{"id":387,"date":"2016-12-08T08:46:18","date_gmt":"2016-12-07T19:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/?p=387"},"modified":"2023-06-10T22:59:06","modified_gmt":"2023-06-10T10:59:06","slug":"want-to-learn-blockchains-build-a-miner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/08\/want-to-learn-blockchains-build-a-miner\/","title":{"rendered":"Want to learn blockchains? Build a miner!"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>Introduction<\/h4>\n<p>One of the best ways to learn something new is to jump right in a get your hands dirty. It&#8217;s uncomfortable initially, but after the mud settles, you start to understand concepts that once got your knickers in a twist.<\/p>\n<p>I had always wanted to build a crypto currency miner. Not for profit but to learn how blockchain technology works.<\/p>\n<h4>Step 1: Ask Google!<\/h4>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.co.nz\/search?q=how+to+build+an+ethereum+miner\">How to build an Ethereum miner<\/a>.&nbsp;The blogs made the process seem so easy!<\/p>\n<p>It took about a week to figure out how to build a computer and all the acronyms that go with it!&nbsp;This was my first attempt.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-388 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2016-12-01-20.27.19-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"2016-12-01-20-27-19\" width=\"940\" height=\"529\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2016-12-01-20.27.19-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2016-12-01-20.27.19-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2016-12-01-20.27.19-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2016-12-01-20.27.19-700x394.jpg 700w, https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2016-12-01-20.27.19.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 940px) 100vw, 940px\" \/><\/p>\n<h4>Step 2: Ethereum Software<\/h4>\n<p>The first time I saw the Ethereum github repository I literally ran the other way. I couldn&#8217;t make sense of pyethapp, go-ethereum, meteor-dapp-wallet, mist, ethereumj, solidity, cpp-ethereum, the list goes on. Check it out for yourself <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/ethereum\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This time I was more focused. All I needed was an Ethereum wallet and some mining software.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ethereum Wallet<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This was fairly simple. I had 3 choices.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mist: A user friendly graphically wallet + browser<\/li>\n<li>Geth: A command line interface for programmers. (go)<\/li>\n<li>Eth: A command line interface for programmers. (c++)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These are termed the &#8220;official&#8221; wallets but there are of course many others out there also. Here is a good <a href=\"http:\/\/ethereum.stackexchange.com\/questions\/1239\/what-is-the-recommended-way-to-safely-store-ether\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">link<\/a> to read for more info.&nbsp;For beginners or non programmers I would highly recommend Mist.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ethereum Mining Software<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There are also a few options here.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ethminer<\/li>\n<li>Claymore<\/li>\n<li>AlethZero (to be phased out)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>One of the reasons why it is so confusing is for example AlethZero, the mining software is contained within the cpp-ethereum client, which is an Ethereum client but is now renamed to webthree-umbrella and there is a link to v1.2.9 called &#8220;The Village Idiot&#8221; but it&#8217;s dated June 14 2016. ie old but usable. Did you get all of that?<\/p>\n<h4>Step 3: Show me the Ether<\/h4>\n<p>I really wanted was to see this thing in action. I therefore had to do the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Create an address to received the Ether<\/li>\n<li>Join a pool<\/li>\n<li>Wait<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-393 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/hashing-300x171.png\" alt=\"hashing\" width=\"300\" height=\"171\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/hashing-300x171.png 300w, https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/hashing-768x439.png 768w, https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/hashing-700x400.png 700w, https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/hashing.png 979w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-394 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/ethpool-mining-chart-300x171.png\" alt=\"ethpool-mining-chart\" width=\"300\" height=\"171\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/ethpool-mining-chart-300x171.png 300w, https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/ethpool-mining-chart-768x437.png 768w, https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/ethpool-mining-chart-1024x583.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/ethpool-mining-chart-700x399.png 700w, https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/ethpool-mining-chart.png 1271w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Above you can see the mining software command line output and the graphical mining results of a pool. Below you can see my mist wallet with 0.22 ether that was mined in ~ 2 days. At the current price of ~$8USD, I may have made $1.6USD but also spent $2USD in electricity!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-395 size-medium aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/ether-account-300x192.png\" alt=\"ether-account\" width=\"300\" height=\"192\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/ether-account-300x192.png 300w, https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/ether-account-768x493.png 768w, https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/ether-account-700x449.png 700w, https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/ether-account.png 1018w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<h4>What I learnt about blockchains?<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>How to set up a wallet and create an address. All blockchains need this.<\/li>\n<li>The Proof of Work consensus mining algorithm called <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/ethereum\/wiki\/wiki\/Ethash\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ethash<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>What a DAG is.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Don&#8217;t be deceived. Each bullet point is half a days worth of reading, understanding and doing.<\/p>\n<h4>Where to from here?<\/h4>\n<p>Now with some real Ether, I might go ahead and retry some basic smart contract dapps and building an actual application.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Introduction One of the best ways to learn something new<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2016-12-01-20.27.19.jpg",2048,1152,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2016-12-01-20.27.19-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2016-12-01-20.27.19-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2016-12-01-20.27.19-768x432.jpg",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2016-12-01-20.27.19-1024x576.jpg",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2016-12-01-20.27.19.jpg",1536,864,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2016-12-01-20.27.19.jpg",2048,1152,false],"chromenews-featured":["https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2016-12-01-20.27.19.jpg",1024,576,false],"chromenews-large":["https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2016-12-01-20.27.19.jpg",825,464,false],"chromenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2016-12-01-20.27.19.jpg",590,332,false]},"author_info":{"info":["seandotau"]},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/category\/featured\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Featured<\/a>","tag_info":"Featured","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3199,"href":"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions\/3199"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talkcrypto.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}