Category: Economy

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Can I earn money while using Ecosia?

Thomas wants to earn money while searching the net. He has heard about the project Presearch, a cryptocurrency based search engine which gives of its profit back to the users through the PRE token. Thomas likes the idea, but he really wants to use the Ecosia search machine in order to help grow trees worldwide, and thus be of help to the society and the climate all around the world.

Because of this, Thomas has wondered whether he should use Ecosia or Presearch. The latter is cooler because it will help him earn money, while Ecosia is much nicer as it will help plant trees in Africa (and maybe on the continent of Europe and elsewhere in the future). Thomas is insecure.

Thomas finds a way to combine Presearch with Ecosia

One day, Thomas feels like he has been very lucky. He has visited the Presearch website, signed up as a user, and now he earns PRE tokens whenever he searches the net. But, what makes this so great is that he has found a way to earn money with Presearch, while searching and planting trees with Ecosia. How is that possible? How is that done?

After signing up with Presearch, he installs the browser add-on to Firefox and now he gets started. He sees the start screen of Presearch which be default use Google as the search engine. But, instead of using Google, he clicks the settings button, clicks Providers, and now he searches for Ecosia. He then moves the Ecosia icon to the left of the menu, making it the default provider. When he returns to the Presearch start page, it looks like this.

Using Presearch and Ecosia at the same time!

Now Thomas is using Ecosia as the standard search engine with Presearch, and whenever a search is done in Presearch, he earns PRE tokens, and he also helps planting trees in needed areas.

Thomas is happy, and he feels like searching for all sorts of things, simply for the purpose of earning tokens and planting trees!

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How to mine LOKI? A guide for beginners!

Thomas has been mining all sorts of coins for the last year. He has mined Ethereum, Zencash, Ethereum Classic, and Monero. Now he wants to mine LOKI. But, how can he mine LOKI? 

Thomas has great faith in the future of cryptocurrencies, even though he believes most of them will turn useless, and only a few of them will survive. But, if he has some of those lasting cryptocurrencies in his crypto wallet, he might become a rich man sometime. He also likes supporting the technology with his mining-rig, and now he wants to use it to mine LOKI-coin, a coin very similar to Monero.

If you want to watch his explainer video about how to mine LOKI, check the video beneath.

Thomas wants to mine LOKI!

First of all, Thomas has to download an actual miner to his computer. For the purpose of mining LOKI, Thomas downloads the XMR-STAK miner (he used this earlier as he mined Monero as well). Once the download is complete, he unpacks the download file unto a folder on his computer.

Secondly, Thomas has to generate a LOKI wallet. He visits the LOKI Wallet Generator, and generates a brand new wallet. He carefully copies/saves/writes down the private key of the wallet, his public address, and the other data. He will need the wallet address as he sets up the miner later.

Third, Thomas has to find a good mining-pool he can join. He doesn’t look around for a long time before he discovers the Cryptoknight mining pool. They have a nice website with good statistics, so he goes with this.

Thomas is ready to set up the LOKI Windows miner

Now it is time to set up the miner. He goes to the folder in which the XMR-STAK miner can be found. He clicks the XMR-STAK.exe file and the setup process starts.

Firs the sets the port to 7731
Firs the sets the port to 7731

At first, he is asked if he wants to use the HTTP interface. He doesn’t care about this, but instead, he adds the port number that the miner should listen on, which is 7731.

After this, he has to give the name of the currency he wants to mine. This confuses Thomas because he cannot find LOKI anywhere on the list. The right answer to this question is, however, cryptonight_heavy

Mine LOKI in Windows
Mine LOKI in Windows – select cryptonight_heavy as coin

Now there will come several other questions after one another, and the first is about the pool address. Since he chose the cryptoknight pool, he adds the following address: loki.ingest.cryptoknight.cc:7731.

Following this, he needs to add his LOKI wallet address. Thomas adds the wallet address that he got from the wallet generator.

Options as you set up the LOKI mining rig with XMR STAK in Windows
Options as you set up the LOKI mining rig with XMR STAK in Windows

There is no password to set up, so he only types an X to the next question. After this, he is asked for a name for his rig. This isn’t needed, but Thomas decides to call it thomasstories.

There are three more questions fired at Thomas, but he answers n (NO) to all of those. The questions asked were:

  • Does this pool support TLS/SSL?
  • Do you want to use nicehash on this pool?
  • Do you want to use multiple pools?

Once Thomas has answered with an N to these questions the miner starts, and he is soon starting to see reports of his activity.

Thomas is mining LOKI coin
Thomas is mining LOKI coin

This is what it looks like as Thomas is mining LOKI on his mining-rig. He is happy about succeeding. By entering his wallet address to the website of the pool he can follow his earning minute by minute and also see reports about payouts.

Have you gotten your LOKI mining-rig started? Thomas wishes you all the best and hopes these instructions will help you out!

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How to turn off CPU-mining with XMR-Stak?

Thomas has been mining some Monero and Loki coins using the mining software XMR-Stak. He likes using this, and he likes having a mining machine in his room heating it up throughout the winter.

But, he also uses the mining computer for other purposes, for example as a server for the rest of his house. It has some big hard-drives on it, and these are running all day and night.

