How to mine Kaspa (KAS) on Windows? (GPU Mining)

Setting Up the Kaspa GPU Mining Environment

1. Download the official Kaspa GPU miner from the verified GitHub repository maintained by the Kaspa development team. The recommended version is KaspaMiner v0.4.5 or later, which supports CUDA 11.8 and newer drivers.

2. Install NVIDIA Game Ready Drivers version 535.98 or higher. Older driver versions may cause instability or fail to recognize compute capabilities required for KAS hashing.

3. Ensure Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2019 is installed. Missing runtime libraries will prevent the miner executable from launching.

4. Disable Windows Defender real-time protection temporarily during installation. Some antivirus engines flag mining binaries as heuristic threats despite their legitimacy.

5. Create a dedicated folder such as C:\KaspaMiner and extract all downloaded files there. Avoid paths with spaces or special characters to prevent configuration parsing errors.

Configuring the Miner Configuration File

1. Open config.json in a plain-text editor like Notepad++. Do not use WordPad or rich-text editors that inject invisible formatting characters.

2. Set the 'rpc_server' field to 'kaspa-mainnet-rpc.kaspanet.io:17103'. This connects to the official public RPC endpoint with low latency and high uptime.

3. Input your Kaspa wallet address under the 'wallet' parameter. Use a native Kaspa address starting with 'kaspa:', not a legacy Base58 address.

4. Adjust 'devices' to match your GPU indices. For dual-GPU rigs, specify [0,1]; for single-GPU systems, use [0].

5. Enable 'use_cpu' only if CPU mining is intended as supplementary—GPU-only mode delivers significantly higher hashrate consistency.

Launching and Monitoring GPU Mining Operations

1. Run kaspa-miner.exe from Command Prompt with administrator privileges. Launching without elevated permissions may block access to GPU memory mapping.

2. Observe initial output lines showing device enumeration. A successful detection displays 'Found device: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 (sm_89)' followed by kernel initialization logs.

3. Monitor real-time metrics via the built-in HTTP API at http://127.0.0.1:8080. This dashboard shows accepted shares per minute, GPU temperature, fan speed, and power draw.

4. Use nvidia-smi in a separate terminal window to cross-verify GPU utilization. Sustained usage above 92% indicates optimal kernel occupancy.

5. Log output is written to miner.log automatically. Check this file if console output freezes or disappears unexpectedly.

Troubleshooting Common GPU Mining Failures

1. If the miner exits immediately after launch, verify that the config.json contains no trailing commas or missing quotation marks—JSON syntax errors are silent but fatal.

2. When shares are rejected repeatedly, confirm the wallet address is valid using the Kaspa Block Explorer. Invalid addresses trigger immediate rejection without error messages.

3. Overheating above 85°C triggers automatic throttling. Reduce core clock offset by -150 MHz and memory clock by -500 MHz in MSI Afterburner to stabilize thermals.

4. Intermittent connection drops indicate unstable internet routing. Switch to a wired Ethernet connection and disable IPv6 in network adapter settings.

5. Hashrate fluctuates more than ±15% across 5-minute intervals? Reinstall GPU drivers using DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) in Safe Mode before reinstalling.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does Kaspa mining require a full node to be running locally?A: No. Kaspa GPU miners operate independently of local node synchronization. They communicate directly with remote RPC servers to submit proofs and fetch headers.

Q: Can I mine Kaspa using AMD GPUs?A: As of current stable releases, official KaspaMiner binaries only support NVIDIA GPUs via CUDA. ROCm-based builds remain experimental and unsupported in production environments.

Q: Why does my miner report 'no devices found' even though nvidia-smi shows active GPUs?A: This occurs when CUDA toolkit compatibility mismatches exist. KaspaMiner v0.4.5 requires CUDA 11.8 runtime. Installing the matching CUDA driver package resolves device enumeration failures.

Q: Is overclocking safe for long-term Kaspa mining on RTX 40-series cards?A: Aggressive overclocking increases voltage stress and accelerates capacitor aging. Conservative offsets (+100 MHz core, +800 MHz memory) with undervolting (-100 mV) yield better longevity and thermal stability.