Nimiq: A Guide to Mining & A Recap Of Thus Far

JSmee

9 min readMay 4, 2018

Outdated — new guide coming.

2020

In this article, I will address the following:

The State of NIM-Nation: Current status of Nimiq mining/coming updates.

An Overview of Pools: List and description of public pools.

How to Mine: A Noob-friendly guide to mining.

The State of NIM-Nation

Well folks, it’s time for an update. It’s been about 2 weeks since the launch of mainnet and boy is the megahash flying.

Coming out the gates, we hit a combined rate of about 400–500 MH/s — well exceeding the team’s expectations. Mining interest is growing. As a result, the global hash-rate has boomed to nearly double its initial rate after only 2 weeks and continues to steadily grow.

At launch, only one public pool was available: Skypool. This resulted in a single entity controlling over 60% of the global hashrate. However, this did not last for more than a week. The team has worked night and day to build out the public pooling functionality, to make it easy for users to set up their own pool. With the launch of the pool source code, Nimiq has seen an explosion in the number of public pool and the distribution of hash power is gradually beginning to even out.

What’s Coming

Users have called for faster, more streamlined wallet creation — in reference to making a wallet with NimiqSafe. The team has been listening to all the feedback and has responded:

“The safe is intended for holding big amounts of NIM so security is the priority. A wallet for day-to-day payments is in the works.” — Richy

Richy has also notified me that:

A user-friendly Windows client is on the way
Mobile mining apps are being discussed by the team

Edit: Browser pool mining just got added! So mining with any device, no matter the hashrate, is now feasible.

As mentioned earlier by the team in a video:

Exchange listing is a priority and already in process
The Ledger support process has already been submitted and waiting for approval. You can vote for Nimiq to be added next here.

Robin Linus (Creator of Nimiq) has reasserted the priority of exchange listing:

List of Pools — (All With 1% Fee, Unless Specified)

Skypool (Switch to English at top right)

The first public pool. Run by community member Azard, Skypool offers easy-to-use packages and a multitude of server nodes across the globe. Their site features a very helpful dashboard so you can track all your miners. Skypool takes a fee of 1% (which seems to be the standard for all pools) and payouts occur automatically every 24 hours.

Beeppool

The second pool to launch, Beeppool has risen to great popularity. Like Skypool, they offer a multitude of pre-compiled packages — with even greater range, having packs for each CPU architecture. Payouts are not yet automated, occurring manually several times a day.

Sushipool

Run by long time community members Brantje, LTD and Maestro, Sushipool offers a 0% fee for now and automatic payouts every 3 hours. Like Skypool and Beeppool, Sushipool has a range of pre-compiled packages. They are currently working on a visual interface.

PorkyPool

Run by Rrowland, PorkyPool has a one line command to engage the install script in Linux. Updated with stable servers across the globe. 0% fee until May 12. Payouts are every 3 hours.

PhilPool

Run by Phil. Hourly payouts, with a 0.5% fee. Easy setup script for Linux which will automate your miner for you by creating a service. So if your server restarts, your machine will resume mining on startup.

Bhlynd-Pool

Run by Bhlynd, this pool caters exclusively to New Zealanders and Aussies. Access is restricted only to fellow Kiwis/Banana Benders for DDOS protection. Payouts occur every 6 hours. Bhlynd has set up an install script for easy setup.

NimiqPool

Run by Faberto (who developed the first install scripts), features a site with visual dashboard and a one-line install script. Payouts occur every 3 hours.

NimiqChain

Run by Christian, who created the Nimiq block explorer site NimiqChain. This pool offers pre-compiled packages. Payouts are being processed manually for now.

NimiqMiner

Run by long time community member Brad (super helpful guy who is currently working on NimiqPay, a plug-in for paying with NIM). Payouts are every 6 hours. To connect you will need to compile Nimiq miner manually or by script file. You will then be able to connect by modifying your run command or config file.

NimPool

Hosted by team member Marvin, Nimpool aims to be a non-profit. 0.8% fee. All proceeds are to go towards the Nimiq foundation (to support development and community growth). The site features a dashboard for monitoring your miners and there are servers located in NA, Europe and Asia. You will need to compile your own miner and alter your command line or config file to connect.

NimiqWatch

Another pool hosted by a team member (Soeren). Features auto payments every 6 hours. You will need to alter your command line or change your config file to connect.

