3.1 KiB
Zcash Mining Guide
Welcome! This guide is intended to get you mining Zcash, a.k.a. "ZEC", on the Zcash mainnet. The unit for mining is Sol/s (Solutions per second).
If you run into snags, please let us know. There's plenty of work needed to make this usable and your input will help us prioritize the worst sharpest edges earlier. For user help, we recommend using our forum:
Setup
First, you need to set up your local Zcash node. Follow the [1.0 User Guide](1.0 User Guide) up to the end of the section "Compiling", then come back here. (You can also do the "Testing" section if you want!)
Configuration
Configure your node as per 1.0-User-Guide#configuration, including the section Enabling CPU Mining.
Mining
Now, start Mining!
$ ./src/zcashd
To run it in the background (without the node metrics screen that is normally displayed):
$ ./src/zcashd -daemon
You should see the following output in the debug log (~/.zcash/debug.log):
Zcash Miner started
Congratulations! You are now mining on the mainnet.
To stop the Zcash daemon, enter the command:
$ ./src/zcash-cli stop
Spending Mining Rewards
Coins are mined into a t-addr (transparent address), but can only be spent to a z-addr (shielded address), and must be swept out of the t-addr in one transaction with no change. Refer to our 1.0 User Guide for instructions on how to use the z_sendmany command to send coins from a t-addr to a z-addr. You will need at least 4GB of RAM for this operation.
Mining Pools
If you're mining by yourself or at home, you're most likely to succeed if you join an existing mining pool. See this community-maintained list of mining pools for further instructions.
Modifications
Mine to a single address
The internal zcashd miner uses a new transparent address for each mined block. If you want to instead use the same address for every mined block, find the following line in both src/miner.cpp (in the function ProcessBlockFound()) and src/wallet/wallet.cpp (in the function CommitTransaction()):
reservekey.KeepKey();
Remove or comment out that line in both places.
zcashd 1.0.6 will have out-of-the-box support for mining to a specified address using the -mineraddress= option.
Use P2PKH transactions
The internal zcashd miner inherited from Bitcoin uses P2PK for coinbase transactions. The trend in the Bitcoin blockchain has been to use P2PKH instead; we are considering changing the internal miner to use P2PKH, but not for the 1.0 release.
If you want to use P2PKH for your coinbase transactions, find the following line in src/miner.cpp (in the function CreateNewBlockWithKey()):
CScript scriptPubKey = CScript() << ToByteVector(pubkey) << OP_CHECKSIG;
Change it to:
CScript scriptPubKey = CScript() << OP_DUP << OP_HASH160 << ToByteVector(pubkey.GetID()) << OP_EQUALVERIFY << OP_CHECKSIG;