How to Sell Mined Crypto Coins for USD (with Cryptsy and Coinbase)

The information in this guide is current as of December 27, 2013.  I will continue to update this post as needed so the information stays current.

A lot of payment providers used by the online coin exchanges do not allow funds transfer in USD.  The coin market is still new enough that there's limited straight forward information out there about how to cash out of your coins for residents of the USA.  This tutorial will focus on cashing out Bitcoins and other coins into USD.

About Cryptsy and Coinbase:  Cryptsy opened in May 2013 in Delray Beach, FL, has 18,000 registered users and executes over 60k trades per day.  Coinbase opened in June 2012 in San Francisco, CA and currently services over 700k clients to convert Bitcoins to USD or vice versa.

Step 1:  Open a Cryptsy Account

The first step to cashing out is to create a Cryptsy account.  Here is the link for opening an account on Cryptsy:  http://www.cryptsy.com .  A Cryptsy account will allow you to trade your coins for Bitcoins which is the first step of cashing out any coins you mine.

Cryptsy.com Information:

New User Registration:  http://www.cryptsy.com

List of Currencies on Cryptsy: Cryptsy Currency Spreadsheet
Trade Fee:  0.2% to Buy  // 0.3% to Sell
Withdrawal Fee:  You have to pay the standard transfer fee already charged by your wallet, none extra.

Once you've created your Cryptsy account, you'll need to click on the "Balances" page to deposit funds from your coin Wallet.  Find your coin in the list, and click the button next to it "[Coin] Actions".  In this example we'll use ALF - AlphaCoin.  Under ALF Actions, click "Deposit/Autosell ALF".  We're only going to deposit, not autosell.

After you've clicked on "Deposit/Autosell" a pop-up will appear.  Click "Generate New Deposit Address", and the copy the new address to your clipboard.

Next, open your wallet and send funds to your newly created Cryptsy deposit address.  Depending on the coin, deposits can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.  Plan accordingly and do not get upset if they take a little while.  You will at least see the deposit pending at the bottom of the screen until you have received the required number of transfer confirmations.  Tranferring funds in to take advantage of a high price for your coin is not the optimal way to sell.  It might take too long and you could miss out on the good rate.  Instead, make a habit of transferring funds in little by little as you mine them.  Then when you want to sell, you can immediately sell.

If you have any problems you can open a Cryptsy support ticket.  The link is always on the left of your screen.

Ok, now you have coins deposited in your Cryptsy account.  Next you need to exchange those coins for either Litecoins or Bitcoins.  We're trying to get all of our coins converted to Bitcoins for the final step.  If your coin is not traded against bitcoins, you will need to buy Litecoins first, then sell the Litecoins for Bitcoins.  For our example, AlphaCoins trade directly against Bitcoins.  So we will sell our AlphaCoins for Bitcoins.  On the left hand side of your screen, under "BTC Markets", click "ALF/BTC".

(If your coin only trades against Litecoin (LTC), you will have to go to "LTC Markets" instead.)

This is where you sell your coins for Bitcoins.  On the sell side (right side of your screen), enter the amount of ALF you would like to sell, or click on your "ALF Available" at the bottom to sell it all.  When you get more comfortable with the market and prices of your coin, you can choose which price to sell at using the "Price Per ALF".  We will not go into price fluctuations in this tutorial, just a simple sell at the going market rate.  Enter the amount to sell and click "Submit Sell Order".  If you sold at the default rate, your order should go through right away.  If there are not enough people selling at your price, you may end up selling some and an open market order will appear under "Your Open Orders" to let everyone know you want to sell more.  Buyers can then buy directly from your order.

If you had to buy Litecoin first (LTC), you can now go to the BTC Markets, click on LTC/BTC, and sell your Litecoins for Bitcoins.

You now have Bitcoins in your Cryptsy account!

Your next step is to open your Bitcoin wallet (or download a bitcoin wallet) and transfer your new Bitcoins back to your computer.  You can do this exactly how you deposited to Cryptsy (on the balances page), but instead of Deposit you will select Withdraw.  You will need to send your Bitcoins to your Bitcoin wallet address.  Withdrawals from Cryptsy can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, depending upon how busy the site is and the number of confirmations required.  Once you submit a withdrawal request, you will have to open your email and CONFIRM the withdrawal or it will not take place.  This is to protect you against hackers.  Your Bitcoins should now be safe and sound in your Wallet.

Step 2:  Open a Coinbase Account

Coinbase is a service based in the US that allows you to sell your Bitcoins and deposit USD into your checking account.  Personally I would not trust Paypal as they have a history of freezing funds for any reason they feel like and hold them, possibly for months.  So far I have found Coinbase to be your best bet for low rates and reliable transfers of Bitcoin to USD.

