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FAQ

Will NMMiner ever find a Bitcoin block on its own?​

Mathematically, yes — with the same probability as a lottery ticket. Practically, no. The point is the fun (and supporting the network), not the payout.

How much electricity does it use?​

Most supported boards draw under 1 W. Even at $0.30 /kWh, that is well under 30 cents per month.

Which pool does NMMiner use by default?​

NMMiner ships pre-configured to its own SoloBTC pool:

  • Primary: stratum+tcp://solobtc.nmminer.com:3333
  • Fallback: stratum+tcp://au.solobtc.nmminer.com:3333

You only need to change the wallet address to your own BTC address. Pool URLs are usually fine as-is.

Can I use a different pool?​

Yes — anything that speaks Stratum v1 will work. See the Pool List for community SoloBTC and DGB options. Note that big commercial pools with a high minimum share difficulty will reject every share — stick to NMMiner's official SoloBTC pools or solo-style endpoints.

Can NMMiner mine anything other than Bitcoin?​

Yes — DigiByte (DGB) is also supported. DGB uses the same SHA-256d algorithm, so it works on the same firmware. Just point the pool URL at a DGB pool and use a DGB wallet address.

Do I need a wallet on the device?​

No. You only need a payout address. The pool sends rewards directly to whatever BTC / DGB address you configure.

My screen wakes up by itself every few seconds.​

That is harmless background refresh. Use Black screen-saver mode if you want zero display activity (and max hashrate).

Can I run two miners on the same WiFi?​

Yes. NM Monitor's Swarm menu auto-discovers every NMMiner on the same LAN — up to 255 devices per /24 subnet. See Swarm.

My miner is stuck on the Loading screen / never connects to the pool​

Run through this checklist:

  1. WiFi must be 2.4 GHz. Most ESP32 chips do not support 5 GHz. If your home WiFi has both bands under the same SSID, temporarily separate them or join the 2.4 GHz one explicitly.

  2. Verify the wallet address. A typo here means the pool refuses the worker. A valid Bitcoin address starts with:

    • bc1q... — Native SegWit (most common today)
    • bc1p... — Taproot
    • 1... — Legacy P2PKH
    • 3... — P2SH (multisig / wrapped SegWit)

    Anything else is not a valid BTC address — double-check you copied the full string.

  3. Verify the pool URL. Out of the box NMMiner is pre-configured with stratum+tcp://solobtc.nmminer.com:3333 and works without any change. If you switched pools, the URL must look like stratum+tcp://host:port (or stratum+ssl://host:port for TLS). See the Pool List for known-good endpoints.

  4. Pool difficulty. Big commercial pools that mandate a high minimum share difficulty will reject every NMMiner share. Stick to NMMiner's official SoloBTC pools.

  5. Power supply. A flaky USB port can cause brownouts that look like a hang. Try a different cable + 5 V/1 A power source.

If none of the above fixes it, the miner should fall back to AP mode after ~15 s — re-join nmap-2.4g and re-check the values.

Is there a public API?​

Yes — every device exposes a documented HTTP API on port 80. See API Reference.

Is the source code available?​

NMMiner firmware is closed-source. The HTTP API on each device is the supported integration surface. The companion CLI flash tool and the SoloBTC pool web frontends are public.

What does the Ladder page do?​

It is an opt-in global top-10 leaderboard ranked by the best-ever share difficulty produced by participating miners. Wallets are displayed in first4…last4 format for privacy. Disabled by default — enable it from the Preferences section of NM Monitor. The public web view lives at ladder.nmminer.com — see Ladder for the full story.