I tried Crypto Mining in the big '25

Intro

Backstory

Throwback to January 2022, my dad often talked about what he invested in, and what struck me the most intriguing was cryptocurrency.

Around this time, the NFT craze was gaining major traction as huge celebrities, artists, and brands started joining in. Projects like Bored Ape Yacht Club had NFTs worth crazy amounts of money.

Now seeing how much people made from all of this, I started my own NFT collection, which made me learn a lot about smart contracts and crypto as a whole. Spoiler alert: your boy made nothing.

Present day

I randomly was reminiscing about my NFT days when I thought of crypto mining. Can an ordinary person mine any crypto without crazy hardware? Thus began my 10 minute Google sesh...

Picking a coin

Picking a coin is no easy task especially with our hardware, an Intel i5-3337U (more on specs later).

But here were some requirements I had in mind:

• Low Power Draw (The i5-3337U is a low-TDP mobile processor, so a coin that works efficiently with limited power)
• No GPU Needed (i.e., coins with ASIC-resistant and supports CPU-only mining)

• Smaller Networks (Gives us a better chance of earning with weaker CPUs)

Now I had a few options but ultimately I chose VerusCoin (CRSC) as it met all the requirements with more benefits like being ASICs and GPUs resistant, smaller networks which means lower difficulty for blocks, and the coin itself has a lot of potential (currently $1.86 USD per coin).

System Overview

Hardware

The Acer Aspire Laptop I'm using to mine on

Specs:

• CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3337U CPU @ 1.80GHz, 2 Cores 4 Threads
• RAM: 8 GB
• Storage: 256 GB
• Operating System: Proxmox Linux

I know it's unusual to use Proxmox, but the reason is because I use this as my test machine for other homelab and cybersecurity projects and I don't intend to mine constantly. I also have a Dell PowerEdge R230 as my main server for my homelab, but I don't really want to mine on that.

For mining, I will create a seperate Ubuntu Server VM with all cores and memory allocated to it, so it's almost like I'm running on bare metal. I've stopped all the other test VMs I am running to ensure I can get maximum resource usage out of it.

Next, we need to set up the actual miner, but first let's create a wallet.

Creating a Verus Wallet

I will be installing Verus CLI on macOS since I want to work with a CLI to manage my wallet instead of a separate GUI application and also since I want to use a native wallet.

You can download the wallet app of your choosing here

If you are using the macOS CLI, follow along if you want to create a wallet with it too.

1. Download the wallet CLI and extract the folders

2. Move your binaries (assuming you are in the same directory as the binary):

sudo mv verusd verus /usr/local/bin/

3. Fetch Params

./fetch-params

4. Fetch Bootstrap

./fetch-bootstrap

It will ask you if want to specify a directory to store the blockchain data, but I suggest leaving it blank to default. Afterwards, ensure you select option 1, this will start downloading the blockchain data for you.

5. Start the Node:

verusd

Now whilst that is running, you can check up on it with verus getinfo.

Here is what it should look like when it starts to run.

❯ verusd
(verusd) NOTARY_PUBKEY.()
>>>>>>>>>> VRSC: p2p.27485 rpc.27486 magic.e2588aad 3797453485 0 coins
initialized VRSC at 1753408623
 
Compression is: on
set timestampindex, will reindex. sorry will take a while.
finished loading blocks VRSC
fAddressIndex.1/1 fSpentIndex.1/1
Initialized chain: VRSC, ID i5w5MuNik5NtLcYmNzcvaoixooEebB6MGV
fAddressIndex.1/1 fSpentIndex.1/1
height.0 slowflag.1 possible.1 cmp.0

This now means we are running a node!

6. Creating a new address

verus getnewaddress

After running it, you should get something like.

❯ verus getnewaddress
RXMZGYgqCUCj4rV1EL5XHuS94HeQueukSa

Now you can run the command again to create more addresses which are tied to your wallet and are tied to the same private key in your wallet. This may be useful if you want to separate all your transactions for business, donations, or privacy purposes.

7. Profit!

Well no profits just yet, but now we can start mining!

Mining Verus

Before I could start mining, I still need to decide between joining a mining pool or to solo mine.

I chose to mine in a pool, since it would be unlikely my craptop could yield any results. I specifically chose LuckPool since it seemed to be well-regarded online, so let's get it set up.

