“It is a sin to write this. It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It is base and evil. It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears but our own. And we know well that there is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone. We have broken the laws. The laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven!”
― Ayn Rand, Anthem
NOTE: This will be a three-part series: Part I will be a general introduction, P II will cover the hardware needed, and Part III will be software, compiling, and conclusion. P I (this guide) is unencrypted, however, P II and P III will commensurately publish using a secret PGP key, which to unlock you will need to subscribe and be vetted before receiving the secret key. We appreciate your cooperation and patience during these uncertain times.
Let’s just say it’s been a hell of a ride over the last 8+ years in the crypto mining space. Since the initial home mining guides were created in early 2016, we went from what you’d call the golden age of mining virtually any cryptocurrency in your own home for a hefty profit, to now in 2024, the evolution of the technocratic 1984 dystopian nightmare we find ourselves in today. So how did we get here? How did cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin in the USSA go from medium-of-exchange freedom money, where you could transfer money to your relative in Europe for a few pennies, to Muh number go up mentality, where everyone even the dude you ran into in the hallway in high school having an exchange-based, KYC, custodial wallet filled with sh*tcoins. Large corporate fascist banking cartels like Blackrock and others have since launched Bitcoin (BTC) Exchange Traded Funds, and the on and off ramps to BTC and XMR are strictly controlled via KYC (Know Your Customer). No one knows what Bitcoin does (and never did) and they are just in it to get rich. Bitcoin usage (the way it was intended by Satoshi) has declined since 2018[1], and recently, developers of crypto Privacy Tools have been arrested.
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Perhaps to find out how we got here, we should first begin with a brief current state of affairs in Amerika itself.
State-Capitalist Fascism
It would take a lengthy separate guide to explain the various economic machinations of state capitalism [2], but in short, it’s pretty evident (by looking at the world around you) if you find yourself in Amerika or its geographical tax farms, you’re living in a State-Capitalist run economy. Markets are tightly regulated and anything that threatens that control is squashed, either by brainwashing/conditioning of the population, or the creation of words on paper blessed by the legitimacy of “democracy” of the “people” but controlled by a few ruling-class elites.
The creation of cryptocurrencies, where essentially the people can pick up a phone or a computer and have access to money without ruling class intermediaries threatens the current fiat currency in the USSA.
USSA Fiat, as well as many other traditional currencies around the world, are mainly supported by the barrel of a gun, and printed out of thin air to fund wars of aggression, an increasing panopticon-style surveillance apparatus, among numerous other wasteful pet projects[3]. The US Dollar, over the last 100+ years, has been devalued to nearly nothing[4]. This is why your grandma and grandpa were able to buy 10 acres of land and raise 6 children on a single income and now you (1 individual) are barely able to afford a 1 bedroom house, are up to your ass in debt, and bills, and will likely work for the rest of your life.
Are you beginning to see why an alternative currency not tied to a collapsing economy could be such a grave threat?
A Word To The Crusaders
The original Bitcoin concept was certainly meant to be a solution to this, both as a store of value AND a medium of exchange, and if you don’t believe me you can read the bitcoin whitepaper yourself as well as Satoshi on several early crypto forums.[5] There’s a whole other line of debate on original Bitcoin intent vs. current BTC that we will not cover here, which also may explain why some of the blame is for higher fees and Bitcoin being nearly impossible to use every day now (vs. 2016). So there is plenty of blame to go around for the current state of affairs, but I feel confident in placing most of this blame on the government. If you’re a devout maximalist or have a preferred cryptocurrency, that’s fine. The intent of this guide is for home-mining, not to hash out what the “right” or “proper” crypto is. I don’t deny that this topic is very important and one that needs to be had (especially in the realm of privacy), but, If you’re looking for that type of discourse, stop reading this guide and go to the Reddit / Twitter forums. This is a direct-action home mining guide meant to show ordinary people how they can set up mining rigs in their own homes using nothing but ordinary computer parts.
Mining Today
Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies (like Monero) because of the grave threat to traditional USSA fiat currency (USD), governments (“The State”) have stopped at nothing to either condition the people into thinking the use of the currency is bad, or creating laws (Such as recent FINCEN requirements[6]) that punish individuals and developers for the creation of so-called “unlicensed money transmitter services.” This term seems to have been pulled out of thin air and once codified, will make the average person who uses Bitcoin or Monero into a common criminal. To me, this term is complete bullsh*t, because anyone with some cash in their pockets is a money transmitter.
