Crypto Mining Blog

With the recent book of Ethereum (ETH) one of the coins forked from it has also shown a great increase in interest and as a direct result a huge price increase as well – Expanse (EXP). This Ethereum fork is very similar in terms of usage and mining to Ethereum, though there are some differences, so we have decided to prepare a quick guide focused on setting up the Expanse daemon for local mining as well as using the GUI wallet that the coin has available and then how to start solo mining and pool mining. Again, since this is an Ethereum fork many of the things are very similar, so if you are already familiar with Ethereum, then getting into Expanse will be very easy for you, otherwise the guide should help you. We are going to be focusing on Windows in our example, though most of the things should be applicable to other operating systems as well. Do note that Expanse (EXP) is based on the Go Ethereum client and the GUI wallet is currently only available for Windows and Mac, for Linux you will have to stick to the console commands for using the wallet. Mining Expanse (EXP) is pretty much the same as with Ethereum, you are going to be using ethminer that is OpenCL-based, but works with Nvidia GPUs as well and there is also a CUDA version available. Both miners as well as the gexp and expwallet with some Batch files (.BAT) are included in the downloadable archive below to make it easy to get started with everything on Windows. Some good places to trade the coin include Bittrex, HitBTC, Yobit and Graviex.

Generating wallet address via the console:
– Open the expwallet-win folder and run gexp-console.bat to start Expanse in console mode
– The software will need to download the blockchain data, it can take some time
– In the console type: personal.newAccount("password")
– Instead of password in the quotes above write your own password and remember it well
– In the console type: exp.accounts
– This will list your Expanse wallet address or addresses if you have multiple
– To check your account balance you can type: web3.fromWei(exp.getBalance(exp.coinbase), "expanse")

Generating wallet address via the GUI wallet:
– Open the expwallet-win folder and run gexp-console.bat to start Expanse in console mode
– The software will need to download the blockchain data, it can take some time
– Click on the NEW ACCOUNT button and enter a wallet password, then repeat it and remember it well
– The GUI wallet will show you the current ballance and provide you with an easy way of sending transactions
– Curently the GUI wallet is only available for Windows and Mac users, Linux users will need to go the console way

Sending Expanse to another wallet via console:
– First you need to unlock your account by typing in the console the following (replace password with your password): personal.unlockAccount(exp.accounts[0], "password")
– In the console type: exp.sendTransaction({from: exp.accounts[0], to: 'recipient_address', value: web3.toWei(1, "expanse")})
– In the above code replace your_address and recipient_address with the respective addresses, the example is for sending 1 Expanse, but you can change the value depending on your needs

Sending Expanse to another wallet via the GUI wallet:
– Go to the Transactions tab and you should see a familiar graphical interface for sending coins
– The From Address field should have your main wallet address selected by default and offer a dropdown if you have multiple wallets
– Enter the To Address of the recieving party, should use copy and paste in order to avoid mistakes
– Select the amount of EXP you want to send and click on the Send Transaction button

Starting gexp for solo mining:
– To listen for connections only on the local system type: gexp --rpc --rpcaddr "localhost" --rpcport 9656
– To be accessible on the local network type: gexp --rpc --rpcaddr "192.168.0.123" --rpcport 9656
– Make sure that for local LAN accessibility you replace the rpcaddr IP address to the one that of the machine gexp is running on, the 192.168.0.123 is just an example
– To be accessible on the Internet type: gexp --rpc --rpcaddr "x.x.x.x" --rpcport 9656
– Make sure that for Internet accessibility you replace the rpcaddr IP address to the one that of the machine gexp is running on, the x.x.x.x in the example will not work, also make sure that the 9656 port (or another one you decide to use) is forwarded

Starting ethminer for solo mining:
– For local system mining with ethminer on the same PC that gexp is running on use: ethminer -G
– For mining on a system in the Local LAN where gexp is installed and running use: ethminer -G -F http://192.168.0.123:9656
– Make sure that for local LAN mining the IP address of the system gexp is running on is set correctly on the miner, the 192.168.0.123 is just an example, also make sure that there is no Firewall blocking connections
– For using mining rig to mine over the Internet on a PC with gexp running in your local LAN use: ethminer -G -F http://x.x.x.x:9656
– For Internet access make sure that instead of the x.x.x.x in the example you set your external IP address and that the 9656 port is properly forwarded between the external IP and the system running gexp

Pool CPU/GPU mining using ethminer:
– Open the ethminer folder and edit the three bat files with your wallet address
– For solomining locally run the following BAT for CUDA/OpenCL: EXP-local.bat
– For mining on a pool run the following BAT for CUDA/OpenCL: EXP-suprnova.bat

Due to the much lower total network hashrate that Expanse (EXP) currently has it is viable to try solo mining the coin if you have multiple AMD or Nvidia GPUs in order toget better profit than mining solo. Do note however that solo mining depends on your luck as well, so if you want to be on the safe side you can stick to pool mining.

– To download gexp, gwallet and ethminer compiled for Windows and ready to be used…