🪟 Mining on Windows

Get the Windows binaries

Official pre-built Windows binaries are coming soon and will be published on the GitHub Releases page once they're ready.

The bundle (when published) will contain burritocoind.exe, burritocoin-cli.exe, burritocoin-tx.exe, burritocoin-wallet.exe, and the required runtime .dll files.

(Optional) Verify the download

Open PowerShell, cd to the folder where you downloaded the zip, and run:

Get-FileHash .\burritocoin-0.21.4-win64.zip -Algorithm SHA256

The SHA256 should match:

D3AA77AF67F97E5B768771213089D76910D17EDC277E42F178C5819396B02071

If it doesn't match, the download is corrupted or tampered with — delete it and try again.

Extract the zip

Right-click the zip → Extract All… → choose a folder you'll remember, e.g. C:\BurritoCoin. All eight files (4 .exe + 4 .dll) must stay together in the same folder.

Create the config file

BurritoCoin Core looks for its config in a fixed location. Open File Explorer, paste this into the address bar, and press Enter:

%APPDATA%\BurritoCoin

If the folder doesn't exist, create it (right-click in %APPDATA%, New → Folder → name it BurritoCoin).

Inside that folder, right-click → New → Text Document, and name it burritocoin.conf (make sure Windows isn't hiding the .txt extension — the file must end in .conf, not .conf.txt).

Open it in Notepad and paste:

server=1
rpcport=9226
rpcuser=burritouser
rpcpassword=CHANGE_THIS_TO_SOMETHING_RANDOM
rpcallowip=127.0.0.1
rpcbind=127.0.0.1

Replace CHANGE_THIS_TO_SOMETHING_RANDOM with a long random string. Save and close.

Start the node

Open Command Prompt (press Win + R, type cmd, Enter), then:

cd C:\BurritoCoin
burritocoind.exe

You'll see startup logs. Leave this window open — closing it stops the node. If you'd rather run it minimized to the system tray, append -daemon (note: on Windows, -daemon just detaches; the node runs as a normal background process).

Open a second Command Prompt

Leave the node window running. Open a new Command Prompt (Win + R → cmd → Enter), then:

cd C:\BurritoCoin
burritocoin-cli.exe createwallet "mining"
burritocoin-cli.exe getnewaddress

The second command prints a BRTO address — something like brto1q… (native SegWit) or B… (legacy). Copy it — you'll need it in step 5.

Encrypt the wallet (recommended)

Right now your wallet is unencrypted — anyone with access to this PC can spend your BRTO. Lock it with a passphrase:

burritocoin-cli.exe encryptwallet "PICK_A_LONG_RANDOM_PASSPHRASE"

The node will shut down automatically after this command (it needs to re-load the wallet encrypted). Restart it the same way as before:

cd C:\BurritoCoin
burritocoind.exe

Mining still works without unlocking — the rewards go to the address you already copied. To spend later, unlock first with:

burritocoin-cli.exe walletpassphrase "your_passphrase" 60

(60 = seconds before it auto-locks again.)

Back up your wallet

Make sure the node is running again from the previous step. Quick check in your second Command Prompt — this should return JSON, not "Connection refused":

burritocoin-cli.exe getblockchaininfo

If you get "Connection refused", restart the node as in Step 2. Once it's responding:

burritocoin-cli.exe backupwallet "%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\wallet-backup.dat"

Copy wallet-backup.dat off this machine — USB stick, cloud drive, anywhere. If your drive dies without it, you lose every BRTO in this wallet.

Whitelist the folder in Windows Defender first

Do this before downloading or Defender will quarantine the file and you'll have to keep restoring it.

1. Create the folder you'll use, e.g. C:\cpuminer.
2. Open Windows Security (Win + S → "Windows Security" → Enter).
3. Click Virus & threat protection.
4. Under Virus & threat protection settings, click Manage settings.
5. Scroll to Exclusions and click Add or remove exclusions.
6. Click Add an exclusion → Folder → select C:\cpuminer.

Now Defender will leave that folder alone.

