How to Mine Dogecoin?
What was created as a joke is now serious business. Dogecoin’s market cap has soared beyond what many...
What was created as a joke is now serious business. Dogecoin’s market cap has soared beyond what many could have imagined, exceeding USD 90 billion. That put the loveable shibe-based currency over the tokens of promising projects like Polkadot, Cardano and XRP.
If Dogecoin’s goal was to bring cryptocurrencies to a wider audience,it’s done just that and more. From being pumped by Reddit users to Twitter mentions by self-proclaimed Technoking Elon Musk, Dogecoin looks as if it’s here to stay. Being a funny and sincere coin, not tied to any institutions or businesses, Dogecoin has become attractive to the mainstream.
If you’ve delved deeper into cryptocurrency than the darling memecoin, you’ve probably heard of cryptocurrency mining. Seeing the jaw-dropping price of Bitcoin, perhaps you’ve fancied the idea of Bitcoin mining and wondered if you could generate a whole Bitcoin from your computer. Realizing that the processing power needed for Bitcoin is so extensive that there are mining facilities needed for it, you turn to the most lucrative meme of all time.
About Mining Dogecoin (DOGE)
Dogecoin is 1 million times easier to mine than Bitcoin. Even so the ones who make a huge profit mining cryptocurrency have entire rigs dedicated to mining. So although you may profit somewhat, don’t expect to become the next Dogecoin millionaire through mining unless you’ve invested in a good rig.
Another problem is that, nowadays, you can’t directly mine Dogecoin. Sadly, that way is relegated to history. To protect itself from a 51% attack, Dogecoin (DOGE) merged with Litecoin (LTC). Now, it is virtually impossible to directly mine Dogecoin, as a price paid for the network’s security. When you do mine, you are usually mining for something else and that cryptocurrency is converted into DOGE.
Although you’re not directly mining for doge, it’s more convenient than having to go to an exchange and trade. When a mining program has the option to mine for DOGE, it makes it so that you mine another currency, like Ethereum, which is then exchanged for DOGE automatically.
A Brief Intro to Cryptocurrency Mining
Cryptocurrencies, like their mineral counterparts in gold and silver, are subject to be mined. Mining, in the crypto world, is using your computer to solve complex algorithms, namely cryptographic hash puzzles. This allows miners to create new blocks, or data where the network is recorded. This process is called Proof-of-Work, and this is how many of the older cryptocurrency networks, like Bitcoin and DOGE, have functioned. Miners are, essentially, auditors, verifying network legitimacy. They are rewarded for this work with cryptocurrency tokens.
As you can imagine, this requires a lot of electrical power, since the computational work required to solve the algorithms is immense. Though the climate change impact is often overblown, the Bitcoin network, which is the oldest technology, still requires as much power as a casino city like Las Vegas. While mining for other coins isn’t as notorious for energy consumption, you should still keep in mind your electricity bill when trying to mine.
Dogecoin, since it’s merged with Litecoin, uses Auxiliary Proof-of-Work, meaning that it uses the Proof-of-Work validation of LTC for its own blockchain. By mining LTC, you are given DOGE, which is the ‘most direct’ way to mine DOGE, although you would need to have incredible resources in order to do so. Mining DOGE this way, for the average person, is impractical.
The newer protocols like Cardano, Polkadot and upcoming Ethereum 2.0 will function with a Proof-of-Stake model. This is meant to tackle many of the problems of Proof-of-Work, like the power needed to validate blocks. Proof-of-Stake operates on having mining power based on tokens a user owns and doesn’t need the vast computational power of older generation blockchain mining.
Old school Proof-of-Work may eventually be seen as a relic of a technological past. You have full reign to check out this technology now and dive into the origins of crypto. Much wow.
Hardware to Get Started
Depending on what your goals are, you’re going to need different specs. This guide will mostly focus on beginner miners who just want to take a stab at mining DOGE to tell your friends about it. You will earn a few bucks along the way but don’t expect to be super profitable unless you invest more resources and time into mining.
1. Beginner Miners
For beginner miners, you just need your laptop or desktop computer. It’s recommended to have a decent graphics processing unit (GPU) at least, one that gamers and video editors use. If you’re not looking to earn profit on what you mine, however, a normal computer or even a phone can help you stack some Dogecoins.
If you’re only using a CPU, a central processing unit, be prepared to be unprofitable after electricity costs are factored in. But if you’re mining for meme’s sake, then this shouldn’t be a problem.
Intermediate Miners
For those who want to go a step further, buying an ASIC, or an Application-Specific Integrated Circuit, can help you kickstart a personal mining operation. These gadgets are made just for mining. So if you’re a bit more serious about using DOGE or other crypto to fund your lifestyle, then having one of these should probably be on your radar unless you want to be an advanced miner.
Similarly, you can have a really advanced GPU as well and learn how to build a frame for your GPU, or multiple GPUs, to mine cryptocurrencies.
Advanced miners
A whole rig of gaming GPUs or ASICs to whole warehouses full of them, advanced miners are the ones who mean some serious business. The investment on these is massive and can be tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of hardware. These GPU and ASIC mining rigs are multiple thousand-dollar graphics cards or ASIC mining rigs used together to effectively mine cryptocurrencies.
If DOGE is your passion, and you’re convinced the Shiba Inu Kabosu will blast off to Mars, you can show off an impressive mining rig to your friends.
The more processing power you have on your computers, the higher likelihood that your computer will solve those cryptographic puzzles, leading to more profits. This is why GPUs are recommended over just CPUs since they are much more powerful and able to tackle video editing projects and higher-end gaming.
