DCR Mining Guide with Antminer DR3

DCR has an advanced PoW + PoS hybrid mechanism. All PoW-generated blocks must be verified by PoS to become legal blocks, which is a consensus mechanism for PoW package accounting + PoS voting management. DCR introduces PoS to determine whether the newly mined blocks are valid by voting. Each block selects 5 votes for voting by a pseudo-random algorithm (Hash256PRNG) based on the block header data decision sequence, and passes at least 3 votes. In this case, the block is recognized as valid and can be added to the main chain. The rewards for successful verification of the block are 30 new DCR, which will be divided into 60% for PoW miners, 30% for PoS voters (5 voters, 6% per person), and the remaining 10% for developers. Total amount of Decred is the same as the amount of Bitcoin, which is 21 million. Pre-mining1.68 million DCR at block 0. After that, a new block will be generated every 5 minutes. Block reward starts from 31.2DCR and every 6144 blocks (about 21.33 days) reduce production once.

Now we can use the following miners to mine DCR, including Bitmain Antminer DR5, DR3, StrongU U1, etc. For more details of miner hashrate, power consumption, Break-even and so on, please visit Poolin website, https://www.poolin.me/.

*Screenshot taken on Jan. 22th, 2021

Here we will take Innosilicon A9 as an example to introduce how to set up the miner and start to mine DCR.

What You Need to Know before Using Miners:

1. PSU output power is recommended to be 20% higher than the power consumption of miner;

2. The router or network switch you are using to get connected with miners shall be ones without POE;

3. Miners can only be connected to router or network switch with wired connection;

4. Recommended operation temperature: 10-35 °C;

5. Recommended operation humidity: <65%;

6. Measures shall be taken to protect miners from dust, cax or so, otherwise hashrate board may be in corrosion and heat may fail to be dissipated;

7. Google or FireFox browsers are recommended to signin miner backend.

PREPARATION

Before setting up Innosilicon A9, you need to make sure whether everything is ok and ready.

Tools needed: PSU, PSU power cable, miner, network cable, a personal computer for operation

A: Check the Miner

1. Package inspection. After receiving a new miner, please make a package inspection first to check whether the package or the miner inside is damaged. If yes, please take photos and contact customer service of miner producer;

2. Miner inspection. Please take miner out from package and then check whether there's deformation or damage in miner, fan, cable, fan cable etc. If yes, please take photos and contact customer service of miner producer;

3. Heat sink inspection. Inspect from both the front and back fans to check whether heat sink is disconnected. If yes, please take photos and contact customer service of miner producer;

Note: as computing boards are put in card slot chassis, you may hear some sounds by shaking the miner, which is a normal phenomenon. And don't worry about it.

B: a tool to locate miner IP, IP reporter

https://service.bitmain.com.cn/support/download?product=IP-reporter

C: miner tool https://service.bitmain.com.cn/support/download?product=Antminer%20Toolkit

D: pool website, visit https://www.poolin.me/ and register an account

MINER BUTTON INTRODUCTION

MINER CABLE CONNECTION

1. Cable connection of hash board: Antminer DR3 has three hash boards and each board has 3 PCIE interfaces, and each shall be connected with a 12V PSU cable, in total 9 pieces of 12V PSU cable.

Note: there's no difference in using which cable to connect with which interface. Just keep in mind to plug it in with right direction, namely the direction of buckle. If errorly operated, hash board may encounter short circuit and damage. After plotted those cables, you need to double check if the cable is loose or not fully inserted.

2. Cable connection of control board: there's one PCIE interface in control board and you just need to insert one 12V PSU cable.

Note: there's no difference in using which cable to connect with which interface. Just keep in mind to plug it in with right direction, namely the direction of buckle. If error operated, hash board may encounter short circuit and damage. After plug in those cables, you need to double check if the cable is loose or not fully inserted.

3. Network connection.

4. Fan connection. Check whether the plug of fan cable has been fully or tightly connected. Each fan is connected to control board with one plug.

LOCATE MINER IP

After the miner is fully equipped and set up, the first thing you need to do is locate miner IP.

Method One: Get IP through IP Reporter software

1) Download IP Reporter or other similar softwares from miner producer's website;

2) Run the software and click "start";

3) Press IP Report button for about 1 second;

4) The software will show the IP address of the miner you are operating.

Method Two: get IP address from router

1) Sign in router management page (usually it's an IP address that you can find in router instruction or label) and then you can see equipments that are connected to this router.

2) Figure out the miner you are operating according to its name or the time it's connected to router and then you will know the IP address of the miner.

MINER CONFIGURATION

After getting miner IP, you can start to configure the miner. Use a computer that is connected to the same router as the miner, and type the IP address of the miner in the computer browser address bar and press "enter" to continue.

1) There will be a pop-up page that requires you to enter username and password of the miner.

Default username and password are both root.

2) After signing in, click Miner Configuration and then General Settings and then enter the following three urls to URL respectively.

URL 1：stratum+tcp://dcr.ss.poolin.me:443

URL 2：stratum+tcp://dcr.ss.poolin.me:1883

URL 3：stratum+tcp://dcr.ss.poolin.me:700

The miner will connect to pool 1 by default and then pool 2/pool 3 if it fails to connect to pool 1.

Worker: worker is a combination of the sub-account you've registered in Poolin.me, a dot and a miner ID that is used to name the worker. (You need to enter sub-account here, but not the wallet address you use to collect payment. You shall log into Poolin.me to set wallet address so that you can get your mining profit daily.)

Password: any password is ok 

3) Click Save&Apply to start the miner.

4) The miner will start to work after a few seconds. You can go to Miner Status page to check details and performance.

* The above miner backend page is for reference only, not D9 miner backend page. Miners can view hashrate and other data in a similar page.

You could log in DCR sub-account at Poolin.me. When miner is connected to mining pool, you could view real-time hashrate, active miner and other data.

5) Login to Poolin.me and set payment address. (Poolin Wallet is recommended)