Introduction
Visit my Amazon store: Quick Video Guide to the BFGMiner Interface. Lots of info available online but this sums it. BFGMiner is a modular ASIC/FPGA miner written in C, featuring dynamic clocking, monitoring, and remote interface capabilities. BFGMiner features: A large variety of device drivers for Bitcoin (SHA256d) CPU and OpenCL/GPU mining for Keccak (SHA-3).
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency which is quite popular among many investors, tech enthusiasts, and some digital sellers/buyers due to its flexible, anonymous and robust nature. However, unlike other monetary currencies, bitcoins can be mined on the fly with the help of a computer system which makes use of a specialized software application known as miners. Currently there are a wide variety of miners out there, and some of the popular miners are CGMiner, BitMinter, BTCMiner, 50 Miner, DiabloMiner , BFG Miner. This article demonstrates how to utilize BFG Miner to produce (mine) bitcoins with ease.
What is BFG Miner?
As stated above, BFG Miner is a bitcoin miner which has the ability to mine bitcoins on a range of devices from ASIC, to FPGA, to GPU, to obsolete CPU systems. As the operating systems, it supports again a range of systems from Arch, to Debian, to Gentoo, to OpenWrt, to Ubuntu. This article focuses on Ubuntu only, but the configuration and mining process are almost the same in other operating systems as well. To get optimum performance out of the miner, it’s recommended to upgrade Ubuntu to the latest stable release before continuing.
The special thing about BFG Miner is it’s completely written in C language, and thus it’s quite efficient at mining bitcoins, at a relatively good speed. The special thing of the C language is, it’s the base of most of the high level programming languages out there, so any application written in C language is quite fast, and free from bloating caused by various functions/classes added by high level programming languages. Also unlike some other Miners, it supports obsolete CPU systems as well to make it compatible with older systems. Other than the CPU system, it supports as stated earlier, ASIC, FPGA and GPU system as well. ASIC stands for Application Specific Integrated Circuit designed especially for a particular purpose, and FPGA stands for Field Programmable Gate Arrays which is another circuitry system consists of semiconductor devices based on a matrix of CLBs (configuration logic blocks) connected through a serious of interconnects which are programmable to fit with a wide variety of functions. Since BFG Miner supports such devices as well, BFG miner is quite compatible with a range of legacy systems. Nowadays professional miners use ASIC systems as its quite efficient at mining Bitcoins much faster, so being supported to legacy system is not much use for professional miners, but for those who are new to bitcoin mining legacy support in BFG Miner may come handy.
The following image shows an ASIC USB miner which is purchasable through amazon, and there are also FPGA devices as well. It’s highly recommended to have an ASIC device as this in order to start mining bitcoins at a decent speed. In fact, BFG Miner is configured to use ASIC devices by default, so if CPU mining is intended to be used, it has to be compiled with –enable-cpumining parameter. And other supporting parameters are following.
Installing BFG Miner is quite straightforward, as it’s just a matter of typing a single command. However, it’s important to update the package information prior to install it. The following command lines demonstrate how to install BFG Miner.
sudo su
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get install bfgminer
The first command grants the user with the administrator right, the second command updates the package information, third command upgrades all the packages in the system to the latest version, finally the bfgminer package can be installed with the default install parameter in apt-get command. Once it’s installed move to the next section to find out how to configure bfgminer for mining bitcoins.
How to Configure BFG Miner?
As with any other bitcoin mining miners, in BFG Miner, it’s important to prepare the preliminary steps before continuing with BFG Miner. First of all, a wallet address to receive the mined coins should be there, secondly a pool is necessary to speed up the mining process, thirdly the credentials should be available to access the pool. However, accessing to a pool isn’t necessary on solo mode, as it doesn’t require connect to an external bitcoin client, but this might be complicated, and time consuming, and thus pool mining is strongly recommended.
- Visit the following URL and register there to be a member of the SlushPool. There are a lot of the pools available, and some pools even charge a fee, so it’s recommended to check the read me files of the pool administrator before start mining on that particular pool.
https://slushpool.com
- Visit the following URL, and register in the coinbase to make a wallet to store bitcoins. There are a lot of the bitcoin wallets out there, but coinbase is strongly recommended for its trustworthiness, and popularity.
https://www.coinbase.com
- Switch to “Accounts” tab, and click on “Receive” to get the Bitcoin address of the current wallet.
- Copy the wallet address to clipboard by clicking on the nearby icon.