Shout out to Talleyrand for compiling the list.

How to Mine:

Browser Mining

In its current state, web mining will deliver less hashrate, at least for now. Such is the nature of running of a miner via a browser. The point of Nimiq, is that it gives users access to an entire blockchain, in a trustless way within seconds, all from the convenience of a browser. This, the project has fully achieved.

Back-end clients running on NodeJS servers via Linux are to form the backbone of the network, at least at the start. Deploying such a miner requires much greater effort than simply opening a browser. So browser mining will still remain core to Nimiq’s prime directive, which is to reach the masses.

Edit: Pool mining via the browser has just been added! So it is now worthwhile to mine, no matter how the hashrate.

Plug-ins for Wordpress/deployment on other sites that will utilize browser mining, are in the works.

Back-End Clients

Linux (Ubuntu) is the preferred OS to mine on as it is lightweight and will maximize available resources to focus on mining that sweet sweet NIM.

Using Install Scripts:

Install scripts have been developed to make your machine mining ready after just a single command. Simply enter the commands via terminal in Linux and it will begin downloading/assembling the miner package. Run the miner via the command provided by the pool instructions. You may be prompted for the number of CPU threads to use and will be for your wallet address.

Pools with install scripts:

PorkyPool

Bhlynd-Pool

NimiqPool

Pre-Compiled Packages:

Some pools offer a pre-compiled packages that you must download and unzip. From there, it’s only a command away from mining.

Pools with Pre-Compiled Packs:

Skypool

Beeppool

Sushipool

NimiqChain

Compiling the Miner from the Source:

You can opt to compile a miner from the official code. The team recommends this as install scripts and pre-compiled packages could contain modified code. With the official package you can mine with any pool by simply altering your run command or config file. You can compile by following the quick-start instructions here.

Personally, these are the commands I used in Ubuntu (you can combine them into one command by using &&):

sudo curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_8.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
sudo apt-get install -y git build-essential
sudo npm install -g yarn
sudo yarn global add gulp
sudo git clone https://github.com/nimiq-network/core
cd core && sudo yarn && sudo yarn build

From there you want to navigate to your nodejs directory. This will like be in your core/clients/nodejs.

Then run the command:

sudo env UV_THREADPOOL_SIZE=xx node index.js --dumb --miner=xx --pool=xx --statistics=10 --wallet-address=”xx” --extradata=“xx”

UV_THREADPOOL_SIZE=xx

--miner=xx

You want these variables to equal the number of cpu threads you wish to run. Input for both threadpool_size and miner.

--pool=xx

Changing this variable, you can mine with any of the pools — such as those described above.

--wallet-address=“xx”

Input your 36 digit wallet address here like so, with spaces after each 4 characters:

“XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX.”

--extradata=“xx”

Input extra text to be added to the mined block. This can be used to tag an individual miner, say if you have multiple miners mining on one pool and want to track your hashrate for each device.

Automation (On Linux)

Tmux

A super easy way to keep your miner running (say after disconnecting from your server after a SSH session) is to use Tmux. This program will open another shell, where you can manually initialize the miner. You will then be able to disconnect from your session and it will keep your miner mining until the server restarts.

Install Tmux:

sudo apt install tmux -y

Use Tmux to open another shell:

tmux new -s nimiqpool

Now manually initialize your miner. You can then disconnect from your SSH session. Don’t exit the Tmux shell by typing exit. Just disconnect from the SSH session.

You can use use tmux attach -t nimiqpool to check up on your mining after reconnecting to your server.

Supervisor

You can use supervisor to run your miner as a background service. Requires knowing how to work a script. Supervisor will launch on startup so if your server restarts the miner Supervisor can automatically launch your mining program — saving you the hassle of manually relaunching.

Guide will be routinely updated.

Following Nimiq, it’s remarkable what these guys have accomplished in just a year. The first browser accessible blockchain in history. The team has operated with the principle of delivering the highest quality code, and delivering on everything they promise.

To me, this is what separate Nimiq from a majority of projects in the Cryptospace. They don’t make empty promises to fabricate hype. All this team does is put their heads down and deliver on features. With a group like this, I am profoundly excited for the future of Nimiq and have no doubts they will continue to achieve incredible things.

I look forward to educating about this project which I truly love. Until next time!