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XMRig setup: mine Monero step by step

Practical guide · October 2026 · not financial advice. XMRig is the standard RandomX miner — free and open source.

1. Get a Monero address

   Create a wallet (Cake Wallet on mobile, Feather or the official GUI on desktop) and copy your primary address. Pool payouts go here.

2. Download XMRig from the official source

   Get the latest release from the xmrig/xmrig GitHub repository and verify the published hashes/signatures. Never download miners from random mirrors — fake "XMRig" builds with malware are common.

3. Point it at a pool

   Basic command (replace with your pool's real host/port from the pool comparison):

   xmrig -o pool.example.com:3333 -u YOUR_XMR_ADDRESS -p worker1

4. Let it run

   XMRig prints your hashrate in H/s. The first minutes are slow while RandomX builds its ~2–3 GB dataset. Payouts land in your wallet once you pass the pool's minimum.

Tuning and safety

• Threads: XMRig auto-configures; leave it unless you know your CPU topology.
• Heat: mining pins the CPU at 100%. Watch temperatures — desktops with decent cooling do far better than laptops.
• Antivirus: XMRig is often flagged because botnets abuse miners. The official build is clean; add an exclusion only after verifying the download yourself.
• Large pages: on Linux, enabling huge pages gives a small hashrate boost — XMRig's first-run wizard explains it.