You should not assume that everyone here on Steemit knows about crypto currencies and crypto mining, there are quite a lot of people that are not into crypto currencies and actually are not familiar with mining. So pointing them to a guide on how to setup mining of Steem Power on Steem may be just like speaking some foreign language to them. That is why this time I figured that I should do a different kind of guide, one for easy mining on your computer, a guide that is intended for people that are not familiar with mining pools, crypto currency exchanges and different miners for CPUs and GPUs...
The goal of this guide is for you as a crypto currency newbie to take advantage of your computer's performance by using it for mining or more precisely for selling your hashrate and getting paid for it in Bitcoin and then using the earned BTC by converting them into Steem or Steem Power. You will be doing that the easiest possible way, without having to register at a lot of new websites, learning how to use them or having to download and setup complex software for everything to work. All you will need to do is download a single universal miner from NiceHash for Windows, start it up and give it a payment address and wait for the Steem or Steem Power to start coming your way...
Start by Downloading the NiceHash Miner
First you need to download the latest NiceHash Miner, the current version is 1.7.3.1, though the software gets updated often and you may see a higher number version as well. The link for downloading the miner is available below, it is a Windows only miner and there is no need to compile anything yourself. As soon as you download the miner, extract it from the ZIP archive and run NiceHashMiner.exe it should start downloading some additional files (the actual mining software it will be using). If the automatic download does not go or there is some issue, you can download the additional required files from here and then extract them in the same folder where you have unzipped the NiceHash Miner.
The first time you run the miner it will ask you what language of the interface you want to use, currently only English and Russian are available, though in the future more languages may be added. The NiceHas Miner relies on the NiceHash services for leasing and renting hashrate for various crypto currency mining algorithms and what you will essentially be doing with their miner is to sell your mining hashrate for the most profitable algorithm at the moment based on the hardware you have available in your computer. The miner should be able to autodetect your processor and video cards and show them in a list, giving you the ability to select and deselect what you want to use for mining.
Setting Up the NiceHash Miner
The basic setup of the software is really easy, you just need to select your general location depending on where you are based in like Europe for example. Then you need to also provide a Bitcoin address to which the payments will be sent, this is a really important part as you need to open up your Steemit.com profile page, go to the Wallet tab and click on the button labeled BUY STEEM OR STEEM POWER. You will see a popup window where you can select to buy either STEEM POWER or STEEM tokens, select one of the two options and you will get a unique BItcoin address generated for you to send BTC to and get STEEM or STEEM POWER in return. This is the built-in exchange option on Steemit that is powered by Blocktrades, the good thing is that the unique BTC address you get is not for single use, you can send many transactions to it and get credited in Steem or Steem Power (the Bitcon addresses for both are different, so make sure you choose the one you need).
Just copy the Bitcoin address from Steemit, in this example it is 1859ZC45xdDztQwvKVzYQiWMarHTju7Q9u and is for purchasing Steem Power and paste it into the field labeled Bitcoin Address inside the NiceHash Miner application window. It should look just like as what you see on the screenshot above with the BTC address I got from Steemit entered in the miner. This will ensure that all your earnings will be sent directly to Blocktrades and converted into Steem Power (or Steem) as soon as you are being paid by the NiceHash service and that usually happens multiple times a day if you have met a certain minimum amount.
Running the Benchmarks to Calculate Hashrate
You need to click on the Benchmark button inside the NiceHash Miner in order for the software to check what hashrate your CPU and Video card can provide in different crypto algorithm. This is required so that the miner can always switch to the most profitable algorithm when mining and maximizing your profit, it is advised that you run the benchmark on all algorithms and on both the processor and the video card(s) that you have before actually starting to mine. Currently the most profitable algorithm is probably going to be the one used by Zcash that is called equihash, but this can change and the software should automatically make the required change when it knows the hashrate your hardware gets for the different algorithms.
Starting to Mine and Waiting for the Steem / Steem Power to Come
Make sure that under the Device list where your CPU and/or any Video card(s) is going to be displayed are not grayed out and you have added a tick in front of each device that you want to use for mining. Then all you need to do is click on the Start button and you will see the mining start. There should be a console window popping up with some real time status updates of the mining process displayed there, but that will probably not be very useful for less advanced users.
What you need to pay attention to more is the status window inside the NiceHash Miner software where you will be able to see the mining speed you are currently getting, the mining algorithm used and the estimated amount of BTC/Day and the USD/Day earnings that you should be getting. Since the rates change very often it is possible that the actual profit will not be as big, or could as well be higher than the average estimate that is being displayed there. A bit lower than that you can also see your account Balance on NiceHash, it should start with 0 mBTC and 0 USD, but as soon as you start mining it should start to slowly grow up.
