WorldCoin – How to get started.
To begin mining WorldCoin (WDC) you need a few things like (i) a WDC wallet to hold WDC’s, (ii) a computer to mine WDC’s and (iii) some basic knowledge on the mining process.
Below, I will explain the steps to get your mining operation started. First, we will deal with setting up your first WDC wallet and using it. After you have become familiar with the WDC wallet and its use, we will continue with setting up your PC for mining WDC.
1. Create a WDC wallet
First, download the WorldCoin-qt client.
Windows or Mac
http://worldcoin.in/
Once you have downloaded the client, unzip the files to a location you like (e.g. (in Windows), “C:\Program Files (x86)\WorldCoin”). WorldCoin has no installer – it is just an executable – so you place the files at the desired location yourself.
2. Run the client for the first time
Now launch the file ‘WorldCoin-qt.exe’ located in your WorldCoin folder. You might get a Windows pop-up asking if you want to allow the client to connect to the Internet. Since the client needs access to the Internet to function properly, choose the option that allows the client to access the Internet.
The first time the client starts it will download the entire so-called ‘blockchain’. This is a file that contains all WDC transactions ever made. Everyone who runs the official WorldCoin client also hosts the entire blockchain on their PC. All clients share and update this blockchain by means of a torrent-like peer-2-peer system. If you make a WDC payment, your transaction is send out over the network and – in the end – stored as part of a block in that blockchain. Every time you start up the client, it will automatically receive the newer blocks since the last usage.
Once the blockchain has been downloaded (This can take some time, depending on your Internet connection).
When you click on the button ‘Receive coins’,you see your ‘wallet address’ which was automatically created for you by the client.
If you do not see any – create new. The address either starts with a ’6′ or a ’7′. This is your unique wallet address and only you can access this address. The address itself is used publicly as an address to receive WDC in. However, only you have the keys to access the WDC associated with this address. These keys are stored on your PC only (see below). You do not have to run the client 24/7; you can just run it now and then, during which the client automatically updates the blockchain. When the blockchain is being downloaded, the client will recognise if there are any transactions in respect of your wallet address and, if so, those transactions will be applied to your WDC balance.
3. What if my computer crashes?
Upon the first run, the WorldCoin client creates a ‘wallet.dat’ file. This file contains the keys to your wallet address. Be very careful with this file, threat it like your pin-code. If you ever lose this file without having a backup, you will never be able to retrieve the WDC in your wallet again. They would be lost forever.
The ‘wallet.dat’ file is located in:
(Windows XP) “C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application data\
(Windows 7/8) “C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\WorldCoin”
If you don’t see an “AppData” or “Application data” folder do the following:
(Windows XP) Open explorer -> go to Tools -> Folder options -> View -> select ‘show hidden files and folders’ -> apply.
(Windows 7/8) Open explorer -> go to Organize -> Folder options -> View -> select ‘show hidden files and folders’ -> apply. Now you will the AppData folder!
Make regular backups of the ‘wallet.dat’ file in case your computer crashes! Preferably, zip the ‘wallet.dat’ file with a password so that the backup file is useless for thieves.
4. Extra layer of security
To create an extra layer of security you can encrypt your wallet. To do so, start your client and go to Settings -> encrypt wallet.
Choose a password you will never ever forget, because if you do forget this there is no way to access your wallet ever again! Now that you have encrypted your wallet, a thief cannot access your wallet unless he is able to crack your password. Therefore, choose a password that is sufficiently random and long.
WorldCoin – Start mining with a pool
5. What is mining
By running the official WDC client (basically, your wallet), your PC connects to all other WDC clients running and forms a network between which WDC payments can be made. Every WDC transaction is added to the blockchain, which stores all transactions and is shared between all connected clients.
To make sure that the network functions and integrity is maintained, the WDC network needs miners. Without going in too much detail, miners perform mathematical calculations that – generally speaking – check whether payments send out over the network are genuine and valid. In return, miners receive WDC’s as a reward. The amount of the reward is determined by the WDC protocol and part of the software itself. Mining is essential for WDC to function properly and, of course, a nice method to earn some WDC yourself.
6. Type of mining (solo or pool)
WDC can be mined ‘solo’ or by connecting to a pool. Solo mining is done on your own PC without help from others. Your PC tries to solve the calculations and when successful, it is called finding a so-called ‘block’. For WDC a block is 200 WDC which you receive in your wallet as miner. That sounds pretty nice, but the chance that you are successful in finding a block is not very high. It may take a lot of time (weeks) to obtain a block, because there is a lot of competition from other miners.
In order to spread the risk of finding a ‘block’, people have formed groups of miners in so-called ‘pools’. Each miner creates an account with a pool (run by smart people that know the ins and outs of mining) and let’s his minder(s) work in a pool with other miners in a joint effort to find a block. When a block is found, the pool software divides the revenues of the block found to all miners of the pool in accordance with the rules of that pool. It is quite common that pool owners also pay you as a miner for submitting mining power even if you ultimately do not find a block. This makes mining in a pool a lot more interesting for the casual miner and miners with only a small amount of mining power than solo mining.
