How To Mine Decred in the Pool using NVIDIA GPUs (ccminer)

To mine Decred, first go join a pool. In this tutorial we will use Suprnova Pool. Please visit the page Decred PoW Charts to see the full list of availiable proof-of-work pools and their stats.


Create a new account using your email, and set up your new worker at My Account > My Workers.


To create a new worker, go to "Add new worker" and fill in the blanks. Your worker name and password will be whatever you want. (e.g. Worker name is Test, and password is 4321. Including the login name as RyanBC, the worker login would be RyanBC.Test"


Then download the nVidia GPU miner, also known as ccminer. You will need 7-zip or WinRAR to extract the files. (Any program which extracts files will do)


Then create a new folder on your desktop. Extract the files from the downloaded 7z file to the newly created folder. Edit the RUN-DCR.cmd file inside the folder by right clicking it and selecting "Edit".


You will see something like this:

Change "tpruvot" to your Suprnova login username, and "win" to your worker name. Change "x" to your worker password.


For example, the sample login name is RyanBC, worker name is Test, and password is 4321, so it will look something like this:


Now you should be ready to start mining with your nVidia graphics card. As long as you leave the miner open, you will be mining non-stop. (Unless you close the miner)


See the full tutorial in this video:

Understanding the Value of the Decred (DCR) System

By now most people understand the concept of a distributed ledger and understand software is continually updated to support that process for all cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Etherium (ETH) and Decred (DCR). If you would like to brush up that basic understanding start with a one page primer at bitcoin.org before continuing to read.

Many people who have followed Bitcoin (BTC) for some time have seen the potential for the damaging impact of failed decision making in the development community. If you are not familiar with this, perhapsreading from one of the Bitcoin (BTC) developers Mike Hearn (who has one of the more extreme views) will help you understand how negative a failed decision making process and a lack of real scalable development support is.

Briefly Mike's explanations why Bitcoin network has failed is because the community has failed. What was meant to be a new, decentralized form of money that lacked “systemically important institutions” and “too big to fail” has become something even worse: a system completely controlled by just a handful of people. Worse still, the network is on the brink of technical collapse. The mechanisms that should have prevented this outcome have broken down, and as a result there’s no longer much reason to think Bitcoin can actually be better than the existing financial system.
How is Decred (DCR) different?

Unlike other currencies, Decred has a transparent process of rewarding developers for their contribution built into the mining process. When blocks rewards are granted, developers receive 10%, and those mining receive 90%. As the value scales, so does the development payout, ensuring resources are appropriately scaled.

Secondly, and equally as important, the payout to mining (unlike other currencies) is split between "Proof of Work" and "Proof of Stake" mining. Proof of Work (PoW) mining is the typical mining which processes transactions and ensures the security of the distributed ledger.

Proof of Stake (PoS) is a new addition which gives a voice to those who use/hold the currency Decred (DCR). Each time a block was found, 5 Decred (DCR) users who participating in voting (PoS-mining) are selected at random to cast a vote and they receive 30% of the block reward for doing so (6% each). To buy a ticket for voting they should lock their coins (current PoS ticket price) for quite long time (in average 28 days, but up to 5 months, when they cannot use or spend amount locked for PoS tickets).

In addition to the reward, these users also have the option of voting Yes or No if there is a decision to be made (accept software change, etc...). These PoS miners vote always for a previous block, and if it receive 3 / 5 "No" votes, nobody except PoS-miners receive reward and block will be removed from blockchain.

So again, how is Decred (DCR) different?

Bitcoin (BTC) first brought us a distributed ledger.

Decred (DCR) also has a distributed ledger, but additionally has brought us:

A distributed system of approving/denying changes and PoW mining rewards through PoS mining.

A distributed system of rewarding the development team to ensure resources are available to further the project decision making system. This budget is using to pay community members for the development of new resources and features for Decred Software. See the list of "Requests for Proposals" and payments on official forum.

Making Profit with Decred - Noob Friendly

In this guide I will show you how to make money with Decred. I will explain how to use the official Proof of Stake (PoS) pool. If you are a total newcomer you will have to learn a lot of new things. No worries, most of your questions will be answered in the Links and Forum Discussions that I will refer to. In case you have any specific questions, feel free to reach out to me via Twitter. Let's get started!

Background

Decred uses a hybrid PoW/PoS system. The process of creating blockchain consensus is thus balanced between miners and stakeholders. Miners 'mine' to validate blocks, and stakeholders 'vote' to decide if the block is indeed valid. Both miners and stakeholders can count on a reward. Even users with small amounts of coins will be able to participate in creating consensus by joining PoS pools. For a detailed explanation of how the hybrid PoW/PoS system of Decred works, check out: http://cryptotales.blogspot.in/2016/02/pow-pos-whats-going-on.html


Rationale

How do we make profit? We will invest our DCR funds in the PoS process by joining a PoS pool. The PoS process is designed as a lottery with a guaranteed reward. How do we invest? By buying lottery tickets. The tickets will grant us voting rights via the PoS pool. Each time one of our tickets is called to vote on a block, we will obtain a reward after the vote is confirmed. The pool is always online, so we will never miss a vote. It is designed in a way that both you and the pool have voting rights, so you can leave your wallet online as a backup to the pool if you want.

