[Update] Please note that in 2022 mining is no longer recommended due to the increasing difficulty of mining, the falling value of crypos and the rising price of energy. In most cases, mining is no longer profitable. This article is for information and archive purposes only.

The graphics card market is totally shattered because of mining: complete shortage, prices doubled or even tripled when a product is available. So why not take the miners at their own game and enjoy your share of the cake?

Your gaming PC, and in particular your graphics card, can actually save you money! And we're talking about values of up to €170/month with an RTX3080, which isn't insignificant. The idea is that this can compensate for the significant price increase in GPUs and allow you either to upgrade, or at least get a refund on the extra fee paid, or even perhaps to make a few profits...

In any case, it's now or never to get interested in cryptocurrencies: we're going to quickly explain how Ethereum works, and then look at how to mine with a gaming PC. Setting up the mining itself isn't very complex, but it may take you longer to read this article and understand what it's all about than to actually follow the tutorial and start making money. In any case, setting up a quick mining test is fairly easy, with the miner taking just 5 minutes to install. So first you can check your hashrate to get an idea of your potential earnings and see whether or not you should go ahead with the adventure.

Contents

1. Reminder: How cryptocurrencies work
   1. How is the "value" of a cryptocurrency determined?
   2. How and where is cryptocurrency stored?
   3. And what is a blockchain?
   4. And what is a blockchain?
   5. How does a wallet work?
   6. What is mining?
   7. What is a mining pool?
2. Prerequisites
3. Tutoriel
   1. Create my wallet
   2. Installing and launching my mining
   3. See my statistics on nanopool (and some practical advice)
   4. Monitoring and optimising my mining
   5. Get my money back (exchange platform)

1. Reminder: How cryptocurrencies work

How is the "value" of a cryptocurrency determined?

To put it very simply: the creators of a cryptocurrency decide that a certain number of computer calculations are worth X units of their currency. Other people are then willing to buy this cryptocurrency with Euros, Dollars, or any other established currency. In this way, the currency takes on so-called "real" value, and Ethereum (ETH) is currently the second most valuable cryptocurrency, relatively far behind Bitcoin, but still at over €2,000 for 1 ETH at the time of writing.

The Ethereum price can be seen here: https://coinmarketcap.com/fr/currencies/ethereum/

How and where is cryptocurrency stored?

Cryptocurrencies use a "blockchain" to store data. This is encrypted, secure and decentralised through numerous servers.

And what is a blockchain?

This blockchain is therefore a large data set that can be used to store anything, but generally, and in the case we are interested in here, it stores information on all the accounts of users of the currency, known as "wallets". The data in the blockchain is public and theoretically tamper-proof (this is one of the arguments in favour of cryptocurrencies), and includes the list of accounts, their balances and all the transactions carried out since the beginning of the currency's history.

How does a wallet work?

From the blockchain, you can create a wallet, which is comparable to the account number on a bank draft, but longer and with hexadecimal characters. This wallet number will be in the form "0x15e[...]". Your wallet number is then referred to as a "wallet". This wallet is public but anonymous, with no name associated with it, unlike a bank.

To create a wallet, you need to have downloaded the entire blockchain. As this is very time-consuming to do yourself, there are tools that make it very easy to create a wallet. Wallets work with an encryption key and a passphrase (usually 24 words).

For the system to work, you need to be authenticated to be able to send money. On the other hand, to receive money in ETH, all you have to do is give your wallet number to your payer.

What is mining?

Mining involves using the computing power of computer components (CPUs, GPUs, ASICs) to generate new units of currency. To do this, you need the appropriate hardware and mining software.

What is a mining pool?

Since discovering a new unit of cryptocurrency takes up a huge amount of resources and time, a mining "pool" is generally used. This allows several people to work together and share the profits according to the computing power contributed, in return for a small commission for the pool (generally between 0.5 and 2%).

How much can you earn?

The best thing to do is to try it out for yourself, as there are many factors involved.

Ethereum is currently worth €2,000, and you can roughly take its hashrate (the mining speed of a card) and multiply it by 2 to get your monthly gain in euros.

As an indication, on a GTX 1070Ti, you're looking at around 30Mh/s, so you can expect to pay 60€/month, on an RX6800 120€/month, and on an RTX 3080, 170€/month.

