Chia is one of the latest entrants in the world of cryptocurrencies with the promise of being a clean, green digital token. It has barely been weeks since its announcement, but it is already creating waves among geeks and cryptocurrency enthusiasts alike. So what is Chia coin, and how does it promise to upend the current crypto market? And how do you farm Chia coin (XCH) anyway? That’s what we are about to discuss here today.
In this article, we will tell you everything about the all-new Chia cryptocurrency and Chia blockchain software. We will also explain how you can farm Chia coin (XCH) on your Windows 10 PC and what you need to know before you get down to making your own Chia plotting rig. So without further ado, here’s all you need to know about Chia coin and how to mine it.
- What is Chia Coin (XCH)?
- How Does Chia Coin Work?
- What is Chia Coin Farming?
- What is Chialisp?
- Benefits and Advantages
- Limitations and Drawbacks
- How to Buy, Sell and Trade Chia Coin?
- How to Farm Chia Coin Cryptocurrency
- How Much Can Chia Farmers Expect to Earn?
- What Is Pooling and How it Can Increase Your Chances of Winning Chia?
- Things to Know Before Getting Into Chia Farming
What is Chia Coin (XCH)?
Chia Coin is a new cryptocurrency based on an open-source blockchain technology. Unlike ‘Proof-of-Work’ cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Chia mining is based on the amount of hard-disk storage space devoted to it rather than processing power. It is designed to offer a smart transaction platform that the founders believe has the potential to improve the global financial and payments systems.
How Does Chia Coin Work?
Chia coins are mined by ‘farmers’ by running the Chia blockchain software on their computers. To create Chia coins, farmers need to ‘seed’ unused space on their hard disk drive by installing the Chia blockchain software. It stores cryptographic numbers on a portion of the disk known as a ‘plot’. Each plot has a hash and as the Chia blockchain extends, each farmer can see if their hashes match the next blockchain step.
A notable new development with Chia is a new blockchain programming language called ‘Chialisp’ that Cohen claims is powerful, easy-to-audit, and secure. It is an on-chain smart transaction development environment that promises improved security and transparency of cryptocurrencies. Chialisp is a powerful and secure LISP-like language for encumbering and releasing funds with smart-contract capabilities. It will also help make blockchain programming easier for coders, claims the official Chia website.
Chia eliminates some of the biggest problems with cryptocurrency, including the energy-intensive mining process required to create most digital tokens. Here are some of the most notable benefits of the Chia coin:
Eco-Friendly
One of the biggest benefits of Chia is that it will be more power-efficient than current cryptocurrencies. In fact, it is being promoted by the founders as an ‘eco-friendly’ alternative to Bitcoin. The version of the Nakamoto consensus algorithm that Chia uses removes the energy demands of Proof of Work by reducing emphasis on processing muscle and relying on storage space instead. That makes it less energy-intensive and more environment-friendly.
Enhanced Security
Another benefit of Chia coins is the enhanced de-centralization of its blockchain, which means it offers better security than its existing peers. Chia is also adopting more modern cryptographic tools to enable more intuitive smart transactions. However, Chia’s single biggest safeguard against hackers is that it does not use Proof-of-Stake (PoS) concept, a consensus mechanism that Ethereum is moving towards.
Chia Network believes this will help safeguard it against rogue nation-states and other hacking threats, particularly because of the inability of PoS networks to recover from a 51% attack.
Less Volatility
Chia Network, the for-profit company behind the new cryptocurrency, also holds a pre-farm (Strategic Reserve) to ease the price volatility. It will thereby help mitigate bubbles and crashes. That, they believe, will drive the adoption of Chia by mainstream consumers. As such, the Chia Network favors predictable, continuous inflation over a hard cap, unlike Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies.
Regulatory Oversight
This could be either a positive or a negative based on your point of view. However, given that one of the biggest stumbling blocks for crypto adoption around the world is a lack of regulatory oversight. And well, Chia’s embrace of regulators is a welcome move, even though it admittedly goes directly against some of the stated purposes of digital tokens.
Open Source and Accessibility
Finally, Chia is based on an open-source and accessible technology that will enable anyone to build a new wallet without any intervention from the Chia Network. But, the company says it will help crypto exchanges and merchant processing partners with “support and integration services, joint marketing and lending for liquidity”.
Chia Coin: Limitations and Drawbacks
Chia gets rid of some of the biggest problems with cryptocurrency mining, but it isn’t without issues itself. The single biggest problem with the technology is that it uses up a ton of storage space, which is creating a massive shortage of SSDs globally. Hard drive prices have already jumped exponentially since the release of the Mainnet a few weeks back.