Yesterday, as Thomas checked up on the mining activity, he noticed that XMR-Stak is actually using CPU power as well do mine even more efficiently. That is nice, but Thomas doesn’t want XMR-Stak to mine using his CPU, as he wants all CPU power to be used for the server job and other things that might happen.

This is how to turn off CPU-mining with XMR-Stak in Windows

To turn off CPU mining in Windows with XMR-Stak, Thomas first opens the directory in which the miner is located. He then right-clicks the XMR-Stak.exe file and clicks “Create Shortcut.”

Right click the XMR-Stak file and click Create Shortcut
Right-click the XMR-Stak file and click Create Shortcut

When this is done, a new window is opened in which Thomas can create a shortcut. He then goes to the “Target” and adds the following text to the end: –noCPU

Thomas has to modify the target to turn off CPU mining with XMR-Stak in Windows
Thomas has to modify the target to turn off CPU mining with XMR-Stak in Windows

That is what the target line looks like for Thomas after modifying it and telling it not to mine using the CPU in Windows.

He then clicks the OK button, and next time he wants to start the miner, he simply clicks the shortcut file. XMR-Stak will then start mining, without using the CPU miner.

Thomas is really happy about this. The only thing he wants now is for the prices of Loki and Monero to moon, and he will be a rich guy!

Want to read more interesting articles from Thomas? Make sure to follow him on Steemit, on Facebook, on Medium, on Twitter, on YouTube, and do not forget to visit www.thethomasstories.com.

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How to delete wallets inside Ethos Universal Wallet?

Thomas has been using Ethos Universal Wallet for a while. He enjoys the application, and now he has received his first cryptocurrencies as a part of the airdrop for those pre-registered for the wallet.

But, Thomas has a little problem. After installing Ethos Universal Wallet, he created lots of WatchFolio’s for fun, just to check it out. Now he is a little bit annoyed by all those WatchFolio’s existing inside his Universal Wallet with no purpose and all, and he really wants to get rid of them. The only problem is that he doesn’t find any way to do it.

Thomas wants to delete unnecessary wallets in the application, to easier see the things he are really interested in!
Thomas wants to delete unnecessary wallets in the application (Ethos Universal Wallet), to easier see the things he is really interested in!

The application seems to be a bit slow, especially upon loading it for the first time, but that is probably because the application loads information about the value of all the different cryptocurrencies as you load the application. He can understand that, and after some seconds, things start running smoother. But, why create an extra heavy load on the application by having unnecessary wallets created?

Thomas is about to open Google to ask the question: “How can I remove wallets from Ethos Universal Wallet?” Before he takes the step, he tries one last thing, which in fact is the solution to his problem.

This is how Thomas removed unnecessary wallets from Ethos Universal Wallet

To remove those unnecessary wallets inside the Ethos Universal Wallet, Thomas clicks the “Settings” option inside the application on his Android device.

There he selects “My Wallets“, and he sees an overview of all the different wallets he has created. Now he can simply click the name of the wallets he wants to delete and choose to remove/delete it.

Now Thomas has removed those unnecessary wallets, and it is much easier to keep an eye on the things and wallets that actually interest him. And with all those airdrops coming in daily to Ethos Universal Wallet holders, he is frequently visiting the wallet to see what’s flying in!

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Thomas wants to buy Bitcoin!

Thomas isn’t that much of a tech-geek, but he likes to read the news. Recently he has read a lot about Bitcoin, and how it is the currency of the future. He isn’t so convinced about that, but if it turns true, he doesn’t want to stand on the sideline watching.

Thomas has some money set aside for investments. This is money that he can afford to lose, but of course, he hopes it will get more, not less. He has recently read about lots of cryptocurrency exchanges, but they all seem complicated, and they all require you to own Bitcoin before starting. Thomas doesn’t have any Bitcoin, making it impossible for him to trade on such exchanges. Isn’t there a simple way in which he can just go and buy some Bitcoin?

How to buy Bitcoin
Thomas wants to buy his first Bitcoin – Source: Pixabay

An easy way to buy Bitcoin?

Thomas looks for information online, and there are two websites he can read about that seems promising. The first one is eToro. But, he quickly closes his eToro browser window as he discovers that you do not actually own the Bitcoin you buy there, you only trade with the value of Bitcoin.

Then Thomas surfs to the Coinbase website. This is a very user-friendly website, and Thomas likes the design. It is different than the complicated exchange sites. He needs to register and confirm his identity, but once this is all done, he is ready to buy his first Bitcoin.

Thomas likes the fact that he can buy Bitcoin using his VISA/MasterCard and get it all arranged at once. He cannot buy an entire Bitcoin as CoinBase has limitations for purchases with VISA/MasterCard on new accounts, but he can at least buy a little bit.

A few days later he is happy that he didn’t buy more because he discovered that using a bank transfer to CoinBase he can buy with a much lower commission, and he can actually buy an entire Bitcoin. He transfers some money from his bank account to CoinBase, and two days later the money has arrived and he is the happy owner of one Bitcoin. And, since he transferred more money than he needed to buy a Bitcoin, he also bought one Litecoin and one Ethereum.

Now Thomas sits back in his chair, relaxing, and hoping for the Bitcoin price to moon!

 

Thomas has bought his first Bitcoin
Thomas is ready for the future, he now owns a Bitcoin. Source: Unsplash

Thomas how-to-buy Bitcoin instructions video: