Intro
This guide will walk you thru on how to open a monero wallet, how to use it and how to get it.
This guide will focus on linux as its what i use, it shouldn’t be much different on windows.
wallets
there are 2 wallets I can recommend:
If I had to choose I would pick feather, as its more lightweight and full of features. Monero GUI might be confusing to setup by most people, even tho its very straightforward, the amount of options in the wallet creation, might confuse some people.
opening a wallet
Monero GUI
On monero GUI you will be asked if u want the simple mode or 2 other modes. This basically asks you if you want to setup a full node, which you prob don’t as its over 200GB and provide no advantage for most people
Select the “simple” option.
After that it will ask you to setup a mnemonic seed, pick the highest word count seed and save it in a txt or a password manager like keypassXC. The mnemonic seed is the most important aspect of the wallet creation part as without it you wont be able to login on other devices and if you lose it, you will basically lose your wallet. THE MNEMONIC SEED NEEDS TO BE STORED SAFELY, I personally saved mine on a CD.
The last step is to create a password, this can be whatever as it will be only on your computer.
Feather
On feather you just click on “create new account” and it will generate a 16 word mnemonic with options to generate a new one and add an option to extend the seed with a passphrase.
REMEMBER TO COPY YOUR DAMN MNEMONIC!
Just save ur mnemonic, name your account and setup the passphrase.
Nodes
A full node needs about 300GB to be run. You do not need to run a full node to own monero, but this will increase privacy as nodes have access to your IP.
Both wallets above set up nodes automatically for you, if you want you can use my node that runs over TOR, y6nhue6rdrauypulkelnmxjxv3omy4qol6bk3sdydchs2qzacdgfn5ad.onion:18089.
Mining
Monero mining uses CPU instead of GPU and can be done with xmrig. Read the docs to configure it
Something you have to know is that you cant mine from the addresses starting in “8” only the primary address with starts with 4.
The primary address is hidden on feather, to see it go into “receive”, right click on the header and enable “show change address” and “show used addresses”.
Pools
There are many pools you can use that make it easy for you to actually make some money (probably not much, depends on CPU).
There are 3 pools I recommend:
- moneroocean - low fees and very easy to setup
- p2pool (I prefer this one) - 0 fees but you need a monero node and can be quite slow
- p2pool mini - same as p2pool but you will find more blocks (you get paid less for each block found tho), ideal for low powered computers
I will make a diferent guide in the future of how to host a node and setup p2pool.
Buying
Buying monero is not as straightforward as other coins especially without KYC, but its also not as hard as you might think.
The easiest way of buying monero is by buying it directly from someone who has monero. If you dont know anyone consider using Bisq or Raveno. These are decentralized exchanges for buying crypto. Bisq is mostly for BTC, it has the feature of buying XMR with that BTC. But Raveno is built arround monero and its made for you to buy monero.
If you already own BTC and want monero, consider using unstoppableswap, which lets you atomic swap BTC into XMR easly with no fees.
Conclusion
Monero (XMR) is a cryptocurrency focused on privacy, is highly used on anonymous networks like tor and i2p.
I made this guide to make it easier for privacy fans to get their hands on some crypto that is actually used for monetary transactions. The process of opening a monero wallet and buying stuff with it is very easy and straightforward, hopefully this guide was helpfull to you and you can finally buy some stuff anonymously.
Donate
for some anonymous donations you can send some XMR here (you can’t mine for this address btw):
83LyidzycKd3futS8uah8JWjYVUMFujaNbcLLkMLn1S4U3sLv5YUG3CBkQaoqBtmsa7qAAvGtPKwrNPpHZwxzvKWC2uDxPM