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I am setting up my own private blockchain (well, it will be public, but a custom/random network-id) and I want to start mining so I can deploy a couple of contracts.

Can anyone recommend the best/simplest options for me? Should I purchase an Alienware computer (because of the good graphics card?) Are there VPSes with GPUs? Something else?

I've never done any mining before at all, so any suggestions would be helpful. Not only about mining, but about creating a custom/parallen network as well. I figure there's no better way to really learn this stuff than to basically take it apart and put it together again. :)

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For starting a private blockchain you don't need special mining hardware. You can set the difficulty as low as you want when defining the genesis and just use CPU mining on any average system.

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  • The difficulty set in the genesis file is just the starting difficulty. It will eventually increase over time. Permanently setting the difficulty in a private chain requires a code change and rebuild: ethereum.stackexchange.com/a/7159/52 – Richard Horrocks Apr 26 '17 at 8:35
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As of my understanding , you need to try out your contracts to be deployed in blockchain and want to interact with it.

You have two options to do this.

  1. To run a private blockchain , you can download the ethereum geth client and install. Download the sample genesis block. Mention a data directory to create the keystore files.

Start the client with your own network id and enable the rpc connection along with its port, and other channels to access through rpc(web3,admin,...).

Once the clients started, open the another command prompt attach the rpc. You can deploy the compiled solidity contract using this.

Once you deployed and got the contract address back. You start interact with that. To do all this in network it needs to beget mined. In private blockchain sometimes mining will not happen because of low GPU powers. It will stop at DAG generation.

  1. You can simply install ethereumjs-testrpc npm node, and start the simulation of blockchain network. Here mining will not be problem. To deploy contract you can web3js. Or you can install Metamask plugin in chrome browser. Open a new empty tab in browser in colsole you can see web3 will be injected by metamask. From chrome console also you can deploy and interact with your contracts.
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  • This leads me to my exact question that started the thread. Assuming I choose option (1), what hardware will I need? I literally don't know the first thing about GPU mining. Do I buy some cards and build something myself? Are there VPS services with GPUs? Etc. – stone.212 Apr 26 '17 at 21:13

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