Quick updates
02.02.2014
Datacenter connectivity issues have caused short drop in the hashrate. The problem has been resolved and all stratum servers are now reachable. This all happened when 900 Th/s was within a reach. We will get there again with your support and participation in mining ;-)
17.01.2014
We were having an extremely lucky yesterday's mining session. Unfortunately, around 1.30 AM UTC, we were experiencing stratum server issues that eventually spread across all our stratum servers. The problem has been resolved now and mining continues.
13.01.2014
The pool database backend has been successfully migrated to a new hardware. The website is now fully operational. The whole migration process has been accomplished without interrupting the actual mining.
13.01.2014
We are currently migrating pool database to a new machine. Mining will continue without interruption, only website will be down for 1-2 hours.
18.12.2013
Some recent payouts didn't go thru bitcoin network because of unsatisfied transaction fees. We're finding a soluton and all payouts will be processed soon
16.10.2013
In recent days we experienced some successful thefts of user's funds using compromised email accounts. We strongly encourage all users to change email passwords. There's no reason to think that pool security itself has been compromised.
08.07.2013
Getwork protocol support ended. Please be sure your miners support Stratum protocol. You can still use your old getwork miners with Stratum proxy installed on your mining rig.
21.05.2013
Bug in bitcoind caused many invalid blocks generated in recent hours. Thanks to cooperation with bitcoin developers, a bugfix has been deployed. Pool is now back in normal operation.
26.04.2013
Because the user database has been compromised in recent hack, please change password to your pool account!
25.04.2013
Pool is recovering to normal operation from previous attack. delayed payouts will be processed in the afternoon (UTC).
18.04.2013
Pool is recovering from DDoS attack.
14.04.2013
As announced in Getwork deprecation plan. the hashrate on Stratum is far above 90%, so workers which are still using the deprecated Getwork protocol are now charged by 10% fee. Please update your software and start using modern Stratum miners to reduce your fees back to 2%!
12.03.2013
Bitcoin network recently experienced global problems which caused some pool blocks to be invalid. Everything seems to be fixed now.
10.03.2013
Default mining URL for Stratum is stratum.bitcoin.cz:3333 . If you're still using api.bitcoin.cz, please fix your URL to prevent fallback to deprecated Getwork protocol.
08.03.2013
Stratum proxy version 1.5.2 has been released. This is bugfix release which add compatibility with some old miners (phoenix, Diablo).
03.03.2013
Stratum proxy version 1.5.0 has been released. All proxy users are encouraged to update .
13.02.2013
ASIC mining become a reality. Jeff Garzik (bitcoin core developer) is testing first shipped unit of Avalon ASIC miner on our pool.
30.01.2013
Native IPv6 address is now available. You can use ipv6.stratum.bitcoin.cz:3333 in your miner if your miners have IPv6 support! Please note that IPv6 works only for Stratum miners.
08.12.2012
If you're using old miners from early 2011 or you're mining on URL "mining.bitcoin.cz:8332", please update your miners and use "api.bitcoin.cz:8332" in your configuration instead. Mining on URL "mining.bitcoin.cz" is not working anymore.
27.11.2012
Only one day remains to halving block reward from 50 BTC to 25 BTC. Thanks to this change in Bitcoin world, mining income will be drastically reduced. As a countermeasure, pool is now paying block fees to miners. Everything you need to collect block fees is to use miner with Stratum support .
24.11.2012
Pool is now giving transaction fees to Stratum miners! Use miner with Stratum support (latest version of GUIminer, cgminer, bfgminer, poclbm) or use your favourite miner with Stratum proxy to improve your mining income!
19.11.2012
Guiminer with Stratum support has been released. Upgrade is highly recommended.
12.10.2012
All users are encouraged to install or update Stratum proxy to current stable version 1.1.1. Instructions are here .
12.10.2012
New version of cgminer has been released. Please update cgminer to version 2.8.3 . which fixes serious bugs introduced in previous versions.