The best pool to start stake mining Decred for now is: https://dcrstakes.com


Getting Started

The first step is to get yourself some DCR funds. If you don't have any coins (or stake) yet, please follow this blog post on how to obtain DCR. If you have a wallet with funds available, write down your seed and let's get started with setting up a desktop wallet. The command line interface is very easy once you've used it. These guides explains everything in great detail:
http://cryptotales.blogspot.in/2016/02/how-to-start-mining-decred.html
http://cryptotales.blogspot.in/2016/04/decred-basic-commands-with-explaination.html

IMPORTANT! Download the latest software: https://github.com/decred/decred-release/releases


Follow steps of the how-to-start-mining guide to set up your wallet by importing your seed. After unpacking the software in a map dedicated to Decred, hold Shift and Rightclick in that map to open a new command line window. The commands that you will need are listed below (my comments between brackets). Hit enter after each line.


In command window #1:
dcrd -u [...] -P [...]
(choose username and password for the dcrdaemon)
Example: dcrd -u noahdcrd -P mynewpass1@

Your deamon should now start downloading the Decred blockchain.

IMPORTANT! Let the blockchain sync completely before moving to the next step. For the most recent block height you can check: https://mainnet.decred.org/


In command window #2:
dcrwallet --create

- The wallet will ask you to input a private passphrase for your wallet. While entering, the passphrase will look blank, but actually you are typing (remember this). Confirm by typing it again.
- Now, it will ask you if you want to add an additional encryption layer for public data. Say 'yes', type the public passphrase and confirm by typing again (it will look blank as well).
- Next, when it asks if you have an existing wallet seed, enter 'yes' and type the 33-word text carefully (without any mistakes or CasE eRrOrs).
It should now say: The wallet is successfully created.


In command window #2:
dcrwallet -u [...] -P [...] --walletpass [publicpassphrase] --dcrdusername=[user] --dcrdpassword=[pass]
(choose a user and pass for the wallet, and fill out the other data)
Example: dcrwallet -u noahwallet -P mynewpass2# --walletpass mypubpassphra --dcrdusername=noahdcrd --dcrdpassword=mynewpass1@

Your wallet should now start processing the Decred blockchain.


In command window #3:
dcrctl -u [user] -P [pass] --wallet getbalance
(to check if your wallet funds are correct)
Example: dcrctl -u noahwallet -P mynewpass2# --wallet getbalance

Congratulations, you are ready to start! Keep your command windows running as we proceed.


The PoS pool

Now, we need to sign up for the PoS pool. Go to the website and create an account. If you have registered at the stake pool, it will tell you to generate a public key address. Follow the steps as displayed. The commands that you'll need are listed below. From now on you should stop using your web wallet, to prevent syncing problems between web and desktop wallets.


In command window #3:


dcrctl -u [user] -P [pass] --wallet getnewaddress
dcrctl -u [u] -P [p] --wallet validateaddress [yournewdaddress]

If you copy and paste the 'pubkeyaddr' into the form on the website, it will generate a P2SH address that you can use to purchase tickets via the PoS pool. Go to the Tickets tab and follow the instructions. The pool has generated a script that you will need to import.


In command window #3:
dcrctl -u [u] -P [p] --wallet walletpassphrase [privatepassphrase] 1800
(this unlocks your wallet for 1800 seconds, or 0.5 hour ; set it to 0 to keep it unlocked indefinately).
dcrctl -u [u] -P [p] --wallet importscript [yourRedeemScript]

Once your script has been successfully imported, you are ready to go!


Buying tickets

Personally, I always buy my tickets manually. This allows me to have full control over my spending. This command allows you to buy tickets and transfer it to your account in the PoS pool.


In command window #3:
dcrctl -u [u] -P [p] --wallet purchaseticket "default" [maxTicketPrice] [minConfirmation] [P2SHAddress]
Example: dcrctl -u noahwallet -P mynewpass2# --wallet purchaseticket "default" 20 1 Dcsgdz1randomexampleaddressVrzf

In the example we are buying a ticket for maximum 20 DCR. The transaction has to be confirmed by exactly one block before we can make a new transaction or buy a new ticket. During this time your funds will be send to a change address that you control. The ticket price will then be send to the pool address, and the remainder of your funds will be transferred back. During this time, you won't be able to buy new tickets, as you have no spendable balance. After the block is confirmed and your balance is back, you can use it again to purchase new tickets. Determine the best price to buy by checking the current, average, and estimated price here: https://dcrstakes.com/price


Final remarks

It is good to know that this pool absolutely cannot control your funds. It does not have your private keys, so there is no possibility. By using the PoS pool, you don't need to keep you wallet up and running after you've bought the tickets: the pool will vote on your behalf and your reward will be transferred automatically. In the future there will be more PoS pools, operated by community members. This way Decred will remain a truly Decentralised cryptocurrency.