For GPUs, it would be nice to have something at least as powerful as the RTX 2060 series and beyond or an AMD model of similar GPU power. ASIC’s, while convenient, are usually only good for mining-specific cryptocurrencies. Buying several powerful graphics cards and putting them to use will more likely give you the Mh/s, or million hashes per second, to mine.
Be aware that if you’re using a laptop, you should have a good cooling system. It could cause your system to overheat if you don’t. If you will be using a computer, desktop computers are recommended.
Dogecoin Wallet
Before you get started mining DOGE, you need an online or hardware wallet to put DOGE into. To be consistent with the spirit of DOGE, you can download the software wallet from the Dogecoin website. First, head over to dogecoin.com.
There, click Wallets and move your cursor to Dogecoin Core, the more reliable wallet. Choose whichever system that you have on-hand. Afterwards, click next and complete the installation.
Although this is the classic way to get DOGE, as the vocabulary of the options would make anyone chuckle, getting a software wallet or hardware wallet might be more to your taste, especially if you’re really itching to stack some DOGE. With the legacy Dogecoin Core wallet, you have to wait for it to sync up to the Dogecoin network, which could take a week or two. Several software wallets, like Exodus or Atomic can also stash away DOGE, so keep that in mind if you want to stack quickly.
Alternatively, you can use a hardware wallet that can hold DOGE. Anything from Trezor or Ledger should do the trick. Complete the installation for those wallets and have the Dogecoin ‘Receive’ address on hand.
What You Need To Know Before Mining
When mining DOGE, we’ll mostly focus on the beginner and intermediate’s way to mine.
If you’re looking to be an advanced miner, it’s highly recommended that you consult or hire an electrician in order to fully know what your hardware is capable of and the electrical output that will result from it. This is so that you know if your system is properly set up, what your electricity costs should be and have the knowledge needed for maintenance.
Before getting into mining Dogecoin, a word about Cloud Mining. Cloud mining is when a user rents cloud computing software without having to download it directly. It is best to avoid Cloud Mining as the services aren’t profitable for now. You might as well buy the crypto yourself and HODL. However, if you really want to dabble in it Genesis Mining and Hashflare do provide some reputable services. Factoring costs, don’t expect to be profitable until the technology improves.
That being said, we will learn the most user-friendly way to mine DOGE. There are other methods out there that will follow the same formula of finding the platform where you mine and connecting it to mining software. So if you want to venture off into other mining programs, just take what you learn from here and apply it accordingly.
Websites like Zergpool offer wide customization for miners, but it isn’t the easiest way to get into mining, which is why we’ll be looking at unMineable. Once you dive deep into mining, unMineable might not have all the options you’re looking for. To get started, we will be using unMineable since it will get you acquainted with mining quickly.
The main way to mine is through Windows and much of the crypto world operates on Windows. Macs usually do not come with GPUs, so oftentimes you can only mine using CPU mining. This means that using a Mac will more likely not be profitable when mining.
How To Mine Dogecoin Step-by-Step
1. First, go to unMineable.com. You’ll want to click on the download button at the top.
2. Click the Download button. Alternatively, you can right-click it and hit Save link as… in order to put it in a folder of your choice. Like a lot of cloud mining software online, your browser might detect it as a virus. Either switch to another browser that doesn’t block the program to download it or grant your browser permission to download it.
3. From here, you want to unzip the folder. 7-zip will do the trick if you don’t have the software to unzip files. Right-click the application and unzip it to a location of your choice with Extract here or Extract files.
4. After unzipping the software, you want to run unMineable as administrator. Also, if you run into any problems, make sure that your firewall or anti-virus aren’t blocking the software and allow unMineable to open, which can be done through your control panel.
5. You’ll be met with the unMineable app. Simply click continue. Next, you’ll be met with the mining software you need to get started, which is PhoenixMiner in this case for GPU downloads. If you’re using CPU, you’ll have to download xmRig. Warning: Make sure to only download xmRig and PhoenixMiner from GitHub. If you download from anywhere else, you may be downloading potentially malicious programs. GitHub is the main trusted home for open source software.
6. To find the right program, simply check what operating system you’re using and match that with the download. If you’re using Windows, click Windows. If you’re using Linux, click Linux. You will be using PhoenixMiner if you have a GPU and xmRig for CPU. Note that a Mac option exists for the CPU on xmRig. Macs usually do not come with GPUs, so mining with them is unprofitable.
7. Like when you downloaded unMineable, extract these files and go back to unMineable. Click on the folder icon and find the .exe files that correspond with your operating system and GPU.
If you’re having trouble finding the .exe file, right click on the programs and find the properties section. You’ll see what kind of file it is.
8. After you’ve chosen your mining software, click next. You should find a space where you can copy and paste your wallet address. This is usually under the ‘receive’ section of your wallet. If you’re using the loveable Dogecoin Core Wallet, you’ll find it under the section ‘Much Receving Addresses’. Whether you’re using a software wallet, exchange wallet, or Dogecoin Core wallet, copy and paste that into your unMineable address.
9. Finally, click start.
After that, you should be seeing the Hashrate being displayed. If you don’t, you’re not mining.
If your application doesn’t work, try using an older version of PhoenixMiner or xmRig. The updated version might not have been added. Also, make sure you’ve allowed permissions on your Firewall and anti-virus as well as run unMineable on administrator. If you still don’t see a solution to your problem, the support page should help you find what you’re looking for.
And if you do see the Hashrate, congrats! You’re now stacking the cryptoworld’s loveable memecoin and can tell your children that you once mined DOGE.
Much wow.
