RustChain Mining Guide

June 14, 2026 · View on GitHub

Overview

This guide will help you set up a RustChain miner to participate in the network and earn RTC rewards. RustChain uses Proof-of-Antiquity (PoA) consensus — rewards are based on hardware age, not computational power. Older machines earn higher multipliers.

New to RustChain? Read the Beginner Quickstart for a step-by-step walkthrough with every command explained.

How Proof-of-Antiquity Works

Unlike Proof-of-Work (where faster hardware wins), Proof-of-Antiquity rewards machines for surviving. Each unique hardware device gets exactly 1 vote per epoch, and rewards are split equally then multiplied by an antiquity multiplier based on hardware age.

Hardware Fingerprinting

Every miner must prove their hardware is real, not emulated. Six checks that VMs cannot fake:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ 1. Clock-Skew & Oscillator Drift  ← Silicon aging       │
│ 2. Cache Timing Fingerprint       ← L1/L2/L3 latency    │
│ 3. SIMD Unit Identity             ← AltiVec/SSE/NEON     │
│ 4. Thermal Drift Entropy          ← Heat curves unique   │
│ 5. Instruction Path Jitter        ← Microarch patterns   │
│ 6. Anti-Emulation Detection       ← Catches VMs/emus     │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

A VM pretending to be a G4 will fail. Real vintage silicon has unique aging patterns that cannot be spoofed.

Anti-VM Enforcement

VMs (VMware, VirtualBox, QEMU, WSL) are detected and receive 1 billionth of normal rewards. Real hardware only.

Hardware Multipliers

Hardware	Multiplier	Era
DEC VAX-11/780 (1977)	3.5x	MYTHIC
Acorn ARM2 (1987)	4.0x	MYTHIC
Motorola 68000 (1979)	3.0x	LEGENDARY
Sun SPARC (1987)	2.9x	LEGENDARY
PowerPC G4 (2003)	2.5x	ANCIENT
PowerPC G5	2.0x	ANCIENT
RISC-V (2014)	1.4x	EXOTIC
Apple Silicon M1-M4	1.2x	MODERN
Modern x86_64	0.8x	MODERN
Modern ARM NAS/SBC	0.0005x	PENALTY

1 RTC ≈ $0.15 USD · Every 10 minutes, 1.5 RTC is split among all active miners.

Hardware Requirements

Proof-of-Antiquity mining favors real, identifiable hardware age over raw speed. A miner only needs enough local resources to run the Python client, keep the hardware fingerprint checks stable, and reach the RustChain node.

Minimum requirements:

CPU: any real hardware supported by Python 3.8 or newer; no GPU is required.
Memory: enough RAM to create a Python virtual environment and run the miner process.
Storage: at least 50 MB of free disk space for the miner, virtual environment, logs, and updates.
Network: stable outbound HTTPS connectivity to https://rustchain.org for health checks, attestations, balance lookups, and explorer access.
Tools: curl or wget, plus a working Python 3.8+ interpreter. The installer can attempt Python setup on Linux.

Supported CPU families include Linux x86_64, ppc64le, aarch64, mips, sparc, m68k, riscv64, ia64, and s390x, plus macOS Intel, Apple Silicon, PowerPC, IBM POWER8, Windows, older Mac OS X, and Raspberry Pi systems. Modern ARM NAS or single-board systems can run the miner, but they receive the documented penalty multiplier.

For installation prerequisites, see INSTALL.md. For the full antiquity multiplier and architecture validation model, see CPU_ANTIQUITY_SYSTEM.md.

Installation

One-Line Install

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Scottcjn/Rustchain/main/install-miner.sh | bash

What this does:

Detects your OS and CPU architecture
Installs Python 3 if needed (Linux only)
Downloads the miner to ~/.rustchain/
Creates a Python virtual environment
Asks you to pick a wallet name
Sets up auto-start on boot
Tests the connection to the network

Install with a Specific Wallet Name

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Scottcjn/Rustchain/main/install-miner.sh | bash -s -- --wallet my-wallet

Dry Run (Preview Without Installing)

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Scottcjn/Rustchain/main/install-miner.sh | bash -s -- --dry-run

Supported Platforms

Linux (x86_64, ppc64le, aarch64, mips, sparc, m68k, riscv64, ia64, s390x), macOS (Intel, Apple Silicon, PowerPC), IBM POWER8, Windows, Mac OS X Tiger/Leopard, Raspberry Pi. If it runs Python, it can mine.