Major cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinbase and Binance are yet to incorporate support for Chia. However, you can still buy it from other sources, including exchanges like Gate.io. Now, you must be wondering – how much is a Chia coin worth in the market? As of writing this article, the price for Chia coin (XCH) is around the $800 mark, having touched a high of around $1,900 recently.
In India, Chia is not available to buy on any crypto exchange as of May 2021. However, the company says it is planning to launch in major crypto exchanges around the world soon, so let’s hope India makes the cut as well. That said, the constant flip-flops and conflicting reports about the status of cryptocurrencies in India could be a massive disincentive for Chia Network. As of May 2021, buying and selling cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin is legal in India. However, with controversies and confusion surrounding the impending legislation, it’s not clear whether that will remain the case in the future.
As a beginner, any computer with 250GB+ storage space (preferably an SSD) running Windows, Linux, or macOS is all you need for your first experience with Chia farming. Your chances of winning a Chia coin depend on the size of your ‘farm’. So the more storage you devote to farming, the better your chances of winning.
SSDs are recommended because Chia farming is a highly write-intensive process that would take inordinately longer on HDDs. Depending on their technology and interface, SSDs could be 10-20 times faster than mechanical hard drives in terms of read- and write speeds. As a beginner, you can take a pick from the best consumer SSDs but once you get the hang of it, high-capacity data center SSDs are the way to go. They are typically faster and more reliable than the consumer versions and come with massive storage capacities.
According to an official blog post by Jonmichael Hands, the VP of Storage Business Development at Chia Network, “The Chia team and community advocate using data center-class SSDs or consumer drives meant for high-end desktops and workstations with a high TBW endurance rating for the plotting process. If a user selects a high-endurance data center SSD, they can plot for up to 10 years before wearing out the device during the plotting process.”
For the ‘Final Directory’ drives, you can use either SSDs or HDDs. However, they should preferably have large enough capacities to accommodate all your plots. It is generally acceptable to use mechanical HDDs for the final directory because the workloads won’t be nearly as intensive as they are with temporary directories.
Step 1: Install the Chia Blockchain Software
To download the Chia blockchain software, go to the Chia blockchain installation page on GitHub (link here) and scroll down to the section on your operating system.
- Once you have installed the software, open the program and select the “Create a New Private Key” option. If you already have a wallet, use the “import From Mnemonics” option.
Note: The screenshot above is for demo purposes only. No actual Chia wallet exists with these mnemonics.
Just like a real farm, you first need to create ‘plots’ before the farming can start. Here’s how you go about it:
- You will now have to choose your plot size [1]. We suggest you follow the Chia Network’s recommended settings – Plot size = 101.4GiB (k=32; temporary space: 239GiB). Now choose the number of plots [2] depending on available storage space on your computer.
- Each plot needs around 250-270GiB. So for a 1TB SSD, you can only get a maximum of up to 3 concurrent plots (3 x 270GiB = 810GiB). Now select “Plot in Parallel” [3] and select a 10-minute delay [4] between each plot starting.
How Much Can Chia Farmers Expect to Earn?
Your chances of solving a Chia coin block is equal to your portion of the total Chia ‘netspace’. Currently, the total Chia netspace is at 12.33 EiB (Exbibytes) and is increasing rapidly. That means a typical 10TB enterprise-class SSD, which can hold around 91 blocks, would put your odds at 0.0001% with an expected win-time of 10 months.
‘Pooling’ is crypto-speak for miners/ farmers joining together resources to win more regularly and predictably. the Chia Network promised to release the reference code for pooling by the end of May 2021, but it’s not officially here yet. Once it is live, you can join commercial pools for a small fee, whereby the pool operator will use Chia’s method to calculate the farmers’ share, collect to pool wallet, and distribute XCH to pool participants.
Meanwhile, you will have to pay to switch pools using the official software. The company will charge 1 mojo (1 trillionth of a XCH) to switch pools. If you are just starting out and don’t have any Chia coins yet, you can get 100 mojo from the official Chia website. The network, thankfully, will support both original and portable plots on the same machine.
While Chia farming promises to bring you riches, you have to be aware of the potential pitfalls. Here’s what you should keep in mind before jumping into Chia farming:
Now that we are done with the standard warnings, here are some of the things you need to keep in mind while running your Chia farming operations:
