Re: [ANN] [XNV] NERVA: 'Cryptonight adaptive' algo CPU mining GPU/NH/ASIC resistant
NERVA Mining guides, FAQ, and more:
Video help
GUI - video mining guide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PKmdp9rtPA&t=170s
CLI - video mining guide:
https://youtu.be/Xm_NvGQSkWQ
Beginner mining walk-through:
Mine NERVA in 5 easy steps!
This guide is for Windows 10, using the CLI wallet/miner.
Mining NERVA is very simple; in this guide I will show you how to mine NERVA solo, which you can do on any computer that has a modern-ish CPU.
We will use the CLI (command line interface) wallet, and mine through the daemon using a .bat file to start the miner.
1. Download the daemon and wallet
You must disable real-time protection in Windows Defender before starting the download.
You must also make an exclusion in Windows Defender for the folder that you will extract it to.
Once you have downloaded and extracted the files to the excluded folder, then remember to turn real-time protection back on!!
(This is because Windows Defender likes to flag mining programs as malicious, and will often remove/disable them if you do not do this.)
As well, some browsers will block downloads of programs that mine coins, like Chrome.
If you are using Chrome and it blocks the download, open "settings," scroll down to the bottom, and click "advanced". Uncheck "Safe Browsing - Protect you and your device from dangerous sites."
Once the download is complete, remember to re-enable this setting!!
Download the latest Windows wallet and daemon here:
https://getnerva.org/#downloads
2. Quicksync the blockchain
Get the latest quicksync.raw file:
https://getnerva.org/#downloads
Place the quicksync.raw file in the NERVA folder.
Open/create a new blank file in notepad.
Paste in:
nervad.exe --quicksync quicksync.raw
Make sure to save this file as a .bat file, it can be named anything you like, e.g. "quicksync.bat"
When saving, click "Save As" and you have to change under "Save as type," from "Text Documents" to "All Files."
Save it in the NERVA folder.
Run this newly created .bat file and it should start syncing blocks.
You will likely get a Windows alert and must click O.K. to allow the .exe to run, and a firewall message that you must O.K. as well. Make sure to allow these.
It should only take a few minutes to sync.
3. Sync the blockchain
Okay, so now there should be a number of files in your folder, but we are only interested in nervad.exe and nerva-wallet-cli.exe.
First, open up nervad.exe (the nerva daemon). You will likely get a Windows alert and must click O.K. to allow the .exe to run, and a firewall message that you must O.K. as well. Make sure to allow these.
Wait for the daemon to sync the rest of the blockchain, this should only take a few minutes because most of the blockchain should be synced from the step above.
Do not open the wallet until it is done syncing.
When it is done syncing it will say so, and will say it is O.K. to open the wallet.
4. Create your wallet
Open nerva-wallet-cli.exe (do not close the daemon, if you do, just close the CLI wallet and open the daemon and make sure it syncs fully before creating a new wallet)
Simply follow the on-screen prompts, it will walk you through the creation of a new wallet.
Make sure to create a new, strong password for the wallet and keep it safe.
Make sure to write down your seed words and keep them somewhere safe. These are all you need to access your NERVA wallet. It is a good idea to write down your private keys as well just in case.
Once you have your wallet created, it will give you your address. This will be a long string of characters starting with the letters "NV." Save this somewhere to use in the next step (a blank text file is fine, this is your public key).
You can now close the wallet and the daemon.
5. Create .bat file that starts the miner
Open/create a new blank file in notepad.
Paste in:
nervad.exe --start-mining
Replace with your address that you just saved above in step 4. Do not include the <>.
Here is my .bat file configuration for an example:
nervad.exe --start-mining NV2y5YqS9WFSmDjVG2P62XXYkAKfnZnJq4s5Bydajabu9dXJPEPfVtefEUfbCPAbZMKLP54VMR771DC gHXQqPDrD1vaWr7ko5 --mining-threads 7
If you do not include the --mining-threads parameter, the daemon will automatically determine the number of threads to use.
The number of mining threads can be tweaked, dependent on your CPU model. Mine is set to 7 because my i7-6700k has 8 threads, and I can still use my computer if I leave 1 available.
You can check https://forkmaps.com/#/benchmarks to get an idea of how many threads to use for your CPU, and what hashrate to expect.
Make sure to save this file as a .bat file, it can be named anything you like, e.g. "start.bat".
When saving, click "Save As" and you have to change under "Save as type," from "Text Documents" to "All Files."
