Since the inception of BTC, mining has become profitable because it is now a way to earn passively. Additionally, mining is the foundation of Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoW) cryptocurrencies. It is essential to know that early adopters of Bitcoin benefited from mining due to the low difficulty and rates involved. But these days, the crypto market is saturated, and mining cryptocurrencies has become challenging to achieve.
Some cryptocurrencies allow solo mining, but a better way to mine is through mining pools. Nonetheless, this guide teaches you about Ethereum Classic mining and reputable mining pools you can use to mine ETC.
Also Read:
• Ethereum Mining Pool
• Ethereum Mining Software: 4 Best Options
• How To Mine Ethereum? – All You Need To Know
• What Is Ethereum Mining?
Overview of Ethereum Classic
For those who don’t know, Ethereum Classic is the original Ethereum blockchain that didn’t undergo the hard fork in 2016 after the DAO hack, in which millions of ETH was stolen. Some developers weren’t in favor of forking, while some were. However, those that weren’t in support viewed this as a breach of the “code is law” maxim. There resumed their operations on the unforked blockchain, which resulted in Ethereum Classic today.
What is Ethereum Classic mining?
Ethereum Classic cryptocurrency depends on mining, just like BTC and LTC which use PoW. It is also a decentralized and open-source platform. This means that anyone can participate in the creation of ETC tokens. Even though Ethereum Classic uses PoW, it hasn’t reached a high saturation or difficulty as seen on the Bitcoin network. Nonetheless, this makes Ethereum Classic mining a good return on investment option for miners.
Again, the tools used in Ethereum Classic mining are not as costly as in other cryptocurrencies, and you can set them up quickly.
Is it possible to mine Ethereum Classic?
It is possible to mine Ethereum Classic just like Ethereum itself since both of them use PoW. The good news is that it is not so difficult to mine Ethereum Classic due to GPUs and ASIC mining rigs.
An excellent place to about how profitable mining ETC coins is WhatToMine. ETC often features as one of the best digital assets to mine on the platform.
Mining Ethereum Classic through a pool is profitable today. But again, it is worth comparing the numbers at the time you read this article.
Ethereum Classic mining is still profitable if you believe in its potentials. Nonetheless, it is wise to mine this digital asset and send to your ETC wallet and sell it in the future at higher prices.
What algorithm does Ethereum Classic use?
Both Ethereum Classic blockchain and Ethereum blockchain use the same mining algorithm because they use PoW. Both digital assets are mined using Ethash algorithm, but the only difference is the hash rate, the capacity of the threshold for breakeven mining, and rewards per block. It is also essential to note that you can find Ethereum Classic block much faster.
The information may be different when reading this, so it is better to compare the current knowledge on WhatToMine.
Why are Ethereum Classic miners important?
Miners secure blockchain networks, and they also help them become more decentralized. How do miners secure blockchain networks? They deploy computing power to process transactions and secure the network against 51% (double-spend) attacks.
An attacker needs to spend the same digital asset more than once for a double-spend attack to occur. The act also occurs when an attacker steals funds or spends what has already been spent on the blockchain network.
Double-spending usually occurs in smaller blockchain networks with little computing power or hash rate. It is easier to attack or double-spend by gathering more than half of the network’s total computing power.
To prevent double-spending on blockchain networks there is the need for a distributed network of miners. Ethereum Classic miners work together to detect valid transactions and disregard unverified ones. The incentives issued to miners help compensate and motivate them to continue mining to secure the blockchain network.
What do you need to mine Ethereum Classic?
Source: NotebookCheck
1. Keep an ETC wallet handy to store your tokens.
Mining Ethereum Classic involves the same process as you mine other PoW coins. There are certain things you need in mining Ethereum Classic. To begin with, you need a wallet to store your Ethereum Classic tokens. To keep your ETC tokens, you need an ETC wallet. For this article, we recommend Exodus Wallet or Cobo Wallet. It is essential to know that you can also use a hardware wallet to store your ETC tokens.
2. Set up the hardware for mining.
Furthermore, you will need hardware for mining. Right now, the most popular hardware for Ethereum Classic mining is the GPU. CPUs are obsolete. You will need Nvidia graphics cards such as the 1080 and 1080i. Furthermore, you can also use AMD GPUs, but there are less potent for Ethereum Classic mining. Another thing that you need is a minimum of 4GB RAM, either dedicated video RAM or system RAM. The best setup is the one that has lots of GPUs such as Bitman Antminer E3, AMD VEGA 64, or AMD VEGA 56 when mining Ethereum Classic.
