Chia Network (XCH) Mining: Guide |Profit | Best Coins | Set Up| SSD & HDD disk – Today we will show you how to start mining Chia. You’ve probably heard about a new virtual coin that claims to be the “Bitcoin killer”. For experienced miners, this phrase will cause a skeptical grin. Yes, for over 10 years of the history of the digital industry, many such desperate “matadors” have tried to take the place of the patriarch of cryptocurrencies. They all failed. Some joined the large army of altcoins, that is, digital coins of the second rank, while others have sunk into oblivion forever. Let’s look at what the next rival of the Satoshi Nakamoto coin is.
Green money for the digital world is the name of the page dedicated to the new Chinese blockchain startup Chia on reddit.com. Chia disk mining became popular even before the coin appeared on exchanges, and this is not at all surprising. Bitcoin steadfastly holds the $ 50,000 bar and many reproach themselves that they have not once mined a few coins for themselves on a regular PC. And then suddenly a magician arrives in a blue helicopter and loudly declares that all is not lost. A new lucrative coin has appeared and mining Chia on SSDs and hard drives will bring you fabulous profits.
Chia cryptocurrency mining
Chia is one of the newest cryptocurrencies that debuted this year. The project was founded by Bram Cohen (who also invented BitTorrent ) with the main goal of becoming the most energy efficient digital asset. Chia mining farm uses storage resources to process cryptography, rather than the processing power of graphics adapters or integrated circuit devices like more common blockchain currencies such as BTC and ETH. And, so mining Chia coins is a banal plotting, experienced miners will say, so what is revolutionary here?
Well, firstly, the requirements for mining Chia are much higher than those of previously launched cryptocurrencies with a similar method of generating new blocks. And secondly, no such project has caused so much hype. Over the past few weeks, Chia’s popularity has grown so rapidly that it has caused a shortage of hard drives and SSDs in China that could soon be repeated in the US and around the world. The reason for this is a very well-run marketing campaign. Key points in favor of a new blockchain project:
- If cryptocurrencies with no fundamental value, such as Dogecoin , rise in value fueled by the hype (Dogecoin has no limit on the number of coins and can inflate infinitely), then it seems likely that the price of Chia will rise as its popularity grows. The emission of a new digital asset is strictly limited and amounts to 21 million coins, like Bitcoin.
- Chia uses the new Proof of Space and Time, or PoST , consensus algorithm , which essentially proves that you have unallocated space on your hard drive / SSD that can be used to create rafts. This is a big improvement, in terms of efficiency, over proof of work. When writing the source code for this cryptocurrency, the no less unique programming language Chialisp was used.
Whether Chia will be able to squeeze Bitcoin , or at least take its rightful place among altcoins, is anyone’s guess. But let’s go directly to the main topic of our review and look at how to start mining the Chia coin. At the time of the review, he had already entered the auction, so we will be able to calculate a very real, and not a hypothetical profit. Chia mining calculator can be opened by following the link https://chiacalculator.com/ .
Mining XCH can be compared to farming. The miner downloads specialized software from the official website of the project https://www.chia.net/ru/ and conducts a “sowing campaign” on his storage devices. Each sown sector is called a plot, which in English means “a piece of land”, but its owner is called a “farmer.” To generate a new block, the system broadcasts a set of codes to the farmers and each of them checks its plot in search of a suitable hash sum. The more “sown fields” you have, the higher the chances of closing the block. But at the same time, your iron must be sufficiently productive, otherwise the process of seeding the rafts will be greatly delayed and farmers with more efficient “agricultural equipment” will constantly outstrip you.
When using proof of time (Proof of Time), the period of broadcasting calls between blocks should be as short as possible. After all, proof of time is implemented in practice using a Verifiable Delay Function (VDF). Cryptographic calculations take a certain period of time, but are verified instantly. The key idea of the Verifiable Delay Function is the need to perform sequential computational operations on many parallel nodes, each of which is equivalent. At the same time, energy costs are minimized. The fastest and most powerful nodes of the network will be called Timelords (Time Lords). The developers assume that there will not be very many such VDF servers, which will exclude the appearance of controversial blocks. The fastest timelord will consistently finish first,
That is, unlike Bitcoin, which was initially mined on almost any dual-core CPU, the hardware requirements for Chia mining are initially quite high , and with the growing popularity of green coins, they will be even more serious. So what does it take to build a farm?