Most recently, over a few months in 2024, The lead Developer of Samourai Wallet and Whirlpool privacy services, Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, were arrested and charged with money laundering and operation of unlicensed money transmitter services[7] and Roger Ver (AKA Bitcoin Jesus) was arrested for tax fraud.[8] Earlier last year, Bitcoin developer of Tornado Cash mixing service Roman sem*nov was arrested as well for similar charges.[9]
Shortly after these waves of arrests, other developers shut down operations for fear of being harassed and locked in a cage, such as Phoenix Lightning Wallet.[10] No developer wants to face a 20+ year jail sentence for some code and that sends a clear message to those out there who want to both use crypto for its original intent and who know more than just muh number go up.
It also means that we have uncovered the truth and at some point must determine “the hill we are going to die on.”
Most don’t want to be threatened and harassed just for paying for something with a new and improved form of money, but alas, this is where we find ourselves today. So is all hope lost? Should we just roll over and die? Perhaps one answer lies in privacy currencies such as Monero (XMR) and the ability of the average person with a computer and some software can start mining in their own home and supporting the privacy blockchain.
In 2016 the Home Mining Guides written were for hobby purposes, but it appears now, more importantly than ever, the ability to run a node or mining privacy currency may be one of the only resources we have left.
When all off-and-on ramps to crypto are guarded heavily by the forces of evil intent on protecting a dying system, where every dollar in the traditional banking system is tracked heavily and the USSA tax cattle are so conditioned to be abrasive and hesitant of the people’s money.
Perhaps this is how early revolutionaries felt, just being able to stay free in an unfree world is a criminal act, and even these very words written down are risky to write and may become illegal soon in the eyes of the enforcers or a mechanism of the technocratic state designed to comb through key phrases looking to bust the knowing. Who knows what the future will bring, with the advent of advanced AI surveillance, crypto chain analysis, and other enforcement mechanisms?
All we know is, if you think this is bad, just wait... It’s gonna get way worse...
Disclaimers
As far as I know, it’s still not illegal to publish words. Let’s throw out a few cases, Brandenburg v. Ohio 1969[11], and in a later case Dennis v Ohio 1951, the test of imminent lawless action was established:
In Dennis, the Court said that the correct interpretation of the clear and present danger doctrine allowed legislatures to decide what was dangerous; the courts in applying the clear and present danger test were simply to determine whether, on balance, the “gravity of the ‘evil,’ discounted by its improbability, justifies such invasion of free speech as is necessary to avoid the danger.” In fact, in Brandenburg, the Court cited Dennis as good law.
This paper therefore does not meet the test of “imminent lawless action” and it is purely hypothetical. Anyone reading this, we hope is of a true and good nature so as to not use any tools described herein in parts I, II, and III for aggressive action, that’s the job of the State. To quote the cypherpunk manifesto[12]:
“If two parties have some sort of dealings, then each has a memory of their interaction. Each party can speak about their own memory of this; how could anyone prevent it? One could pass laws against it, but the freedom of speech, even more than privacy, is fundamental to an open society; we seek not to restrict any speech at all. If many parties speak together in the same forum, each can speak to all the others and aggregate together knowledge about individuals and other parties. The power of electronic communications has enabled such group speech, and it will not go away merely because we might want it to.
Since we desire privacy, we must ensure that each party to a transaction have knowledge only of that which is directly necessary for that transaction. Since any information can be spoken of, we must ensure that we reveal as little as possible. In most cases personal identity is not salient. When I purchase a magazine at a store and hand cash to the clerk, there is no need to know who I am. When I ask my electronic mail provider to send and receive messages, my provider need not know to whom I am speaking or what I am saying or what others are saying to me; my provider only need know how to get the message there and how much I owe them in fees. When my identity is revealed by the underlying mechanism of the transaction, I have no privacy. I cannot here selectively reveal myself; I must always reveal myself.
Therefore, privacy in an open society requires anonymous transaction systems. Until now, cash has been the primary such system. An anonymous transaction system is not a secret transaction system. An anonymous system empowers individuals to reveal their identity when desired and only when desired; this is the essence of privacy.
We cannot expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant us privacy out of their beneficence. It is to their advantage to speak of us, and we should expect that they will speak. To try to prevent their speech is to fight against the realities of information. Information does not just want to be free, it longs to be free. Information expands to fill the available storage space. Information is Rumor's younger, stronger cousin; Information is fleeter of foot, has more eyes, knows more, and understands less than Rumor.