Please note that the following should be deducted from this: electricity consumption (around €7 to €15/month for the largest GPUs), tax returns if you choose to do this in France and comply with the law, the cost of transferring your Wallet to your Exchange, the cost of converting ETH to EUR, and any costs incurred by the Exchange to send your money by bank transfer. You can easily add up to 15-20% in fees for 'small' amounts of around €100.

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Is everything clear? Let's get on with the rest!

2. Requirements for mining ETH

Ethereum is mined via the GPU (graphics card). This tutorial concerns a Gaming PC, so it will be done under Windows. However, the main principles outlined here can be transposed to Linux without too much trouble.

Your graphics card must :

• Be AMD or nVidia branded
• At least 4GB of VRAM (on-board memory)
• At nVidia, expect a GTX 1650 or higher
• AMD: Vega56, RX 5600 or higher

What's more, your PC is going to be on all the time, so you need to :

• Be stable (no crashes or components close to giving up the ghost)
• Be properly cooled (particularly the graphics card, but the case as a whole as well)
• A good power supply (80+ Gold recommended) from a trusted brand

On the 'user' side, you need to understand a minimum of written English, as the currency is international and many of the sites and documents will be in English, particularly when it comes to collecting money. If you haven't already done so, you're missing out and it's high time you got started!

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All packed? Then let's get going!

3. Tutorial

Create my Wallet

Duration: 5 minutes

WARNING/DISCLAIMER: If you lose access to your wallet, you will NEVER be able to recover the money!
So treat your wallet like the apple of your eye, or you'll be left with nothing but tears in your eyes if you lose access.

We will use MyEtherWallet : https://www.myetherwallet.com

1. From the home page, click on "Create a new wallet". You are then advised to go to the mobile app to create your wallet. Install the app.
2. In the app, tap on "Create a free wallet" and read the warnings carefully.
3. Tap on "Create a wallet" at the bottom.
4. Choose a PIN code.
5. If you want to log in using your fingerprint, select "Enable biometry unlock" and scan your fingerprint.
6. Wait a few moments and then select "Start using new wallet".
7. Select "Backup now" and follow the procedure by writing down all the words on a piece of paper (keep it safe), then validating the list by taking the test on the next page.

Regarding security words: Avoid storing this on a PC, or in any case, keep your offline key on a secure medium (external hard drive, USB key) and preferably encrypted. A .zip file with a fairly complex (and easy to remember) password may also be acceptable. A personal cloud, i.e. one that is not hosted by Google or others, may also be acceptable, provided that everything else is secure.

And now your wallet is ready!

Installing and launching my mining

Duration: 5 minutes

We will be mining on the Nanopool pool, which offers its Nanominer software, which is preconfigured and regularly updated, saving us a lot of time. By default, fees are 1%, which is reasonable, and the pool is very stable.

First, let's look at the software:

1. Download the latest version of nanominer via : https://github.com/nanopool/nanominer/releases
   1. For nVidia, download "nanominer-windows-*cuda*.zip".
   2. For AMD, download "nanominer-windows-*.zip". Note that for AMD GPUs, your desktop may respond very poorly once nanominer has been launched. In this case, if you need to use your PC while mining, I'll suggest an alternative solution later.
2. Create a secure folder, in my case "D:\Programs\CryptoMoney\Ethereum", then extract the .zip file into this folder, to obtain for example: "D:\Programs\CryptoMoney\Ethereum\nanominer-windows-3.3.4".
3. Go to the nanominer folder you've created, and edit "config.ini" by double-clicking on it.
4. Replace "wallet=" with your wallet number so that the fruits of your mining come back to you.
5. Add the recommended configuration (see below) so that you can manage your settings on the pool
6. Save and close the text editor.
7. Create a shortcut to nanominer.exe on your desktop or in your start bar, because you'll have to stop it before each gaming session, and restart it afterwards too.
8. Run nanominer.exe

Recommended configuration (to be adapted to your information) :

wallet=[INSERT YOUR WALLET HERE]
rigName=YourPCName
webPassword=ChoosePassword
email=VotreAdresseMail@votrenomdedomaine.com
sortPools=true

• "wallet=" retrieves your winnings from your wallet
• "rigName=" allows you to give your PC a name, which is useful for viewing the mining stats for each PC if you add more than one later.
• "webpassword= " gives you access to a monitoring interface that can only be accessed via your PC on : http://localhost:9090/ if you don't want to make this interface accessible, don't add this line
• "email=" will send you annoying notifications when you're not mining, but will allow you to set your payment threshold on nanominer afterwards.
• "sortPools=true" allows you to use the nanominer sub-pools with the best ping. By having a better interconnection, you avoid the risk of having "shares" (which are calculations that earn ETH) rejected, which potentially maximises profit.