10.10.2012
In effect from 01.11.2012, pool increases the lower limit for payouts ("send threshold") to 0.05 BTC (around $0.6) as a protection against high transaction fees for tiny payouts. If you have a balance of less than 0.05 BTC and want to withdraw them, please do so before November 1.
20.09.2012
New version of poclbm miner has been released. All poclbm users are encouraged to update their miner, latest version includes major optimization.
11.09.2012
I'm seeking for beta testers of new mining protocol called Stratum mining. If you want to join testing, please download the proxy and point your miners to it. Thank you!
08.07.2012
Do you have some bitcoins from the mining and do you want to sell them for cheap? Add your offer to localbitcoins.com and find a buyer in your neighborhood!
11.06.2012
Follow pool's page for recent updates and news!
05.02.2012
poclbm/GUI miner is affected by serious bug. If your miner is crashing on 'unexpected error' message, please follow miner forums for the newest versions.
26.01.2012
Pool is now supporting BIP 16 protocol extension, as described here. It is just internal change on the Bitcoin network, miners don't need to update anything.
08.11.2011
Implemented prioritization of long polling. Fast miners should expect lower stale ratio.
10.10.2011
Merged mining for Namecoins added. Please fill NMC address on your profile to start collecting Namecoins! Accounting isn't finished yet, but will come very soon.
03.10.2011
Bitcoin.cz is official sponsor of European Bitcoin conference 2011. See you on 25.-27. November in Prague!
26.03.2011
Second server added
Total hashrate at 60Ghash/s
19.01.2011
We're over 20 Ghash/s
20.12.2010
PyOpenCL bitcoin miner with a GUI frontend
Although not a concept embraced by everyone, bitcoins are a payment method that seems to spread rapidly in some corners of the Internet, while it is banned in other parts. Mining is practically the procedure of generating your own bitcoins and it involves solving a puzzle and getting a certain result with random hashes.
In order to become a Bitcoin miner, you need proper hardware and software to carry out the job. GUIMiner is a simple program designed to help you generate bitcoins.
If you have never used Bitcoin before, you have to install the original Bitcoin software, which is used as a server, as well as create an online wallet. Once you have done that, you can start using GUIMiner.
The program provides you with a user-friendly interface, which makes it suitable for any type of user. At the first run, the application tries to detect the available OpenCL device. If it does not find any, it allows you to mine using your CPU or GPU's capabilities. Moreover, you are able to even create a new customized miner. OpenCL miners are destined for AMD cards and CUDA-enabled nVidia devices.
You can choose the desired mining server from a predefined list. You have the possibility to mine alone, but it usually takes months to gather a 'block', which is worth 50 bitcoins. Thus, it may be much easier to enter one of the preconfigured mining pools. For every server, you have to specify the host, port, as well as your Bitcoin login credentials.
The main window of the application allows you to permanently monitor the mining process status, while the 'Summary' section displays the speed and the number of accepted items for each miner. The console allows you to view a log of the performed actions and their result.
The mining process consumes both time and computer resources, but if you decide to use this cash system, GUIMiner might be a good choice.
How to get started using your GPU to mine for Bitcoins on Windows
(In a slight departure from my normal content…)
Money for only running your computer. It's more likely than you might think! No referral pyramid scam shit, you can make as much money as you have computing power to devote.
***NOTE: Since the difficulty is very high, unless you have an ASIC mining device and/or a very significant aggregate hash rate (over several TENS OF Ghash/sec or more) you are probably going to spend more on electricity than you can recoup in mined bitcoins, even when mining in a pool! If you have access to free electricity though, then there really is no argument against mining (aside from the *possibility* of shortening the lifespan of your graphics card(s)/mining hardware). For solo mining, you may end up waiting for many months/years to generate your own block and get 25 bitcoins (plus transaction fees), or use lots of electricity to maybe not ever generate a block at all.***
This post is aimed mostly at people who are already familiar with Bitcoin (Wikipedia page ), and would like to get started using their GPU(s) to mine for bitcoins in a Windows environment.
