Bitcoin Mining Using Raspberry Pi

 

Want to mine some bitcoins? Want to earn for free? 

Have a pi not being used?

Then lets mine some bitcoins!

 

Step 1: What Is BitCoin?

 

 If you don’t know already, Bitcoin is a  virtual currency set up in 2009. 

Bitcoin has grown in reputation over  the past few years becoming a very 

popular as a method to pay for  services over the internet. 

The value has rocketed recently thanks to  the huge coverage in the media, 

for both positive and negative reasons.There are two ways to get Bitcoin:-Buying 

them from an exchange, which is the process of converting local currency to Bitcoin. 

-Mining them. Mining is the process of verifying transactions in the blockchain. 

As  the whole of the Bitcoin system is decentralised, every transaction is  publically viewable

 within what is called the blockchain. This  blockchain contains every

 bitcoin exchanged between users so, as there  is no central server, 

it has to be self governed. This is the job of the  miners.

 

Step 2: Requirements

In order to mine Bitcoin, you will 

A pool account 

Bitcoin Wallet

 Raspberry Pi Raspbian

 image SD card 

USB Bitcoin miner 

 

Step 3: Creating an Account

 There are two things you need to do:

Download a bitcoin wallet

Create a pool account

Set up payment

Set up workers 

 Download a Bitcoin Wallet
A wallet is a  program that sits on your computer and gives you a wallet address, 

this  is a unique string of numbers and letters that you will use to receive  bitcoins. 

Download the client for your computer from  https://bitcoin.org/en/download  

 After installation, you will have to save a file called wallet.dat,  keep this file safe,

 as this contains your unique wallet address within  it, including all bitcoins that you will gain. 

If you lose this file,  you cannot recover any bitcoins it contained. 

Create a Pool  Account Once you have a wallet address, create a pool account. 

A pool is  a huge collection of other people working towards gaining bitcoins. 

Due  to the complexity of mining a bitcoin, it has become unrealistic 

to  solo mine–the act of processing millions of numbers to solve the block  problem. 

Working as a group, or pool, lets everyone have a chance of  earning some Bitcoin. 

There are many pools around, in this tutorial I’ll  be using one called Slush’s pool:  https://bitcoin.org/en/download 

   Set Up Payment 

Once you have created a pool account, 

you'll need to enter your unique wallet address into the Bitcoin payout address.

 Create Worker Account 

Next  step is to create a worker login account. 

Within your pool account you  have the ability to create something

 called a worker for each of your  bitcoin miners, 

so you're able to monitor them all separately just in  case one should fail.  

Each worker has its own login name and  password. 

Whilst you are on My Accountclick Register New Worker and give  it a name, for example; 

worker, and a password. Now you're ready to set  your Raspberry Pi mining for Bitcoin. 

Step 4: Setting Up the Raspberry Pi

 

Start with a fresh Raspbian install, if you  don’t know who to do this, read the tutorial How to

 Install NOOBS on a  Raspberry Pi With a Mac. If you plan on running

 more than one  Bitcoin miner at the same time, it is best to use a powered USB hub.  

Take into account the power rating as mining will need a lot of power,

  as much as one mp per miner.With your USB miner attached to your Raspberry Pi,

 let’s get everything installed.

 

Step 5: Installing Required Libraries

The  miner to be installed comes as source files, which means that the  program 

must be compiled into a binary before it can be run. To make a  program, 

in this case BFGMiner, many dependencies are required. 

Dependencies  are additional software, or libraries the program needs in order 

to  compile properly, as it has been developed using them to make the  software more efficient. 

Hopefully you will be seeing the Raspbian  desktop, 

so double click on LXTerminaland type in the following: 

1) sudo apt-get update

 2) sudo  apt-get install autoconf autogen libtool uthash-dev libjansson-dev  libcurl4-openssl-dev libusb-dev libncurses-dev git-core –y

This process will take a few minutes to complete. 

 

Step 6: Installing BFGMiner

 

Once all the dependencies have been installed,  now it is time to download and 

install BFGMiner, so type the following  into LXTerminal. 

It’s normal for these to take a few minutes to complete  so some patience is needed.

git clone  https://github.com/luke-jr/bfgminer.git
cd bfgminer

 ./autogen.sh

 ./configure make

You will be greeted with a screen that looks similar to the following:

 

Step 7: Start Mining Bitcoin

 Now you’re ready to start mining. To do this, providing you're using Slush’s pool, 

you’ll use the following command:

./bfgminer -o stratum.bitcoin.cz:3333 -O username.worker:password -S all

The  username section is composed of two parts, the username that you use

 to  login to the pool, and worker which is the worker name you gave when 

 you registered the worker. Finally, the password that was set when you 

 created the worker.That’s a lot of numbers, so I’ll make some of them a bit clearer.

Current mining speed,  typically calculated in megahashes or gigahashes. 

The number of hashes a  second that can be calculated the better. 

A hash is an algorithm of  converting numbers and letters into an undecryptable set of characters. 

 So a miner is used to process millions of numbers in an effort to match  the hash to guess the original number. 

The more hashes that can be  processed the faster it is able to solve the problem.

Number of accepted shares.  A share on a pool is to show the miner has successfully 

worked out a  given problem, so the more shares you can process the better your reward  from the pool.

Detailed information on accepted shares and pool updates.  This is a running 

log of what is currently happening with the miners  and basic pool information, 

such as messages of updates and when new  blocks are found.

More information can be found at the BFGminer github site 

 

Step 8: Conclusion

 

Following these steps will leave you with a  very energy efficient bitcoin miner, 

as a Raspberry Pi only uses four  watts of power, and a miner is typically 2.5W. 

Mining used to be done  with computers consuming over 700W for

 the same process so to make a  jump in savings helps repay the cost of the hardware

 we are using.All  there is to do now is to sit back and watch the money slowly build up.  

Though it is important that you understand that Bitcoin value fluctuates  wildly, 

it is extremely volatile, so invest at your own risk. You can also put up LCDs.

 Connect more Pis for getting better speed :D

For  more information there are a number of websites and forums available,  

such ashttps://bitcointalk.org/,to help get you started.

FINISH

source :  http://www.instructables.com/id/Bitcoin-Mining-using-Raspberry-Pi/