Some useful forum threads that will help to answer many of your further questions:
http://cryptotales.blogspot.in/2016/04/1.html

http://cryptotales.blogspot.in/2016/04/decred-basic-commands-with-explaination.html

http://cryptotales.blogspot.in/2016/03/decred-solo-stake-mining-guide-useful.html

http://cryptotales.blogspot.in/2016/02/auto-login-script-to-connect-to.html

Decred - Proof of Stake mining [FAQ]

1. How do I start PoS mining?

Answer - Check This Out!

2. What hardware do I need to PoS mine?

Answer - The hardware doesnt really matter. You can use a laptop, desktop, VPS, Amazon AWS or even a Raspberry Pi 2 or other newer SoC. It simply needs to be online and connected to the internet 24x7x365. If your PoS wallet is unable to reach the internet you will miss calls to stake vote, your ticket will be revoked and you will not get the stake vote reward.

3. How much DCR do I get for PoS voting / mining?

Answer - The current PoS reward is 1.853DCR per vote. The reward will change over time. It will slowly get lower and lower. As of 13MAR16, block 10035, the total block reward is 30.88. This is broken down into 60% PoW reward, 18.532DCR. 30% PoS reward, 1.853DCR X 5 votes or 9.265DCR and 10% developer funds reward 3.088DCR.

3.1 How long does it take to get the PoS reward?

Answer - It takes 256 blocks (~1 day) for your stake reward to be returned and spendable.

4. How much does a stake ticket cost?

Answer - The price changes every 144 blocks. The amount of sstx purchased in the 144 blocks between price changes influences sstx price moreso than the target 40960 pool number. 144 blocks * 5 votes/block = 720. If less than 720 sstx are purchased in 144 blocks then the overall direction is down in price. Even if the total amount of sstx is still above the target 40960 sstx in the pool. If the amount of sstx tickets is <720 then the sstx price goes up. If there are more or less than 40960 stakes in the pool this will also affect the price direction of movement. Currently at block 10035 13MAR16 1 stake vote ticket requires you pledge or lock 14.39DCR. Previous stake ticket costs have been in the range of 5DCR-30DCR based on demand as above. The average sstx price at this time is 9dcr.

4. Do I get my stake back or do I lose it?

Answer - Buying a stake vote is really not the correct term. What you are really doing is pledging an amount of DCR to have the right to vote. There are 3 outcomes after you purchase a stake ticket. 1 - Your ticket is voted. You get your stake pledge 14.39DCR + reward 1.853DCR currently. 2.Your stake vote is called and you miss the vote. Your ticket is revoked. Your stake pledge 14.39DCR currently is returned. No reward given. 3.Your ticket is not voted for 142 days(approximately) and your stake pledge is returned at the end of 142 days. No reward given.

5. How often does the stake ticket price adjust or change?

Answer - The stake ticket price or pledge adjusts every 144 blocks or about 12 hours.

6. How much DCR do I need to PoS?

Answer - You can start with any amount as long as you have enough to purchase a stake vote ticket. How much is that? It changes. It can be anywhere from 2DCR to 1000DCR. Currently 13MAR16 at block 10035 a stake vote costs 14.39DCR and will return 1.853DCR reward. Knowing that it will probably take 28 days to get the stake pledge and the reward back you can calculate how much you want to vote each day. For example - 2 votes per day X 28 days = 56 stake tickets * 14.39 = 805DCR. The 56 votes will return 107.3DCR reward after about 28 days.

7. What are the commands to PoS?

Answer - There are quite a few commands related to PoS. We have started to flesh them out here:
Useful PoS commands

7.1 How can I connect DCRD to more nodes?

Answer - add the --maxpeers=X switch to your dcrd config or at start. 1-? is the range for X. Why would I want to do this? Outbound connections are HARD SET to 8. This has been extensively tested to be the ideal amount and cannot be changed. Inbound connections are good for the network. If you are running a public node you can up the amount of allowed inbound connections to whatever your system will handle. The default max is 125. You can raise it higher if you like but do not adjust lower. This can result in missed tickets as your hop count, in effect latency, increases. There are also bandwidth considerations. If you pay for data $/per MB raising this can increase the data you use.
For a concrete example, assume that at some point in the future there are a million nodes on the network. You would be able to reach any given node on the network with a maximum of ceil(log8(1000000)) = 7 hops. In practice, it works out to be even less than that on average because there are inbound nodes too which are notified and thus the net effect is that it raises the base of the logarithm which of course in turn reduces the hops.

