Frequently asked questions

Browse through these FAQs to find answers to commonly raised questions.

What is a Chia plot?

Getting the setup right requires some basic understanding into the mechanics of farming Chia. Think of a Chia plot as a lottery or raffle ticket for the Chia blockchain challenges. So, in order to participate in the farming of Chia you first need to create one or more plots which are dedicated files that take up a lot of space on your hard drive. Creating plots takes considerable time and CPU power. The space that a plot uses is represented by the letter k. The bigger the k value, the bigger the plot and the longer it takes to create. Keep in mind that a k32 plot is the minimum size. A k32 plot is around 100GB in size, but requires 356 GB of temporary space to be created. Once you have created a plot, it is ready to be farmed. Since this process may take up extensive hardware resources, we recommend you use our service to do the plotting for you.

How many plots should I buy?

The number of plots is an important factor you should consider when starting to farm Chia. This decision depends on your individual financial level of comfort and should only be made by you. If you want to increase your chances of successfully farming Chia, the pooling of plots may offer substantial benefits because of the constant rewards you can expect from a higher number of plots. It is important to understand that over time the rewards per plot are going to decrease. So simply buying 1 or 2 plots translates to a relatively low likelihood of returns. For a more reliable and steadier income creating more plots (10+) may be advisable. Let’s look at the math: Your Chia farm has 4,608 chances per day to win 2 Chia (XCH) coins. By increasing your number of plots, you increase your chances of winning.

Difference between farming, harvesting and plotting

Because of its unique protocol (Proof of Space and Time) the terminology of Chia differs from many other more conventional blockchains. But the logic behind it is pretty straightforward. Farming describes the underlying concept which allows you to allocate a certain amount of unused disk space to create plots. Also, farming is the process of checking your plots every ~8 seconds to attempt and find a proof in order to be rewarded Chia (XCH) coins. Think of the process of plotting as having metaphorical lottery or raffle tickets. Once you have one or more plots you are ready to start harvesting them. The process of harvesting involves waiting for the number to be called out and checking the lottery ticket to see if you have won. Most of the time a harvester will not find the required value in a plot, but when it does it gets something called a "proof of space" which proves that an amount of space was allocated to a plot.

How can I participate in Chia farming?

Once you have made the decision to farm Chia, all you need are:

A computer on which Chia can be farmed in the background (could be your regular computer or a dedicated machine just for Chia). We recommend using a desktop because it is rather difficult to move around with a laptop connected to hard drives via USB;
External Hard Disk(s), preferably Solid State Disk (SSD) and the larger the better – a popular size is 18 TB;
Chia blockchain software (download here);
Once the software is installed, your private key is created. Store your private key safely!
Then the Chia software will synch with the Chia blockchain (may take up to a couple of hours);
Now you are ready to plot. The plotting process is complex and labor intensive (We recommend you skip this step by buying ready-to-farm plots directly from us!);
Once you have your plots, the farming begins right away and you compete with other participants to be rewarded with Chia (XCH) coin.

How will the Chia plots be delivered to me?

Our service lets you skip the time-consuming and resource-heavy plotting process altogether! We provide the ready-to-be-farmed plots directly to you via:

S3 Bucket: We transfer the plots to your desired cloud (AWS, Oracle etc.);
Download Link: We send you a link to simply download the plots to your machine.

Useful tips and tricks when farming for Chia (XCH) coins

Try to minimize stopping and re-starting the Chia blockchain software as much as possible. Since it can take up to 1 hour or more to sync again you won’t be able to farm during this time (e.g. the best practice is to set your computer to “Never Sleep”).

When you are expanding your Chia farm, use two or more computers for dedicated tasks. One for farming/harvesting and the other for plotting (even better: buy the plots here and keep your setup lean).

Run multiple computers with the same key without creating a new wallet by selecting “IMPORT FROM MNEMONICS” and enter the 24-word mnemonics in the correct order.

Chia vs. Bitcoin

Chia has a new innovative Nakamoto consensus algorithm that removes the extremely high energy demands of Proof of Work from the system. Considering a study from the University of Cambridge that suggests Bitcoin uses up more energy on an annual basis than the country of Sweden, the architects of the Chia network opted for a different system entirely, called Proof of Space. Compared to the mining of Bitcoin, Chia relies on storage capacity instead of computing power which saves power. In the new network the blockchain broadcasts a challenge for the next block which farmers can scan their plots for to see if they have the hash that is closest to the challenge. Whereas Bitcoin needs energy intensive calculations to get the hash needed to get rewards, a farmer’s probability of winning a block is the percentage of the total space that a farmer has compared to the entire network. In addition to that, compared to other cryptocurrencies, Chia has significantly better security due to its more decentralized blockchain. “Chia is what Bitcoin would look like if it was designed with the knowledge from the last 13 years.“ – David Frazee, Managing Partner at Richmond Global Ventures (invested in Chia Network Inc.) and part of Chia’s board.

Why Chia means investing into the future

For anyone looking to invest and who believes in the transformative power of cryptocurrency and decentralization but used to be put off by the outsized ecological footprint of Bitcoin and its limited use cases, the emergence of Chia offers multiple benefits. Proof of Space and Time is a significant reduction in energy consumption. Chialisp is Chia’s new smart transaction programming language that is powerful, easy to audit, and secure. The pace of development and level of adoption leapfrogs other blockchains as evidenced by the number of commits. Transactions currently available are: atomic swaps, authorized payees, recoverable wallets, multisig wallets, and rate-limited wallets. Chia brings improvements to scripting, scripting environment, cryptography, usability, and scalability on different dimensions. Also, people who regret not recognizing cryptocurrency as an investment earlier, with Chia now have the chance to enter the space with a future-proof concept and a lower barrier of entry as an early adopter.

What are Chia pools, and why do they matter?

As the Chia network is growing daily, it becomes incrementally more difficult to win Chia (XCH) coins with just one single plot. You can reduce the waiting period for a possible reward and increase your chances by joining a pool. Since the entire space of the pool determines the chances of winning, you start earning a small amount of Chia much quicker compared to participating as an individual. However, the release of functional Chia pools is yet to go live, and has been delayed many times in the past already. Also, pools require new, special plots. All previously created plots cannot be used for pooling – only for single farming. This means that previously created plots cannot be used for pooling and only for single farming. These new so-called “portable plots” will enable owners to move the plots from one pool to another. As there are no plans by the Chia Network to create official pools, they leave this non-trivial task up to skilled developers in the community. If you are looking to buy portable plots, feel free to place your request on our website and receive portable plots as soon as they are available.

Who are the creators of the Chia Blockchain?

Chia was created by Bram Cohen, the founder of BitTorrent and the torrenting concept, who is a luminary in the developer scene with an avid following around the world. Chia also included executive leadership from the former founder and CEO of Vindica, Gene Hoffman, and the former CEO of Overstock.com, Mitch Edwards. Currently, Silicon Valley's top investors (e.g. Andreessen Horowitz) have invested in the San-Francisco based company, Chia Network Inc. Besides the core team, an active open source developer community with great contributions to the codebase is building the network.

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Frequently asked questions

Digital Seals Supercomputing GmbH

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Frequently asked questions

Digital Seals Supercomputing GmbH

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