What is Monero?
Created in Aril 2014, Monero is an open source cryptocurrency focusing on decentralisation and fungibility. Employing the Proof of Work algorithm, Monero uses a public ledger wherein a user can broadcast or send transactions but an outsider has absolutely no means of viewing the source, destination, or the amount.
As the team puts it, “Monero is a secure, private, and untraceable currency system.” The Monero network uses the ring signature cryptography to ensure the privacy of information relating to the transactions. This feature makes Monero one of the most privacy-centered cryptocurrencies.
Highlights:
- Private (by not giving the outsiders the privilege to view any transaction-related data.)
- Untraceable (by default, Monero transactions cannot be linked to any particular user or real-world identity.)
- Fungible (by the default privacy.)
- Decentralised
- Secure (because of the ring signature cryptography
Monero Trading
Monero is among the top 10 cryptocurrencies in terms of market capital. It is traded on major crypto exchanges incusing Binance, Poloniex, Bitfinex, HitBTC, and Bithumb. Other markets where the monero coin can be bought, sold, or traded are Kraken, B2BX, OKEx, Exrates, Huobi, Bittrex, Exmo, Upbit, DragonEX, Gate.io, CoinEx, Livecoin, Cryptopia, Ovis, Crex24, TradeOgre, BitBay, Trade Satoshi, and Bitbns.
Token Value Information
At the time of writing, the Monero coin has the following statistics:
Circulating Supply: 16,266,706 XMR
Market Cap: $1,354,787,494 USD
All-time High Price: $542.33 USD
Current Price: $83.29 USD
Mining Monero
Because Monero is among the top 10 cryptocurrencies in market cap, it is quite a profitable venture to mine Monero. Another reason is its ASIC-resistant cryptographic algorithm.
Getting Started
The most basic thing is to have a crypto wallet and the required software and hardware for mining Monero. The good news is, in spite of being a cryptographically complex coin, Monero can still be mined on the CPU. And by mining Monero, a miner’s chances of being able to afford a high-end GPU increase manifold.
Monero can very easily be mined on Windows 10, 7, 8 and Linux and Mac.
Ways to mine Monero
Unlike the typical mining, Monero can be mined via 3 ways:
- CPU: If you’re mining Monero on your CPU, you can use the Monero Spelunker, XMR Stak, and Wolfs Miner
- AMD Cards: In case of AMD Cards, XMR Stak and Wolf’s Miner can be used with the first one charging a 2% Dev fee and the second one charging none.
- nVidia Cards: CC Miner and XMR Stak are your best bets while mining through a nVidia Card.
Initial Steps
- Download the official Monero Wallet.
- Create a New Wallet and secure it via a strong password.
- When Step 2 is complete, the wallet will sync with the network. Copy your wallet address.
Since XMR Stak is one software that seems to do the job with all three hardware, we can look at its mining process in brief.
To be able to pool Monero, you need to join the mining pools for XMR. The following pools allow Monero mining:
- MineXMR
- Nanopool
- Moneropool
- Dwarfpool
Once you have the XMR Stak installed in your device, you need to set it up.
- When the configuration wizard starts, enter the currency, username (Moero wallet ID), pool address, password We don’t use NiceHash or multiple pools on this software so the answer for both of these will be ‘n’.
- The next step is configuring the files. Among the files that have been generated on installing the software, pick the one that says ‘cpu’ and add your CPU threads you want the software to use in the documents. For instance, if you have a CPU with 8 cores and you want to offer core 1 and core 2, a configuration should look like:
“cpu_threads_conf” :
[
{ “low_power_mode” : false, “no_prefetch” : true, “affine_to_cpu” : 1 },
.
.
],
- After the configuration is complete, the network will connect to the pool and on successful connection, the message Pool logged in will flash.
- After some operation time, the user should be able to see the message Result accepted by pool indicating that the software is successfully mining for XMR.
And there you go! Now, you are mining for Monero with your CPU. Mining with GPU has a fairly similar process and the software also has multiple options to alter information.
Read this blog to know How to mine Zencash
Hitesh Malviya is the Founder of ItsBlockchain. He is one of the most early adopters of blockchain & cryptocurrency enthusiast in India. After being into space for a few years, he started IBC in 2016 to help other early adopters learn about the technology.
Before IBC, Hitesh has founded 4 companies in the cyber security & IT space.
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