8. How do I know if I have voted?

Answer - You will see something like this in your dcrwallet screen:

13:28:35 2016-01-25 [INF] WLLT: Voted on block 0034dafbc7969fd5f1c5a3cbbf1ddd48ec78109d103457b3bb5b101c71db3657 (height 4143) using ticket 2030e3978322bac2466146ccf955c32afd86ccf85f1356ab54cd091513b6f9ad (vote hash: cb8c498f1c6fb9255076655b21394733a4d1f078687c751860d8dd93e7599d57)

You can also see current tickets held by using the getstakeinfo command.


dcrctl -u -P --wallet getstakeinfo
{
"poolsize": 41768,
"difficulty": 8.49962772,
"allmempooltix": 6,
"ownmempooltix": 0,
"immature": 6,
"live": 241,
"proportionlive": 0.005769967439187895,
"voted": 151, <--Total number of votes you have cast
"totalsubsidy": 280.91069628, <-- Total reward subsidy you have received for votes
"missed": 12,
"proportionmissed": 0.0002872187649593107,
"revoked": 12
}


9. How do I know if I bought a stake vote ticket?

Answer - You will see something like this in your dcrwallet screen:

14:51:09 2016-03-13 [INF] TMGR: Inserting unconfirmed transaction b06cfe0a13f6e62c095b71308d310a6a63c18ad52f9b6650a3d6e469a4894699
14:51:09 2016-03-13 [INF] WLLT: Successfully sent SStx purchase transaction b06cfe0a13f6e62c095b71308d310a6a63c18ad52f9b6650a3d6e469a4894699

You can also see how many stake tickets you currently have by using the getstakeinfo command.


dcrctl -u -P --wallet getstakeinfo
{
"poolsize": 41768,
"difficulty": 8.49962772, <-- Current stake ticket price
"allmempooltix": 6, <-- All tickets waiting to be included in next block
"ownmempooltix": 0, <--Your tickets waiting to be included in next block
"immature": 6, <--Purchased tickets not ready to vote yet.
"live": 241, <--Tickets waiting to vote
"proportionlive": 0.005769967439187895, <--Your % of tickets in PoS (poolsize: 41768 above) % chance to vote? .576%
"voted": 151,
"totalsubsidy": 280.91069628,
"missed": 12,
"proportionmissed": 0.0002872187649593107,
"revoked": 12
}


10. Should I raise my txfee to buy stake votes faster?

Answer - See also #14. This is more opinion than fact so here goes - No you should not. You have 144 blocks to purchase a stake vote before the next change. Several thousand stake votes( up to 2880 stakes I think?) can be purchased in that amount of blocks. The only reason to adjust your txfee higher would be to make sure your stake purchase gets put in to the last few blocks before an adjustment is made. To adjust your txfee above .5 or even .025 right after a stake price adjustment is wasting DCR.

11. How do I know if I have a missed / revoked ticket?

Answer - You will see something like this is your dcrwallet screen:

19:24:56 2016-02-24 [INF] WLLT: Voted on block 0000000000000624cd8375a6889a3ef2eda66b58d29029f2d69111cd687102c2 (height 5001) using ticket c20113ebc1a7c1bf875a60fcdd71baf86c007c8603cf34cac33377badbdf7420 (vote hash: acad50383933a19d63d6e3a5d6c8f05e45e6b934b299a934c3795c8b5cff7e9f)
19:25:51 2016-02-24 [INF] WLLT: Connecting block 0000000000001226676a67f5ccbf1ba8f063e1a4016e50e5822934acb0f7f78f, height 5002
19:25:54 2016-02-24 [INF] WLLT: Revoked missed ticket c20113ebc1a7c1bf875a60fcdd71baf86c007c8603cf34cac33377badbdf7420 (tx hash: 003f7c81c92bbc2a4999b783c6188e76dbf6c359e6b1c19b212a55006d216cc8)

You can also use the getstakeinfo command.


dcrctl -u -P --wallet getstakeinfo
{
"poolsize": 41768,
"difficulty": 8.49962772,
"allmempooltix": 6,
"ownmempooltix": 0,
"immature": 6,
"live": 241,
"proportionlive": 0.005769967439187895,
"voted": 151,
"totalsubsidy": 280.91069628,
"missed": 12, <-- Total votes you missed
"proportionmissed": 0.0002872187649593107, <-- Total % of overall(?) voted tickets you missed
"revoked": 12 <-- Total votes you had revoked
}


12. Why does my missed and revoke vote count not match. How do I fix?

Answer - Why? Something is out of sync. It happens. Use the command rebroadcastmissed. It will not post any output. After running it rerun getstakeinfo and missed / revoked should sync up.

dcrctl -u -P --wallet rebroadcastmissed


13.My DCR balances for all, locked, spend dont match/cant use spend and other account balance issues.