3. Choose a mining software.
Furthermore, it would help if you also had mining software. The top-notch software miners that you can use are Claymore Dual Ethereum miner, GMiner, and NBMiner. These software miners support dual mining. Also and you can use both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs with them.
Another mining software that you can use is Ethminer. The Ethminer also allows you to use both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. You need to know that this software supports both Windows and Linux devices.
For a more straightforward process, you can use MinerGate. This software doesn’t need a setup requirement, and again, all you need to do is download it and let the software know which ETC address you want to send your ETC tokens to. Even though MinerGate is a bit straightforward, it offers the lowest ROI or profits.
4. Decide whether you want to solo mine or go with a mining pool.
Another thing you need to consider when you want to mine ETC is if you wish to solo mine or mine in a mining pool. If you want to join a mining pool, remember that mining pools charge a certain percentage out of your profits. But if you combine your hash power with other miners, you will get more profits. You can use Nanomine, Ethermine, or F2pool because they are popular mining pools you need to consider when it comes to Ethereum Classic mining.
Before we move on to mining Ethereum Classic, here is how to set up your hardware.
Setting up your mining hardware
Here is a short guide on how to install your mining hardware.
Configuring your ASIC Miner (Antminer E3)
Source: HowToMine
First off, plug the LAN cable into the LAN port of your miner and then power it.
Choose your mining pool
Source: HowToMine
Choose an ETC mining pool. We have already listed some recommended mining pools in this article. Note that Nanopool has an average fee of 1% while F2Pool has 4%.
Find an IP address
Source: HowToMine
After you plug the internet cable, your machine will automatically get an IP address from the network. To find the IP address, you need to access the DHCP server of your internet router or download the software IP Reporter from Bitmain’s website. After you have unzipped the file, double click on the IP Reporter, and you will see the following windows, then click on “start.” Once that is done, click and hold the button labeled “IP Reporter” on the ASIC device, and once that is done, a pop-up will appear on your screen with the machine’s IP address.
Source: HowToMine
Source: HowToMine
Source: HowToMine
Log in to the interface of the miner
Input the IP in your browser, and the dialog box will require your username and password, which by default are both “root.”
Enter the Ethereum Classic mining pool information
Once you have logged in, go to Miner Configuration/General Settings. Once there, you will have to set the mining pools. Fill in two or three servers for Ethereum Classic mining to switch to another pool if the first one is not working. For instance:
Pool 1 – URL: stratum+tcp:// eu1-etc.ethermine.org:4444 – ethermine for Europe
Pool 2 – URL: stratum+tcp:// us1-etc.ethermine.org:4444 – ethermine for US East
If Pool 1 fails, the miner connects automatically to Pool 2. The user name is your Ethereum Classic wallet address, followed by a “.” and worker name. Note, you can leave the password field empty.
Click save and apply
After a few minutes, you can view the full details of “Miners status.” Also, if you see your hash rate, then your ASIC is working correctly.
Best ways to mine Ethereum Classic
This article will use Nanopool and F2pool as the Ethereum Classic mining pools due to their quick start apps.
Ethereum Classic Mining Using Nanopool
First and foremost, you need to go to Nanopool.org and click the Quick Start button under Ethereum Classic.
Once you have done this, you will see a set of five instructions. The first asks you to choose either Nvidia or AMD for your GPU. Once you have selected any of them, you will be directed to GitHub to download the mining software. However, you will download it as a .zip archive and then extract it to a folder on your PC.
Know that if you choose Nvidia, it will take you to the FinMiner software, while AMD choice takes you to the Claymore Dual Ethereum miner. However, you can use Finminer or Claymore Dual Ethereum because they can be used for AMD and Nvidia cards.
Claymore Miner
Once you have downloaded the Claymore files and unzipped them, you need to get a configuration file to run them. Different tools can do this, but Nanopool has one that you can use to configure the Claymore files. You can get Nanopool’s config file by going to its Quick Start menu and clicking the button under step 3 to generate your config file. This config file states some vital parameters such as the correct server to connect to, the ETH address you need to send your earnings to, and the address to which you send your second earnings (Siacon or PascalCoin).
