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Mining Ergo after The Hardening Upgrade

pragmaxim edited this page Jul 22, 2022 · 6 revisions

(this guide done by MHS)

Mining Ergo after Hardening Upgrade

Ergo will have a hardening protocol upgrade on block #417,792. This upgrade introduces breaking changes where Non-Outsourceability will be switched off. After this hardfork, the new PoW (called Autolykos v2.0) will support traditional mining pools. This article will help you start mining Ergo using a GPU.

The following instructions will be valid since block #417,792. More details here and here. Previous instructions, which is valid until block #417,791, can be found here.

Ergo mining is based on Autolykos v.2, a Proof-of-Work algorithm designed to be ASIC resistant. Miners have to perform memory-hard computations~(at least 2.5 GB memory is needed, but the current most efficient implementation utilizes around 4 GB of vRAM) that makes Ergo friendly for GPU mining. Unlike Autolykos v.1, Autolykos v.2 does not require access to private keys, thereby allowing mining pool formation. As soon as a correct solution is found, the miner broadcasts the block along with the solution and is able to collect the block reward after a delay of 720 blocks using the secret of his mining address. The rest of the network verifies the solution which can be done very efficiently, requiring less than a kilobyte of memory.

Mining with Pools

Prerequisites

  1. Accessing to a Ergo mining pool.
  2. A computer with a GPU (or multiple GPUs).
  3. An Ergo address for recieving pool rewards.
  4. Ergo Stratum Proxy, in order to connet pool server and the miner.
  5. Ergo mining software.

The links for setting up the mining software are:

Note that some pools allow users to solo mine with them. In this case, the steps are the same with regular pooled mining.

Find a mining pool that supports Ergo mining. Here is a list of pools providing Ergo mining (not limited to):

You can find more on Mining Pool Stats

Some pool's instructions may vary but the common setting is as follows.

Quick Pooled Mining Start

  1. Download the AMD Miner or NVIDIA Miner for desired OS.

  2. Run the ErgoStratumProxy executable (Bundled with the miner release)

    • In Windows PowerShell:
    .\ErgoStratumProxy.exe -s <POOL_ADDRESS> -p <POOL_PORT> -u <WORKER_NAME>
    
    • In linux:
    ./ErgoStratumProxy_Linux -s <POOL_ADDRESS> -p <POOL_PORT> -u <WORKER_NAME>
    
  3. Run the miner

    • If neccessary, edit config.json; set node address to the proxy's address (by default this address is: {"node":"http://127.0.0.1:3000"})

Mining Solo

Prerequisites

In order to solo mine, you need the following setup:

  1. A full node with wallet initialized and fully synced.
  2. A computer with a GPU (or multiple GPUs)
  3. Ergo mining software for your operating system. Ergo supports both AMD and NVidia GPUs.

The links for setting up the mining software are:

Solo mining requires a configured and synchronized Ergo node and at least one GPU for mining. You may use multiple GPUs if you wish (to multiply your hashing power) but you only need one Ergo node.

Sync node and Initialize Wallet

Follow the steps of setting up a node as described in the tutorial.

Edit the config file of the node and add the following line.

ergo.node.mining = true

Ensure that the wallet is initialized and you are in possession of the correct mnemonic sentence.

Finally, ensure that the node is synced as described here.

Configure and run the miner

In the same folder of miner executable, create a file called config.json with the following content

{ 
    "node": "http://127.0.0.1:9053"
}

where, node is the URL of your node.

Run your miner and enjoy receiving block rewards!

Once you have received any mining rewards, you can view the balance as described here and then withdraw the funds as described here.