Answer - I have found that most of these issues can be resolved buy A)restarting DCRD then B)restarting DCRWALLET with the --prunetickets --reuseaddresses flags set.
You can also try running the consolidate command below. Beware this will cost you some DCR as it creates transactions. Typically not more than a few transaction fees. The last time I did it cost 1.2dcr and consolidated about 25 transactions. This should help clear up any stuck funds where you dont have enough to purchase any sstx.


dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet consolidate 99999 default

After this completes you should see a transaction insert(if any were needed) and also something similar to 'Successfully consolidated funds' along with a transaction ID you can check at https://mainnet.decred.org to see what actually happened and exactly how much it cost.

14.What should I set my txfee to? How many tickets are available during each period between changes? How does my txfee amount influence ticket buys?

Answer - See also #10. There are 20 slots per block to insert/buy a stake ticket(sstx). If there are more than 20 pending sstx in the mempool it will take mulitple blocks to clear the mempool. Stake ticket purchases are also placed in order of txfee. For example - There are 30 tickets in the mempool all with txfee of .025, requiring 2 blocks to complete. Block 1 with 20 sstx, block 2 with 10 sstx. You insert/buy another sstx into the mempool with a txfee of .026 before block 1 is processed. Your sstx now goes to the front of the line and is processed in block 1. Block 2 will now have 11 sstx in it. But your sstx was placed at the front of the line because it had a higher txfee. The reverse is also true. If you do not specify a high enough txfee your sstx will keep getting pushed to the end of the line. This is no big deal when there are 2800 slots available until the next sstx price change. It is a big deal when there are only a few blocks left, maybe 60-80 slots and there are 200 sstx in the mempool. If the sstx price goes from say 10 to 15 then those who had lower txfees set will not get sstx at 10 because they kept getting pushed back to the end of the line.

Now that this has been clearly (I hope) explained lets not go crazy and start doing .5 txfees! .01 to maybe .075 should be more than enough to get everyone in that wants in. Remember you have 144 blocks or 2880 slots over the next 12 hours to get your sstx. You dont have to have them in right after the price change. You have time, relax. Have a beer. We have yet to see all 2880 slots filled. There is room for everyone so far.

How to buy decred with USD or EUR ?

Many people ask how they can buy Decred (DCR) with fiat money, either USD or Euro.

TL;DR

You cannot safely buy dcr with USD or EUR, but it is very easy to do through bitcoin: USD, EUR -> bitcoin -> decred.

In this guide I describe fast and safe way to do this.
Why exchanges don't deal with USD-DCR pair

It's quite expensive and problematic process to open and run an exchange for trading crypto coins for USD, EUR or any fiat money. First, because you will be a target for fraud, since you provide crypto cash in exchange for dubious funds that can be easily charged back, like credit cards, Paypal and often even wire transfers.

Second, whenever you handle government/fiat money you need licenses and you must comply to hundreds of regulations like Anti Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC). Before you will earn a single dollar you have to spend millions on a legal team and licenses and you will have a hard time finding a bank that will do business with you. Nobody will go into that PITA except for a crypto coin with a huge market cap like Bitcoin.
So, how can you buy it

Don't worry, there is a quite simple and secure enough way to buy decred with bitcoins. You can find plenty of exchanges where you can buy Bitcoin with USD and EUR and a few exchanges where you can buy Decred with Bitcoin. In this guide we will use two biggest and trustable:
Coinbase to buy Bitcoins: https://www.coinbase.com/
Bittrex to buy Decred: https://bittrex.com/Market/Index?MarketName=BTC-DCR
First step: buy Bitcoins on Coinbase

First of all check on this page that Coinbase is availiable in your country: https://www.coinbase.com/global
If it's not, you will not be able to buy or sell bitcoins, so you should try some other big exchange as:
www.kraken.com
www.bitstamp.net
www.btc-e.com
www.cryptsy.com

There is two possible ways to make a deposit to Coinbase:
credit cart: max 100$ / 24 hours, fee is 3%
wire transfer: max 3000$ / 24 hours, fee is 1%

In this guide I will describe "wire transfer" because it has lower fees and allow you to buy more bitcoins in one day. Deposit with credit card is easy as just a few clicks.

So, register at Coinbase, confirm your email and phone number (you will use it also for 2-steps authentication). Before you can make deposit, you need to verify your identity. For this you need either Passport, driver license or other ID card with photo and web camerawhich you can use to take pictures of your document. Usually verification takes only 2-5 minutes, but maybe you'll need few attempts if text on photo will be not readable.

Now you can make a deposit using both credit card and wire transfers. Do not forget to add your reference code (you will see it in red color in payment credentials) to comment of your transfer. Coinbase will use this code to identify you and process your deposit. Now you have just to wait 1-2 business days, you will receive email notification.

When your money will be enrolled just go herehttps://www.coinbase.com/buys and buy your bitcoins, that's easy as 1 click.
Second step: buy Decred on Bittrex

Register at Bittrex and go to your wallet https://bittrex.com/Balance. Press + button in the Bitcoin row and generate new Bitcoin address for a deposit. It is unique address generated only for your account, so all payments to this address will be enrolled to your Bittrex account.