Download the Windows build

Pre-built Windows binaries are on the cpuminer-opt releases page:

https://github.com/JayDDee/cpuminer-opt/releases

Grab the latest cpuminer-opt-X.Y.Z-windows.zip. The zip contains multiple .exe files, one per CPU instruction set (cpuminer-sse2.exe, cpuminer-avx2.exe, cpuminer-avx2-sha-vaes.exe, cpuminer-avx512-sha-vaes.exe, etc.).

If your browser blocks the download, click the warning and choose Keep / Keep anyway. Save it directly into C:\cpuminer (the folder you whitelisted above).

Extract and pick the right binary

Right-click the zip → Extract All… → into C:\cpuminer. The zip contains several .exe files named by CPU feature (not codename). Pick the most aggressive one your CPU supports:

• AMD Ryzen 7000+ (Zen 4/5): cpuminer-avx512-sha-vaes.exe
• AMD Ryzen 5000 (Zen 3): cpuminer-avx2-sha-vaes.exe
• AMD Ryzen 3000 (Zen 2): cpuminer-avx2-sha.exe
• AMD Ryzen 1000/2000 (Zen/Zen+): cpuminer-avx2.exe
• Intel 11th gen+ (Rocket/Alder/Raptor Lake) or Xeon Ice Lake+: cpuminer-avx2-sha-vaes.exe (or cpuminer-avx512-sha-vaes.exe on Xeon)
• Intel 4th–10th gen: cpuminer-avx2.exe
• Anything older / unsure: cpuminer-sse2.exe (slowest, but works on every 64-bit CPU)

If you pick wrong you'll get an "Illegal instruction" error on launch — no harm done, just step down one level (avx512-sha-vaes → avx2-sha-vaes → avx2-sha → avx2 → sse2) until one works.

Verify Defender didn't eat any binaries

Even with the folder exclusion in place, Defender can race the extract operation and quarantine individual files anyway. Open PowerShell and run:

Get-ChildItem C:\cpuminer\*.exe | Select-Object Name, Length

Healthy binaries are roughly 800 KB – 3.5 MB each. If any show Length as 0, Defender deleted them. Two ways to recover:

1. Just use a surviving binary — pick the next one down the list above. The hash-rate difference between adjacent variants is small.
2. Restore from quarantine: Windows Security → Virus & threat protection → Protection history → click the cpuminer entry → Actions → Allow / Restore.

Verify the node is ready

Before launching cpuminer, sanity-check that your node is up and synced. In a Command Prompt:

cd C:\BurritoCoin
burritocoin-cli.exe getblockchaininfo

In the JSON output, look at two fields:

• "initialblockdownload": false — if it's true, wait for it to flip before mining (cpuminer will get empty responses otherwise).
• "blocks" roughly equal to "headers" — confirms you're caught up to the network.

Also confirm your wallet is loaded:

burritocoin-cli.exe listwallets

The output is a JSON array — it should contain "mining". If the array is empty ([]), run burritocoin-cli.exe loadwallet "mining".

Run the miner

Open a new Command Prompt and switch into the cpuminer folder. This step matters — if you run cpuminer from any other folder, Windows will say "is not recognized as an internal or external command":

cd C:\cpuminer

Now select your CPU below — the command will update automatically. Then replace YOUR_PASSWORD with your RPC password from burritocoin.conf and YOUR_BRTO_ADDRESS with the address you copied in Step 3, and paste it in:

SELECT YOUR CPU:

cpuminer-sse2.exe -a scrypt ^
  -o http://127.0.0.1:9226 ^
  -O burritouser:YOUR_PASSWORD ^
  --coinbase-addr=YOUR_BRTO_ADDRESS

(^ is the line-continuation character in Windows Command Prompt — equivalent to \ on Linux/Mac. You can also put it all on one line.)

You should see lines like:

[2026-05-03 14:22:01] 8 of 8 miner threads started using 'scrypt' algorithm
[2026-05-03 14:22:05] CPU #0: 12.34 kH/s
[2026-05-03 14:22:05] CPU #1: 12.41 kH/s
...

That's it. You're mining. The kH/s lines repeat continuously — that's normal idle hashing.