How to Mine Electronero (ETNX): Complete Beginner’s Guide

Electronero is a privacy coin that is a fork of Electroneum. That means at block 307,000 of Electroneum, users got a 1 to 1 ratio of ETNX for every ETN coin they held. The reason there was a fork, was because ETNX wanted to add more technical aspects to ETN, like bulletproofs, default of 12 for ring size, camel emission, and GUI wallets. Both coins use the Cryptonight mining algorithm, and include privacy features such as ring CT, like Monero

Now that we know the details about Electronero, let’s get to mining some ETNX!

Some General Mining Tips

So before we start this tutorial, I have two tips for making the most out of your mining experience. First make sure you have the latest drivers for your GPU’s. Secondly, most mining software will get flagged as a virus from virus scanners. Because of this, if your mining on your normal everyday use or gaming computer that has an antivirus installed, you will want to exclude the mining software from the antivirus. What I like to do, is I make one folder and then put all of my mining software in sub folders. I then exclude the top level folder from the antivirus and that excludes all the mining software.

Mining Pools

The first thing we need is a mining pool. You can solo mine, but the payouts could take months depending on how powerful your mining rig is, and the mining pools usually charge a very small fee (1% or less). Using a pool will allow you to receive consistent payouts, multiple times per day. For Electronero, there are a few pools, but not that many as of now. I chose to mine at https://etnx.leafpool.com/

As for their features, there a medium sized pool They charge 0% fees and they support mining directly to an exchange.

They also have a variety of ports to connect to:

Use 8991 if mining using a CPU
Use 8992 if mining using a GPU
Use 8993 if mining using nicehash

They also have a US westcost server at etnx-us-west.leafpool.com and a Europe server at etnx-eu.leafpool.com

Now that we have a pool, lets configure the mining software!

Configuring the Mining Software

For the CPU, GPU – Nvidia and GPU – AMD tutorials, we will be using xmr-stak. It is open source, the most customizable, and allows you to mine using a mix of Nvidia and AMD GPU’s as well as your CPU, all from one window. It is also available for Windows and Linux.

You can download xmr-stak at https://github.com/fireice-uk/xmr-stak/releases The latest version is 2.4.3, which is what we will be using in this tutorial. If you need to use Linux, you will have to download the source code and build the software. This tutorial will not be focusing on how to build xmr-stak from source.

The first time you run xmr-stak you will have to configure it a little bit. We will cover the initial configuration here, and then you can read about how to configure the miner in the section that pertains to you (CPU, GPU – Nvidia and GPU – AMD)

When you first run xmr-stak, you will be presented with two cmd windows

You can close the one that says it needed to be run in order to have administrator privileges.

You will then be presented with a series of steps that will guide you through the first time initialization of the software. Once you have completed this, you will not need to do this again.

The initialization steps will ask the following questions:

Type in a port you want to use the remote monitoring on. Usually 8000 or 3000 are available on most home computer networks. Later, to monitor your mining computers, you can type the ip address and port you choose of your mining computer, into a web browser on any other device connected to your network, to view your total speed and other detailed reports

Currency: – You will want to type “cryptonight_v7”

Pool Address – This is the address and port of the pool you want to mine on. For example, I typed in “etnx-us-west.leafpool.com:8992”

Username – This is your public key for your wallet.

For example I would put etnkQQ565ZNPPYXQNfYyipcs6Q1x3sCxuVjidu8CuaCSJ2SDNvLWiETXDfEhQR2Ske73HRdg5wFdt2THEVQuD11k5gY63WUvKK

Password – type “x”

SSL support – type “n”

Do you want to use Nicehash – type “n”

Do you want to use multiple pools – type “n”

At this point the software should start mining. Wait until it says “logged into mining_pool:port”, and then close the mining software. If you look in the folder where the miner is stored, it should have made text files for your CPU and your graphics card (Nvidia or AMD). They would be named cpu.txt, nvidia.txt, amd.txt. It will also make a config.txt and a pools.txt. In the next sections we will show how to edit the txt files for each mining component, as well as how to disable a certain GPU brand or CPU from mining.

Pool configuration

At this point your pools.txt should be configured, but I will show you how to manually configure it as well. Open the pools.txt and you should see something like this

If you ever want to change servers, you would edit the pool_address. To change wallets you edit the wallet_address. Leave the rig_id blank. Change the pool_password depending on your pools configuration.

At the very bottom, you have currency. You have to tell XMR-Stak what currency it is your mining. They support most of the Cryptonight coins, so you can just type the name of the coin, from the list in the txt file. If the coin you want to mine is not on the list, you need to know what algorithm it uses, and use the algorithm name for the currency. If their is a whattomine calculator for your coin, then usually whattomine list the algorithm, otherwise you can probably find the information on the coins website.

CPU Mining

As far as CPU mining, the Cryptonight algorithm is the most profitable algorithm to use a CPU on. For mining with the CPU, we have the option of using xmr-stak or xmrig. xmr-stak only has precompiled binaries for Windows, while xmrig has them for Windows and Linux. They both have the source code, so you can compile them yourself to work with Linux if you need to.

You can download xmr-stak at https://github.com/fireice-uk/xmr-stak/releases

You can download xmrig CPU at https://github.com/xmrig/xmrig/releases

For this tutorial we will use xmr-stak.

After we went through the initial setup, we should be ready to mine. One thing to do is to try and tweak the cpu.txt settings that xmr-stak created for us, to get the highest possible hash rate.

