How to Start CPU Mining Verus Coin VRSC from Your Computer in Under 5 Minutes
A Step by Step Guide to Pool Mining Verus Coin with a CPU!
I know mining can seem intimidating to the average cryptocurrency enthusiast, so I thought I’d throw a quick guide together meant to help ANYONE START MINING in under 5 minutes. The intention is that anyone can follow this, regardless of your skill level or knowledge, and be mining and earning Verus Coin today.
You can learn more about this 100% community project at https://veruscoin.io. The project had no ico, no premine, was a completely “fair launch” which means everyone got the source code to begin mining it at the same time as the developers themselves, through an announcement over at bitcointalk.
Implementing “Proof of Power”, a new hybrid 50% PoW/50% PoS consensus mechanism, Verus Coin is a provable 51% hash attack immune blockchain, and solves the Nothing at Stake and weak subjectivity problems…all in a decentralized manner!
Okay, let’s get you mining!
Part 1 — Get a VRSC Wallet Address
You’ll be mining Verus Coin directly into your own wallet. So you need a wallet address!
You can run a “Native Node” wallet, which synchronizes with the entire Verus blockchain and is a cool way to participate in the network, but does take a bit longer to sync up. Or you can run in “Lite” mode where you get a new Verus wallet address that uses Electrum servers to connect you to the network, so you don’t have to do a full sync.
For this guide, we’ll do Lite mode since it’s the fastest and we want to get mining in less than 5 minutes.
Step 1
First download the version for your OS of the enhanced Verus Agama wallet from https://veruscoin.io/#download
Step 2
Unzip the compressed folder to your Desktop or somewhere you can easily launch it from. I recommend renaming the folder to “Verus v0.5.x” where “x” is the current version, that way you keep track which version you’re running.
Step 3
Launch the Agama app located within the folder and upon the first screen, use the drop down under “Lite (SPV) Mode” to select VRSC, then choose “Create new wallet”:
Step 4
Next, you’ll see that a new Wallet Seed has been created for you. Simply copy it and save it somewhere secure (I also recommend writing it down!). Anyone with that Seed can access your wallet, so security is key. Paste it or type it into the Confirm Wallet Seed section, then scroll down and optionally create a Password to encrypt your new Seed into a file for easy logins..the password is created in “Enter your key”..finally name it something unique and click “Register”
Step 5
Now you can login using the Password you just created, once signed in you’ll find your new Public Verus Coin Wallet Address (VRSC Address) at the top of the screen as seen below. Copy this public address and have it ready for Part 2 below.
Part 2 — Setup the Pool Miner
Now that you have a Verus Coin public address, you’re ready to begin mining VRSC to it! This guide shows you how to start mining using “pool mining” where you mine on one of the Verus pools and receive payouts based on your hash power contribution and the payout schedule of the pool you’re mining with.
Getting Familiarized with Pool Settings (it’s easy)
Here’s a list of Verus pools (I’ll try to keep this updated, but for a complete list visit https://veruscoin.io/#download):
- Luck Pool: luckpool.net/verus/
- 52 Hash Pool: vrsc.52hash.com
- Ginasis Mining Pool: vrsc.ginasismining.com
- Jeepool: vrsc.jeepool.com
- LOUD Mining Pool: vrsc.loudmining.com
Regardless which pool you choose to mine with you’ll need two things from their site: The Stratum Host and The Port
If they show something like pool.vrsc.52hash.com:18888 that means the host is “pool.vrsc.52hash.com” and the port is “18888”
Okay, let’s begin!
Step 1
Simply visit your chosen pool site and copy down the Host and Port. Following are the five community Verus pools you can choose from and where you would find the Host and Port for each:
Notice above that some pools have multiple Hosts or Ports to choose from. In the case of LuckPool you can choose the ideal Host and Port for your region and hardware type. Others, such as 52Hash, have a different Host and Port for the level of hash power you anticipate on mining with.
Step 2
Now that you have the host and port, you need the Verus pool miner! You can download the latest version of Nheqminer at https://veruscoin.io/#download from the “Miners” section, for your OS as seen here:
Simply unzip the compressed folder to your Desktop or somewhere easy to access, then open the folder and use a text editor to edit the “start” file within.
Step 3
Customize the top section of the start script file with the pool Host and Port you’ve decided to use, your Verus Coin public address you copied earlier, an optional “worker name” (useful if you are going to mine from many devices, so you can track how each is doing), and lastly, with a number representing how many “Threads” you want your system to mine with. You can find out how many threads your CPU has by doing a simple Google search.
After entering the custom data into the start file, be sure to save it!
Part 3 — Begin Mining!
Now that you have your wallet and your start script is configured with it, along with the pool and thread settings, you’re ready to mine! This part scares a lot of people, because you’re running a “command line” script. But it’s no sweat, I promise.
Step 1
Open the folder containing the start script (or maybe it’s still open) and, in Linux, right click inside the folder. From the drop down menu that appears, simply click “Open in Terminal”. (In Windows simply open the folder containing the start.bat file.)
On a Mac, click Finder, Services, and select “New Terminal at Folder”.
Step 2
Now simply run the start script!
In Windows you can simply double click the “start.bat” file. Windows may give you a security warning, to bypass it click “More info” and then “Run Anyway”. If you run into an error in Windows regarding a missing DLL, try installing the Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable Update 3.
In Mac and Linux you’ll run the “start.sh” script as follows:
Step 3
You’ll see the script kick off and start mining! Leave the window open to mine. If you want to shut down the script, in Linux and Mac press CTRL + Z while the terminal is in focus.
On Windows press CTRL + C and then Y to terminate.
Step 4
Lastly, if you want to see the status of your workers (or just single worker if you’re only using one computer to mine), visit the pool mining site where you’ve chosen to mine and find their Worker Stats section. For example, here are two different pools and their Stats sections (LuckPool on the left, Ginasis on the right):
Part 4 — Optional: Become a ‘Hans Solo’…Miner That Is!
Pool mining is a great way to participate in the distributed securing of a blockchain while earning rewards often sooner and more regularly than “solo mining”. Whether solo or pool mining however, ultimately the results should be about the same as far as coins earned.
Solo Mining doesn’t have to be “solo” either! You can split your computer power, mining solo AND pool simultaneously. Whether using just CPU power, or a combination of CPU and GPU, running the pool miner and Agama side by side is no problem!
To learn how to Solo Mine using Verus enhanced Agama, check out my step-by-step guide here:
Join the Verus Community
You are now mining, helping secure the Verus blockchain, and earning VRSC! What next?
Besides the incredible strong development, delivering cutting edge technology and ground breaking innovations (learn more about it here), Verus is a 100% community project and has a thriving and active Discord. Whether you need help or want to find ways to contribute (and earn more Verus!) joining the official Verus Discord is a great next step!
Hope you found this guide helpful and as simple and easy to follow as I intended. When you do join the Verus Discord look me up (I’m John Westbrook#1979 there) and say hi, and feel free to ask for any help you may need!
