The Beginner’s Guide to Mining Dash

By: Ian MacPhee | Last updated: 5/1/20

Dash is an altcoin that focuses on privacy and instant sending (allowing confirmations to be done within a second). I’ve covered Dash and how to buy it in the past, today I would like to give you a detailed guide about how to mine it.

How to Mine Dash Summary

Unlike Bitcoin, which uses the SHA-256 algorithm for Bitcoin mining, Dash uses a different algorithm called X11. Here’s a quick guide to mine Dash with your an Antminer D3:

Step 1 – Hook up your Antminer D3

Step 2 – Configure your Antminer D3

Step 3 – Get a Dash wallet

Step 4 – Join a mining pool and start mining

I know it sounds overly simplified but there’s really not a lot more to it. If you want a more detailed explanation about Dash mining keep on reading, here what I’ll cover:

Don’t like to read? Watch the video version of this guide:

1. A word about ASIC Miners:

Mining is an expensive investment. It might take a long time to start making a profit over it, let alone get a return over its costs and expenses. Today, many coins are mined with ASIC miners.

ASIC stands for Application Specific Integrated Chip. It’s basically a computer that was designed solely to mine a certain algorithm. This makes it extremely efficient but only in this specific task.

Now, some people might ask: why not just buy the coins instead of the miner and make a profit over their price shifts? The simple answer is that ASIC miners have the potential to be quite profitable over time and they’ll continue to bring in more mined coins.

That said, ASIC miners typically have a relatively short life span. This is due to the impact that ASIC miners have on coins or algorithms after they’re released. Once released, their impact on the network is so significant that in a short while they cause mining difficulty to skyrocket, hence reducing dramatically the coins rewarded.

This impact is felt the most in a bear market when coin values fall and many folks can’t even afford to run their miner. On the other hand, this drop in profitability can still be offset when coins gain value, so the ASICs can help you earn more over time.

Bitmain’s Antminer D3

When the Antminer D3s were purchased in summer 2017, they were earning $150-170 PER DAY. I conservatively figured that they would drop by two-thirds (down to around $50 per day), which would still have been quite profitable. However I grossly underestimated the impact that these ASICs would have on Dash and other X11 coins.

By the time I received my D3, profitability was down to around $5 per day. That’s a pretty drastic decline from the allure of the purchase. Just some food for thought for anyone getting into mining, thinking this is an easy life…

2. Setting Up the Antminer D3

Step 1 – Unbox and hook everything up

All 10 PCI-e connections (3 on each hashing board, and one on the controller)

The Ethernet cable from the D3 to your router

The power cord

Once the power cord is in, the miner should power on automatically.

Step 2 – Your Antminer D3’s interface

Download the free Advanced IP Scanner tool. Install and run the tool Start scanning to detect devices on your network (Hit “Scan”) Once the scan is complete, look for “Antminer” and note the IP Address. (For example: IP – 192.68.0.8) If AntMiner is not found, stop the scan, turn off Windows Firewall and start the Advanced IP Scanner scan again. Once the Antminer’s IP is found, copy and paste it into your browser’s url bar Use “root” for both the username and password. If you had to turn off Windows Firewall in Step 5, turn it back on.

Here’s how the whole process should look:

3. Mining Dash and Additional X11 Altcoins

In this chapter I will show you how to join Multipool and mine X11 altcoins (such as Dash) directly.

Note: Before you proceed, make sure you have a wallet for the X11 coins you wish to mine. In this example I mined Dash, MUE and CANN

1. Register & login to Multipool

2. Go to Account > Your Balances.

3. Enter the wallet addresses for the Altcoins you mine.

4. Go to Account > Workers. Click “Add Worker,” and give your worker a name.

5. Click on “Home” and scroll down to find the server URL of the coin you want to mine. Copy the server URL:

6. Go back to your Antminer Miner Configuration page and paste the stratum URL+your worker name. The password should be “x.”

7. Hit “Save & Apply” in the bottom right-hand corner, and you’re off and mining your X11 Altcoins!

If you run into issues, watch the video at the beginning of this post

. I’ve broken it down into many steps above, but the entire process really only takes about 10 minutes.

4. Mining Bitcoins on Nicehash

Even though Antminer D3 mines the X11 algorithm, you can still use it to mine BTC. The reason you want to do that is that it makes more sense to mine BTC when it is going up, than mining altcoins directly.

Nicehash is a good mining pool that allows you to earn BTC indirectly by mining altcoins with your D3.

(A quick shout-out to GaryCutri for his Nicehash Setup guide on Steemit)

To join NiceHash with your Antminer D3:

Go to the NiceHash ASIC page In the “SELECT ALGORITHM” drop-down, choose “X11” Under “SELECT LOCATION,” choose your region or the closest one to you. Click the “Generate Stratum” button. The output url should look something like:

stratum+tcp://x11.<Your_region>.nicehash.com:3336 Copy the URL and paste it in your Antminer’s Miner Configuration tab. For WORKER, use the bitcoin address you want the BTC to be transferred to + any worker name with (.) between them. For Password put ‘x’ as in the example:

9. Hit “Save & Apply” in the bottom right-hand corner, and you’re off and mining BTC!

5. Frequently Asked Questions

Is Dash Mining Profitable?

Yes. With the right setup (i.e. low electricity costs and a cooled environment) you can be profitable mining Dash. However, calculating mining profitability should be done before spending any money. You can use our Dash mining calculator to get an idea about your chances of being profitable.

How can I Buy Dash?

If you wish to buy Dash instead of mining it here’s the fastest way to do it:

Get a Dash Wallet (Ledger Nano X, Edge) Find your Dash address Sign up to CEX.io Buy Dash via the brokerage service / trading platform Withdraw your Dash coins to your wallet.

For a more detailed description and additional buying options read my Dash buying guide.

5. Conclusion

That’s it for the beginner’s guide to mining with your Antminer D3.

As you can see, you can use your Antminer D3 to mine X11 algorithm coins, as well as BTC. If you run into any issues or have questions, please comment below or in the video comments, and I will try to help.

If you are interested in taking your crypto mining to the next level from here, sign up at Crypto Mining Academy. There, I will go into massive depth, and detail every step of mining in a comprehensive course.

Happy Mining!