For people like me — an absolute noob, with a little help from Docker
Before we get into all the “technical” stuff, a little bit about myself: I’m a tech startup person with a finance / marketing background, I’ve been bullish on DeFi since early 2019, and I’m a proud yield farmer. So, you can tell that I’m NOT tech-savvy and I know ZERO coding stuff.
But why on the earth do I still want to go through all the troubles to set up and run a miner on Stacks 2.0 testnet? Because of my curiosity — what happens if we bring DeFi to the Bitcoin ecosystem? And I believe Stacks 2.0 will be the next DeFi powerhouse, and most importantly, the whole process of setting up a node on Stacks testnet and running a miner, turned out not to be very complicated as I thought.
If you’re naturally curious and not very tech-savvy, but you want to join the DeFi on Bitcoin movement before everyone else does, and earn STX rewards, please keep reading 🙂
Hopefully, after reading this guide, you’ll be able to:
– Run your testnode on the Stacks 2.0 blockchain
– Set up and run a miner on the Stacks 2.0
My Computer Setup
MacBook Air with macOS Catalina, really basic one, nothing fancy.
Running a Testnode
Step 1: Download and Install Docker
Go to Docker and install Docker on your Mac. It’s free, if you have a privacy setting as I do, make sure to manually change Docker as a trusted software so it can run on your Mac.
Step 2: Open Terminal
Open the /Applications/Utilities folder on your Mac, type in a search to find the Terminal then double-click it.
Type the command as below — copy those commands and paste in Terminal and press Enter:
docker run -d \
--name stacks_follower \
--rm \
-e RUST_BACKTRACE="full" \
-e BLOCKSTACK_DEBUG="1" \
-p 20443:20443 \
-p 20444:20444 \
blockstack/stacks-blockchain:latest \
/bin/stacks-node krypton
The installations will process automatically, and once complete you will see a blank command shows up. And then, type command:
docker logs -f stacks_follower
You can see this in Docker:
Looks like the node connects to the Stacks 2.0 testnet now.
Mining Stacks Token on the Testnet
Step 1: Generate keychain
Type:
docker run -i node:14-alpine npx @stacks/cli make_keychain -t 2>/dev/null
and press Enter
Then type:
'replace with btcAddress property from your keychain
curl -XPOST "https://stacks-node-api.blockstack.org/extended/v1/faucets/btc?address=" | json_pp'
and press Enter.
Step 2: Create a config file directory
Type:
mkdir -p $HOME/stacks
and press Enter
After it’s complete and you see the blank command, type:
[node]
working_dir = "/root/stacks-node/current"
rpc_bind = "0.0.0.0:20443"
p2p_bind = "0.0.0.0:20444"'
Enter your private key here!
seed = "replace-with-your-privateKey-from-generate-keychain-step"
miner = true
[burnchain]
chain = "bitcoin"
mode = "krypton"
peer_host = "bitcoind.krypton.blockstack.org"
process_exit_at_block_height = 5340
burnchain_op_tx_fee = 5500
commit_anchor_block_within = 10000
rpc_port = 18443
peer_port = 18444
[[mstx_balance]]
address = "STB44HYPYAT2BB2QE513NSP81HTMYWBJP02HPGK6"
amount = 10000000000000000
[[mstx_balance]]
address = "ST11NJTTKGVT6D1HY4NJRVQWMQM7TVAR091EJ8P2Y"
amount = 10000000000000000
[[mstx_balance]]
address = "ST1HB1T8WRNBYB0Y3T7WXZS38NKKPTBR3EG9EPJKR"
amount = 10000000000000000
[[mstx_balance]]
address = "STRYYQQ9M8KAF4NS7WNZQYY59X93XEKR31JP64CP"
amount = 10000000000000000`
And press Enter
Step 3: Run the miner
Type:
docker run -d \`
--name stacks_miner \
--rm \
-e RUST_BACKTRACE="full" \
-e BLOCKSTACK_DEBUG="1" \
-v "$HOME/stacks/Config.toml:/src/stacks-node/Config.toml" \
-p 20443:20443 \
-p 20444:20444 \
blockstack/stacks-blockchain:latest \
/bin/stacks-node start --config /src/stacks-node/Config.toml
And press Enter.
You will see this “crazy stuff” popping up but don’t panic, it means things are up and running!
Anyway, that’s all I did. I followed the original guide here. Blockstack does recommend a few different ways via Rust and Virtual Machine (Oracle VirtualBox) to help you run a miner on Stacks 2.0 other than Docker.
Also, you can download the pre-made binaries (node) here. Unfortunately, only Docker works on my end. I will ask the community to help me look into it and hopefully, I can set up STX mining before Stacks 2.0 mainnet goes live. If you made it to the end on Rust or VM, please share your tutorial with me!
Top comments (3)
Hey, I keep getting this error:
WARNING: The requested image's platform (linux/amd64) does not match the detected host platform (linux/arm64/v8) and no specific platform was requested
what does this mean and what can I do to fix it?
How bout using it on windows ?
Does this require running the full Bitcoin Core blockchain as a pre requsite?