I really appreciate it.
Thanks again.
Step 1 - Install the wallet
1. Download wallet at this link as per the OP
https://mega.co.nz/#!c8YijQSY!8yNURZtHvEfDVPFYuMcfcgnzqJ0K7ESi9S6h1HRTSwg2. Bypass all warnings from your anti-virus and force the file to be downloaded and extracted. If Google Chrome moans use Windows Explorer. Actually, if you are concerned you can upload the file first to
www.virustotal.com to have it analysed for viruses.
3. Extract the file in your download directory to the suggested directory ...\downloads\MasterTrader-qt-win
4. Execute the file called MasterTrader-qt.exe in the directory where it was extracted. A wallet will come up with possibly some error messages. Just close the wallet once it has opened and open it again.
5. In the case of MasterTrader the nodes are picked up by the wallet and you do not have to specify anything in a .conf file.
Step 2 - Download the blockchain
1. The opened wallet will connect to the network. You will see a message that the wallet is out of sync and it will start downloading and processing the blockchain. Blocks are records of transactions (coins sent from one address to another) that have been verified by the network. You can consider it a public ledger of a bunch of transactions. As the wallet processes the blocks and follow the trail of the money, you will see the number of blocks increasing up to the current block. This process can take 30min to 1 hour depending on how many transactions are in the blocks so far in the coin's life. (The proper Bitcoin wallet can take a week to download and process all the blocks). To watch the process you can select Help at the top, then Debug Window and then Information. The current block count is in the middle of the window. The blocks will increase as the wallet downloads and processes the blocks until it is current. Once the wallet gets to this point, you will see a "correct mark" at the bottom right of the wallet. If you hover over this with your mouse, you will get a popup that the wallet is up to date.
Step 3 - Backup and protect your wallet file
1. The most important file of everything of a coin is the wallet.dat file. Your private keys are stored in this file and is necessary to be able to access coins linked to your public address. If you lose this file all your coins are gone. The wallet.dat file on a Windows machine is in c:\users\yourusername\appdata\roaming\mastertrader
2. Insert a USB stick into your PC and create a directory called MasterTrader. Go to the directory where your wallet.dat file is and copy the file called wallet.dat to the memory stick into the MasterTrader directory. Rename the file wallet.dat.old
3. Go to your wallet and select Settings at the top and select encrypt. It will ask you for a password that you have to enter twice. Select a difficult password and write it down somewhere safe and remember it. The wallet will close and then open it again. Now your wallet file is encrypted and money cannot be stolen from it without knowing the password.
4. Go back to where your wallet.dat file is and copy the file again to your memory stick. You must now store the memory stick in a safe place like a physical safe. If something ever happens to your wallet file, you can use the backup one. If you want to be extra security, you can encrypt the USB stick with BitLocker and remember the password.
Step 4 - Setup your address for payment and receipt of coins
1. Assuming you have some coins on an exchange, go to the exchange to your MTR balance and select withdraw. Go to your wallet and select the receive coins on the left. Right click and copy the address. Go to the exchange and enter that address in the withdraw address block. Enter just 1 coin in the amount for now. Select withdraw. A popup will come up with the transaction about to happen. Enter your 2FA if it was setup and let it withdraw. Some exchanges also requires a confirmation by clicking on a link in an email.
2. Now you wait and watch your wallet until a popup comes up bottom right that 1 coin has been received. Once this happens, go back to the exchange and withdraw the rest of the balance.
3. If all went well your coins will now be in your wallet on your PC.
4. Go back to the exchange to your MTR balance. Generate an MTR address. Right click and copy that. Go back to your wallet and select Address Book on the left. Create a new address and paste the exchange address there and call it the exchange name.
5. Select "send coins" on the left of your wallet and select the exchange that you just created. This is needed so that you don't have to manually enter the address every time. This is one of the the biggest risks in crypto to send coins to an incorrect address as they will be gone then forever. I wish exchanges would create a facility to traders to create address books on the exchange. Enter 1 coin again and select send. You have to enter your password and agree to the small transaction fee. Watch the exchange to make sure that the 1 coin appears there after a while. You now know that you have a proper two way channel between your wallet and exchange.
Step 5 - Setup your wallet for staking
1. Go back to your wallet. The message at the bottom of the wallet to the left of the up arrow will say "Your wallet is encrypted and currently locked". Next to it will be an up arrow and a message if you hover over it that your wallet is not staking because your wallet is locked (encrypted)
2. Go to the top of your wallet and select Help and then Debug window and then console. In the bottom bar type the following command:
"walletpassphrase yourwalletpassword 99999999 true" if successful you will see this command in green in the console. Now click the little "-" sign to the right of that bar so that it clears the screen. Close the console window.
3. If you hover over area just to the left of the little up arrow it will say "Your wallet is encrypted and currently unlocked"
4. If you hover over the little up arrow at the bottom you see a message "Your wallet is not staking because you do not have mature coins". After 3 hours or so this message will disappear and your coins while be staking. After several stakes you will get to a point where your stake become very small. Once this happens, move your coins to another address (I use another wallet on another PC) and then move it back so that your coin age can reset. Your coins will mature again for 3 hours after which it will start staking again.
Step 6 - General pointers
1. Every time you send money from your wallet somewhere else, your wallet will lock up again. You then have to go back to the console and enter the walletpassphrase like above to unlock it for staking.
2. Every time you hit a stake (verify a block of transactions) also called solve a block, your balance of coins will reduce and move to a different line. For a while it might also disappear until the required number of confirmations have occurred. You can watch the progress in the transactions tab at the top of your wallet. Once the required confirmations have happened, the coins become available again in your wallet and the coins that staked are reset and have to mature for an hour again before they can become eligible for staking again.
3. Sometimes you will see a message popup that you have received a stake amount of coins, but if you go to the transactions tab it is grey with a question mark next to it. This means that your wallet thought it solved the block but actually someone else did so just before you and the network rejected your claim. It is called an orphan block. Ignore those but feel sad for a moment that you did not get those coins.
4. It is possible to create more receiving addresses in your wallet for in case you want to use a unique address for each time you receive money from someone or some place. Every time you add a new receiving address, you have to fetch your USB stick from the safe, rename the wallet.dat file there to wallet.dat.old2,3,4 etc. and copy the new wallet.dat to the USB stick. The only drawback is that if you ever forget your wallet password, all later wallet.dat files will be encrypted and the first unencrypted one will only have your first address in it. You can therefore consider creating 50 or so addresses before you encrypt the wallet.dat file, if you foresee using unique addresses a lot.
The .conf file
This is a file where you can specify parameters that the wallet .exe file can understand when you execute it. You can either run the wallet in the command line and specify the parameters behind the .exe, or you can list them in a .conf file that the wallet reads when it starts. The typical entries for a .conf file are:
- Setting a daemon and server for solo mining
- Adding nodes for when the wallet does not have them coded into the wallet through either hard codes or DNS seeders
- Adding IP addresses of your miners that will connect to your PC with the wallet on
- Setting up the parameters of the remote procedure calls to enable another computer (miner) to remotely connect top your computer over your network
- Since MTR POW ends tonight there will be no more solo mining and the nodes are picked up by the wallet itself and that is the reason why you don't need a .conf file for MTR.