Chia mining hardware
According to the developers, any user with a desktop computer, laptop, mobile phone or account in the corporate network can participate in XCH farming. You just need to install the necessary software and have enough free space to create at least one raft, and then you can find the hash sum to close the next block and get a reward. Theoretically, this is quite possible, but it happens very rarely.
Ready assembly for mining Chia
To receive a guaranteed income from mining Chia, you need:
- Quad-core processor with a clock speed of 1.5 GHz;
- 2 GB of RAM;
- Hard disk with a minimum capacity of 1TB.
It would seem that everything is very simple and inexpensive, but you are unlikely to earn anything on such an assembly. Here is one of the budget build options for Chia farming presented on the Miningclubinfo forum:
- Motherboard the GIGABYTE B550 AORUS the MASTER ;
- Processor AMD Ryzen 9 5900X ;
- SEAGATE Ironwolf Pro ST16000NE000 hard drive , 16 TB, HDD, SATA III, 3.5 ;
- Hard drive WD Purple WD82PURZ, 8 TB, HDD, SATA III, 3.5 ;
- SSD SAMSUNG 980 MZ-V8V1T0BW 1 TB, M.2 2280, PCI-E x4, NVMe ;
- Memory module PATRIOT Viper Steel PVS464G300C6K DDR4 – 2x 32GB 3000, DIMM, Ret, 2 strips of 32GB each, frequency 3000MHz.
With this set of components you can get to work. Although the total volume of hard drives is, of course, small and with a 1TB SSD, 32GB of memory will be used inefficiently. This miner will soon have an urgent need for additional areas for “seeding”. Let’s take a closer look at the hardware selection process.
Choosing an SSD and HDD disk
In the XCH mining farm (this is the trading ticker of the Chia cryptocurrency), the most important element is the disk drive. Winchesters smaller than 1 TB are not worth considering . It is not recommended to buy devices with a spindle speed lower than 7200 rpm. We need capacious and fast HDDs with SATA3 interface. They are used directly to create rafts, each of which will be the standard 101.4Gib size. Disks will be formatted with NTFS, APFS, exFAT, ext4 file systems. But the FAT system is not suitable for plotting.
SSD drives are used to create temporary files, which are then “seeding”. They have faster read / write speeds, which greatly improves your chances of being the first to find the next block. You can buy both SSD with SATA3 interface of any standard size (2.5 inches or M.2), and NVMe SSD connected to M.2. But keep in mind that different M.2 connectors on the motherboard support different types of SSD (both SATA and NVMe). Read the motherboard specification carefully so as not to waste your money .
There are also more expensive server drives with increased wear resistance on sale, but we will not seriously consider them for now. It is not known how the fate of this crypto project will turn out, therefore, the costs of creating a farm are greatly overestimated. Also, pay attention to the recording method. It is best to take ordinary disks that work according to the CMR scenario. But drives using SMR are slow and less reliable .
The best choice is size 3.5. 2.5 laptop disks have worse mechanics, which means they have less resource. You can still buy a 1Tb WD Purple HDD for 4450 rubles. Larger drives are already slowly snapping up.
As for the auxiliary SATA SSD, we advise gamers to leave the models with QLC memory . MLC flash drives are ideal, but TLC-based SSDs can be used to save money. An equally important component is the controller. Firstly, it must support a DRAM buffer, and secondly, it must withstand multiple data rewrites without failures. We can recommend SATA controllers Samsung, Silicon Motion (not XT), Marvell 88SS1074 .
If you decide to buy NVMe, then keep in mind that in this type of drives the controller gets pretty hot and requires additional cooling. Otherwise, follow the same requirements as for SATA SSD. To maximize the lifespan of SSDs, it is strongly recommended that you do not fill more than 85% of the total volume. Consider this when buying. And don’t forget to buy another additional small SSD that will host the operating system. This is a mandatory requirement, otherwise mining will not start.https://www.youtube.com/embed/bh-lOQ7ligs?wmode=transparent&rel=0&feature=oembed
CPU
Chia Farm doesn’t need an expensive gaming CPU. A stone operating at a frequency of 3 GHz and cooled by an ordinary boxed cooler is enough.
