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phil0xcypher
decentral intelligence agent
Oct 19, 2017 · 5 min read

Mine for Bitcoin with

ANY Computer
Mining is a great way to enter the cryp-
tocurrency ecosystem. However, Bit-
coin/Litecoin is almost impossible to mine
for the average user. It requires expensive
equipment called ASICs that are made by a
controversial, centralized company called
Bitmain. These ASIC chips consume high
amounts of electricity, and ASIC mining
farms often use cheap & ecologically-de-
structive coal power. These centralized
mining cartels mint the vast majority of
new Bitcoin, and are responsible for con-
tentious forks of Bitcoin in order to main-
tain a monopoly of the network.

I am not trying to cast a negative light on

Bitcoin- I am highlighting how far we have
come from Satoshi’s (the mysterious cre-
ator of Bitcoin’s) white paper that de-
scribed a democratic mining system of
“One CPU” as “one vote.” Back in the early
days of Bitcoin, any old laptop could mine
hundreds of Bitcoin a week (worth millions
of $ at today’s value). In a way, this was
utopian in the sense that anyone, anywhere
could verify and support Bitcoin’s network.
However today, CPUs and even more pow-
erful GPU’s are worthless for mining on Bit-
coin’s network- which leaves all of the
mining to one powerful mining company in
China.

However, just because you do not own

an expensive ASIC miner doesn’t mean
you can’t “mine” with any average com-
puter to ultimately obtain Bitcoin (using
a regular CPU, GPU, and even a Hard-
Drive).

First Option: Mine Monero

with CPU
Monero is a particularly interesting alterna-
tive to Bitcoin. Unlike Bitcoin where every
transaction is public on a distributed
ledger, Monero oTers true anonymity.
While being a philosophically contentious
issue, I believe that anonymity could be
useful for people living under dictatorial
governments. The Dark Web browser of
choice called Tor, was created by an agency
of the U.S. Department of Defense for this
reason. And while anonymous tools like Tor
and Monero can be used by drug dealers
and criminals, so can cold hard cash.

(I also merge-mine XDN)

Monero has an interesting feature that al-

lows CPU mining to always be competitive,
no matter the size of its network. This fea-
ture seems to fulWll the original intention of
Bitcoin for “One CPU, one vote.” Therefore,
it is possible to mine Monero on ANY com-
puter. A user-friendly website that I have
used to CPU mine Monero for the past year
is called Minergate. Make an account,
download the software, and turn on “Ex-
tended Mode.” I prefer to turn oT the
“Smart Miner” and instead only mine XMR
(Monero) as I believe it is the best coin they
oTer.

If you leave a spare core, you should have

no problem doing most tasks on your com-
puter while simultaneously earning passive
mining income. It depends on your equip-
ment, but if you have a decent CPU you can
make a reasonable income as long as your
computer is on and running. Every month
or so, Withdraw your earnings to your fa-
vorite altcoin exchange and either a. Hodl
your Monero or b. Sell for Bitcoin.

This past year I have continuously sold

most of my earned Monero directly for Bit-
coin. (I have actually missed out on greater
gains with this method as Monero has gone
to the moon, but I probably will continue
this way)

Next Option: Mine

Zcash/Eth with GPU
This is slightly more restrictive, as not
everyone has a suitable AMD or Nvidia
Graphics Processor so I will not go into too
much detail for this one.

I personally mine Zcash and sell every week

for Bitcoin or other interesting cryptocur-
rencies. I prefer to use Suprnova pool. Min-
ergate also oTers GPU mining if you like
their interface better. Here, Suprnova oTers
a detailed guide for how to get up and run-
ning. Zcash is another anonymous coin
similar to Monero. *(Update: ASICs will
now soon be available for Eth/ZCash, so
GPU mining may soon become obsolete)

If you want to support Ethereum’s network

instead of Zcash, check out eth.suprno-
va.cc, although it is a slightly more involved
involved process than Zcash.

Final Option: Mine Storj

with Hard Drive
An interesting idea that has come from Bit-
coin, is to distribute Wle storage on the
blockchain like Bitcoin/Ethereum does for
computing power. As such, it is possible to
use extra hard drive space to “mine” and
host Wles on decentralized storage networks
like Storj, Sia, and Filecoin. Filecoin looks
to be the most exciting of the three, but un-
fortunately it is not live yet. Therefore, I
mine Storj with my hard-drive. (Sia is legit-
imate as well, but very unproWtable at the
moment as a host)

Apparently, Google is an investor in Storj,

and while it has had growing pains, I am
bullish on Storj going forward. On Mac it’s
extremely easy to set up Storj and start up,
but it is a little more in-depth for Windows
users:

Click “Rent Your Drive” and follow the

steps to download.

First step after opening the app is to enter

your ERC20 token address:

Get that by “Creating a New Wallet” on

MyEtherWallet and following the instruc-
tions to copy your “0x” ethereum address
like the one above.
Get started
Enter this address in Storj Step 1, then
HOME OWN SHARES IN HACKERNOON
move on and choose a folder to host your
rented HD space. Follow through the steps,
and the default setup should work for most
Mac users no problem.

If you are a Windows user, you need to do

two extra things. 1. Sync your time clock
with the nearest server, as described in 3.1
in this Storj guide. Next, you need to make
sure you chose an Open Port, as described
in 3.3.2 of that same guide.

It will take weeks to Wll up all of your space,

but a few GBs worth of rented space can
still yield proWts.

Helpful tip: also remember to make sure

your computer doesn’t go to Sleep, if you
want to consistently mine.

Conclusion
While some of these mining processes may
sound confusing and probably won’t make
you a millionaire, I think mining is a re-
warding way to explore the crypto-ecosys-
tem. While some people call
Cryptocurrency a bubble, I believe it will
one day become an important part of the
world economy.

Furthermore, I think that a few dollars

worth of Cryptocurrency today can grow
into a lot more in the future. Whether you
hold these CPU, GPU, and HD-mineable
coins, or simply sell directly for Bitcoin on
your favorite exchange, I believe that you
will ultimately thank yourself later.

. . .
Follow me on Twitter, @burningw0rds

Bitcoin Ethereum Cryptocurrency

Mining Cybersecurity

1K 14

phil0xcypher Follow
Medium member since
Sep 2018
decentral intelligence
agent

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Responses

Applause from phil0xcypher (author)

devora Pne
Oct 30, 2017

Rad info, thanks for sharing.

57

Applause from phil0xcypher (author)

Mansoor Mughal
Oct 30, 2017

Thanks I am digging this and do some

mining

62

Show all responses