I'm going to try out a tutorial series based on things I've learned and am learning in the crypto-universe. Please leave feedback if you have any suggestions.

Requirements

Spare computer, or just a computer
Internet connection
Ideally free electricity but not required

Introduction

While mining or the process of obtaining popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin require expensive and special hardware called asic miners, it is possible for the everyday computer user to mine as well. Without any special computer knowledge or equipment, smaller cryptocurrencies can be mined effortlessly using mining pools. Mining pools combine the computing power of computer on a network in the effort of getting a block reward, the reward is then split based on the amount of power that was contributed to obtaining the block reward (called a “share”). So everyone works together using their computing power to solve a block to get a piece of the reward.

Mining on you computer can be hard on your computer hardware and consume energy that is more expensive than the reward you get from mining. So mining works well if (1) you have an old computer (2) have free electricity. In this tutorial I will show you how to join a mining pool called Minergate to get smaller coins.

Step By Step Guide

1. Download Minergate

Go to http://minergate.com and click the download button

2. Run Minergate

Find the file you just downloaded and click on it to run the program.

3. Sign Up for Minergate

Once Minergate is open. It asks for a username and password. We don’t have one yet so you want to sign up. In the top right corner click on the signup button.

3. Create username and password

Fill in the form fields and after you email and password are entered click “Create Account”

3. Login using your email and password just created

Now you will need to login using your email and password just created. The login screen should popup automatically again.

3. Now you are ready to mine!

Navigate to the mining screen and here you will see all the coins that are available to mine. You can start mining on any of the coins listed as well as select how many cores you want to use. The more core you use the slower your computer will be while the program is mining. If you are not using your computer using the maximum amount of cores should be okay.

https://gyazo.com/88c30a3c42046e665298cc904c5641c2

You can also benchmark your computer to see how much money you can make based on your computer’s power

https://gyazo.com/0acf574b21d0d6804a16000f341c488d

Once you figure out your hash rate (H/s) you can calculate your profitability here: https://minergate.com/calculator/cryptonote

Also you can look at your mining statistics online if you login to your newly created account at https://minergate.com/

Happy Mining!