Now go to your account at Coinbase and just send your bitcoins to the address generated at Bittrex account. Now you just need to wait for 3 confirmations (it can take up to few hours, but usually faster), you can track how is it going in your Bittrex account "Pending Deposits" section.

Congratulation, now you can buy Decred on Bittrex exchange:https://bittrex.com/Market/Index?MarketName=BTC-DCR

When you'll buy decred, I suggest you to withdraw it to your local wallet. Make sure that only you have access to your wallet Seed.

If you have any problems or questions, feel free to leave comment bellow.

Decred Basic Commands With Explaination

Usernames, Passphrases and Passwords - description examples, use your own:

dcrd_username

dcrd_password

private_passphrase

public_passphrase

dcrwallet_username

dcrwallet_password
Note: (simple explanations given in parentheses for each command)

Dummies notes: Use dcrd, dcrwallet and dcrctl in different command prompt windows.
On command prompt you have to open/point the folder you have extracted the decred files for example for C:\Decred:
cd\
c:
cd Decred

!notes!

!You have to change example values with yours of course!

1) dcrd “commands”:

dcrd --rpcuser="dcrd_username" --rpcpass="dcrd_password" (To start dcrd)

Or

dcrd --rpcuser="dcrd_username" --rpcpass="dcrd_password" --miningaddr=YourDecredAddressForMining (To start dcrd for solo pow mining, YourDecredAddressForMining is an example value, replace it with one of your wallet addresses)

2) dcrwallet “commands”:

Very important: !Wait for dcrd to completely sync to the exact latest block height before of any use of dcrwallet!
You can easily check the latest block height on https://mainnet.decred.org/

dcrwallet --create (To create a new dcrwallet or recreating your wallet from seed, close command prompt window after its successful creation or recreation for security reasons)

First priority and most important note: !DO NOT give or show your seed words or seed hex to anyone! Store it, backup it, hide it and password protect it on a paper or digitally. If you make the big mistake of revealing your seed then your wallet is burned. If you make that mistake try to move your funds as soon as possible to another safe wallet of yours but it will maybe be too late for it, especially if you are PoS mining with most of your funds.!

dcrwallet --username="dcrwallet_username" --password="dcrwallet_password" --walletpass="public_passphrase" --dcrdusername="dcrd_username" --dcrdpassword="dcrd_password" (To start your dcrwallet)

Or

dcrwallet --username="dcrwallet_username" --password="dcrwallet_password" --walletpass="public_passphrase" --dcrdusername="dcrd_username" --dcrdpassword="dcrd_password" --enablestakemining --balancetomaintain=100.1 --ticketmaxprice=10.0 --ticketaddress=P2SH_Pool_Address (To start dcrwallet for auto buying tickets for a stake pool and as voting backup, balancetomaintain-> Lowest value of balance to stay on your wallet no matter what - 100.1 is an example value, ticketmaxprice-> Max price for buying a ticket - 10.0 is an example value, P2SH_Pool_Address is an example value replace it with yours from stake pool)

Note: In order to buy tickets or vote them, you should also unlock your wallet forever right after that in another command prompt window with this command:

dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet walletpassphrase "private_passphrase" 0

!Of course you have to be careful when you unlock your wallet forever(with no time limit) because someone with any kind of access to your pc will be capable of spending your funds and mess up with your wallet, so be careful where you use your wallet. And for security reasons close the command prompt window you used for unlocking your wallet and erase your cache if you can or at least copy something else a few times!

Or

dcrwallet --username="dcrwallet_username" --password="dcrwallet_password" --walletpass="public_passphrase" --dcrdusername="dcrd_username" --dcrdpassword="dcrd_password" --enablestakemining --balancetomaintain=100.1 --ticketmaxprice=10.0 (To start wallet 24/7 online for solo PoS mining, balancetomaintain-> Lowest value of balance to stay on wallet no matter what - 100.1 is an example value, ticketmaxprice-> Max price for buying a ticket - 10.0 is an example value)

!In order to successfully solo PoS mining you have to run your wallet unlocked and dcrd and be online 24/7 with no downtime, I only recommend it if you can setup this on one of your own servers with downtime close to zero! Better use a stake pool instead.

Note: In order to buy tickets or vote, you should also unlock your wallet forever right after that in another command prompt window with this command:

dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet walletpassphrase "private_passphrase" 0

!Of course you have to be careful when you unlock your wallet forever(with no time limit) because someone with any kind of access to your pc will be capable of spending your funds and mess up with your wallet, so be careful where you use your wallet. And for security reasons close the command prompt window you used for unlocking your wallet and erase your cache if you can or at least copy something else a few times!