Just some quick terminology: miner = program which is external to bitcoin-qt.exe that uses your graphics card to perform calculations; your GPU is much more efficient at the type of calculations bitcoin does than your CPU
First of all, you are going to need a graphics card that supports CUDA and/or OpenCL; most graphics cards from the past 2-3 years will support this.
*UPDATE*: If you are unsure, please download GPU Caps Viewer (I recommend the portable version) to determine if you have a compatible video device and a working version of OpenCL installed. If you are using an AMD/ATI card you likely need to install the ATI APP SDK (make sure you obtain the correct version for 32/64-bit Windows).
Please make sure you are using the most recent drivers for your particular graphics card.
Important: Make sure that windows explorer is configured to show file extensions and show hidden folders - In windows explorer go to tools(alt+t) → folder options → view tab → tick the show hidden files/folders button, and also make sure the box for hide file extensions is unchecked . This is very important or you may end up trying to create bitcoin.conf.txt without even realizing the .txt extension is still present!
Last Updated 7-November-2013 (This info should still *mostly* be correct, please leave a comment if anything is significantly wrong/missing)
Too Long; Didn't Read / Easy and somewhat automated version:
1. Go to www.bitcoin.org. download and install the most recent version of bitcoin (the default file path should be fine).
2. A GUI-based tool exists here which will help to speed this up and will automate a lot of the setup steps. Go to the linked forum thread, download and extract the archive somewhere, and then run guiminer.exe .
3. From the GUIMiner interface, click solo utilities → set bitcoin client path. Point the dialog box to bitcoin-qt.exe ; likely located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\bitcoin-qt.exe or C:\Program Files\Bitcoin\bitcoin-qt.exe. Next click solo utilities → create solo password. Pick anything arbitrary for username and password but remember it, as you will need to use this later. Then finally you want to click solo utilities → launch bitcoin client as server.
This will launch bitcoin ready to be mined with, you must first wait for all the blocks to be downloaded before you can start to mine, and this may take several hours; you can view the current block count here .
4. Once all the blocks are downloaded, select solo from the server drop down box, then enter the username and password that you used before, then click start mining. Congratulations, you are now mining for bitcoins
(Recommended) 5. Since the difficulty is high now, you will only likely see an immediate return if you mine as part of a pool. The GUI Miner will greatly expedite pool setup and you can find some more information about pools here .
Additional notes: The GUI Miner also does not display the actual console window of poclbm or whatever miner you may be using; this may be desirable for some people.
Long, manual set up version using batch scripts and the command prompt:
Please note that the long version of this guide will show you how to do everything manually and via the command line. This is somewhat advanced and only recommended if you are comfortable manually creating/editing text files and using the command prompt.
1. To start, head over to http://www.bitcoin.org/ and download the latest windows client. Install it to wherever you want, but it may be of benefit to keep the directory path somewhat simple, because batch scripts and launching from the command line will follow. For argument's sake, I will just assume you are using the default install path on the 64-bit version of windows, so your install directory may be:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin
At the time of writing, the latest version of bitcoin is 0.3.23, and your overall path to bitcoin-qt.exe should be:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\bitcoin-qt.exe
To start, open up a command prompt (windows key + r → type cmd → hit enter), and then navigate to the directory where bitcoin-qt.exe is located. If you've been following along with my examples, you will want to type this into the command prompt window:
cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin
2. Put the command prompt aside for just a second, because before launching bitcoin, you will need to create a text file called bitcoin.conf (the location of this file will vary depending on which version of Windows you are using)
If you are using Windows 7 or Vista, navigate to:
C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin
If you are using Windows XP, navigate to:
C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Bitcoin
(You will probably need to create the "Bitcoin" directory, as bitcoin-qt.exe will auto-create it on first run, but you haven't yet run it… This is also where showing hidden folders comes into play, because on Windows 7 the AppData directory is hidden; Application Data may be hidden on XP as well)
Inside the appropriate folder, just right click and select new →text document, then rename this file to bitcoin.conf
Once you have created this file, open it up with your favorite text editor and add the following 2 lines (don't forget to save it when finished):
rpcuser=youruser
rpcpassword=yourpw
Where youruser and yourpw should be any arbitrary username and password; this is supplied to the miner later on via command line so that the miners can communicate with bitcoin-qt.exe (these are the values that bitcoin expects, if the miner specifies different values at launch you will likely get RPC errors).