Checking your Profit on the NiceHash Website
You can keep track of your earnings directly inside the NiceHash Miner as well as on the official NiceHash website. To check the more detailed stats available on the NiceHash website just open up this address in your browser - https://www.nicehash.com/?p=myminer and type in your Bitcoin payment address which is 1859ZC45xdDztQwvKVzYQiWMarHTju7Q9u for this example...
The only thing left now is to wait a couple of hours for your first payment to be sent from NiceHash to your Bitcoin payment address issued by Blocktrades and get the BTC converted to Steem or Steem Power and available in your Steemit account. There is no need to use additional exchanges or do anything else besides run the miner with the right Bitcoin address and you should start receiving a steady flow of Steem or Steem Power tokens to your Steemit account. The amount depends on how much hashrate you get and respectively how powerful your computer's processor and/or video card(s) are. So it might take just a couple of hours initially or some more if you don't have much hahsrate for the first Steem/Steem Power tokens to arrive.
Do note that using NiceHash and their Windows-only miner is probably the easiest way to do things for users that are not into crypto currencies and crypto mining, though it might not be the most profitable solution. It is a good first step that works well and provides a nice profit, especially at the moment with the good paying Zcash, and you can also take advantage of the low Steem price to get some extra Steem from your computer when you are not using it for other things.
If you have a question or want to add something, then please leave a comment below.
Did you like what you have just read? Check my other posts on steemit @cryptos
If you like what I'm doing for Steem and on Steemit you can support me as a Witness
I've always wondered about mining. I always thought it required too much equipment for me to do myself.
A great informative post, thank you!
My son's gaming machine is mining ZCASH @ 43 h/s, shhhhhhh, he's away at college.
Thank you for this great easy to follow guide! (Resteemed)
Is it correct that users doing this will actually be increasing the demand for STEEM, because the mining will be collecting a different coin and then selling it to buy STEEM/SP?
Also, was this a typo? The wording has me confused.
I'm not sure about the wording of that excerpt either, but yes, it mines a basket of altcoins, picking the current most profitable, then pays in bitcoin. When you ship the bitcoin to the deposit address, you're buying steem power through blocktrades, so if enough people do this, it should put buying pressure on the price of steem. I had posted a similar article, here.
Cool, thanks!
Not mining that you should not be doing, but assuming ;)
Sorry, I'm still confused :)
Better now?
Yes, thank you! :)
Helpful, although I could have used it a few months ago lol.
I have a crappy miner running on nicehash and making me about $2 a day. I'm planning on making another one but I'm not sure on what GPUs I should get, I am thinking gtx 970s but I am not sure about those. You know any good ones? (Those are along with an amd on nicehashes mining intro page and the other one draws too much power for my house lol)
The GTX 970 is not bad at all, however it is already a bit old. So you might want to consider going for GTX 1070 instead. The problem is that with the currently most profitable algorithms AMD has the lead in terms of price/performance - ETH and ZEC, hopefuy Nvidia will catch up in terms of performance, but it is still higher priced.
the gtx 970 had a major flaw (when you get into last 500 MB of memory the memory speed halves) and never became too expensive so I can get for about $250 while the 1070 is like 400. For the cost it is equal to amd in terms of mining speed but draws less power.
It still has the problem with slower speed at the last block of video memory, but that never affected gaming performance muh anyway and is not a problem for mining at all. If you can get a good deal on GTX 970 then go for it, one crypto currency that does work better on Nvidia to check - LBRY.
Hi, I have downloaded and extracted the Nice Miner software. I could see it installing and autodetecting my processor, but could not add my bitcoin address or choose my location or benchmark. Once it was done installing, the window disappeared. All I can find is the extracted files. I tried it several times and no luck. It looks like it's loading and then the window disappears again.
You can try to manually extract the bin.zip file that is linked from the download page.
Ive extracted the zipfile and have it installed and can see the widow of the program choosing my processor. It just stops before its completed and i can't choose the benchmark, add my bitcoin address or my location
Did you download and extract the second, "bin.zip" file that's linked on that page? It's not part of the standard instructions, but for whatever reason, sometimes it's necessary.
For example, if you follow @cryptos instructions and extract NiceHashMiner_v1.7.31 under your desktop, then you'll want to extract the linked bin.zip file into NiceHashMiner_v1.7.31\bin .
Seems to be working now. Thanks SO much!
That's great for someone like me who would like to try mining but have no time to figure it out calmly enough. My current problem is that nicehash does not seem to run on anything else than windows. I browsed the website but haven't found anything. Do you have any other suggestion by any chance?
Minergate works fine with windows, linux and mac...
https://minergate.com/downloads/gui
Just be careful you don't lose your password. Neither NiceHash nor MinerGate are known for great customer service.
I put Minergate on the Mac and 32 Bit Winblowz 7 HTPC I have in the living room. I have NiceHash on the Laptop. The MinerGate setups I went ETH mining and am doing BTC on the NiceHash. We'll see how it goes. Thanks for the guide and advice @cryptos and @williambanks . I add @cryptos to my witness list !