Dummies note for both dcrd and dcrwallet:

On Windows use this combination of keys to stop dcrwallet and dcrd, when you want to: Ctrl + c (after you clicked on their command prompt window to choose them)

3) dcrctl commands:

!default it's an account name on these commands and by now almost everyone's spendable funds goes to that one, created and named by default as "default"!

dcrctl -l (To list all the available commands)

dcrctl -h (For dcrctl help)

dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet getbalance (To get your spendable balance)

dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet getbalance "default" 0 all (To get the total balance of your default account, locked and spendable funds)

dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet getbalance "*" 0 all (To get the total balance of all the accounts into your wallet, default + imported + anything else, locked and spendable funds)

dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet listtransactions (To get the latest transactions for your wallet)

dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet listtransactions * 999999 (To list up to 999999 transactions for your wallet, 999999 is an example value)

dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet getinfo (To get some basic info like current difficulty)

dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet getstakeinfo (To get stake info)

Notes about what you’ll get with getstakeinfo:
"poolsize" -> Current total number of tickets
"difficulty" -> Current ticket price
"allmempooltix" -> Tickets in mempool/to be mined
"ownmempooltix" -> Your tickets in mempool/to be mined
"immature" -> Your tickets included in a block/mined that will go live after 256 confirmations
"live" -> Your tickets waiting to be voted
"proportionlive" -> The proportion of your tickets compared to the poolsize
"voted" -> Tickets of yours that got voted
"totalsubsidy" -> Total profits from rewards you got from tickets voted
"missed" -> Your tickets that didn’t got voted
"proportionmissed" -> Your missed tickets compared to the total tickets you bought
"revoked" -> Tickets of yours that removed from mempool
(I think missed = revoked, at least in my case)

!When a ticket voted – if I am not wrong – it also needs 256 confirmations/new blocks to mature so as the DCR you spend to buy it (its own ticket price) + current vote reward to become spendable, ticketfee isn’t returned!

dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet walletpassphrase "private_passphrase" 120 (To unlock your wallet for the time you want, 120 -> Time in seconds - 0=forever – with no time limit, 120 is an example value, always be careful when you unlock your wallet)

!You have to be careful when you unlock your wallet because someone with access to your pc will be capable of spending your funds and mess up with your wallet, so be careful where you use your wallet. And for security reasons close the command prompt window you used for unlocking your wallet and erase your cache if you can or at least copy something else a few times!

dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet settxfee 0.01 (To set the transaction fee value, 0.01->tx fee value you want to set, default is 0.05 by now I am posting, 0.01 is an example value, I think txfee is resetting back to default every time you re-run your wallet but I am not sure)

dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet setticketfee 0.01 (To set the ticket fee value, 0.01->ticket fee value you want to set, default is 0.05 by now I am posting, 0.01 is an example value, I think ticket fee is resetting back to default every time you re-run your wallet but I am not sure)

Note about fees: Be careful not to set very high fees by mistake so you won’t lose DCR for nothing. Also I have to say that sometimes I’ve seen more fees spend than the ones I’ve set for a transaction or a ticket buy, I am not sure why that happened or if I am wrong about it.

dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet importscript your_script (For importing a redeem script from a stake pool, your_script is an example value replace it with yours from the stake pool, !Your wallet has to be unlocked to import the script!)

Note about importscript: It is highly recommended to import the your script from stake pool into your wallet so as to be able to keep track of your tickets on pool with getstakeinfo command, if for some reason you’ll re-create your wallet from seed then you have to import your script again to your wallet.

dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet sendtoaddress DecredAddressYouWantToSendAnAmount 10.01(To send an amount of your funds that you want to someone’s address, 10.01 -> Amount of DCR you want to send, 10.01 is an example value change it with how many DCR you want to send, DecredAddressYouWantToSendAnAmount is an example value change it with the decred address you want to send funds, !Your wallet has to be unlocked to make this transaction and an additional txfee will also be deducted from your account!)

dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet purchaseticket "default" 10.1 1 P2SH_Pool_Address (For manual buying a ticket for your P2SH Pool Address – Example values: "default"-> Account name, 10.1-> Max ticket price, 1-> minconf, P2SH_Pool_Address-> your pool address, !Your wallet has to be unlocked for buying a ticket and an additional ticketfee will also be deducted from your account!)

Note about manual buying tickets: Some users had problems not to be able to manually buying tickets with sufficient spendable balance, I personally think you’ll have less troubles if you start your dcrwallet for auto buying tickets with the appropriate setting/values.

Note about Decred transactions: When you spend or send some of your balance for any possible reason you have to wait for your transaction to be included into a new block (sometimes it takes a few blocks) at that time you’ll probably get wrong balance – lower that the correct one, that’s normal and you can find the reasons for this into the forum. After a few blocks it will get fixed back to normal.

dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet consolidate 99999 default (To transfer amounts from many of your addresses to only one of them, 99999-> number of addresses to consolidate, 99999 is an example value, !Your wallet has to be unlocked to consolidate and an additional fee will also deducted from your funds!)