3. Next, you want to start bitcoin-qt.exe with the ' -server ' argument specified. This tells bitcoin that there will be external programs running and allows bitcoin to communicate with them. To do so, bring your command prompt back into focus and type:
bitcoin-qt.exe -server
(alternatively you can just launch bitcoind.exe from the \daemon directory, which is the GUI-less client, but I prefer to use the GUI client. Using bitcoind.exe is equivalent to launching bitcoin-qt.exe with the arguments -server -daemon specified)
Now you will see bitcoin start up for the first time. Your client must first download the block chain before you will be able to start generating coins, and this is done automatically on first startup. You will see the number of blocks begin to increase over time, and at the time of writing there are 130,805 blocks (you can view the current block count here ). This can take many hours, so be patient and let it do its thing. This process can be sped up if you forward port 8333 TCP on your router, but this is not required.
4. Next, head on over to this thread and download the latest poclbm_py2exe binary from the first post. There are other miners available which work in windows, but m0mchil's is the one that I use and this guide will instruct how to set up this particular miner. (poclbm stands for (I believe…) P y O pen CL B itcoin M iner)
If you have been following along so far, I would suggest that you create a new directory inside C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin to reflect the latest version of the windows binary. At the time of writing the most recent version is poclbm_py2exe_20110709. so you should create a new directory
C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110709
and then extract the contents of the archive to this new folder. The executable which will be used is poclbm.exe. but this must be launched via command line and given several launch parameters. This can be tedious to do on windows, so we will expedite this with a batch script. (and your final path to poclbm.exe s hould be C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110709\ poclbm.exe)
5. You can place the batch script anywhere you like; I put mine on my desktop for easy access. Right click again and create a new text file, then rename it to whatever_you_want.bat. all that matters here is the .bat extension. Right click on this file and hit edit (double clicking on it will launch it). In this batch file you want to put the following contents (this is assuming you're following the convention of this guide so far - if you are using your own directory structure, then use whatever location you have chosen instead):
start /D"C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110709" poclbm.exe youruser:yourpw@localhost:8332 --device=0
(Similarly, for using a pool you can do something like this: start /D"C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110709" poclbm.exe http://poolworker.1:pool_pw1@api2.bitcoin.cz:8332 --device=0 )
***( Important Note: Some people have been having issues with the batch script failing to launch initially. It seems that it may be important to specify your device number along with the rest of the launch parameters on each line of the batch script. This can be done by simply specifying --device=X. where X is the number of your desired video device; most likely 0. If you have multiple devices, then the 2nd device is likely "1", and so on; if you are using onboard video I am not sure how this would work…)***
"start" just tells the batch script to start a new process in its own window, the /D parameter specifies the directory that the program is located in (this allows the batch script to be launched from anywhere on your computer), and then poclbm.exe is just the target program, followed by the arguments it needs to run properly. Make sure to use the same user and password that you specified earlier in your bitcoin.conf file. Quotes are needed whenever paths have a space in them.
Now all that's left to do is save this file and wait until bitcoin finishes downloading all the blocks; you cannot generate until you have acquired all blocks .
( You may end up waiting a long time for this to finish, so if you want to take some time to go read more about bitcoins and how the system works, now is a good time )
Once all blocks have been acquired, make sure bitcoin is running with the -server switch, then simply double click on your batch file. A new window should pop up and after a few seconds. If all is going well, your hashrate will be displayed. When you want to exit just "x" out of the window or press ctrl-c.