You must choose a secondary wallet to send your earnings to, so you will either select Siacon or PascalCoin wallet.
Once you are done with that, then click on “Generate.” Once you click on that, another .zip file will be created. Download the file and extract the contents (dpools.txt, epools.txt, and start.bat) to the same folder you extracted the miner in the first step. Then click yes to overwrite the files when asked to.
Go to the folder where you extracted everything; double click the ‘start.bat’ file. The miner will first verify all parameters, and then it will launch the mining software. If everything has been confirmed, the software will begin the mining process.
FinMiner
With FinMiner mining software, you will need to perform some tasks. Like Claymore, you need to download the. Zip file from Github source for the FinMiner. Once you have downloaded those, then extract them and configure them.
Open the config.ini file with Notepad, then insert the following under the line “Address to send funds to”, replacing the line “wallet=”:
wallet=YOUR_ETH_ADDRESS
algorithm=Ethash
coin=ETH
rigName=YOUR_WORKER
email=YOUR_EMAIL
pool1 = eth-eu1.nanopool.org:9999
pool2 = eth-eu2.nanopool.org:9999
pool3 = eth-us-east1.nanopool.org:9999
pool4 = eth-us-west1.nanopool.org:9999
pool5 = eth-asia1.nanopool.org:9999
You also need to note that you have to replace your YOUR_ETH_ADDRESS with your actual Ethereum Classic wallet address. Once you are done, run the Finminer.exe file, and it will launch in the command line. Then you can start mining.
Ethereum Classic mining with F2Pool
This section will take a detailed look at how to mine Ethereum Classic using the F2Pool mining pool. Here is what you need to do if you want to use F2Pool.
Get a suitable mining hardware
As stated earlier in this guide, we recommended using Bitman Antminer E3, AMD VEGA 64, or AMD VEGA 56 mining hardware. These mining hardware are suitable for Ethereum Classic mining, irrespective of the mining pool you are using.
Get your wallet
You can either use Exodus wallet or Cobo wallet, as we have recommended earlier on in this guide. You can also choose an exchange such as Binance or Huobi.
Get a mining software
You can use Clayminer, GMiner, and NBminer. But in this section, we will focus on GMiner and NBminer for this mining pool.
Configure your mining software
After downloading GMiner or NBminer, you need to uncompress it, find the start.bat, or start.cmd file, right-click on it and click Edit. Then replace the existing commands with the following. Note these commands are for each of them.
For GMiner software, use this command: miner.exe –algo etchash –server etc.f2pool.com:8118 –user (wallet_address.worker_name). For NBMiner, use this: nbminer -a etchash -o stratum+tcp://etc.f2pool.com:8118 -u (wallet_address.worker_name). Additionally, Replace wallet_address with your Ethereum Classic wallet address.
Once you are done, save the start file and exit, then double-click the start file to start mining right away.
Ethereum Classic Cloud Mining
Another option to mine ETC is through Ethereum Classic cloud mining. This is slightly a less expensive way to mine Ethereum Classic. Cloud mining allows you to skip electricity issues and use expensive hardware equipment. In this method, a provider operates and takes care of the necessary hardware and rents it out to you once you sign a contract.
Some of the best cloud mining providers for Ethereum Classic are hashflare.io and genesis-mining.com. You can be paid in cryptocurrency once you request a withdrawal.
About Ethereum Classic Calculator
You can calculate how much ETC profits you will get once you mine. The Ethereum Classic calculator uses your mining hardware hash rate, network difficulty, and coin price to calculate what you will earn after you have mined at the end of the day.
The Ethereum Classic calculator information is updated constantly with the current block mining information. However, this information is used as the default inputs for the ETC mining calculator and the default hash rate.
Final words
Ethereum Classic is still profitable – based on the mining hardware hash rate of 400.00 MH/s, electricity costs, and pool/maintenance fees provided. With the Nanopool config or F2Pool, it is much easier to mine ETC.
A good thing about mining Ethereum Classic is it requires low hash power and electricity consumption. Nonetheless, a robust gaming laptop would be suitable to mine Ethereum Classic.
Furthermore, another great thing about mining this token is that you can even dual mine SiaCoin and PascalCoin. I hope I have explained enough about how to mine Ethereum Classic.
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