Note about consolidate: Consolidate seems to sometimes fix the manually buying tickets troubles or other spending problems, if you have a spending issue you can give it a try but do not consolidate all the time or for no reason because you’ll spend in fees for nothing.

dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet walletlock (To lock wallet)

dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet getnewaddress (To get one of your wallet addresses as a return and you can use it for what you want it)

dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet validateaddress DecredAddressYouWantToValidate (To check if a decred address is yours, if you get "ismine": true as a return then it is yours, DecredAddressYouWantToValidate is an example value replace it with the decred address you want to validate)

Note about username and password: There is a way to setup conf files so you won’t have to use your username and password for dcrctl commands all the time but I don’t use conf files so if someone want might describe it in a new post or thread or you can search the forum about it.

4) cgminer – PoW mining:

For solo PoW mining edit cgminer's start_local.bat file before starting it to (cgminer v.0.0.4 for Windows x64):

cgminer --blake256 -o https://127.0.0.1:9109 -u "dcrd_username" -p "dcrd_password" --cert "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Dcrd\rpc.cert"

(dcrd_username, dcrd_password are example values so change them with yours, also users who may use --datadir flag have to change accordingly their cert location but they should already know this)

!Before running the .bat file be sure you have dcrd running and fully synced to latest block with –miningaddr= flag!

How long it takes for your rewards to become spendable: !If you solve a block it will take 256 confirmations/new blocks for its reward to mature and become spendable, but you’ll still be able to see it in your total balance or as immature in your transactions!

Or

For PoW mining on a pool edit cgminer’s start_local.bat file before starting it to how you’ll get instructed on your pool site help / getting started, a general example should look like this:

cgminer --blake256 -o pool.link: _port_number -u webloginID.workername -p workerpassword

(example values: pool.link -> link address of your pool, _port_number-> port given from your pool, your webloginID, your workername, your workerpassword)

Note about mining software: There are many mining softwares for every occasion with decred algorithm support (cgminer, ccminer, sgminer and there is going to be a gominer) search about them and use the one that fits more for you.

What you have to kept running on your system for the most common occasions:

- Using your wallet: dcrd synced to the exact latest block height and then dcrwallet.

- Pos mining on stake pool: dcrd synced to the exact latest block height and then dcrwallet unlocked only when you want to buy tickets with the appropriate settings, you can stop and close them after that.

- Solo pos mining: dcrd synced to the exact latest block height and then dcrwallet unlocked and online 24/7 with the appropriate settings.

- Solo pow mining: dcrd with --miningaddr=YourDecredAddressForMining flag synced to the exact latest block height and then cgminer or other miner with the appropriate settings.

- Pow mining on a pool: Only cgminer or other miner with the appropriate settings is needed for this occasion.

(Use dcrd, dcrwallet, dcrctl and your miner in different command prompt windows)

General note: It’s important to use the latest Decred binary files and update them when a new release will be announced. You can check for the latest version here: https://github.com/decred/decred-release/releases/
Updating is very easy, just download the latest compressed/container file (.zip for Windows) for your operating system, stop dcrd and dcrwallet that may be running and then extract and replace the old files with the newer ones and re-run them.

Dcrd and Dcrwallet default folders location on Windows: :\Users\”user_name”\AppData\Local\

Command prompt note for dummies: Especially for dcrctl commands, while on the same command prompt window you can use up and down arrows of your keyboard to re-use the most recent commands you already used so you won’t have to copy/paste or re-type them again and again.

Some useful links:

https://github.com/decred/decred-release/releases/

https://dcrstakes.com/

https://dcrstats.com/

http://d3c.red/

https://mainnet.decred.org/

https://github.com/decred

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1290358.0

https://wiki.decred.org/

And there is always a search tab on the forum.

Extra: Correct Decred pronunciation from @davecgh : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/d4brp4otxbpfigv/decredpronunciation.mp3?dl=0

It is obvious that most of the above will be history when a final and stable version of Paymetheus will be available for all the main operating systems. So if someone find it difficult to involve with Decred right now he can wait for it. I also have to say that personally I don’t recommend using the web wallet right now but if you want to use it anyway be sure NOT to run dcrwallet and web wallet at the same time (basically current web wallet it’s just an gui for your local dcrwallet).

Final important note: Use them at your own responsibility. I don’t know if the above will work for everyone and I DO NOT take any responsibility if anything will go wrong by using the above commands or notes. I’ve tested them only on Windows 10 x64 Pro. The above it’s not a guide, it’s just a collection of the very basic commands that someone can already find spread through the entire forum threads, there is always a search button on forum and there are already many useful guides on it if you need one. I don’t know if I’ll be maintaining and update this post so things might change from time to time. If you find something wrong or feel there should be more explanation about something then post it. I just think it will might help, at least the Decred beginners.