Mining Burstcoin - HDD is all you need - Tutorial for newbies

Most important thing: mining Burst coin doesn't stress your PC - it doesn't use your GPU and it takes about 0.5% of your CPU occasionaly. You can use your PC as always while the coins are being mined. This tutorial will show you how to mine Burst coin even if you're a complete newbie :)

Also, I found the existing tutorials missing a few important steps so everything that is needed is pointed out in this one.

At first you may find the whole process a bit complicated but it's really not, plus completing each objective is satisfying ;)

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Key points

• mining Burstcoin doesn't require CPU or GPU power
• mining Burstcoin require HDD space - the more, the better
• before you start to mine, you need to allocate HDD space for mining, which can take several hours but is done only once
• if you want to stop the mining, you can delete the allocated HDD files without any problems

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How mining Burst works

I found a good analogy of mining Burst on the Burst coin forums: each of your allocated GB HDD space is a lottery ticket. With each new block (about 4 minutes) there is a lottery. If you have the right ticket - you win. You don't have to have every number right - even a partially win gives you something.

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Tutorial

1. Download the Burst coin wallet here:
   https://sourceforge.net/projects/burstwindowswallet
2. Make sure you have the Java component installed:
   https://java.com/pl/download
3. Install the Burst wallet (anywhere you want) and run it. We'll assume you're a new user so please click "DON'T HAVE AN ACCOUNT?..."
   
4. You will receive a sequence of words - this is both your login and password. You will need those words is this specific order in order to log in to your wallet. Write it down!
   
5. Login using your newly generated passphrase. You will see your wallet.
6. Now, something that is quite often missing in other tutorials - you need to do some transactions on your wallet in order to be registered as a Burst coin user. Without is you won't be able to mine.
7. OK, let's get some coins. Click on the faucets button on the top navbar and pick whichever you want:
   
8. Resize your wallet window to the left - it will show you your wallet addess. Copy it to the facuet and click Claim Burst in order to receive your first Burst coint!
   
9. After few minutes the coins should be on your wallet. Now - you need to make an outgoing transaction which means that you need to send at least one coin out:) Please feel free to use my address or any other you want: BURST-AAUT-RABN-J25T-7V34S
10. Now we're gonna register in a mine. Click "Start mining" on the bottom of the wallet:
    
11. On the pop-up that will appear choose your mine and click Change button on the left side of the pop-up:
    
12. An information will appear saying that the pool address was copied to your clipboard. That's good because we will need it:)
13. On the windows that will appear you need to paste 2 addreses - the mine address (that is in your clipboard) and your burst wallet passphrase (the sequence of words). The mine address is already in your clipboard so just click on the 2nd entry box and press "ctrl + v", next copy your passphrase and paste it into the 1st entry box. It should look something like this:
    
14. Click "Submit". A new window should appear with one line of loooong text with some code in it. If it only shows something like "error: unknown account" it means that your wallet address is not yet recognized and you either didn't make any transactions yet or you have to wait a little longer.
15. OK, we are now registered in a mine but you need about 20 minutes (4 blocks) in order to the registration to be complete. That's OK because now we're gonna get our lottery tickets - they are called plots and the process of generating them is called plotting. Close all windows, return to your Burst wallet and click "Write plots" on the bottom of the wallet.
    
16. Choose the HDD you want to save your plots and click "Plot this drive".
    
17. Choose how much GB you want to use and how many CPU cores. The more the GB the better but as for the CPU - you can safely pick 50% of all your cores so you don't max out your CPU while plotting.
    
18. A new windows will appear with the progress of the plotting. It may take a while...
    
19. After it's done, the window will inform you that the plotting has ended.
20. Now - to the mine! Click "Start Mining" in your Burst Coin wallet. We have already set our mine so you don't have to choose it again from the dropdown list. Just click on the Start Mining (CPI/ AVX) button. You can try to use your GPU (OpenCL) but I haven't tested yet is it any faster because my GPU mine other coins:)
    
21. And this is how the miner looks. If it's green - it's good!
    
    Every few minutes new block will appear and if you have the requested data on your HDD - you will receive reward. If you don't see anything green - don't worry, just wait for the next block. The payments from the mine are done every 24 hours.

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Profitability

Now about this one I can not tell much yet because I've got 930 GB allocated and I'm mining for 3 days now. The first day I've got 16 coins ($0.01), the next day 24 coins (almost $0.02) and the next day 76 coins ($0.06). I don't know if the reward variance is that high or the longer you mine, the better the daily reward is. Also keep in mind that you can accumulate the coins and wait for higher prices.

img source

After all, the miner can sit in the background, doing it's job and you want even notice it. If you have some large unused HDD space, mining Burst coin may be quite profitable and fun. Plus the Burst wallet has some cool features that I'll be writing soon so please feel free to follow me ;) If you have any questions - go ahead and ask in the comments. Cheers!