I found that at least for the CPU, the program usually generates the best possible configuration settings automatically. The comments in the cpu.txt do a great job of explaining each setting, and how you could try to get more performance out of your machine.

After you have configured the cpu.txt, we now need to create a startup batch file to run the program.

Just create a new batch file (or script file if using Linux) inside the folder where the miner is and paste this into the batch file

xmr-stak.exe optional_flags

Replace “optional_flags” with nothing if you want the machine to mine using the CPU and any other GPU in the machine, or the following

–noCPU        This will disable the CPU from mining.
–noNVIDIA    This will disable all Nvidia GPU’s in your system from mining.
–noAMD        This will disable all AMD GPU’s in your system from mining.

For example, my setup is:

xmr-stak.exe --noNVIDIA

Double click the batch file to run the miner, and you should see something like this

To view the total speed at any time, press the “h” key on the keyboard when the mining software is in focus.

GPU Mining – Nvidia

As far as GPU mining using Nvidia GPU’s, we have the option of using xmr-stak or xmrig. xmr-stak only has precompiled binaries for Windows, while xmrig has them for Windows and Linux. They both have the source code, so you can compile them yourself to work with Linux if you need to.

You can download xmr-stak at https://github.com/fireice-uk/xmr-stak/releases

You can download xmrig Nvidia at https://github.com/xmrig/xmrig-nvidia/releases

For this tutorial we will use xmr-stak.

After we went through the initial setup, we should be ready to mine. One thing to do is to try and tweak the nvidia.txt settings that xmr-stak created for us, to get the highest possible hash rate.

I found that for the GPU, you can tweak the settings to get a little more performance, but generally the program usually generates the best possible configuration settings automatically. The comments in the nvidia.txt do a great job of explaining each setting, and how you could try to get more performance out of your machine.

After you have configured the nvidia.txt, we now need to create are startup batch file to run the program.

Just create a new batch file (or script file if using Linux) inside the folder where the miner is and paste this into the batch file

xmr-stak.exe optional_flags

Replace “optional_flags” with nothing if you want the machine to mine using the CPU and any other GPU in the machine, or the following

–noCPU        This will disable the CPU from mining.
–noNVIDIA    This will disable all Nvidia GPU’s in your system from mining.
–noAMD        This will disable all AMD GPU’s in your system from mining.

For example, my setup is:

xmr-stak.exe --noCPU

Double click the batch file to run the miner, and you should see something like this

To view the total speed at any time, press the “h” key on the keyboard when the mining software is in focus.

GPU Mining – AMD

As far as GPU mining using AMD GPU’s, we have the option of using xmr-stak, xmrig, Cast XMR or Claymore’s Cryptonote AMD miner.

You can download xmr-stak at https://github.com/fireice-uk/xmr-stak/releases

You can download xmrig Nvidia at https://github.com/xmrig/xmrig-nvidia/releases

You can download Cast XMR at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2256917.0;all

You can download Claymore’s Cryptonote AMD miner at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=638915.0

For this tutorial we will use xmr-stak.

After we went through the initial setup, we should be ready to mine. One thing to do is to try and tweak the amd.txt settings that xmr-stak created for us, to get the highest possible hash rate.

I found that for the GPU, you can tweak the settings to get a little more performance, but generally the program usually generates the best possible configuration settings automatically. For my Vega system, I had to add double threads per GPU. The comments in the amd.txt do a great job of explaining each setting, and how you could try to get more performance out of your machine.

After you have configured the amd.txt, we now need to create are startup batch file to run the program.

Just create a new batch file (or script file if using Linux) inside the folder where the miner is and paste this into the batch file

xmr-stak.exe optional_flags

Replace “optional_flags” with nothing if you want the machine to mine using the CPU and any other GPU in the machine, or the following

–noCPU        This will disable the CPU from mining.
–noNVIDIA    This will disable all Nvidia GPU’s in your system from mining.
–noAMD        This will disable all AMD GPU’s in your system from mining.

For example, my setup is:

xmr-stak.exe --noCPU

Double click the batch file to run the miner, and you should see something like this

To view the total speed at any time, press the “h” key on the keyboard when the mining software is in focus.

If there are problems, you may not have enough virtual memory. You may need 16GB of virtual memory (for Vega GPU’s you need more like 16GB per GPU) to change this go to Control Panel -> System and Security -> System and the click Advanced system settings on the left. From there, click settings under the advanced tab. Next click change, and then on the third screen, uncheck automatically manage, choose custom size, and type in the size (in MB) for both text boxes. Then press the set button, and then the ok button.

General Troubleshooting

One thing to monitor for is stale or rejected shares. If you see a lot of stale shares, you may want to try a server that is closer to you. If you see a lot of rejected shares, try to lower the intensity of the miner if available.

How much ETNX will I earn per day?

To figure this out, you would go to http://whattomine.com and use their calculator. There is no whattomine calculator right now, so in the meantime you can just use the pools limited calculator. These calculators provide rough estimations, so you may earn a lot less or a lot more than the calculator reports.

All you have to enter is the total speed of all of your mining computers your using for ETNX into the box. For example I would enter 6 KH/s you can also switch the calculator to H/s so I would enter in 6000 H/s

It shows I will get about 56,056 ETNX per day.

That’s it. You should now be mining Electronero! Make sure to type in your public key into the mining pool’s dashboard, to keep track of your statistics.