Instruction for mining Ethereum

Miners (nodes that participate in the process of confirming transactions and creating new blocks) play an important role in the Ethereum network by ensuring transactions between users are verified and added to the blockchain's public ledger.

There is a lot of debate about how profitable Ethereum mining is, but if you believe that ETH will continue to increase in value or simply want to play a role in the Ethereum network, here are the steps. you need to do it to mine Ethereum.

Choose a GPU

To mine Ethereum, you will need to purchase special computer hardware called a GPU (Graphical Processing Unit). When choosing a GPU, it's important to consider the cost of the actual hardware itself, as well as its power consumption and hash rate.

Hash rate is the speed at which the mining device operates. In crypto mining, speed is important because miners are essentially trying to solve a question and get a reward before any other tool. The higher the hash rate, the more chances you will find the next block and get the reward.

Some miners decided to set up an Ethereum mining system. This is a machine consisting of several GPU units. A mining system will increase your hash rate and thus increase your chances of mining successfully.

Install software

After purchasing your mining hardware, you need to install the necessary software. The driver for the graphics card is either supplied with the card or available on the manufacturer's website.

The next step is to download the Ethereum blockchain and connect your node to the network. You can use a service like Geth, which keeps trying to connect to other nodes on the network until peers are available.

Once installed, your node will be connected to all other nodes and the Ethereum network itself. This allows you to start mining, deploying your own smart contracts, building decentralized applications, and sending transactions.

Test your digging ability

Before you start mining, you can mine Ether for testing on your private network. This allows you to test your mining capabilities, experiment with smart contracts, and try many new decentralized applications.

You don't need any special hardware to mine Ether on a test network - you just need a home computer with Geth installed or a similar client. You are the only user on the private testing network, meaning you are responsible for finding all blocks, validating transactions, and executing smart contracts.

Join the mining pool

If you join a mining pool, you can aggregate your computing power with other miners to improve your chances of solving cryptographic puzzles and earning Ether. Being a part of a mining pool tends to be much more profitable than trying to mine Ether yourself. The profit is divided among all miners in the group according to the computational power contributed.

Install Ethminer

Once your node is connected to the Ethereum network, you need to install mining software called Ethminer. This tool acts as an intermediary between your hardware and the mining pool. Ethminer is an Ethash GPU mining tool that allows you to mine any Ethash Proof of Work-based coin - for example, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Metaverse, Musicoin, Ellaism, Pirl, and Expanse.

Ethminer is a command line program, so you can launch it from a Windows Command Prompt or Linux console or create shortcuts to predefined command lines using the Linux Bash script or Windows batch / cmd file.

Receive money

When you successfully mine a block, you will be paid ETH and the fees related to the transaction. The reward is transferred almost instantly to the Ethereum wallet associated with the miner or group of miners.

You can use the Ethereum profit calculator to work out your approximate earnings. Your estimated earnings are based on factors like hash rate, electricity consumption and the initial setup cost.

The Ethereum team is currently working on implementing a new mining algorithm called Progressive Proof-of-Work, designed to make mining accessible to the broader community. There are no fixed plans for implementing this algorithm, but the developers hope it will make mining through the GPU more profitable in the future.

Lesley Montoya

Update 31 March 2021