The Basic Zcash ( ZEC ) Mining Guide for Newcomers

Z Cash Mining

So what is Zcash mining some may ask ?

As most of us know that other than bitcoin there is a lot of other cryptocurrency that is being traded and speculated or invested around the world. Among the top traded and highest volume and market capitalization is Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Ripple (XRP), Dash (DASH), Monero (XMR) dan ZCash (ZEC).

So why are people choosing ZEC now ?

For every altcoin they have their own Pro and Cons in sense of market value , performance, marketing, function and utilization.

So the function of these coins can be summarize in the following manner :-

Bitcoin (BTC) : The first cryptocurrency and functions as a digital payment system which is consider as a cyber currency which is widely used around the world wide with no centralized governing body which has the highest Market capitalization but has a rival of similiar function known as Litecoin

Ethereum (ETH) : A decentralized platform that runs smart contract where by the applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorshop, fraud or third party interference. It is can also be use as programmable money, issuance of token for (ICOs) and it is supported by huge community known as Etheruem Enterprise Alliance which consist of Microsoft or Intel and more . A smart contract functions as a contract between two partied without any third party or red tapes. For example, a vending machine is programmes with ETH smart contact where by everytimes the Supplier refills the vending machine, the money will automatically paid the the Supplier automatically via the Smart contract program into the Supplier's account without the need of another party (i.e the Vending machine owner) to pay the Supplier manually.

ZCash (ZEC) : Is the First open, permission less cryptocurrency that can fully protect the privacy of transactions using Zero-knowledge of cryptography. It functions as an untraceable form of currency where by all its payments are untraceable and its transactions unlinkable with all its transactions encrypted and it is one of the profitable coin to mine using a GPU with only 21 million units of ZEC to be mine which will protect itself against inflation.

From certain aspect it is to my humble opinion that ZEC is here for the long run and it is a coin which has it own standing point in the cryptoworld and its developer is fullfilling their whitepaper plans and path. Hence, it is still profitable to mine Zcash in the long run.

So let start with the basis of ZEC mining !!

Firstly, personally i would recommend using Nvidia GPUs to mind ZEC / Zcash, its will provide with a higher hashrate / price ratio compare to AMD Gpus, hence the faster return of your capital. So what should your do :-

FIRST,

SETTING UP ZEC WALLET

There are a few kinds of wallet such as :-

(a) my personal favorite and safest wallet which is the Hardware wallet whereby your wallet is in a hardware like Trezor ( https://trezor.io/ ) or Ledger ( https://www.ledgerwallet.com/products/ledger-nano-s) which could be bought online for a cost around 60USD to 99USD where your coins will be store in the hardware which is hard to be hacked as your private key is saved in the hardware itself.

(b) the Hot wallet where the website provides the facility to provide your with a multisignature wallet such as Jaxx.com or https://wallet.mycelium.com/ which is accessible via your phone .

(c) Some people would just register or get a ZEC wallet on a cryptocurrency exchange which they trust such as https://poloniex.com/ or Bittrex.com which is accessible via any web browser. However, it is not likely recommended to be your main wallet unless you are trading as there are many hackers targeting exchanges . So basically you just need to register an account on the bittrex exchange and log into your account and look for the tab wallets and it will list all the altcoins that they have !

Bittrex interface
Search "ZEC" for find Zcash and press the "+" button on the left to and press new address to generate your ZEC wallet address.

After a few second you will see your new address in the column address and that is your wallet address so make sure you keep a hard copy by writing or copy a soft copy anywhere you can find like a note file for easy access or even in your google drive.

Note : ZEC has 2 kind of wallet, one starts with "t" and the other "z" which the latter is safer. However, please be aware that even though its safer a lot of mining pool does not support the "z" wallet address.

So what is a pool or why a mining pool and not mine solo ?

What is a pool can be explain in this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_pool or as i usually explain to my friends where a pool is basically its just like a pool or area of where you know that there is Gold in that area which is like thousand of acres wide where your miner or mining rig is a worker entering this area and your job is to find gold and in your case is ZEC. Hence a pool is like a company with organize every miners together to go and find gold (ZEC) together in the whole area of vast land (Block) which contains gold and everyone will work together to find gold , hence your chance of finding gold as a group is higher compare to a single person looking for gold and in a pool the amount of gold (ZEC) your get is base on the amount of work (hashrate / GPU power) you had supplied to the pool. Hence you are most likely to get a steady income than mining solo where your chances a much lower and your might not get paid or find gold for your work for a long period of time.