- Use the following format to initiate the mining process on terminal window.
bfgminer -o http://pool:port -u username -p password
bfgminer -o stratum+tcp://stratum.slushpool.com:3333 -u YOUR_USER_NAME_OF_POOL -p YOUR_PASSWORD_OF_POOL
- Visit the following web url to submit the wallet address. The wallet address is the series of numbers copied from the previous step. After submitting it, make sure to verify it by clicking on the url received to the email used when signing up on slushpool.
https://slushpool.com/settings/bitcoin/payouts/
Advanced section is for demonstrating how to use multiple pools, and how to use the pool over a proxy server. Multiple pools are useful to speed up the mining process even more, but it further divides the block reward among the miners based on the contribution to the pool. The following format is used to mine with multiple pools.
Using Multiple Pools
bfgminer -o Pool1URL:PORT -u POOL1_USER_NAME -p
POOL1_PASSWORD -o Pool2URL:PORT -u POOL2USERNAME -p
POOL2PASSWORD
The proxy server has to be specified if the pool is over a proxy server. As with the pool URL, the proxy server has its own URL, and the port number along with the classical password and username credentials. As the proxy types it currently supports http, socks4, socks5, ocks4a, socks5h, and when using the respective proxy type replace the scheme (http or https) with one of these given ones.
bfgminer -o POOL_URL:PORT -x PROXY_URL:PORT -u USERNAME -p PASSWORD
- Overview - Table of Contents
While the actual process of Bitcoin mining is handled by the Bitcoin mining hardware itself, special Bitcoin mining software is needed to connect your Bitcoin miners to the blockchain and your Bitcoin mining pool as well, if you are part of a Bitcoin mining pool.
The software delivers the work to the miners and receives the completed work from the miners and relays that information back to the blockchain and your mining pool. The best Bitcoin mining software can run on almost any operating system, such as OSX, Windows, Linux, and has even been ported to work on a Raspberry Pi with some modifications for drivers depending on your mining setup.
Not only does the Bitcoin mining software relay the input and output of your Bitcoin miners to the blockchain, but it also monitors them and displays general statistics such as the temperature, hashrate, fan speed, and average speed of the Bitcoin miner.
There are a few different types of Bitcoin mining software out there and each have their own advantages and disadvantages, so be sure to read up on the various mining software out there.
Sometimes you may want to mine a more volatile altcoin like MWC which is superior for scalability, privacy, anonymity and fungibility by utilizing MimbleWimble in the base layer.
With mainnet launching in November 2019 it has risen from $0.22 to over $8.00 in its first two months.
Network Consensus
If you solo-mine, meaning you do not mine with a Bitcoin mining pool, then you will need to ensure that you are in consensus with the Bitcoin network. The best way is to use the official BitCore client.
If you participate in a Bitcoin mining pool then you will want to ensure that they are engaging in behavior that is in agreement with your philosophy towards Bitcoin.
How much bandwidth does Bitcoin mining take? If you are mining with a pool then the amount should be negligible with about 10MB/day. However, what you do need is exceptional connectivity so that you get any updates on the work as fast as possible.
For example, some rogue developers have threatened to release software that could hard-fork the network which would likely result in tremendous financial damage.
Therefore, it is your duty to make sure that any Bitcoin mining power you direct to a mining pool does not attempt to enforce network consensus rules you disagree with.
Bitcoin Wallet Software
The whole point of mining bitcoins is to earn them!
But once you earn them then where do you keep them safe and secure? For a Bitcoin wallet we highly recommend using one where you hold your own private keys in contrast to to a hosted wallet like Coinbase or Circle.
- Breadwallet - easy to use mobile Bitcoin wallet
- Copay - easy to use mobile Bitcoin wallet
- Armory - highly secure desktop Bitcoin wallet
Bfgminer Ubuntu
You will also need to be able to buy and sell your Bitcoins.
Once mined Bitcoin becomes like a currency that can be purchased, used in transactions or even traded like with this Bitcoin trading platform.
For this we recommend:
- Kraken - The largest European exchange with same-day SEPA
- Local Bitcoins - This fantastic service allows you to search for people in your community willing to sell bitcoins to you directly. But be careful!
Examples of the best Bitcoin mining software for Windows, Linux and Mac OSX:
MinePeon: Open source and may need WinDisk32Imager.
EasyMiner: A GUI based miner for Windows, Linux and Android. EasyMiner acts as a convenient wrapper for the built in CG; BFGminer softwares. It auto configures your Bitcoin miners and provides performance graphs to for easy visualization of your Bitcoin mining activity.
BFGMiner: A modular ASIC, FPGA, GPU and CPU miner written in C, cross platform for Linux, Mac, and Windows including support for OpenWrt-capable routers.