In this guide, we will focus on pool mining.
7. Joining a pool
There are already a lot of pools that support WDC mining. The pools differ in the rules, payout methods and fees but the larger pools use similar conditions.
In this guide I use guugll WDC Pool as example.
You need to go to the pool’s website http://www.guugll.eu:12327/static/ .
8. CPU or GPU mining
You can mine WDC with the CPU of your PC or your GPU (the 3d chip of your video graphics card). For mining WDC, GPU mining is generally a lot more powerful than CPU mining. CPU mining is rarely profitable unless you do not have to pay for the electricity (mining requires quite some electricity).
If you want a list of the kHash/s other people get with specific video cards you can check this topic on the WorldCoin forum: http://forum.WorldCoin.com/index.php?topic=264.0 or check this hardware mining comparison site: https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/wiki/Mining-hardware-comparison (this one is made for Litecoin – another crypto currency -, but since WorldCoin also uses ‘scrypt’ for mining it provides useful information).
8.1. CPU Mining
First, we will describe CPU mining.
For CPU mining, you need a third party program. There are several software solutions for CPU mining. This guide takes ‘ScryptMiner – GUI’ as example. This miner has a dedicated thread at Bitcointalk.org where you can download the latest version: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=62414.0
After downloading the latest version, extract it to a folder of choice and then run ‘ScryptMiner.exe’.
The program provides for several options. You will notice the details of the pool inserted as well as the username and the password. The data inserted matches the credentials created at the pool website. The pool server details can usually be found in the FAQ of the pool website.
The option ‘thread’ relates to the numbers of cores of your CPU. Every core that your CPU has counts as a ‘thread’. Therefore, if you have – for example – an AMD X6 CPU, you have 6 threads. If you want the software to use all 6 cores, you can choose this option form the ‘Threads’ dropdown list, but it is also possible to keep a few cores free for other tasks.
Now press ‘Start Mining’ and the program will try to start mining (give it 30 – 60 seconds to start).
Note that it will take some time before your kHash/s will appear on the pool’s website. Furthermore it is noted that everything below 500 kHash/s is not very accurate.
8.2. GPU Mining
Below, GPU mining is described.
First, we will create another worker at the pool’s website to keep things separated. I recommend doing so in order to know where to start looking if something is not working correctly.
In this guide, credentials for the GPU mining worker are:
username: YourWDCAddress
password: x
GPU mining also requires third party software. This guide takes ‘cgminer’ as example. You can download the latest version here: http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/
After downloading the latest version, extract it to a folder of choice. In that folder where the cgminer.exe file is located, you need to make a new text file (.txt).
You can make a new .txt file by clicking the right mouse button and go through the menus appearing. This will create an empty text file in the folder.
Name the text file ‘guugll mining pool.txt’ or something that you will continue to recognize.
Now open the text file and add this single line to the file:
cgminer.exe –scrypt -o http://www.guugll.eu:12327 -u YourWDCAddress -p x –intensity 13
This line is a command line running the cgminer.exe file including certain commands. Those commands are called ‘flags’ and set certain data or options of the program. Below, you will find a brief explanation of the flags.
–scrypt means that you are mining a scrypt coin. You have to add this flag to let cgminer know that you need a specific type of mining method
-o means the server you are connecting to
-u means username
-p means password
–intensity (also used as –I) means the intensity your card is working to solve blocks (please note that higher is not always better)
Note that this is a line to begin with; there are many other parameters that can be configured and tweaked to obtain optimal results. You can read up on the different parameters here:
https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer/blob/master/SCRYPT-README
Now save the .txt file as a ‘batch’ file (by changing the extension of the text file from ‘.txt’ to ‘.bat’). You can do so in the file explorer if the explorer is configured to show file extensions. Another method is using the ‘save as’ option of the text editor with which you have opened the text file.
You have to create a filename with .bat and select ‘All Files’ at ‘Save as type’.
When you have saved this file, double click on the .bat file and a command window will pop up.
This command window gives you some information on your GPU temperature (as reported by your video card), fan speed, average kHash (may differ from that reported by the pool website) and more geekish data.
If you run into problems like ‘cgminer stopped responding’ instantly, you probably need to download the AMD APP SDK, which can be found here: http://developer.amd.com/tools-and-sdks/heterogeneous-computing/amd-accelerated-parallel-processing-app-sdk/downloads/
A good tool to completely uninstall your AMD driver is: AMD Uninstall Utility
Hardware errors appear most of the time because your settings are too high (like the intensity setting). Try lowering them and play with the settings in the .bat file until you reach an optimal balance between noise, temperature and (uncorrupted) kHash rate. Preferably, your GPU temperature should hover around 75C. This may take some experimenting.
It is also possible that you have the newest drivers and windows isn’t allowing you to load your GPU for 100%
You should add the following line above the “cgminer.exe” line in your .bat file:
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
Worldcoin - Getting started & Start mining!
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