Mintcoin: How to maximize the interest earned on your coins

If this is your first time hearing about Mintcoin, it’s the first coin to reward the holders of the coin large amounts of new coins simply by holding the coins they own in a wallet.

This method of delivering new coins is called proof-of-stake or PoS, as opposed to the more common method of mining with proof-of-work (PoW).  Peercoin was the first coin to bring proof-of-stake mining into the picture.  However, unlike Peercoin’s 1% annual increase in the form of PoS rewards, Mintcoin ups the ante with 20% rewards for the first year, and then a gradual yearly decrease of 5%. After the third year, the PoS interest remains at 5% for many years until all of the 70 billion coins are released.

The actual mechanism for earning these new coins requires one to hold the coins for 20 days in a wallet.  It’s important to keep the coins in a wallet rather than an online exchange or cold storage to receive new coins.  The steps below will provide a guide to setting up the Mintcoin wallet to gain the maximum number of coins as possible.  

Step 1. - Download the latest wallet from Mintcoin.cc

Step 2. Unzip and open mintcoin-qt.

Step 3. Click Settings -> Encrypt Wallet… Set a passphrase you will remember.  The wallet will close when this happens. Note that this step is optional, however if you don’t encrypt your wallet, your coins could be compromised if someone gains access to your wallet.dat file.

Step 4. Reopen mintcoin-qt and be sure to take a new backup of your wallet.dat file by clicking File -> Backup Wallet…

Step 5. Click the Unlock Wallet button.  Upon entering your passcode correctly, it will begin minting.   Note that it may take up to 30 seconds for the “Minting suspended” message to disappear.

Step 5. Sit back and wait for your coins to mint.  Note that when you send/receive your coins, some of those coins leaving your wallet and returning in the form of “change” will restart the 20 day clock.  In general, you should see your coins mint every 20 days at a rate of about 1.09%.

The example below is approximately what 250,000 coins would generate after the first 20 days.

For more information about Mintcoin, visit the coin’s subreddit or the official Mintcoin website.