CGMiner: This is a multi-threaded multi-pool GPU, FPGA and ASIC miner with ATI GPU monitoring, (over)clocking and fanspeed support for bitcoin and derivative coins.
MinePeon: Open source and may need WinDisk32Imager.
EasyMiner: A GUI based miner for Windows, Linux and Android. EasyMiner acts as a convenient wrapper for the built in CG; BFGminer softwares. It auto configures your Bitcoin miners and provides performance graphs to for easy visualization of your Bitcoin mining activity.
BFGMiner: A modular ASIC, FPGA, GPU and CPU miner written in C, cross platform for Linux, Mac, and Windows including support for OpenWrt-capable routers.
CGMiner: This is a multi-threaded multi-pool GPU, FPGA and ASIC miner with ATI GPU monitoring, (over)clocking and fanspeed support for bitcoin and derivative coins.
50Miner: A GUI frontend for Windows (Poclbm, Phoenix, DiabloMiner).
BTCMiner: Bitcoin Miner for ZTEX FPGA Boards
BitMoose: Run Miners as a Windows Service.
Poclbm: Python/OpenCL GPU miner (GUI (Windows and MacOS X))
Poclbm-mod: more efficient version of Poclbm (GUI)
DiabloMiner: Java/OpenCL GPU miner (MAC OS X GUI)
RPC Miner: remote RPC miner (MAC OS X GUI)
Phoenix miner: Released in 2011. Free and open source.
CPU Miner: Mining software for solo or pooled mining.
Ufasoft Miner: CPU/GPU miner for Windows pooled mining.
Pyminer: Released in 2011. CPU mining client.
Remote Miner: Open source Bitcoin miner for pooled mining. Works with RPC Miner.
Open Source FPGA Bitcoin Miner: Released in 2011. Makes use of a compatible FPGA Board. Can be used to mine in a pool or solo.
MinePeon: Open source and may need WinDisk32Imager.
EasyMiner: A GUI based miner for Windows, Linux and Android. EasyMiner acts as a convenient wrapper for the built in CG; BFGminer softwares. It auto configures your Bitcoin miners and provides performance graphs to for easy visualization of your Bitcoin mining activity.
BFGMiner: A modular ASIC, FPGA, GPU and CPU miner written in C, cross platform for Linux, Mac, and Windows including support for OpenWrt-capable routers.
CGMiner: This is a multi-threaded multi-pool GPU, FPGA and ASIC miner with ATI GPU monitoring, (over)clocking and fanspeed support for bitcoin and derivative coins.
50Miner: A GUI frontend for Windows (Poclbm, Phoenix, DiabloMiner).
BitMoose: Run Miners as a Windows Service.
Poclbm: Python/OpenCL GPU miner (GUI (Windows and MacOS X))
Poclbm-mod: more efficient version of Poclbm (GUI)
CPU Miner: Mining software for solo or pooled mining.
Ufasoft Miner: CPU/GPU miner for Windows pooled mining.
MinePeon: Open source and may need WinDisk32Imager.
EasyMiner: A GUI based miner for Windows, Linux and Android. EasyMiner acts as a convenient wrapper for the built in CG; BFGminer softwares. It auto configures your Bitcoin miners and provides performance graphs to for easy visualization of your Bitcoin mining activity.
BFGMiner: A modular ASIC, FPGA, GPU and CPU miner written in C, cross platform for Linux, Mac, and Windows including support for OpenWrt-capable routers.
CGMiner: This is a multi-threaded multi-pool GPU, FPGA and ASIC miner with ATI GPU monitoring, (over)clocking and fanspeed support for bitcoin and derivative coins.
Poclbm: Python/OpenCL GPU miner (GUI (Windows and MacOS X))
Poclbm-mod: more efficient version of Poclbm (GUI)
DiabloMiner: Java/OpenCL GPU miner (MAC OS X GUI)
RPC Miner: remote RPC miner (MAC OS X GUI)
BFGMiner: A modular ASIC, FPGA, GPU and CPU miner written in C, cross platform for Linux, Mac, and Windows including support for OpenWrt-capable routers.
CGMiner: This is a multi-threaded multi-pool GPU, FPGA and ASIC miner with ATI GPU monitoring, (over)clocking and fanspeed support for bitcoin and derivative coins.
Bitcoin Cloud Mining Software
Being listed in this section is NOT an endorsement of these services. There have been a tremendous amount of Bitcoin cloud mining scams.
Hashflare Review: Hashflare offers SHA-256 mining contracts and more profitable SHA-256 coins can be mined while automatic payouts are still in BTC. Customers must purchase at least 10 GH/s.