Setting up Hellminer & Joining the Pool

Here are the commands:

wget https://github.com/hellcatz/hminer/releases/download/v0.59.1/hellminer_linux64.tar.gz
tar -xvzf hellminer_linux64.tar.gz

and for me that looked like...

ubuntu@crypto-miner:~$ wget https://github.com/hellcatz/hminer/releases/download/v0.59.1/hellminer_linux64.tar.gz
--2025-07-25 03:19:45--  https://github.com/hellcatz/hminer/releases/download/v0.59.1/hellminer_linux64.tar.gz
Resolving github.com (github.com)... 140.82.112.3
Connecting to github.com (github.com)|140.82.112.3|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: https://release-assets.githubusercontent.com/github-production-release-asset/586739895/10a9079e-1766-4f66-a692-870108ce80fd?sp=r&sv=2018-11-09&sr=b&spr=https&se=2025-07-25T04%3A19%3A28Z&rscd=attachment%3B+filename%3Dhellminer_linux64.tar.gz&rsct=application%2Foctet-stream&skoid=96c2d410-5711-43a1-aedd-ab1947aa7ab0&sktid=398a6654-997b-47e9-b12b-9515b896b4de&skt=2025-07-25T03%3A18%3A35Z&ske=2025-07-25T04%3A19%3A28Z&sks=b&skv=2018-11-09&sig=dYtQybTFPPMGgLTDfZ%2FLv3LtwD%2FSLtr4CD%2FPnt88kR8%3D&jwt=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpc3MiOiJnaXRodWIuY29tIiwiYXVkIjoicmVsZWFzZS1hc3NldHMuZ2l0aHVidXNlcmNvbnRlbnQuY29tIiwia2V5Ijoia2V5MSIsImV4cCI6MTc1MzQxMzg4NSwibmJmIjoxNzUzNDEzNTg1LCJwYXRoIjoicmVsZWFzZWFzc2V0cHJvZHVjdGlvbi5ibG9iLmNvcmUud2luZG93cy5uZXQifQ.cM-IEa652akcrkrWUI5QTRgqg_gbWZi_25uyyzLhWME&response-content-disposition=attachment%3B%20filename%3Dhellminer_linux64.tar.gz&response-content-type=application%2Foctet-stream [following]
--2025-07-25 03:19:45--  https://release-assets.githubusercontent.com/github-production-release-asset/586739895/10a9079e-1766-4f66-a692-870108ce80fd?sp=r&sv=2018-11-09&sr=b&spr=https&se=2025-07-25T04%3A19%3A28Z&rscd=attachment%3B+filename%3Dhellminer_linux64.tar.gz&rsct=application%2Foctet-stream&skoid=96c2d410-5711-43a1-aedd-ab1947aa7ab0&sktid=398a6654-997b-47e9-b12b-9515b896b4de&skt=2025-07-25T03%3A18%3A35Z&ske=2025-07-25T04%3A19%3A28Z&sks=b&skv=2018-11-09&sig=dYtQybTFPPMGgLTDfZ%2FLv3LtwD%2FSLtr4CD%2FPnt88kR8%3D&jwt=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpc3MiOiJnaXRodWIuY29tIiwiYXVkIjoicmVsZWFzZS1hc3NldHMuZ2l0aHVidXNlcmNvbnRlbnQuY29tIiwia2V5Ijoia2V5MSIsImV4cCI6MTc1MzQxMzg4NSwibmJmIjoxNzUzNDEzNTg1LCJwYXRoIjoicmVsZWFzZWFzc2V0cHJvZHVjdGlvbi5ibG9iLmNvcmUud2luZG93cy5uZXQifQ.cM-IEa652akcrkrWUI5QTRgqg_gbWZi_25uyyzLhWME&response-content-disposition=attachment%3B%20filename%3Dhellminer_linux64.tar.gz&response-content-type=application%2Foctet-stream
Resolving release-assets.githubusercontent.com (release-assets.githubusercontent.com)... 185.199.108.133, 185.199.110.133, 185.199.109.133, ...
Connecting to release-assets.githubusercontent.com (release-assets.githubusercontent.com)|185.199.108.133|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 15499566 (15M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: ‘hellminer_linux64.tar.gz’
 
hellminer_linux64.tar.gz                              100%[======================================================================================================================>]  14.78M  89.3MB/s    in 0.2s
 
2025-07-25 03:19:45 (89.3 MB/s) - ‘hellminer_linux64.tar.gz’ saved [15499566/15499566]
 
ubuntu@crypto-miner:~$ tar -xvzf hellminer_linux64.tar.gz
hellminer
run_miner.sh
verus-solver
ubuntu@crypto-miner:~$ ls
hellminer  hellminer_linux64.tar.gz  run_miner.sh  verus-solver
ubuntu@crypto-miner:~$

Now I can run the actual miner, you can create your command to mine here.

ubuntu@crypto-miner:~$ ./hellminer -c stratum+tcp://na.luckpool.net:3960 -u RXMZGYgqCUCj4rV1EL5XHuS94HeQueukSa.stormhawk -p x
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Hellminer 0.59.1 [VerusHash 2.2 + PBaaS] Linux
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 * QEMU Virtual CPU version 2.5+
 * Supports AES
 * Supports SSE2
 
 * 4 Total CPU threads
 * Using 3 CPU threads for mining
 
 * Wallet: RXMZGYgqCUCj4rV1EL5XHuS94HeQueukSa
 *    Rig: stormhawk
 * Passwd: x
 
 
Started 3 solver processes
Connecting to pool 01 stratum+tcp://na.luckpool.net:3960
* No developer fee
Pool 01: Set extra nonce 14917932
Pool 01: authorized miner RXMZGYgqCUCj4rV1EL5XHuS94HeQueukSa.stormhawk
Pool 01: accepted extra nonce subscription
Total 0.124 MH/s [cpu01 0.04, cpu02 0.04, cpu03 0.05] 0 shares accepted
Total 0.137 MH/s [cpu01 0.04, cpu02 0.04, cpu03 0.05] 0 shares accepted

That's gotta be the slowest thing ever. It is 11:30 PM EST here so I will check up on it after I wake up and we can see the results!