Save it in the NERVA folder.
I suggest making a shortcut to this .bat file so you can start it easily from your desktop or wherever is convenient.
Done! Double-click start.bat to start mining!
That's it! You are done! Simply double click the start.bat file (or whatever you named it). The daemon should open and start syncing the blocks it missed since it was last open. Once finished it should then start mining!
To check (and spend!) your balance, remember to make sure the daemon (nervad.exe) is fully synced first, then simply open up the nerva-wallet-cli.exe, enter the wallet name and then the password to access your funds!
CLI: Useful commands
Daemon
status
Displays current hashrate, network hashrate and connection info.
show_hr / hide_hr
Enables/disables periodic hashrate reports in the daemon.
pop_blocks X
Removes the top X number of blocks from your local copy of the blockchain. Useful if you have somehow gotten out of sync with the network, usually from not updating or possibly from losing internet connectivity while mining.
help
Displays a full list of commands usable in the daemon.
Wallet
transfer X Y
Sends Y coins to address X.
transfer X Y -d Z
Sends Y coins to address X. The payment ID is Z.
transfer W X Y -d Z
Sends Y coins to address X. The payment ID is Z. The priority is W: low, medium, or high.
rescan_bc
Rescans the whole blockchain to re-calculate wallet balance. If funds aren't showing up, which can happen if you previously used/created a wallet without properly syncing the blockchain, this will find all the coins in the wallet assuming the daemon is now fully synced.
help
Displays a full list of commands usable in the wallet.
CLI: Restore a wallet from seed
For Windows 10:
Easiest way to do this is create a simple .bat file that opens the CLI wallet with the command to begin the wallet recovery process.
Open/create a new blank file in notepad.
Paste in:
nerva-wallet-cli.exe --restore-deterministic-wallet
Make sure to save this file as a .bat file, it can be named anything you like, e.g. "restore.bat".
When saving, click "Save As" and you have to change under "Save as type," from "Text Documents" to "All Files."
Save it in the NERVA folder.
Run this newly created .bat file and the CLI wallet should open. Follow the prompts to create a new wallet file using your seed phrase.
FAQ
How do I know when I find a block?
When you find a block it will say "[timestamp] INFO Found block at height: ."
What hardware can I use to mine NERVA?
Only CPUs. NERVA actively tries to prevent the use of GPUs and specialized mining hardware in order to provide fair and accessible PoW mining.
Do I need to sync the whole blockchain to mine NERVA?
Yes. This helps to enforce CPU-only solo mining, and helps make NERVA one of, if not the, most decentralized coins in existence today.
Can I have multiple machines mining to one wallet address?
Yes, of course.
Do I lose 'progress' if I stop mining for a bit?
No. You either find a block or you don't, it's a matter of luck. It's like a lottery being drawn every minute where your current hashrate as a percentage of the nethash is your chance of winning a block.
What are all these messages in the daemon window?
The daemon will spew out stuff into the CLI interface periodically; mostly messages about chain reorganizations and blocked nodes. You can mostly ignore these, chain reorganizations are normal, it's just the blockchain doing its thing. Blocked nodes are people running old nodes (unless you are the one running an old node then you will be blocked!). But if it says you are mining when you type 'status' into the daemon and the blockchain height is the same as the block explorer, you should be good to go.
Why are there no pools?
Pools are points of centralization in crypto mining that creates risk of 51% attacks or other misuse of hashes. NERVA tries to prevent pools and requires each miner to run a full blockchain/node, reducing the risk of having pool operators being able to control any significant portion of the network hashrate.
Where is the blockchain data stored?
On Windows, the blockchain is stored by default in:
C:\ProgramData\nerva
If your blockchain somehow becomes corrupted, you can delete this entire folder and sync again from scratch.
Troubleshooting
If you are getting blocked by other nodes:
Make sure you update to the latest version. If you ran an old version you will likely still be blocked by the seed nodes. You will be automatically unblocked in 24h, and should be then able to connect with the proper version. Alternatively, you can message the 'Atom' bot in Discord with !unban and you will be unbanned immediately.
If you get an error that says MDB_READERS_FULL:
Start nervad with the flag:
--db-readers 256
Increase the number until the error stops.
If your node only syncs to a fixed amount of blocks behind the full chain:
Ensure the system clock is set to the correct time.
Having issues running the GUI:
The GUI is still in BETA. There are some help pages in the 'Documentation' section of the post above. If you are having issues, try using the CLI instead. The CLI is very easy to use and mine with, just follow the guide above to get started.