You can make a batch script to launch bitcoin-qt.exe with the -server argument as well, its contents should look something like this:
start /D"C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin" bitcoin-qt.exe -server
If you have more than one graphics card, you can use them both at the same time by doing something similar to this within your batch file:
start /D"C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110709" poclbm.exe youruser:yourpw@localhost:8332 --device=0
start /D"C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110709" poclbm.exe youruser:yourpw@localhost:8332 --device=1
for however many devices you use. This will open up a new window for each graphics card and show each card's hashrate.
Another switch you may want to play around with is the -w switch, which indicates the worksize for your card to use; for example:
start /D"C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110709" poclbm.exe youruser:yourpw@localhost:8332 --device=0 -w 256
By default, m0mchil's miner will use the maximum work size supported by your card, most likely 256 or 512. You can play around with different sizes to see which gives you the highest hashrate; the size must be a power of 2. You will know if you have exceeded your card's maximum size if the miner errors or crashes when you try to start it; going too small will greatly lower your hashrate. You can also play around with the -v argument as well.
If you notice your desktop is being sluggish you can mitigate this by adding:
-f 60
to the end of each line of your batch script.
Assuming you have gotten this far and everything works, you can add the totals of each individual hashrate from your GPU(s), and put the grand total into this calculator to get an idea of how much you can earn daily (if you use a pool). If you are mining solo assume that the expected average time to generate a block is easily 4-8 weeks several decades…or much longer (but this will get you 25BTC).
Now all you have to do is wait…
Note that it will likely take many weeks to generate coins, and you are likely to notice an increase in your power bill while you run your bitcoin miners (Please Note: if you are not using high-end hardware, it is likely that you will spend more on power than you can recoup via bitcoin generation and sales for solo mining). Additionally, you may want to look into doing something like this with [ RivaTuner NO LONGER UPDATED, SEE BELOW ] or a similar app to mitigate the temperature increase on your graphics device(s). (I think that rivatuner also works with newer amd/ati cards)
Troubleshooting: It seems that some people are having issues where the batch script just pops up for a second and then closes without anything happening. This usually indicates that whatever you are trying to launch is failing and quickly prints out an error message on the console window opened by the batch script, but since it fails immediately it closes too quickly for you to read it. In order to determine what the problem is, you will need to navigate to the location of poclbm.exe within a new command prompt; just use cd as is described somewhat in step 1. Once you are in the directory where poclbm.exe is located, you should now try to launch poclbm.exe with the arguments exactly as they are contained in the batch script. So assuming you have been following the conventions of this guide so far, and your batch script fails to start the miner successfully, you would type the following once you are in the directory C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110709 :
poclbm.exe youruser:yourpw@localhost:8332 --device=0
This is just how you would normally launch the miner anyway, the batch script simply does this for you when you double click on it. By entering this manually from within an already-open command prompt, if the miner fails to launch, the error messages will be printed to the console and will remain there for you to read. This should give you the specific problem that is preventing your miner from launching, and allow you to provide a more specific error message than "it doesn't open".
Also…please read all of the comments before making a new one asking for help, it is possible that your problem may have already been covered.
Once you do finally generate some coins, you can head on over to www.mtgox.com and create an account. You can now deposit some bitcoins into your account and get trading (there are other exchange sites but mtgox still the largest). More information can be obtained by talking with the folks in #bitcoin-otc on irc.freenode.net; people may be willing to purchase bitcoins directly from you for paypal or other methods of currency exchange. IMPORTANT NOTE: Paypal does NOT like bitcoin, you SHOULD NOT mention bitcoins at all in any correspondence with paypal, nor should you mention it at all when transferring money.
Bitcoin Mining Sucks | Why? | Demystifying Bitcoin Mining Rigs, Pools & Shares
ADDITIONAL DISCLAIMER: I am not an accountant/attorney, and any profits you derive from mining and selling bitcoins may be subject to taxes and other regulations. Check your local laws and consult with your personal accountant/attorney to find out how this may affect you.
If you intend to stick with this and help the bitcoin community grow you should also make a forum account on the bitcoin site as well as join the irc channels #bitcoin, #bitcoin-market, and #bitcoin-otc, all on freenode .