You're very welcome!
Hi how is the web mining on your computer going?
Thanks a lot! I will have a look (more by curiosity for the moment).
Unfortunately no other reasonable alternative that keeps things up to date and profitable enough when new coins or algorithms worth mining become available... the service works with miners for other OSes, but their own easy GUI miner is only available for Windows.
I guess I will have to invest more time to understand that... Maybe next year ;)
It is still relatively easy setting up a console miner to work with the NiceHash service, but you need to know a bi tmore on what hardware you have available in the computer to make it work and maximize your results. The NiceHash Miner just makes this part much more easier by autodetecting the hardware and choosing the best miners for what you have available...
I am in principle capable to setting it up myself, but I have for the moment unfortunately no time to dedicate to this task (which is why a "ready-to-work" out-of-option was appealing :)
Hi, I go to translate this post into spanish. If you have any objection or you want some of the reward just tell me. Good job!
No problem, just provide a link to the original post.
Provided, here is the post.
Thanks :)
any way to do this with a mac?
Unfortunately the NiceHash Miner is only available for Windows.
Wow, that was an awesome tutorial. Thanks for sharing this! :)
This was so much easier than setting up my Windows machine to mine Steem. Thanks for sharing this, I'm already up and running!
Nice post. Resteemed. One point about this:
This is true, but because it is constantly monitoring prices and switching to the most profitable altcoin available, I think it is also true that it often may be more profitable than native steem mining with steemd.
With that I mean more like it may not always have the fastest miner for the specific algorithm and hardware, for example the OpenCL hashrate for the Zcash algorithm is slower than what other miners offer at the moment.
I'm waiting till it be possible to do mining from mobile phone )
resteemed!
i'll be saving this for ref later
thx man
Great guide. I'm using NiceHash myself on 3 machines at the moment.
Nice, it's a great way to get steem.
Help! We got this message:
we then downloaded bin.zip and extracted that to the folder, but that made no difference.
Any other ideas, anybody?
I just googled and although I didn't find that exact error message found a similar one that related to people using .Net 4.0 Framework but needing 4.5 . We didn't have .NET and had to download it, and we downloaded the exact version suggested by NiceHash, which 4.0.30391. Does anybody with more tech knowledge than me know if this could be the problem? Should we upgrade to .NET 4.5?
Here I am again, still looking like a numpty! But I'll leave all this here anyway, in case other numpties have the same problems. Have upgraded to .NEW Framework 4.5 which solved the problem. But now I find that the spare computer we were trying this on is only 32-bit Windows 7 and it needs to be 64-bit. Sigh.
Time to get out into the spring evening fresh air though before it's too late, so this will have to wait a bit longer. Thanks anyway @cryptos for your excellent instructions, and maybe we'll be mining by tomorrow!
Looking forward to trying this.... thank you.
Did you give it a try? Let us know :)
How much can you expect make by doing this?
It depends a lot on the hardware you have available... only a CPU or a decent GPU as well, as well as what you are mining and what it the current profitability. With Zcash at the moment things are pretty good even for a decent CPU only. Just run the miner and see what estimate it will give you for your hardware.
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Thanks for this very useful post @cryptos. I will be applying this at home.
This looks almost foolproof, thanks for sharing.
One question I have is this:
How much data/bandwidth does this use/require, and do you need a constant connection?
And, does a faster connection === more BTC mined?
It uses very little data, needs constant connection though, network speed does not affect performance, unless there are connectivity issues that can cause less than the optimal performance.
Wow, really does sound foolproof. Thanks again for the great info!
Awesome! Thanks!
When I tried to load it up after downloading I get this window popup and after 1 hour waiting it never finishes whatever its doing and I can;t even turn it off i had to ctr alt del it.
How do I get the missing item?
Maybe you are using older video drivers, you may try to update them.
Also if you hav OpenCL.dll file in the folder of the miner you may try deleting it.
Also my rig with 5x380x, when doing benchmark at step 9 or 10/75 do a cold restart. I have AMD 16.11 installed...the one windows 10 instqlled for me! Any advices? Maybe someone from nicehash will se these messeges...
Happy mining to all!
Just note the algorithm that is being benchmarke when you get the problem, deselecting it from the benchmark should help you go though the process and after that it will not be mined by the software.
Upvoted and followed. Thank you for the post!
Fantastic post! It's great to let the world know that there are ways to make some extra cash , Steem and other cryptocurrencies...
👌🏾
This looks interesting. Thanks for sharing @Cryptos.
But whenever I try to install #Nicehash, my Antivirus software is notifying that package contains in Virus. McAfee and Symantec alerting and blocking this software.
Is it really contains Virus? or Just a False-positive to block Cryptocurrency mining?!
I'm really curious to know more about this. Because, no one answering to this doubt properly.