We must defend our own privacy if we expect to have any. We must come together and create systems which allow anonymous transactions to take place. People have been defending their own privacy for centuries with whispers, darkness, envelopes, closed doors, secret handshakes, and couriers. The technologies of the past did not allow for strong privacy, but electronic technologies do…”
So please don’t be an asshole. I’m not sure how you could be destructive with mining but try to use it for good. Setup a general fund and fund a poor person’s bail when they otherwise would have been stuck in jail for a non-violent offense, feed the homeless, give someone a few XMR when they are down on their luck (because we’ve all been there), and use it to help out your local community and encourage locally sourced sustainable food sources while the State’s fiat system is heavily funding foreign wars of aggression, death, and destruction.
Why Should You Even Mine at All?
We will cover this in a little bit more depth in P II, but the main question you should be asking is, why even consider mining at all? Just want to brief you before you decide to drop thousands of dollars on something you may just throw in the towel on after a few months. Mining is for the long term, and I’m talking years. The practical thing is to do a few back-of-the-napkin calculations. Add up all of your upfront costs from hardware and then roughly calculate how much time it would take to get your investment back. If you had talked to us in 2016, we would have said, follow this ROI rule to the letter, but the game has changed my friend, we are now fighting for our privacy here, so we care less about recouping our investment and getting rich quick and more about contributing to the ledger of mineable privacy coins such as Monero (“XMR”)[13]. We have been mining Monero for over eight years on nothing but simple computer hardware we purchased online and refurbished for less than $2,000 (probably less now). We chose XMR because anyone with a more powerful CPU and some graphics cards can do it. A mining operation can be set up on any computer even Windows, however, we prefer a Linux-based operating system such as Mint, Ubuntu, Parrot, or pick your Linux Distro. From here on in, we will be describing the setup from start to finish on an open-air hardware rig with a Linux operating system.
You can visit: https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator
To do a rough profit calculation
As you can see, mining isn’t too profitable anymore. So why go on? Why continue if you’re not making any money? And that, in some cases might be true. You might be better off scrapping the mining operation and just contributing in other ways such as running a full Monero onion node.[14] The profitability is centered around two key factors, are you in an area where you can get cheap power <0.06 – 0.07 KWh? If you're anywhere over that, it might not be worth it, or it might be best to see if you can relocate your rigs to somewhere with cheap power or where someone can set up your rig and get free power.
But above all, mining can be fun and interesting. You will learn more than you ever have about crypto and how true digital currencies work. If you choose to continue, you’re either crazy or brave, and I’d say you will need a little bit of both. So if you’re ready, thanks for reading, and please join us for Part II: Hardware Requirement and Setup to be published soon. JW
If you like what you read here today, please help us continue to publish by throwing some Monero (XMR) our way at the following address:
86gjaNhkNWo2CuPGrjbRP2cad2T3MPdva8M7NbEufZLf7R4jeas8mN4991HiRRrRe4jTksMSrHAhxA63TzaRndVyQzjNDLQ
Footnotes
[1] Hijacking Bitcoin: The Hidden History of BTC, Roger Ver, 2024
[2] Markets Not Capitalism: individualist anarchism against bosses, inequality, corporate power, and structural poverty, edited by Gary Cartier and Charles W. Johnson: https://store.c4ss.org/index.php/product/markets-not-capitalism
[3] 2023 Government Congressional Pig Book: https://www.cagw.org/reporting/pig-book
[4] What Has the Government Done to Our Money? Murray Rothbard: https://cdn.mises.org/What%20Has%20Government%20Done%20to%20Our%20Money_3.pdf
[5] Bitcoin Whitepaper, Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, Satoshi Nakamoto: https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-paper
[6] Fincen 2019: https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/2019-05/FinCEN%20Guidance%20CVC%20FINAL%20508.pdf
[7] Founders of Samourai Arrested: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/founders-and-ceo-cryptocurrency-mixing-service-arrested-and-charged-money-laundering
[8] Roger Ver Arrested: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/early-bitcoin-investor-charged-tax-fraud
[9] Tornado Cash Dev Arrested: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/tornado-cash-founders-charged-money-laundering-and-sanctions-violations
[10] Phoenix Wallet to be Removed from US App Store after Samourai Crackdown: https://protos.com/phoenix-wallet-to-be-removed-from-us-app-store-after-samourai-crackdown
[11] Brandenburg v Ohio 1969 1st Amendment Landmark case: https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/brandenburg-v-ohio
[12] Full Text of the Cypherpunk Manifesto, Eric Hughes, Berkley, 1993: https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html
[13] Get Monero: https://www.getmonero.org
[14] Run your own Monero Node: https://www.monero.how/how-to-run-monero-node
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