Introduction
One of the best ways to learn something new is to jump right in a get your hands dirty. It’s uncomfortable initially, but after the mud settles, you start to understand concepts that once got your knickers in a twist.
I had always wanted to build a crypto currency miner. Not for profit but to learn how blockchain technology works.
Step 1: Ask Google!
How to build an Ethereum miner. The blogs made the process seem so easy!
It took about a week to figure out how to build a computer and all the acronyms that go with it! This was my first attempt.
Step 2: Ethereum Software
The first time I saw the Ethereum github repository I literally ran the other way. I couldn’t make sense of pyethapp, go-ethereum, meteor-dapp-wallet, mist, ethereumj, solidity, cpp-ethereum, the list goes on. Check it out for yourself here.
This time I was more focused. All I needed was an Ethereum wallet and some mining software.
Ethereum Wallet
This was fairly simple. I had 3 choices.
- Mist: A user friendly graphically wallet + browser
- Geth: A command line interface for programmers. (go)
- Eth: A command line interface for programmers. (c++)
These are termed the “official” wallets but there are of course many others out there also. Here is a good link to read for more info. For beginners or non programmers I would highly recommend Mist.
Ethereum Mining Software
There are also a few options here.
- Ethminer
- Claymore
- AlethZero (to be phased out)
One of the reasons why it is so confusing is for example AlethZero, the mining software is contained within the cpp-ethereum client, which is an Ethereum client but is now renamed to webthree-umbrella and there is a link to v1.2.9 called “The Village Idiot” but it’s dated June 14 2016. ie old but usable. Did you get all of that?
Step 3: Show me the Ether
I really wanted was to see this thing in action. I therefore had to do the following:
- Create an address to received the Ether
- Join a pool
- Wait
Above you can see the mining software command line output and the graphical mining results of a pool. Below you can see my mist wallet with 0.22 ether that was mined in ~ 2 days. At the current price of ~$8USD, I may have made $1.6USD but also spent $2USD in electricity!
What I learnt about blockchains?
- How to set up a wallet and create an address. All blockchains need this.
- The Proof of Work consensus mining algorithm called Ethash.
- What a DAG is.
Don’t be deceived. Each bullet point is half a days worth of reading, understanding and doing.
Where to from here?
Now with some real Ether, I might go ahead and retry some basic smart contract dapps and building an actual application.