I hope that this tutorial helps, and it is only intended to be an introduction to getting a "no frills" miner setup working under windows.
***Yes mining bitcoins is legal but you may be subject to fees and regulation(s) if you choose to sell them
Please leave a comment if you found this post useful, have any problems, or if you notice any errors or inconsistencies. If you are feeling generous, I will gladly accept any donations of any amount at the bitcoin addresses 1J3UPhu8i5XCz7A5sPC4rRz99fPzFn3N5e
343 comments so far.
hmmm Said on December 1st, 2010 at 15:50:
Is there any info on how many dependencies need to be installed for this? Just following this blog didn't work out for me.
LobsterMan Said on December 1st, 2010 at 19:33:
I'll admit…my experience with it is probably atypical as it worked for me first try, just using the latest nvidia drivers, 260.99 I think. You may want to check to make sure that your device supports CUDA/OpenCL. If you still can't get it to work you can post a reply in my thread here and I can try to help you out:
Kiv Said on December 4th, 2010 at 14:10:
Thanks for the post! I got an error about not finding a DLL, but updating to the latest drivers fixed it and got it working great. 15 Mhash/sec on a Geforce 9600 GT. It sure does heat up the GPU though, mine was steady at 86 celsius… not sure if that is ok for the long term or if I should throttle it back.
Thanks for the great instructions! I sent you some BTC from my first block.
It's only going about 12-14M on a Sapphire 5450/AthlonX2-5000+/Win7-64, but that's 7 times faster than it was going on CPU alone. Not going to make me rich, but it's something…
Wow, very nice instructions. Thanks!!
Got about 4000Khash/s on (1) 2.33Ghz Quad CPU (Xeon e5345)
MC Said on December 14th, 2010 at 21:26:
Thanks for taking the time to help out with this post!
I did these steps with a GeForce 9600 GT, and got 8000 khash/s.
Then I noticed that my driver wasn't as up-to-date as I thought it was, and after updating, got to 14000 khash/s. Doesn't sound too great compared to others here….
Apologies for my typos that make it look like I don't know my acronyms very well Looking at a table of graphics card FLOPS, it might well be that my card is just that bad!
MC: That sounds about right, older cards don't do so well, especially nvidias
G Said on December 16th, 2010 at 01:07:
Another success…
Installing the ATI stream SDK didn't work for me, I had older ATI drivers. Uninstalled the stream SDK, downloaded & installed the latest Catalyst driver (the Accelerated Parallel Processing version), didn't need to re-install the stream sdk (it appears Catalyst 10.12 comes with stream 2.3). Doing 27M on my HD 4670, pretty good.
For interest I tried running the OpenCL on the CPU. I got about 1650 khash, compared to 3300 khash on the main client. So for me OpenCL on the CPU ran exactly half as fast as the native client on the CPU. I know that's not how you're supposed to use it, just interesting.
Thanks!
Edgar Said on December 16th, 2010 at 12:02:
Thanks for the informative write-up. You helped me go from 6mhash/s to 365mhash/s now that I’m using my 5870 as a miner as well as a 9800gtx+ which is in another machine that I’m using as a remote miner client.
Needless to say I’m very happy 8D
I have one concern though, when using the gethashespersec command on the bitcoin.exe -server, it only calculates the CPU hashes/s as per the bitcoin GUI. Is there any way to get a total hashes/s, including the external miners?
Maybe I’m being too skeptical but I’d like some confirmation that the work the external miner GPUs are doing is not being wasted as those numbers just sound too good to be true! That or I sorely underestimated the computing power of a GPU
LobsterMan Said on December 16th, 2010 at 17:29:
You can try launching bitcoin with -testnet which has a much lower difficulty for testing if your setup is working
i agree with edgar Said on December 18th, 2010 at 04:56:
it would be nice if there was some indication in either the bitcoin GUI or the debug.log that anything was happening, if not poclbm itself.
I connected to test and at least saw what it looked like to generate a few blocks, but my log looks very different on the test and the main. Main looks like
No comments:
Post a Comment