Video help
GUI - video mining guide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PKmdp9rtPA&t=170s
CLI - video mining guide:
https://youtu.be/Xm_NvGQSkWQ
Beginner mining walk-through:
Mine NERVA in 5 easy steps!
This guide is for Windows 10, using the CLI wallet/miner.
Mining NERVA is very simple; in this guide I will show you how to mine NERVA solo, which you can do on any computer that has a modern-ish CPU.
We will use the CLI (command line interface) wallet, and mine through the daemon using a .bat file to start the miner.
1. Download the daemon and wallet
You must disable real-time protection in Windows Defender before starting the download.
You must also make an exclusion in Windows Defender for the folder that you will extract it to.
Once you have downloaded and extracted the files to the excluded folder, then remember to turn real-time protection back on!!
(This is because Windows Defender likes to flag mining programs as malicious, and will often remove/disable them if you do not do this.)
As well, some browsers will block downloads of programs that mine coins, like Chrome.
If you are using Chrome and it blocks the download, open "settings," scroll down to the bottom, and click "advanced". Uncheck "Safe Browsing - Protect you and your device from dangerous sites."
Once the download is complete, remember to re-enable this setting!!
Download the latest Windows wallet and daemon here:
https://getnerva.org/#downloads
2. Quicksync the blockchain
Get the latest quicksync.raw file:
https://getnerva.org/#downloads
Place the quicksync.raw file in the NERVA folder.
Open/create a new blank file in notepad.
Paste in:
nervad.exe --quicksync quicksync.raw
Make sure to save this file as a .bat file, it can be named anything you like, e.g. "quicksync.bat"
When saving, click "Save As" and you have to change under "Save as type," from "Text Documents" to "All Files."
Save it in the NERVA folder.
Run this newly created .bat file and it should start syncing blocks.
You will likely get a Windows alert and must click O.K. to allow the .exe to run, and a firewall message that you must O.K. as well. Make sure to allow these.
It should only take a few minutes to sync.
3. Sync the blockchain
Okay, so now there should be a number of files in your folder, but we are only interested in nervad.exe and nerva-wallet-cli.exe.
First, open up nervad.exe (the nerva daemon). You will likely get a Windows alert and must click O.K. to allow the .exe to run, and a firewall message that you must O.K. as well. Make sure to allow these.
Wait for the daemon to sync the rest of the blockchain, this should only take a few minutes because most of the blockchain should be synced from the step above.
Do not open the wallet until it is done syncing.
When it is done syncing it will say so, and will say it is O.K. to open the wallet.
4. Create your wallet
Open nerva-wallet-cli.exe (do not close the daemon, if you do, just close the CLI wallet and open the daemon and make sure it syncs fully before creating a new wallet)
Simply follow the on-screen prompts, it will walk you through the creation of a new wallet.
Make sure to create a new, strong password for the wallet and keep it safe.
Make sure to write down your seed words and keep them somewhere safe. These are all you need to access your NERVA wallet. It is a good idea to write down your private keys as well just in case.
Once you have your wallet created, it will give you your address. This will be a long string of characters starting with the letters "NV." Save this somewhere to use in the next step (a blank text file is fine, this is your public key).
You can now close the wallet and the daemon.
5. Create .bat file that starts the miner
Open/create a new blank file in notepad.
Paste in:
nervad.exe --start-mining
Replace with your address that you just saved above in step 4. Do not include the <>.
Here is my .bat file configuration for an example:
nervad.exe --start-mining NV2y5YqS9WFSmDjVG2P62XXYkAKfnZnJq4s5Bydajabu9dXJPEPfVtefEUfbCPAbZMKLP54VMR771DC gHXQqPDrD1vaWr7ko5 --mining-threads 7
If you do not include the --mining-threads parameter, the daemon will automatically determine the number of threads to use.
The number of mining threads can be tweaked, dependent on your CPU model. Mine is set to 7 because my i7-6700k has 8 threads, and I can still use my computer if I leave 1 available.
You can check https://forkmaps.com/#/benchmarks to get an idea of how many threads to use for your CPU, and what hashrate to expect.
Make sure to save this file as a .bat file, it can be named anything you like, e.g. "start.bat".
When saving, click "Save As" and you have to change under "Save as type," from "Text Documents" to "All Files."
Save it in the NERVA folder.