Verify the Install

ls ~/.rustchain/

You should see:

rustchain_miner.py      # The miner script
fingerprint_checks.py   # Hardware verification module
start.sh                # Quick-start script
venv/                   # Python virtual environment

Check the network is reachable:

curl -sk https://rustchain.org/health

Expected response:

{
  "ok": true,
  "version": "2.2.1-rip200",
  "uptime_s": 3966,
  "db_rw": true
}

Running the Miner

Auto-Start (Default)

The installer sets up auto-start. Check status:

Linux (systemd):

systemctl --user status rustchain-miner
journalctl --user -u rustchain-miner -f

macOS (launchd):

launchctl list | grep rustchain
tail -f ~/.rustchain/miner.log

Manual Start

~/.rustchain/start.sh

Or run the miner directly:

~/.rustchain/venv/bin/python ~/.rustchain/rustchain_miner.py --wallet YOUR_WALLET_NAME

What You Will See

When the miner starts, it runs 6 hardware fingerprint checks:

[1/6] Clock-Skew & Oscillator Drift... PASS
[2/6] Cache Timing Fingerprint... PASS
[3/6] SIMD Unit Identity... PASS
[4/6] Thermal Drift Entropy... PASS
[5/6] Instruction Path Jitter... PASS
[6/6] Anti-Emulation Checks... PASS

OVERALL RESULT: ALL CHECKS PASSED

Then it begins attesting to the network every few minutes:

[+] Attestation accepted. Next attestation in 300s.

Checking Your Balance

Rewards settle every 10 minutes (one epoch). After your first epoch:

curl -sk "https://rustchain.org/wallet/balance?miner_id=YOUR_WALLET_NAME"

Example:

curl -sk "https://rustchain.org/wallet/balance?miner_id=scott-laptop"

Response:

{
  "miner_id": "scott-laptop",
  "balance_rtc": 0.119051
}

View All Active Miners

curl -sk https://rustchain.org/api/miners

Check Mining Eligibility

curl -sk "https://rustchain.org/lottery/eligibility?miner_id=YOUR_WALLET_NAME"

Epoch Rewards

Epoch: 10 minutes  |  Pool: 1.5 RTC/epoch  |  Split by antiquity weight

G4 Mac (2.5x):     0.30 RTC  ████████████████████
G5 Mac (2.0x):     0.24 RTC  ████████████████
Modern PC (0.8x):  0.12 RTC  ████████

Over 24 hours (144 epochs), a G4 Mac earns roughly 43 RTC ($4.30) while a modern PC earns roughly 17 RTC ($1.70).

Troubleshooting

Miner Not Earning Rewards

Confirm your miner appears in the active list:
```
curl -sk https://rustchain.org/api/miners
```
Look for your wallet name in the output.

Confirm you are querying the right wallet:

curl -sk "https://rustchain.org/wallet/balance?miner_id=YOUR_EXACT_WALLET_NAME"

Wait for epoch settlement — rewards settle every 10 minutes. Wait at least 2-3 epochs (20-30 minutes).

Virtual Machines Get Almost No Rewards

This is by design. VMs are detected by the anti-emulation fingerprint check and receive roughly 1 billionth of normal rewards. Run the miner on bare metal, not inside a VM.

Python 3 Not Found

Linux: The installer tries to install Python automatically.
macOS: brew install python3 or download from https://python.org
Windows: Download from https://python.org/downloads and check "Add to PATH"

SSL Certificate Errors

Add -k to curl commands to accept the self-signed TLS certificate:

curl -sk https://rustchain.org/health

The miner script handles this automatically.

Uninstall

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Scottcjn/Rustchain/main/install-miner.sh | bash -s -- --uninstall

Security Considerations

Wallet Security

Write down your wallet name — this is how you receive RTC
Each hardware fingerprint is bound to one wallet
All transfers are cryptographically signed with Ed25519

Network Security

The node uses a self-signed TLS certificate (expected behavior)
Miners pin node certificates for additional security
Container detection catches Docker, LXC, K8s at attestation

Monitoring & Network Data

# Node health
curl -sk https://rustchain.org/health

# Current epoch
curl -sk https://rustchain.org/epoch

# Active miners
curl -sk https://rustchain.org/api/miners

# Connected nodes
curl -sk https://rustchain.org/api/nodes

# Block explorer (web UI)
open https://rustchain.org/explorer

Earning More with Bounties

Mining is passive income. For bigger payouts, contribute code:

https://github.com/Scottcjn/rustchain-bounties/issues

Tier	Reward	Examples
Micro	1-10 RTC	Typo fix, docs, test
Standard	20-50 RTC	Feature, refactor, integration
Major	75-100 RTC	Security fix, protocol improvement
Critical	100-200 RTC	Vulnerability discovery, consensus

Getting Help

Beginner Guide: QUICKSTART.md
API Reference: api-reference.md
FAQ & Troubleshooting: FAQ_TROUBLESHOOTING.md
GitHub Issues: https://github.com/Scottcjn/Rustchain/issues
Bounties: https://github.com/Scottcjn/rustchain-bounties/issues

Happy mining! 🚀