Alternative method for AMD

If you suffer from a very jerky interface once mining has started, as I did, you'll need to use another miner and configure it on Nanopool, with a few settings to give your GPU a bit of ballast.

1. Download PheonixMiner: https://phoenixminer.org/ (Note: Phoenixminer seems to have security concerns, Claymore would be more recommended)
2. Extract it into your folder (you may need to 7zip zip file is password protected); enter the password "pheonix"; then go to the PhoenixMiner folder.
3. Copy "1_Ehereum-nanopool.bat" to the same folder, and rename the duplicated file (I chose "1_Ehereum-nanopool_Reduced.bat").
4. Edit your new .bat file as described below (right-click, Edit).
5. Make a shortcut to this file on your desktop or Start bar.
6. Launch it.

The magic configuration for PheonixMiner that works for me and does not lag the Windows desktop on AMD GPUs:

setx GPU_FORCE_64BIT_PTR 1
setx GPU_MAX_HEAP_SIZE 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT 100

PhoenixMiner.exe -pool eth-eu2.nanopool.org:9999 -wal [Insert your Wallet here] -worker [NameofYourPC] -epsw x -mode 1 -Rmode 1 -log 0 -mport 0 -etha 0 -retrydelay 1 -clKernel 0 -ftime 55 -tt 79 -tstop 89 -tstart 79 -mi 1 -gpow 96 -coin eth
pause

Replace "[Insert your Wallet here]" and "[NameOfYourPC]" with your info, and without the square brackets, and you should be good to go. If that wasn't enough, you can play around with the "-gpow 96" value and reduce it to 90 or less, noting that it may harm your mining performance if you go too low.

To stop mining, simply close the miner window.

See my statistics on nanopool (and some practical advice)

After 30 minutes to 1 hour of mining, you should see your stats on Nanopool : https://eth.nanopool.org/
You can change the currency to EUR using the drop-down menu in the top right-hand corner, then again in the top right-hand corner, insert your address and click on "Search" to consult them.

Note that as there are transaction fees in Ethereum (called 'gas'), you only get paid when you reach a certain threshold. If your mining is rather slow, you can lower the payment threshold via the 'Settings' button at the top of your page. You then need to enter your email address used in nanominer (I don't yet have the command to add an email via PheonixMiner, so I need to use nanominer a little to ensure that shares are present with the correct email and to be able to adjust this setting.

Also, if you go a certain length of time (currently 14 days) without mining, you lose your earnings. So you need to be consistent in your mining!

Monitoring and optimising my mining

Duration: 30 minutes, to be adjusted afterwards.

The aim is to check that everything is fine and to drastically reduce the power consumption of your graphics card without losing any significant mining capacity (or even winning). This is known as "downclocking". By downclocking your GPU and overclocking your memory, you can generally save around 40% in power consumption and sometimes even increase your hashrate, i.e. your computing power. It should be noted that it is the memory that will make the biggest difference to performance, while the GPU can be downclocked to a fairly high level.

Your miner will give you some useful information, in particular :

• Power consumption of your graphics card & GPU temperature
• Jobs sent by the pool (calculations to be made)
• Your "hashrate", i.e. your calculation speed
• Every minute, your effective hashrate on the pool
• The "shares" (calculations performed) accepted and rejected by the pool (normally, you should have less than 1% of rejected shares).

Take a little time to look at what it looks like. We're going to need to use these different elements to optimise the configuration. To do this, we're going to use three elements:

1. GPU-Z : https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/
2. For GPU overclocking software, I recommend MSI Afterburner : http://download.msi.com/uti_exe/vga/MSIAfterburnerSetup.zip
3. Your statistics on https://eth.nanopool.org/

I'm assuming you have a basic understanding of overclocking because I can't do a 3Km long tutorial (it's already 2Km long...), if not, you'll have to look a bit further or go to the TeraGeek Discord for some personalised advice.

With mining in progress, we're going to keep GPU-Z open to check temperatures, fan speed, GPU Load (which must be at least 96%) and above all power consumption.