I suggest making a shortcut to this .bat file so you can start it easily from your desktop or wherever is convenient.
Done! Double-click start.bat to start mining!
That's it! You are done! Simply double click the start.bat file (or whatever you named it). The daemon should open and start syncing the blocks it missed since it was last open. Once finished it should then start mining!
To check (and spend!) your balance, remember to make sure the daemon (nervad.exe) is fully synced first, then simply open up the nerva-wallet-cli.exe, enter the wallet name and then the password to access your funds!
CLI: Useful commands
Daemon
status
Displays current hashrate, network hashrate and connection info.
show_hr / hide_hr
Enables/disables periodic hashrate reports in the daemon.
pop_blocks X
Removes the top X number of blocks from your local copy of the blockchain. Useful if you have somehow gotten out of sync with the network, usually from not updating or possibly from losing internet connectivity while mining.
help
Displays a full list of commands usable in the daemon.
Wallet
transfer X Y
Sends Y coins to address X.
transfer X Y -d Z
Sends Y coins to address X. The payment ID is Z.
transfer W X Y -d Z
Sends Y coins to address X. The payment ID is Z. The priority is W: low, medium, or high.
rescan_bc
Rescans the whole blockchain to re-calculate wallet balance. If funds aren't showing up, which can happen if you previously used/created a wallet without properly syncing the blockchain, this will find all the coins in the wallet assuming the daemon is now fully synced.
help
Displays a full list of commands usable in the wallet.
CLI: Restore a wallet from seed
For Windows 10:
Easiest way to do this is create a simple .bat file that opens the CLI wallet with the command to begin the wallet recovery process.
Open/create a new blank file in notepad.
Paste in:
nerva-wallet-cli.exe --restore-deterministic-wallet
Make sure to save this file as a .bat file, it can be named anything you like, e.g. "restore.bat".
When saving, click "Save As" and you have to change under "Save as type," from "Text Documents" to "All Files."
Save it in the NERVA folder.
Run this newly created .bat file and the CLI wallet should open. Follow the prompts to create a new wallet file using your seed phrase.
FAQ
How do I know when I find a block?
When you find a block it will say "[timestamp] INFO Found block at height: ."
What hardware can I use to mine NERVA?
Only CPUs. NERVA actively tries to prevent the use of GPUs and specialized mining hardware in order to provide fair and accessible PoW mining.
Do I need to sync the whole blockchain to mine NERVA?
Yes. This helps to enforce CPU-only solo mining, and helps make NERVA one of, if not the, most decentralized coins in existence today.
Can I have multiple machines mining to one wallet address?
Yes, of course.
Do I lose 'progress' if I stop mining for a bit?
No. You either find a block or you don't, it's a matter of luck. It's like a lottery being drawn every minute where your current hashrate as a percentage of the nethash is your chance of winning a block.
What are all these messages in the daemon window?
The daemon will spew out stuff into the CLI interface periodically; mostly messages about chain reorganizations and blocked nodes. You can mostly ignore these, chain reorganizations are normal, it's just the blockchain doing its thing. Blocked nodes are people running old nodes (unless you are the one running an old node then you will be blocked!). But if it says you are mining when you type 'status' into the daemon and the blockchain height is the same as the block explorer, you should be good to go.
Why are there no pools?
Pools are points of centralization in crypto mining that creates risk of 51% attacks or other misuse of hashes. NERVA tries to prevent pools and requires each miner to run a full blockchain/node, reducing the risk of having pool operators being able to control any significant portion of the network hashrate.
Where is the blockchain data stored?
On Windows, the blockchain is stored by default in:
C:\ProgramData\nerva
If your blockchain somehow becomes corrupted, you can delete this entire folder and sync again from scratch.
Troubleshooting
If you are getting blocked by other nodes:
Make sure you update to the latest version. If you ran an old version you will likely still be blocked by the seed nodes. You will be automatically unblocked in 24h, and should be then able to connect with the proper version. Alternatively, you can message the 'Atom' bot in Discord with !unban and you will be unbanned immediately.
If you get an error that says MDB_READERS_FULL:
Start nervad with the flag:
--db-readers 256
Increase the number until the error stops.
If your node only syncs to a fixed amount of blocks behind the full chain:
Ensure the system clock is set to the correct time.
Having issues running the GUI:
The GUI is still in BETA. There are some help pages in the 'Documentation' section of the post above. If you are having issues, try using the CLI instead. The CLI is very easy to use and mine with, just follow the guide above to get started.