
Mining software can make a corporate network vulnerable to attack and unauthorized entry from outside. According to Kaspersky Lab, the number of such attacks increased from 205,000 in 2013 to 1.65 million in 2017.
Botnet creators and operators and unscrupulous workers often view corporate servers as good opportunity make money with free electricity. Botnets are already available on the market for $30/month, and the prices for programs for creating a hidden mining farm based on a corporate network start at $29.
Digital Shadows estimates that a Monero mining botnet operating 2,000 infected computers could bring in up to $500 daily. Latest Programs for illegal mining, they already know how to disguise themselves, bypass antivirus protection on users' computers or disable it altogether.
CrowdStrike warns that botnets (such as Satori and Smominru) have already appeared, focused exclusively on creating networks for mining, and, for example, the WannaMine virus is trying to infect corporate networks.
Cisco Talos Network Threat Specialist Nick Biassini believes it's time for companies to actively defend themselves. As he told Dark Reading, “This is a huge wave that is hitting more and more corporate networks, every day and in the literal sense of the word.”
What to do?
There is a very effective set of rules: companies must constantly improve their security mechanisms, update antivirus software in a timely software and be aware of the dangers of traditional hacking tools, such as phishing emails and questionable programs and applications from little-known developers.
It is also worth installing specialized equipment and software filters in the company to prevent hacking and unauthorized use of corporate networks, and programs that will allow timely detection of computers with increased processor load or with increased Internet traffic - all these are clear signs of mining. There are ready-made solutions for this, such as the SD-WAN network utility, which allows you to selectively block the ports used for mining transactions. Plus, you need to keep a close eye on changes in electricity bills.
Finally, network administrators need to carefully monitor which programs and programming codes are installed and used on work computers, constantly scan them for malware and vulnerabilities to external attacks.
For mobile devices there is a Mobile Threat Defense system, which is designed to protect this particular class of devices.
John Evans
Jon Evans is a highly experienced technology journalist and editor. He has been writing for a living since 1994. These days you might read his daily regular Computerworld AppleHolic and opinion columns. Jon is also technology editor for men "s interest magazine, Caliber Quarterly, and news editor for MacFormat magazine, which is the biggest UK Mac title. He"s really interested in the impact of technology on the creative spark at the heart of the human experience. In 2010 he won an American Society of Business Publication Editors (Azbee) Award for his work at Computerworld.
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