Mining Nimiq on Windows $NIM #NIMIQ
Nimiq is an amazing project in the crypto space and one of my favorites. It’s built around Javascript first, which means integration by any developer who’s ever created a website with some basic javascript can jump right in and make amazing stuff.
Nimiq is fairly mined by anyone with a web browser. This means anyone with Chrome on Windows or Mac can easily mine Nimiq (NIM) on their PC and have complete control over how much processing power is being used. Mine in the background while working or leave it on when you’re asleep or at work/school its super easy and doesn’t require any special hardware (it’s designed this way).
Once you’ve created a Nimiq wallet, mined a few nims, and joined a pool with others, you are ready for the next step in your crypto mining adventure. Mining using an optimized desktop miner!
If you’re on Windows, just install my Nimiq Desktop application. After a few clicks and pasting your Nimiq wallet and pool information you’re off to the races and mining NIM 10x faster than the web browser.
You also have the option to become a full backbone node on the Nimiq network with a couple clicks! Its super easy and there are no config files, or compiling needed.
First, to use Nimiq Desktop you should already be familiar with mining Nimiq at Nimiq.com — Once you know what your Nimiq wallet address is, and you’ve picked a pool to mine with you are ready to upgrade to Nimiq Desktop awesomeness.
All that’s needed is to fill in the 3 fields in Nimiq Desktop with your information then click Start Mining. Here is a picture of the interface:
Here are the 3 things you need to fill out. Everything is saved for you locally so you only need to enter them once.
- Nimiq wallet address. It always starts with NQ... (Copy this from your Nimiq safe, just clicking on your wallet address will copy it to your clipboard. Seriously if you get this wrong you’ll be mining for some homeless guy who doesn’t even know he has a Nimiq address yet).
- Pool connection information. Every mining pool has a section on their website that gives you their connection information. Here we just enter it in a simple format: DOMAIN:PORT (You can find pool information on the Nimiq Community Mining page). It will end up looking something like: “usa.nimiqpoolnamehere.com:8443” keep in mind this is a made up pool it doesn’t exist. TIP: If you don’t enter pool info, you will be solo mining.
- Worker Name. This is you, or the name of your computer, or your dogs name or pet pig. This helps identify who you are on the network. More importantly, if you mine with many PC’s running Nimiq Desktop, you’ll need to enter a unique name for each one here. Pretty simple right? Don’t use a password or something private as it will get shared across the network publicly.
Press Start Mining and if the planets are aligned and you didn’t screw up those easy steps you’ll start to see a red line moving across the chart and a few seconds later you’ll see it go up and show your current hashrate.
Congrats you are mining like a pro now! You can now talk down to all your crypto pals and tell them you’re going to the moon. We’ll be waiting for you :)
Advanced features are available in the “Nimiq Node Settings” dialog. You don’t need to go here if you’re new but if you really want to step up your game you can run a full backbone node right on your Windows PC!
By default everyone can run a “dumb node” which only connects TO the network and mines NIMs. To actually be a part of the network and help strengthen it you should run a backbone node.
For most users, you will select the HTTP backbone. Nimiq Desktop will figure out your internet IP address for you. If for some reason it doesn’t, just look it up on a site like whatismyipaddress.com and enter it in the Host field. Click save and then set your firewall to open up a specific port (default is 8443 as seen in this snapshot) and make sure the traffic is forwarded to your specific machine (your internal ip) running Nimiq Desktop. This allows incoming connections from other nodes and raises your awesomeness by a factor of 10. You can now tell your friends you run a full node on your home PC and watch their eyes glaze over as they realize you’re way smarter than them.
Every computer is different and your cpu and selected pool really determine how much NIM you can mine and how fast you’ll see results. Always do your research into pools to make sure you’re helping the network. For example using smaller pools helps distribute your hash power making the network more decentralized (this is good).
Keep up to date on all things Nimiq in the Nimiq Discord and by following the Nimiq Community updates!
Why are you still reading this? Click to Download Nimiq Desktop then go tell all your friends about it.
Make sure to follow me on Twitter for updates and announcements for the other Nimiq projects I’m working on. https://twitter.com/kunani
