TrustNote 2.0 Alpha Testnet Mining FAQ
By: Sunny Liu
Tags: Blockchain, Distributed Ledgers, Bitcoin Mining, Cryptocurrency Mining, FAQ

TrustNote mining FAQ

Since the release of TrustNote 2.0 Alpha testnet on Sept 27, we’re glad to see many supporters followed our tutorials and get their mining clients into work! Some of the supporters also raised some good questions, we are happy to share those questions and answers with everyone in this FAQ so that community members can easily find what they are looking for!

1. Where I can get the latest mining client software?

The latest mining clients can always be found from our GitHub release repository.

2. Where I can find the mining tutorial?

You can find mining tutorials from our Medium blog. Currently, TrustNote 2.0 testnet supports mining on Windows10, Mac OS, and Ubuntu Linux.

3. How many initial Test TTT I need to start mining?

You will need 5 $TTT-test to start mining, email bob(at)trustnote.org, or ping @andrewfisher_ttt from the TrustNote Telegram group to get your initial $TTT-test.

4. How do I know my wallet address?

After data synchronization is completed and when the mining starts, the mining client will print your address in the windows terminal continuously.

Taking windows OS as an example:

You can also run the info.bat file from where your client package is located and get your address：

5. How do I know how many $TTT-test I have mined?

To check how many $TTT-test you have mined, open the TrustNote2 testnet explorer, enter your address in the search field and press the search button, you will see the changes of your wallet balance in line with the coinbase rewards you received and the transaction costs you have spent. For example, in the screenshot below, the current balance of address ‘PMLJI3WDDQI43CMV5BMUBOKDV5FSCCU7’ is 1,363,693,722 notes.

If taking a deep look at the transaction history, you will find some units’ transaction history is blank, that means this transaction is for your coinbase reward.

6. How can I manage the $TTT-test I have mined?

The mining program itself is also a wallet, but it doesn’t have any UI interface and doesn’t support transfer $TTT-test between different wallets right now, we will implement this feature in the future. For now, to check how many $TTT-test you have mined and manage these $TTT-test, we’d like to suggest you install the testnet wallet on your computer and restore the mnemonic phrase of your mining wallet into this testnet wallet, then you will be able to easily know your mining rewards and transfer them between different testnet wallets. Your mnemonic_phrase can be found at:

MacOS: ~/Library/Application Support/trustnote-pow-supernode/keys.json

Linux: ~/.config/trustnote-pow-supernode/keys.json

Windows：%LOCALAPPDATA%\trustnote-pow-supernode\keys.json

Testnet wallet installation package can be downloaded from TrustNote’s GitHub repository.

7. Any hardware requirement for mining?

TrustNote uses the Equihash algorithm, which is CPU friendly. Theoretically, you can mining on either CPU or GPU but the current mining client implementation supports CPU only.

Technically, any computer running Windows, MacOS or Ubuntu Linux should be able to mine $TTT-test on the TrustNote2 testnet, the effectiveness of your mining operation is determined by the computing power of both your mining hardware and the entire TrustNote2 testnet.

We’ll soon launch a program to calculate the current computing power of the whole network, this will give you a better understanding of your mining performance.

8. Can I mine on multiple computers with one wallet address?

Not for now, this is a feature we will implement in the future.

9. Can I restore my mining wallet to my phone wallet?

I assume you are talking about the official $TTT wallet? This will be supported after the TrustNote mainnet supports mining, which is scheduled on Q3 2019, according to the TrustNote2 roadmap.

10. Why data synchronization is very slow?

The Round Index printed in the mining client’s terminal window refers to the mining round (It is not the ‘block’, the DAG has no concept of the block, the basic structure inside the DAG is a unit, each round contains multiple units).

The reason for the slowness is mainly due to the construction of the DAG, because it needs to verify the data of each unit whilst downloading the ledger. This is very different from other blockchain structure, and we will optimize the speed of synchronizing data in the future.

11. What’s the exchange ratio of the mined $TTT-test and TFS?

The project team will issue a reward plan for testing mining in the near future, please pay attention to TrustNote twitter account @TrustNote for the announcement.

12. How to understand the information printed in the mining terminal window?

Let’s take the following screenshots as the examples：

Syncing Data

This means data synchronization is in progress, and currently, 91% data has been synchronized from the ledger.

Difficulty Adjustment

This means difficulty adjustment is in progress at Round 135. The Difficulty Factor is calculated from the average computing power of the whole network, and the average time interval of consensus is controllable by adjusting the Difficulty Factor.

Start Mining

This information tells you, your super node starts mining from round 159 with difficulty 528140120. Your node will compete with other nodes in the whole network as attestor to get more chance to win the reward.

Mining Success

‘Mining Success’ means your node may be selected as an attestor at Round 159.

Coinbase Reward

When you see ‘Coinbase Reward’, congratulations, this means your node is selected as an attestor and obtains reward at Round ‘current round -2’, Round 159 in this example. ‘Coinbase Reward’ is the reward your node obtains, the unit is ‘note’. Balance indicates the total balance of the node, ‘stable’ means that it has been confirmed, ‘pending’ represents not yet confirmed. And ‘Accumulated Reward’ means the accumulated gain.

13. Why I see ‘Mining Success’ information in my mining terminal window, but I don’t get any reward?

‘Mining Success’ just means your nodes solve the puzzle when competing with other nodes in that round, your node gets the possibility to be selected as attestor. But at the end of each consensus round, only top 8 Super Nodes will be selected as attestors. If your node is not in top 8 nodes, it won’t get the reward in that round.