^Newbie Mining Contest Getting Started Guide^
Congratulations for making it this far and joining the TEA Project as we refine our tech stack and mining economy during these preview rounds. We assume you're just learning about our project and would like to use this guide to help get started with the TEA Project. Just a reminder: these contests happen during the preview rounds and you'll be purchasing COFFEE and buying contest TEA. All references in the guide below are for contest TEA and contest CML. These are not the real TEA & CML that will be launched on mainnet.
To increase participation with the project, we reward contestants by allowing them to redeem their TEA revenue for mainnet CML vouchers.
These act as a mining license and will allow contest participants the first shot at becoming miners when mainnet launches and block rewards are at their highest.
This is necessary to interact with our TEA browser wallet which you'll be using throughout the contest. The mining contest competitor checklist has a section detailing how to install the Polkadot{.js} extension.
You can now visit the TEA browser wallet and we'll sign up for the mining competition by clicking on the Miner:
There are four links we'll need to follow in order to join the mining contest as labeled below:
- Install the polkadot{.js} wallet (already done).
- Get some initial contest TEA for gas using the faucet.
- Register for the contest via the Leader board.
- Purchase COFFEE using the purchase form.
Since we've already completed step 1, let's start with step 2 and work down from there.
Note that starting in epoch 9 the faucet will be deprecated as everyone who joins the TEA test mining contest by buying COFFEE through the Google form will get some free initial TEA at the time of purchase.
Let's login to the TEA browser wallet and add some test TEA to our account.
Click the Select account button and then select the Polkadot wallet account you want to use from the dropdown:
Now that we've logged in, let's use the faucet to add some TEA for transactions. Make sure you're in the My assets section of the TEA browser wallet and copy your Polkadot wallet address:
Click on the Faucet button:
Paste in your wallet address and confirm:
Congratulations, you've now logged into the TEA browser wallet and have enough gas for your first transactions on the blockchain.
The next step is to actually register for the mining contest. From the Leader Board tab, click on the Register for competition button:
In the modal popup, fill in the following boxes:
- The first box, listed as user above, is your Polkadot wallet address you just copied.
- Email address is for receiving reward receipts and contest notifications. Make sure to use a valid email address so you can be notified regarding your contest rewards.
Participants in the TEA Project mining competition will exchange USD (USDT or BUSD on the BNB Chain) for COFFEE in a 1:1 ratio. The actual form for initiating this transaction is linked in our competitor checklist. This is a manual process so allow some time for the conversion.
Once the COFFEE has been sent to your wallet you will need to exchange it for TEA to interact with the platform. After exchanging for TEA, users will be able to purchase CML through the marketplace. Users can use their CML to start mining or they can use one or more of their CML seeds to take out Genesis loans. These loans are useful to gain the initial 1000T needed for a mining slot, but remember to pay them off within 3 days (or renew the loans) else you'll lose your collateral seed.
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The first way to generate TEA revenue is through TEA mining. When you have at least 1000T from taking out a Genesis loan, you can start mining TEA. B CML mining machines earn the most revenue and will require a virtual machine running in the cloud. C CML mining machines can be run from home computers.
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Mining is a technically involved process that might not be attractive to all contestants. For less tech-savvy users, staking is another way of earning TEA revenue.