How to install and run a Grin Node + Wallet

What’s Grin and MimbleWimble?

Grin checks all the boxes. Grin is a community-driven cryptocurrency that advocates for privacy, aims for scalability and stays decentralized. Resembling Bitcoin, Grin has an independent and active dev-community. Moreover, there will be no ICO or foundation tax, aiming to be a true decentralized cryptocurrency that’s not driven by the work of only one entity.

Grin was built based on the MimbleWimble protocol, a completely new blockchain protocol that will result in a paradigm shift. It’s a scalable blockchain due to its innovative design that reduces required data storage. In addition, privacy is built-in from the ground up.

Like Bitcoin, Grin uses classical Nakamoto consensus (Proof-of-Work) but with a completely different mining algorithm called Cuckoo Cycles which is known for being ASIC resistant as it’s memory intensive.

Learn more about Grin in our detailed Medium Article.

Requirements

• Linux (x86–64 only) or MacOS

Downloading the Binaries

You can find the latest release of the Grin binaries for Linux and MacOSX here.

Installing and building

After you download the latest release to your machine, execute a terminal command prompt and navigate to the download folder.

To ensure that Grin executable is available from wherever you run, save it in your home directory and edit the path environment.

You can achieve all of this by running the following commands:

tar xzf grin-v1.0.0-479973573-linux-amd64.tgz
mkdir ~/grin
cp grin ~/grin
echo export PATH=~/grin:$PATH >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Initiating Grin Node

Mainnet, run the following:

grin

Testnet, run the following:

grin --floonet

Grin Node

Your node should automatically start synchronizing the blockchain, shouldn’t take long since the blockchain is light due to the MimbleWimble protocol. Once the blockchain syncs, you should open a new terminal prompt to start the wallet.

Mainnet, run the following:

grin wallet init

Testnet, run the following:

grin --floonet wallet init

Grin Wallet Setup

Then you will be prompted to enter a password. This password is used to encrypt your seed file and you will be required to enter the password every time you want to use the wallet.

After you enter a password the seed file will be generated. Make sure to write down the 24 word recovery phrase somewhere safe. Don’t share it with anyone else, otherwise you can lose control of your funds.

Checking wallet balance

Run the following command to see your total, confirmed and locked balance:

grin wallet info

Transacting with Grin

1. Create the transaction file

In order to create a transaction file you will need to do the following:

grin wallet send -m file -d my_grin_transaction.tx 100

Then you will need to send the generated file to the desired recipient through your preferred medium like WhatsApp, Facebook, Email, etc.

2. Import the transaction file and create the response

The counter party of the transaction upon reception of the tx file needs to import it to his wallet with the following command:

grin wallet receive -i my_grin_transaction.tx

The wallet will generate the response with the following file name.

my_grin_transaction.tx.response

This file needs to be sent to the party that initiated the transaction in order for him to finalize it.

3. Finalize and broadcast the transaction

After receiving the processed file the sender needs to run the following command to finalize and broadcast the transaction to the network:

grin wallet finalize -i my_grin_transaction.tx.response

This command will broadcast the transaction and update the balances on both ends.

Do you want to start mining Grin?

It’s our humble opinion that Grin will set the foundation for a new wave of digital assets that will eventually become true digital cash. The dev-team places an emphasis on egalitarian mining and ASIC-resistance. That’s why we’re looking into making a pool for this new project. We want to offer our miners a wide range of high quality options to choose from.

You can find out detailed Setup Guide for GPU and CPU mining 👉 here. Follow us on our social media to get immediate updates!

Happy Hashing!

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