Given that the process is going to be open for a long time, we're going to avoid exceeding 70°C in order to preserve the board (and the thermal paste and pads, and the power supply stages), preferably we'll even be under 60°C with aggressive ventilation.

Afterburner plays with Core Clock, Memory Clock, Power Limit and Fan Speed.

• Let's start with the Fan Speed. For the initial test, switch to at least 70% in manual mode.
• Then check your hashrate and mentally work out the approximate average over 5 minutes (we're not within 0.2...).
• Lower your power limit (don't forget to save each time you change it) and check that the hashrate doesn't drop significantly. Generally, you will be able to lower it to the minimum without any effect with nVidia. In my case with AMD, I lose a bit by lowering the power limit, so I leave it at maximum. If you see a drop in hashrate, go back up to the value with the lowest losses while maintaining a correct hashrate.
• At the same time, check the actual power consumption and temperatures. If they are too high, set the fan to 100%. If it's still too high, it's time to change your GPU's thermal paste (or reread the pre-requisites in this tutorial).
• Then you switch to the core clock. Sometimes the result obtained with the power limit is sufficient, but often it is possible to gain consumption by lowering the clock. The same applies, lowering the clock gradually while checking your hashrate.
• Once the ideal core clock threshold has been found, we move on to the memory clock, which we need to increase gradually. Each card is different here. On my GTX 1070 TI I was able to set +200. On my RX6800 I was able to go from 2000 to 2090Mhz and when I exceeded this value I had a loss of performance (due to memory errors, corrected by ECC but which slow down the calculation). It's a case of trial and error.
• Once you've finished, you can optionally increase the core clock slightly, or even the power limit, to check whether this increases the hashrate even more. It is possible to gain a little, but check the power consumption, because consuming +30w for +0.2Mh/s is not at all interesting.
• Finally, we'll check the temperatures one last time, which must have dropped a lot since we've just drastically reduced the power consumption. If they are OK, you can then lower the fan speed slightly.
• You then save your Afterburner profile, which you can call up again as soon as you start mining. Don't forget to reapply your default profile or your usual overclocking as soon as you start a game.

The last step is simply to check your average mining over 6 hours on Nanopool, i.e. over several days. You can test with different settings to see if there is a difference, and choose what is most interesting in terms of Mh/s and power consumption. Note that there may be some variance in the results, because the calculations are random. The instantaneous hashrate value in the mining software is often the simplest source of information for checking the hashrate, but the pool is the most accurate, although subject to greater variance.

Bonus: Calculate your consumption in Kwh

To find out how many Kwh you will consume per month:
Consumption in Watts x 24(h) x 30(d) / 1000
For a GPU at 120W, you're going to consume 86.4Kwh, to which you may need to add the consumption of the PC as a whole if you don't intend to leave it switched on. Then multiply that by your energy supplier's price per kWh (usually around €0.1, for 120W, that works out at around €8.6/month. Bearing in mind that the consumption at the socket will be a little higher, depending on the efficiency of your power supply... You're free to carry out further research to get a more accurate calculation, a wattmeter at the socket being ideal.

Get my money back (exchange platform)

Duration: 1 hour the first time, 10 minutes thereafter

In concrete terms, I found two exchange platforms (i.e. platforms for selling ETH for EUR and making transfers) that I could trust:

• Kraken : https://www.kraken.com
• Binance : https://www.binance.com

In both cases, these are banking organisations, so you'll need to validate your identity with your identity card and proof of address. You will then need to enter your bank details.

It's almost impossible to do a tutorial on such a platform, given its complexity and changing nature. At this stage, if you've got this far, you should be able to search the exchange to do what you need to do. The advantage is that you have 10 days to 1.5 months before you receive your first earnings from the mining pool (depending on your computing power), so you have time to prepare what you need on the exchange.

Here's the procedure in a nutshell

• Create your account on the exchange.
• Confirm your identity.
• Create an Ethereum wallet on your exchange to hold your funds.
• Send the amount you want from MyEtherWallet to the exchange's Ethereum wallet (choose the lowest possible "gas", this only determines the duration of the transaction, so you're probably not in a hurry).
• Check the ETH price and sell in EUR when it is at its highest.
• Start the transfer to your account and wait 2 to 3 working days.

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And now you're rich! Well, not ultra-rich either, but a little richer than before!