It should have a minimum of 4 cores, and preferably 6 (or a maximum of 8), and integrated graphics. Of course, you can connect a video card, but then you will occupy a PCI-e slot, which in the future could be useful for connecting another hard drive. For example, Intel Core i5-9400F BOX
RAM
Put more memory, minimum 2 GB. But 16 GB is better, and serious farmers immediately put 32 GB. Two 16 GB DDR4 strips with a frequency of 3200 MHz will be enough.
Motherboard
The most important thing when choosing a motherboard is SATA3 and USB 3.0 support. It should have as many ports as possible for connecting the HDD. Old boards from the secondary market will not work, buy modern ones. For example, MSI Z390-A Pro .
Installing the official program
So, you decided to start mining the Chia token, built the farm and installed the OS. What’s next? Now you need to download a complete copy of the blockchain. Go to the official website https://www.chia.net/ and press the green button ” Install Chia Blockchain “.
Direct download link for Windows client: https://download.chia.net/latest/Setup-Win64.exe
You will see the project page on the Github service, where you can download a full node compatible with your operating system. We must pay tribute to Chia’s team, they are not busy with efficiency. The coin has appeared quite recently, and software has already been released for almost all popular axes. Full nodes are available for:
- Windows (64bit);
- macOS;
- Ubuntu / Debian;
- CentOS / Red Hat / Fedora;
- Raspberry Pi 4;
- Docker;
- FreeBSD Install;
- Ubuntu Binary Install;
- OpenBSD Install.
For advanced users, there is special software to run the Chia node in a virtual environment, for example, on an Amazon cloud server.
Since the Chia code signing certificate is new, the software will be classified as “insecure”. You will have to forcibly save the download, and when you start the installer, you will need to select “Additional information” and ” Run anyway “.
Purse
Well, where to store coins, someone newcomers will ask. Like any other cryptocurrency, a full Chia node is a copy of the blockchain and a wallet that will receive rewards after you start mining.
Setting up plotting
Plotting is divided into two stages: creating parcels or, to put it another way, plotting, and processing parcels. The first step creates all of your evidence of free space by building seven cryptographic hash tables and storing them in a temporary directory.
Then this data is sorted and packed in a temporary directory and after that the dataset is moved to the final destination on the HDD.
Choosing the size of the raft (plot)
First you need to choose a size. The best option is k32, it will take up 108.8GB and will require 256.6GB of temporary SSD space to create it. Specify the number of rafts based on the size of one site and the amount of bins.
You can tune the hardware for maximum performance using the “Advanced Settings” section. To reduce the load on the RAM, you can add more “baskets”, that is, split the temporary file into a larger number of fragments. But keep in mind that the more baskets, the stronger the load on the SSD. Therefore, if you have 32 GB of RAM, it is better to reduce the number of baskets, on the contrary, by reducing the number of I / O requests for temporary files.
The number of processor threads depends on the number of simultaneously created rafts. 1 section needs 1 stream. It is better not to touch the “Disable bitfield” item. Reverse sorting by bit field is faster and saves up to 12% of the total number of writes, although it requires more RAM. “Queue name” can also be omitted. But when errors appear in the plotting log, the queue name will help you figure out exactly when the failure occurred.
After everything is set up, click ” Create a parcel ” and the process of creating a raft will be launched. It can last from 4 to 12 hours, depending on the parameters of your equipment.
Parallel seeding
To get the maximum number of TB per day, you can build several graphs in parallel. The key is to correctly calculate the capacity of your farm based on the size of the parcels, the space for temporary files, the number of processor threads, and the amount of RAM.https://www.youtube.com/embed/dG6yWOjSbFk?start=66&wmode=transparent&rel=0&feature=oembed
Popular bugs
- Let’s talk about the pitfalls that inexperienced users most often come across.
- Remember to set your power supply to maximum performance. If the computer goes into hibernation, the process will have to start over. The same goes for blackouts.
