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How to Mine Purk and Why Is It So Interesting

There are many ways of monetizing one’s website – ads, affiliate links, patreon and so on. Purk is a new project that wants to give visitors yet another tool to support the content they want on the web. Facebook likes and shares are great but what if you could support your favorite content creators financially with one click?

We can see a similar system in Steemit where you can upvote a comment or article using a unique token called Steem Dollars. Content creators can then exchange the Steem to either Bitcoin or fiat money and potentially make a living out of that.

Purk vs. Steem

I suspect I do have to briefly clarify the key differences between the two coins before we move on. Some of you might have the impression that Purk is yet another Steem clone so let me explain why I believe this is not the case.

At first glance, both coins have the same aim – to give visitors more ways to support their favorite content creators.

The difference is that Steem is native to one single blogging platform called Steemit. Purk on the other hand is designed to work with any site or platform since it will allow site owners to add a “Purk” button. Anyone who clicks it will be able to basically donate some Purk coins to the content creator.

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What about SteemConnect?

To make Steem more widespread, devs are working on SteemConnect and SC v2 to allow any website to implement the Steem upvote button. That being said, the focus still remains on the Steemit platform with community members developing apps and creating content for it. Rather than being the key aim and main feature of the project, SteemConnect is just a complement to Steemit.

Now, since Purk does not favor any specific platform, it will implement features Steem does not have. For example, in the roadmap, the implementation of Purk Pay Plugin will allow use Purk to pay for goods and services.

We can see that Purk is taking a different direction than Steem. It aims to become something unique. Plus, with the implementation of community votes and donations, users will have even more control over the project. This might open more doors for new great and unique ideas.

The second key difference is simplicity – I’ve still got to find someone who would have a clear idea on how different parts of the Steem system work. Purk, on the other hand, is way easier to understand from a user’s point of view. I’m not saying that this makes Purk superior, though I do assume this is one of the factors that define the target audience of the coin.

There are other minor differences as well as different approaches from their teams, though I won’t dive into that for now. What I’m trying to say here is that Purk and Steem have different target audiences and different purposes. I believe the coins won’t be really competing with each other. In fact, I can see people using both of them in different situations.

Reasons why I think Purk mining is interesting:

 No ICO, no premine, they’re not selling anything

  • Open source project
  • ASIC-immunity
  • Extremely fast block times (90 seconds) thanks to the WildKeccak algorithm
  • Daemon and miner compatibility with Windows, Linux and MacOS
  • Active community and lots of movement in their social channels (Discord, Telegram, Bitcointalk, etc)
  • Different pools that adjust mining difficulty adaptively based on hashrate – centralized mining is not welcome
  • Detailed, realistic and community-driven roadmap

Purk is based on Boolberry and CryptoNote technology which makes its transactions anonymous and untraceable. No need to worry about censoring or regulations – support whoever you want as often as you want to.

Wild Keccak and ASIC Immunity

You are probably wondering – how does Wild Keccak makes Purk ASIC-resistant? Unlike the X16r, Wild Keccak does not rely on randomly changing hashing algorithms. Instead, it is designed on a way to be scratchpad memory-intensive. It is not hard on memory per se, though.

Scratchpad memory is a high-speed internal CPU memory used for temporary storage of calculations, data, and other work in progress. It is located in its special circuit and it’s known for being able to operate with small data items at very high speed.

As the chain grows, a global scratchpad is created from the data that is being saved from the blockchain. While the growth is constant, it is hard limited to 90 MiB per year.

Then, the state is xored with pseudo-random addressed from the scratchpad. As the Wild Keccak description states, “Each hash computation involves approximately 1100 accesses to 32-byte blocks of scratchpad.” According to the devs, this is only one of the mechanisms that make Wild Keccak so resistant to ASICs.

 Purk Mining with GPU and CPU

Here is the hardware I’ve been using:

Purk is meant to be an ASIC-resistant coin. Based on the Wild Keccak algorithm, Purk was designed to prioritize CPU mining.

What about mining profitability?

I suppose it’s a bit early to talk about it since the coin still got to generate enough demand and trading volume. That being said, you can have an estimate on how many PURK you will get from mining by using their calculator. For instance, one RX580 could give you about 84 PURK a day.

Getting Started

In order to start using and mining the coin, you will have to install the wallet and the daemon. The latest is used to mine coins, interact with the blockchain and be the link between your PC and the Purk network.

Both the daemon and the wallet can be downloaded as one installer file for Windows, Mac or Linux. Optionally, you can review and build the files yourself.

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Setting Up Your Wallet

Purk allows you to choose between two wallets: the Purk GUI Wallet and the Simplewallet. In this tutorial, I will be reviewing the GUI wallet because it’s probably the one most of you are going to be using. The instructions on Simplewallet installation can be found here.

Purk GUI Wallet

What is good about this wallet is that you can manage your funds from graphic base software – no need to type the commands like a nerd 😛

If you’ve downloaded the compiled Quick Start Purk installer for Windows, Mac or Linux, you will have the wallet included in the package.

The first time you open the wallet it will begin synchronizing with the network. Give it some time – the Menu button will become available once the sync is complete.

Now, just click on “Generate New Wallet”, chose a name and click on “Save”. Make sure you keep note on where do you save your wallet.

Once done, enter a password and write it down somewhere safe. Then, write down the seed words – those can be used later to restore your wallet in case you lose the wallet file or password.

Note: Always keep your seed words stored in a safe place!

Purk Pool Mining with GPU and CPU

Purk GPU Mining

1 CCminer (forked by tpruvot) for Nvidia GPU only

2 (GPU) CPUMiner-Multi-OpenCL (forked by PurkProject) for AMD & Nvidia video cards

MSI GTX 1080Ti 3x GPU Mining Rig (https://1stminingrig.com/product/1stminingrig-g3-power-mining-rig-gtx-series/)

Sapphire RX 580 8GB Special Edition 6x GPU Mining Rig (https://1stminingrig.com/product/1stminingrig-g6-power-mining-rig/)

  • Clocks: 1200/2000
  • Hashrate: 14 Mh/s
Purk CPU Mining

This is just a test using my laptop's CPU, an old i7 3610QM, a great CPU for mining is AMD Ryzen 7 1700

While https://pool.purkproject.com is the only pool so far, you can choose the mining port according to your hardware. 3333 CPUs/Low-end GPUs, 5555 High-end CPUs/GPUs, 7777 High-end GPUs, 9999 High-end GPU Rigs!

The process is straightforward: download the right miner and start mining by introducing the command, stated in the pool page. It might take you a couple of tries to find the right mining port, though after you find the sweet spot, mining should work as intended.

Useful Links

PURK donation address 🙂  PK2ufLRbQ4s5SLiHj2iPzJ2nj4q2KS7o9WbzTVS3R6zt2TRyqSRH3teYM4AWy7g9bFMgMkVGfe6hDCAks
zCyoxzG2hqu3xjbz 

In Conclusion

What are my thoughts on Purk? It’s hard to tell at this point, though I like the idea of a community-driven coin that is not rushing to raise funds for a product that does not exist yet. From my observations, there is a place for a project like Purk in the modern web and if they keep true to their initial roadmap, they might be able to occupy their niche and maybe even become something big.

Disclaimer: This is not financial advise, I am not a financial advisor, this is for educational purposes only. If you want to invest in cryptocurrency please do your own research and invest at your own risk, 1stMiningRig is never liable for any decisions you make. 1stMiningRig may receive donations or sponsorships in association with certain content creation. 1stMiningRig may receive compensation when affiliate/referral links are used.
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