I made a itty bitty mistake

It is currently 7:32 AM, and I realized that I didn't put hellminer in a tmux session and it shut down because the ssh connection closed. In other words, when my computer went to sleep, it disconnected from the server, which caused the miner process to be killed.

Now isn't the time to cry over spilt milk, so I created a tmux session and ran the miner.

ubuntu@crypto-miner:~$ ./hellminer -c stratum+tcp://verus.aninterestinghole.xyz:9998 -u RXMZGYgqCUCj4rV1EL5XHuS94HeQueukSa.stormhawk -p x 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Hellminer 0.59.1 [VerusHash 2.2 + PBaaS] Linux
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 * QEMU Virtual CPU version 2.5+
 * Supports AES
 * Supports SSE2
 
 * 4 Total CPU threads
 * Using 3 CPU threads for mining
 
 * Wallet: RXMZGYgqCUCj4rV1EL5XHuS94HeQueukSa
 *    Rig: stormhawk
 * Passwd: x
 
 
Started 3 solver processes
Connecting to pool 01 stratum+tcp://verus.aninterestinghole.xyz:9998
Developer fee enabled for other pools
Pool 01: Set extra nonce 17ff3844
Pool 01: authorized miner RXMZGYgqCUCj4rV1EL5XHuS94HeQueukSa.stormhawk
Pool 01: accepted extra nonce subscription
Total 0.068 MH/s [cpu01 0.02, cpu02 0.02, cpu03 0.02, cpu04 0.02] 0 shares accepted
Pool 01: accepted share #1 [28 ms]

As you can see, I also changed my mining pool. I wanted to see if I’d get better results with a different one, so I chose the AiH Verus Pool, which uses a PPLNT - Above 0.1 VRSC Every 10 Min payout system.

This means that if a block is mined within a 10-minute window, the total reward exceeds 0.1 VRSC, and I contributed valid shares during that time, I get paid.

We can run CTRL + B and d to detach from the tmux session, so it can continue running in the background.

btop

btop will allow us to track the computer’s system vitals to ensure everything is going well. And now we wait for results!

Another miner!

I was talking to my dad about this and he offered to let me use his laptop as another worker for mining.

Hardware

Lenovo YOGA

Specs:

• CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700HQ CPU @ 2.80GHz, 4 Cores 8 Threads
• RAM: 16 GB
• Storage: 500 GB
• Operating System: Windows 10

It's much better than the previous laptop, so we will actually gain more profit from mining with this.

Installing ccmine.exe

You can install ccminer here. And here is the command I used to connect to the pool and start mining.

PS> .\ccminer.exe -a verus -o stratum+tcp://verus.aninterestinghole.xyz:9998 -u RXMZGYgqCUCj4rV1EL5XHuS94HeQueukSa.hawktuah -p x -t 8

The new laptop was mining at a whopping 8.86 MH/s! Though It did start to throttle down after a while to around 5.6 MH/s.

Later, I changed the port to 9999 for normal difficulty on this laptop, so we can actually mine verus instead of some other coins.

Results

After a ~24 hour mining period w/ the Lenovo YOGA and a ~14 hour mining period with the Acer Aspire, here is what we made:

AIH Pool mining results

We mined a total of 0.02022027 VRSC, which is about $0.041. So, yeah, we made 4 cents. Not exactly life changing, and to make it worse, we still need to reach 0.1 VRSC before we can even get paid out.

I also think I lost some money, since electricity where I live costs around like $0.12 per kWh, which is on the more costly side.

Mining with hardware like this just isn’t profitable anymore, especially with the block reward being reduced recently. From what I’ve understood, crypto mining these days isn’t worth it unless you’ve got serious resources. And specifically for VerusCoin, it’s not really viable unless you have access to cheap electricity and a really good CPU.

I did come across a bunch of Reddit threads recommending ccminer for Linux over hellminer, claiming it gives ~20–30% better performance. That might have helped squeeze a bit more out of the Acer laptop.

We also ended up mining a handful of other coins, but nothing we earned was remotely worthwhile. To sum it up, if you want to mine crypto using an extra laptop, I wouldn’t really recommend it and you will probably end up losing money.

Conclusion

I had a fun time trying to mine VRSC and learned a lot about crypto mining. The learning experience alone made it worth my time. And I might even try getting some ASICs and experiment with mining Bitcoin next.

If you enjoyed this post, feel free to share it! It helps with SEO and lets others find what I’ve written. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out via email or message me on Discord.