Create a Coinbase account here:  http://www.coinbase.com

Once you have opened your Coinbase account, you will need to verify your information before you can transfer USD.

- Click on "Buy/Sell" on the left side of your screen.
- Click "View Limits" on the next screen.

We're going to complete level 1 verification in order to be able to sell up to 50 Bitcoins per day.  Plenty for your average miner.  Click on each item you need to verify for level 1 and follow the instructions to verify your:  Email address, Phone number, and Bank account information.

Step 3:  Turn Your Bitcoins into USD

Once you have completed verification in the previous step, you can sell your Bitcoins and have USD sent to your bank account.

In Coinbase, click on "Send/Request" in the left side menu.

On the Send/Request screen, click on "Request Money".

-  Leave the "From" field blank.  This will generate a QR code and a wallet address to send your Bitcoin to.
-  Enter the amount of Bitcoins you would like to transfer in.
-  Copy the code and open your Bitcoin Wallet.
-  Send the Bitcoins from your wallet to your Coinbase account.

Your transfer will show on the Send/Request page of Coinbase, and will change to Complete once the transfer is confirmed on the Bitcoin network.

Once your bitcoins are in your Coinbase account, you may now sell Bitcoins for USD.  From the left menu, go to Buy/Sell.  Click on "Sell Bitcoin".  Next enter the amount of Bitcoins to sell, select your bank account,  and press "Sell Bitcoins".  That's it, sold!  My experience has been deposits take 2 business days (excluding weekends and holidays).

If you found this information useful, I graciously accept tips in Litecoin and Bitcoin.  Your support will help grow my mining rig while providing me with more topics to write about.

Bitcoin:  12YzcMGTULhAKLsWp85zURyEFNv1vk7S6H

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GPU Mining with the Radeon R9 290X - How to Get 930 Kh/s at ~82 Deg C (Litecoin and Other Altcoins)

THIS GUIDE IS NOW OUT OF DATE.  Please see the new guide HERE.
This guide will focus on how to fine tune the settings on your Radeon R9 290X to achieve 930 Kh/s.This guide contains everything I've learned while testing get the most of my R9 290X. I have not yet tested how much energy this setup uses, but I plan to get a kill-a-watt in the near future and I'll report back.  This guide focuses solely on performance.  First of all, here are the system specs I used during my testing:

XFX Radeon R9 290X - 4GB - Fan Cooled (important: computer case left open for airflow)
16GB System Ram
Windows 8.0
850W Power Supply

Programs You Will Need

CGMiner 3.7.2 - http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/3.7/  (be sure to get 3.7.2)
CGWatcher 1.3.3.2 - http://manotechnology.blogspot.com/p/cgwatcher.html (bottom of page)
MSI Afterburner 3.0.0 Beta 17 - http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm (must be BETA)
AMD Catalyst Control Center 13.11 - http://support.amd.com/en-us/download

-In order to achieve best results, you'll need to download the exact versions listed above.

Installing Your Drivers/Catalyst Control Center

I won't go into detail here.  This should be done as soon as you installed your R9 290X graphics card.  If you do not have Catalyst 13.11, use the link above to download that version.

The Perfect Overclock Settings with MSI Afterburner BETA

Make sure you download the MSI Afterburner 3.0.0 BETA 17.  I had big problems with my R9 290X using any version but the BETA.  Without the BETA version, I was not able to overclock my 290X's memory without crashing my system.

Afterburner Settings:

Once you've installed MSI Afterburner Beta which you just downloaded, use the following MSI settings to achieve maximum performance.  Be sure to set the drop-down box near the bottom to "without PowerPlay support".  Also, check "Start with Windows" and "Start minimized" if you would like these settings to take place automatically when you restart your system.

Next, set your Fan setting on the Fan tab.  This will stabilize your card around 81-83 degrees Celsius.  Your hash-rate will fall if you get much hotter than 89 C (even though the card is rated for 95C, that does not give the best performance).

NOTE:  In order to achieve 81-83 Deg C, you must remove the side of your tower case unless you have excellent airflow.  Otherwise you will be around 89 Deg C.  Even at 89 C this card will still produce 930 Kh/s.  We're trying for 81-83 for longevity since it will most likely be running 24/7.  You can experiment with your tower case open and closed to find the best setup for your tower's airflow.

Here are the points you need to set:

Up to 30 C, 40% fan speed

At 50 C, 50 % fan speed

At 80 C, 70% fan speed

At 90 C, 100% fan speed

Check "Enable user defined software automatic fan control"

Fan speed update period = 5000

Temperature hysteresis = 3

Now let's take a look at the main settings for overclocking your R9 290X:

Again, you must use the BETA version of MSI Afterburner or you may experience BSOD or black screen crashes while overclocking your memory!

