Since last month, since River’s guide, I have been leaving my client open and online at night, in the “unlocked for minting” mode, and disconnecting in the morning before I go to work
My question is: how long should the client be left online and minting to (a) secure the network and (b) get the 1% reward? Is it a case of longer the better, or is there an optimum period per day e.g. one hour?
I’m quite certain it’s the “longer the better.” Unless you want to hash a year’s worth of seconds for every unspent output and then try to predict difficulty, there is no substitute for constant minting. Additionally, I think you are actually adding more risk by repeatedly re-syncing with the network and connecting to fresh peers. Also, it’s probably easiest to steal your coins through a local keylogger… so I think there’s also an argument for reducing the number of times you need to type your wallet passphrase.