Genesis Mining Review: Genesis Mining is the largest Bitcoin and scrypt cloud mining provider. Genesis Mining offers three Bitcoin cloud mining plans that are reasonably priced. Zcash mining contracts are also available.
Hashing 24 Review: Hashing24 has been involved with Bitcoin mining since 2012. They have facilities in Iceland and Georgia. They use modern ASIC chips from BitFury deliver the maximum performance and efficiency possible.
Minex Review: Minex is an innovative aggregator of blockchain projects presented in an economic simulation game format. Users purchase Cloudpacks which can then be used to build an index from pre-picked sets of cloud mining farms, lotteries, casinos, real-world markets and much more.
Minergate Review: Offers both pool and merged mining and cloud mining services for Bitcoin.
Hashnest Review: Hashnest is operated by Bitmain, the producer of the Antminer line of Bitcoin miners. HashNest currently has over 600 Antminer S7s for rent. You can view the most up-to-date pricing and availability on Hashnest's website. At the time of writing one Antminer S7's hash rate can be rented for $1,200.
Bitcoin Cloud Mining Review: Currently all Bitcoin Cloud Mining contracts are sold out.
NiceHash Review: NiceHash is unique in that it uses an orderbook to match mining contract buyers and sellers. Check its website for up-to-date prices.
Eobot Review: Start cloud mining Bitcoin with as little as $10. Eobot claims customers can break even in 14 months.
MineOnCloud Review: MineOnCloud currently has about 35 TH/s of mining equipment for rent in the cloud. Some miners available for rent include AntMiner S4s and S5s.
TRANSCRIPT - Do it yourself with Bitcoin mining software
What's going on every one? This is Fredand this Part 2 of our DIY Bitcoin Miner. Today, we're going to take a look at software.
Okay, so the first thing that you need to do before you could start Bitcoin mining is to sign up for a Bitcoin wallet. Now there’s a lot of wallets that you could choose from but I prefer Circle. Now let’s head over and set up an account. All you have to do is enter in your email and choose a password.
Once you log in to your account you will see a summary of your Bitcoin balance and transactions. But before you can receive any Bitcoins you need to set up a Bitcoin address. You could do so by clicking account settings.
Once you are on the account settings page go ahead and click Bitcoin Addresses. From there click Create New Address. This generates a long string of numbers and letters. This is the address that we will need to enter into our mining pool. So let's take a look at that now.
There are many mining pools that you can choose from, but I prefer BitMinter as my primary pool and Slush’s pool as my backup. Just create an account whichever one you choose and log in. Your account details page will normally have an auto cash out option.
This is where we will enter in our wallet address that we created earlier. When you have mined enough Bitcoins to meet the threshold it would automatically be transferred to your Bitcoin wallet.
Next, go up top to the My Account drop down and select Workers. This worker information is what you need to input into the mining software so that you get credit for the work that is done. You do not need to secure this information with a difficult username or password because anyone that uses this information will be giving you credit.
Now let's take a look at setting up the mining software. As mentioned in Part 1 of the series we'll be using the MinePeon operating system. This can be downloaded from sourceforge.net.
Now this is the image that we will need to write onto our SD card. Another software that we need to download is called the Win32 Disk Imager. This can also be found on sourceforge.net. This is the software that we will use to write the MinePeon image onto our SD card.
Bfgminer Download
Once you have downloaded both files insert your SD card into your computer. Then open up Win32 Disk Imager. Simply select the location of your MinePeon image then select the correct drive for your SD card. All you have to do now is click write. This will write the MinePeon image on to your SD card. Insert the SD card into your Raspberry Pi as shown on Part 1 of the series then power up the unit.
Bfgminer Mac
Now sign in to MinePeon by typing in the network IP address into your browser. The easiest way to find this IP address is by logging in to your router and looking for the device called MinePeon. You will then be prompted to enter in your MinePeon's username and password. The default setting for this is MinePeon for the username, peon for the password. You will see a security warning but do not be alarmed. This is perfectly normal so proceed anyways. You will then be asked to re-enter the username and password.
So again, MinePeon is the username peon is the password. You are now finally in MinePeon's dashboard. This is where you can monitor the performance of your mining rig. Head up top and click pools. This page allows you to set up your mining pools. As you can see I have BitMinter as my primary pool and Slush’s pool as my secondary. Just enter in the URL of your mining pool, the username and password if you have one.
Bfgminer For Linux
Then go ahead and submit your settings. You may need to reboot MinePeon after any changes. Great job every one. You are now officially mining for Bitcoins.
Bfgminer Github
All right, so that should be everything that you need to start Bitcoin mining.