- The path to the storage and the temporary folder cannot be written in Cyrillic, the program understands only the Latin font.
- Be sure to create a separate directory on the disk, you can’t just write Disk C, the program will not understand you
- Always run the Chia node as administrator.
If a failure occurs, then first try restarting the plotting, and if it does not help, delete the program folder in Windows / Users and then start the process again.
We have listed the simplest mistakes of beginner miners, let’s move on to more complex cases.
Error RuntimeError: Unknown exception occurs for various reasons. It can be:
- Russian letters to indicate the path to the directory.
- Placement of the folder for temporary files on the same disk with the operating system.
- Incorrect distribution of iron resources.
An error often occurs related to insufficient memory on disk for plotting. Carefully calculate the allowed number of rafts, otherwise at the end of the log you may see the message RuntimeError: bad allocation . On a 1TB SSD, you can create a maximum of 3 parcels at a time.
If you did not listen to our recommendations and nevertheless checked the “Disable bitfield” checkbox, then it is quite possible that the error Caught plotting error: Bitfield plotting not supported by CPU will appear . Uncheck this box and you should be fine.
It is recommended to check the finished sections for integrity using PowerShell. Open the program and point to: C: \ Users \ “Username” \ AppData \ Local \ chia-blockchain \ app-1.1.2 \ resources \ app.asar.unpacked \ daemon \
And then rewrite the path, indicating the drive and the name of the folder in which the generated rafts are located. If there are no errors, everything is in order, the “broken” area needs to be re-seeded, otherwise it will not yield a crop.
If there is no synchronization, try deleting all available connections in the program interface. They will automatically update and areas synced to the network will be highlighted in green. In principle, you can start creating new rafts even before the end of the synchronization of your node. To speed it up, try opening port 8444 on your computer and on your router.
Available exchanges for selling coins
As of 05/12/2021, Chia cryptocurrency can be exchanged on the following exchanges:
- Gate.io;
- OKEx;
- XT.COM;
- MXC.COM;
- BKEX;
- DigiFinex;
- LBank;
- AOFEX;
- Bibox.
The current exchange rate, current exchange pairs and other information are available at https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/chia-network/markets .
Profitability and payback
But is the game worth the candle? How profitable is the mining of this cryptocurrency? Recently, an article was published on the Overloker.ru portal entitled: “It’s too late to get Chia Coin.” The author calculated that to build the Chia mining farm, which will bring in 1 coin in 18 hours, the farmer must spend at least 1,200,000 rubles or $ 16,263 at the current exchange rate.
However, he assumed that one coin would cost $ 30. However, on May 12, one Chia token was sold on OKEx for $ 1069, and a couple of days before that the rate was even higher. The truth and complexity of mining is constantly growing and at the time of this writing, such a farm will mine one coin in three days. But still, the profitability is beyond praise.
Smallholder farmers have already started to pool themselves. Look for available ones at https://miningpoolstats.stream/chia .
Calculation calculator
Сhia mining calculator will help to calculate the current profit. You can find it here . All you need to do is drag the slider and set the number of rafts you are sowing to see the approximate time in which you can earn one coin.
Conclusion
Whether the Chia cryptocurrency will be able to replace Bitcoin is hard to say. While this is far from a fact, and most likely unlikely. But for a long time already in the blockchain industry there was no project that caused such a violent reaction from the media. At the time of writing this article, the hashrate of this network was 3.88 EB (4019898.88 TB). Three weeks ago, ten times less.
If things go on like this, the price of hard drives will skyrocket, and if the project goes bankrupt, then the losses of miners will be enormous. True, it is worth noting that Chia is far from the only crypto coin available for plotting, there are 8 more similar projects.
However, you shouldn’t expect instant surplus profit. Chia is more and more difficult to mine, equipment is becoming more expensive and liquidity is not too high. If the green coin is listed on Binance and a couple of other reputable exchanges, then you can safely invest in mining, or simply add it to your investment portfolio. However, the opinion of the author of the article should not be considered the ultimate truth. Whether or not to invest in this project is a private matter for everyone. Good luck to you!
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