-We will not change the core voltage in this tutorial.

-Power limit = +20

-Core Clock = 1025

-Memory Clock = 1500

-Fan speed = Check "Auto" button and press "User Define" to apply the fan curve we set during the last step.  If you pressed "User Define" correctly, the Fan Speed box will now be highlighted in Green as seen in the picture below.

-At the very bottom of the MSI application, make sure "Apply overclocking at system start-up" is activated.

Now, restart your system and ensure MSI Afterburner starts up and immediately overclocks your card.  You should see your screen flash a couple times while the overclock settings are applied.  

Setting up CGMiner

This step is straight forward.  Download CGMiner 3.7.2 from the link at the top of this post and unzip to any location on your hard drive. Remember where you put this folder.  You will need to tell CGWatcher where to find it.

Setting up CGWatcher

Here we'll tweak the final settings and begin mining.  Download CGWatcher from the link at the top of this post.  The download link is near the bottom of CGWatcher's page. Extract CGWatcher to any location on your hard drive similar to how you extracted CGMiner.  Create a shortcut on your desktop to CGWatcher.exe. Now go ahead and start CGWatcher.  If you get any API connection errors you will need to run CGWatcher as administrator(Right click the CGWatcher icon->select "properties"->go to compatibility tab->check "Run this program as an administrator"->select "OK")

CGWatcher Settings

Click on the "Settings" tab in CGWatcher.  Click on "Manage Profiles".

Once in the Profile Manager, click "New".  Make a name for your profile.  For example, "Solo", or "LTC Pool 1".  For the "Miner Path" field, click the 3 dots "..." and select the file cgminer.exe where you extracted your CGMiner files.  

Next, copy and paste the following text into "Miner Arguments".  Replace all characters in red with your solo or mining pool information.  If you prefer to use a .conf file, use the values below while creating it.

--scrypt -o <SOLO ADDRESS OR POOL ADDRESS> -O <YOUR USERNAME>:<YOUR PASSWORD> --gpu-platform 0 --worksize 256 --vectors 1 --intensity 20 --gpu-threads 1 --log 3 --thread-concurrency 33792 --lookup-gap 2 --api-port 4028 --expiry 120 --queue 1 --scan-time 60 --temp-hysteresis 3 --temp-cutoff 99 --temp-overheat 95 --temp-target 90 --gpu-powertune 20

A Note About Expiry, Queue, and Scan Time Settings

The default settings for expiry, queue, and scan time provided above are fine for pool mining or solo mining up to about 1.5 difficulty level.

If you're solo mining, depending on the difficulty level, you may want to adjust Expiry, Queue, and Scan Time settings.  For example, if I'm solo mining at difficulty 0.25 for a coin that generates a target 1 block per 20 seconds, I would set my scan time to 1, queue to 0, and expiry to 23.  This means CGMiner will scan data every 1 second, I would have no new work queued up so my system would have to grab fresh data as soon as it's needed, and all work would expire after 23 seconds (since there should be a new block every 20 seconds in theory).  The end result of this tweaking would reduce the number of rejected blocks found while solo mining.  In my experience, it reduced my solo rejects from ~20% down to ~14% on low difficulty coins.

Final Steps

Once you have entered all the miner arguments, click "Save", then "Close".

Back on the Settings tab once you've saved your new profile, select your new profile from the drop-down box and click "Save Settings".  Your profile is not active until you have selected it and clicked on "Save Settings".

Now, open a command prompt.  For up to Windows 7, Start-> Run->Cmd.  For Windows 8, right click in the lower left of your screen (where the start button used to be), click run, and type "cmd" and ok.  Next, type the following commands, one at a time, and press enter after each.  You should see a success message after each one:

setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100

Your settings are now complete.  Open up your wallet in server mode if you're solo mining and click the "Start Mining" button or if you're pool mining just click the "Start Mining" button.

Here's a look at my CGWatcher screen after I've been mining for almost 2 days straight(click to enlarge):

If you found this information useful, I graciously accept tips in Litecoin and Bitcoin.  Your support will help grow my mining rig while providing me with more topics to write about.

Bitcoin:  12YzcMGTULhAKLsWp85zURyEFNv1vk7S6H
Dogecoin:  DKaBTuog675uK7w8Wqme53NNEWMrHZV9ES

About this Blog

Welcome to The Crypto Maniac.  I will be posting about anything Crypto Currency related including tips and tricks for mining, crypto exchanges, and other hot topics.