So mining alone will take a very long time to find a block (gold mine area). So for example, in the early days after the launching of ETH ICO some people try to mine ETH solo which they took at least a week just to find a block using a single mining rig which a block gives your around 5 ETH per block. However, most people who mine through pools get a constant payment of around 1 ETH per day for the same amount of hash power they provide. Hence it more profibale to mine through pools as they are more constant even though most pools will charge you for it . There are many kind of pools and the popular ones are like https://zcash.flypool.org/ which is my personal favourite as it more stable and constant payment . However, there are like such https://zec.suprnova.cc/, https://zec.nanopool.org/ or https://zcash.miningpoolhub.com/ .

So i'll guide you how to mine using Flypool for Nvidia GPU and Rigs as its more profitable using Nvidia Gpus.

So first you must ensure that you are using windows 7 or windows 10 for the miner to work.

Then you will first visit the website https://zcash.flypool.org/ , where by you shall scroll to the middle part where you will choose mining software you will be using based on your Operating system and GPU and for us we shall be choosing windows and Nvidia.

And where you will be able to click on the link https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1707546.0 where it will lead you to the forum where you will be able to download the newest version of EWBF's CUDA Zcash miner which is the best Nvidia miner for zcash.

From there you shall be able to download the miner

Windows x64
https://mega.nz/#F!usQh2bTa!3qp_PaiO-dw3F0mpvLXynA
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9EPp8NdigFianNlcUh0YWFhOVE

and choose the most current one for the optimum performance , and during the time of typing this article the best miner is the ZEC 0.3.4b so just download it into your computer.

so once you downloaded, unzip the file to where ever is convenient like your desktop . Sometimes you will not be able to unzip or download due to your anti virus software so you might have to temporarily close them as the software will have to have full access of your computer for them to work properly and to anti virus software they are a threat.

Once your unzip the file you will be able to access the folder where by you there are a selection of bat files where you can see a numbers of file name with pool name on them. They are practically set up for you already.

So for flypool just click on the flypool and right click on the file and choose to edit it and you will see something like this

So now we have to edit the file so for example you are from

(i) asia
(ii) your bittrex wallet is t1U2rCBp5dukxc77EdJvjo2A91cC5i8H4ZL
(iii) and your fell like naming your rig alice

therefore you will have to amend the following :-

the server, you have choose the server from the flypool website https://zcash.flypool.org/ where for asia you will have to amend the

to

then you replace the existing wallet address to your own wallet like this

and next you replace the name of the miner to the name u wanna give to your miner llike in our case alice

then you are almost ready to go.

so now you have to save the amend file but please MAKE SURE you while saving your file make sure you save it as a bat file and not a txt file so to do that you will have to like always press on file then choose save as then make the following amendment

name the file to which ever name u wish like alice but remember to put " .bat " after the name like the example below

and as mentioned earlier don't save it as text documents (*.txt) but remember to set it as all files

then save the file and you are ready to GO!!!

then in the browser you will find your alice.bat file so just double click it to run it and the miner will start working for you.

once you have it the miner running the command prompt will pop up and you should have something like this on screen which means your miner is working for you.

So Device shows that the number of GPU they the miner detected , the share you see in green means that your work is accepted by the pool and its valid and the Sol/m is the hardrate or speed of work you are providing .

So now you are officially a ZEC cryptocurrency miner !!!

So if you wish to check on your miner and the work it is doing go back to zpool website and add your wallet address behind the
https://zcash.flypool.org/miners/

so for my case i have to put in my wallet address (t1U2rCBp5dukxc77EdJvjo2A91cC5i8H4ZL ) behind the above mentioend link like this
https://zcash.flypool.org/miners/t1U2rCBp5dukxc77EdJvjo2A91cC5i8H4ZL

and i will be able to see

your hash rate (speed ) your earning, how many worker or miner is currently running and the graph of your worker.

You may also set notifications if your miner is down it'll email you.

Hence you are always alert.

So if you wish to cash out your mining, it is always advisable to trade it to BTC as it is the major currency accepted every where as zcash has less platform to be converted to fiat.

Feel free to donate some
BTC : 1PkjVmYVwAHfAHUW1q9yjN9HVjSZB3GJiU
ETH : 0xb02776a1d7ba9dbc0cdacaa00fe368e12ffe7166
ZEC : t1dorDAEVhH4Eyq1UERaKSZtdyKouw1weih
Waves : 3P8X2J6up8ragNk47cfCXvzch6YYdjayzNx

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will upload more info in the future