PPCoin Proof of Stake Minting Setup Guide

One of the unique features of PPCoin is the concept of "Proof of Stake" which allows stakeholders (essentially anyone with PPC in their wallet) to generate "interest" on their reserves. Since I could not find an easy to read guide I have written one myself so that you can start collecting "Proof of Stake" on your PPCoin balance as well!

Step One:

As with all Crypto Coins is to encrypt your wallet... so run the PPCoin-Qt go to the options menu and encrypt your wallet with a strong password. DO NOT LOSE THE PASSWORD OR YOU LOSE ALL YOUR COINS... FOREVER!!!! Sorry to be melodramatic but it's important!

Step Two:

Go to your %appdata% folder (usually something like C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Roaming\PPCoin) and create a PPCoin.conf text file as follows.

Code:

#ppcoin.conf
# JSON-RPC options (for controlling a running ppcoind process)

#Server mode allows Qt to accept JSON-RPC commands
server=1

# You must set rpcuser and rpcpassword to secure the JSON-RPC api
rpcuser=
rpcpassword=

#The reserve balance field is the minimum amount of coins you want to have available and NOT put up as stake.
#The reason for this is that if you are generating proof of stake you cannot spend those coins for 520 blocks.
#reservebalance=10000

Note that the username and password can be anything it doesn't matter (it is NOT your wallet password and you should not make it your wallet password for security reasons) so make it something long and obnoxious.

For more info on reservebalance check the FAQ -> https://github.com/ppcoin/ppcoin/wiki/FAQ

Step Three

Now run the PPCoin-Qt program and open your wallet. Go to wherever PPCoin is installed: Usually it's C:\Program Files (x86)\PPCoin\, in that folder you will see PPCoin-Qt.exe along with a daemon folder. Within the "daemon" folder create a batch file called "mint.bat".

Code:

@echo off
@echo Enter PPC password...
SET /P variable=Password :
ppcoind walletpassphrase %variable% 9999999 true

This batch file will ask you for your wallet password and will unlock your wallet for minting purposes only, any transfers will still require your password to be initiated. This must be run each time the client is restarted.

If you did everything correctly you can hover over the lock icon in the lower right corner and it will say "Wallet is encrypted and currently unlocked for block minting only". In theory you could just have a shortcut or batch file with the password entered but then you'd have a shortcut that has your wallet password sitting in plaintext on your computer which is a terrible idea!

Step Four

Sit back and relax.

Once you have the client running and you are getting the "unlocked for block minting only" message over the lock you just sit back (for a long time) and let the interest accrue.

It will be approximately 1% per year on your PPC balance. Note that it takes a while for freshly minted coins to mature so you will not see interest generated right away.

Extra Information:
The current release of the client will send coins without a password while in minting mode (this may be changed in a future update).

Proof of Stake Important Concepts
Coin-Age: I receive 10 coins from Person X and hold them for 30 days, those particular coins have a combined coin age of 300 coin-days.
Generating A Coinstake: Once minting is unlocked you can generate a coinstake which consumes your coin age in exchange for generating a block with profit. The greater the coin age the higher probability that the proof of stake will be generated, if you are offline for a couple years for example when you reconnect you will probably generate a proof of stake almost immediately however you may have missed opportunities for compounding earlier.
Transferring coins to another person: Destroys all coin-age attached... only static coins gain age.

For detailed info please review the ppcoin whitepaper -> http://www.ppcoin.org/static/ppcoin-paper.pdf

Questions / Comments
If you have any questions post here and I'll try and update this guide with any needed information!

If you found this guide helpful my Tip addresses are:
PPC: PXWSoRA2c6qbiy6o4pS4tt68S6jtssEGQU BTC: 1HujuRGYtFgj7Em1pnhX22KAYnY9sxGAR6 LTC: LPiK3W3F7uqDHsBumArby7akVf7zW9UrhG

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