Configure your mining software to point to mvis.ca:8080. Port 8080 is set up for the RPC protocol, which is compatible with most 0xBTC mining software.
No. You need to use an external, non-exchange, wallet. MetaMask is a very good choice, although there are other options as well. The main reason you can't use an exchange wallet is because of the way this mining pool handles deposits. When the pool sees an incoming ETH deposit, it looks at the "Sender" address to determine which miner sent the deposit. The problem with exchange wallets is that when you send ETH, the funds don't actually originate from your wallet. Instead, they come from one of the exchange's "hot-wallets". As a result, the mining pool will not know which miner sent the deposit.
The solution is to set up an ETH address in an external wallet, like MetaMask. You would then do a 2-step transfer: first send ETH funds from the exchange into your MetaMask wallet address, and then transfer the ETH from MetaMask into the pool.
By default, payouts will be sent out on the Ethereum Mainnet as a regular ERC20 token transfer. Alternatively, you can receive your payouts on the Polygon Network (formerly Matic). The advantage to having payouts on the Matic network is that they are basically free. The disadvantage is that withdrawing your tokens from Matic to Ethereum Mainnet is fairly expensive (about 3x the cost of an ERC20 transfer). You can set your payout preference on your Miner Profile Page.
If you choose to have your payouts on the Matic network, you can use the official block explorer to view your payouts, or better yet, configure MetaMask to connect to the Matic network so you can have full control of your tokens. Once connected to the network, you will also have to use the Add Token feature to add 0xBTC to your wallet. The address for 0xBTC on Matic is 0x71b821aa52a49f32eed535fca6eb5aa130085978.
Yes, workers are supported. The term "workers" refers to a feature whereby the mining pool will track the hashrate of each individual mining rig, and display it on your profile page. This allows you to monitor your mining farm and watch out for individual mining rigs that need special attention.
To set up for workers, simply append a unique alpha-numeric identifier to the end of your ETH address in your mining rig configuration screen. For example, 0x0123...0123,worker-001. You can use all numbers if you want. If you want your mining rigs to sort naturally in numeric order, pad the numerical part of the worker name with leading zeros as in the example given, so they are all the same length.
To change any of your settings, you first need to prove you are the owner of that particular ETH address. There are two ways to do that. One is by signing a message using MetaMask, and the other is by entering a password. If you want to use the password method, please see the next FAQ entry, "How do I set a password on my account?"
To use MetaMask message signing, select that option when given the choice, then unlock your wallet and select your ETH mining address as the active wallet and make sure it is connected to the web page. Signing a message does not cost any money or gas fees.
To set a password on your account, append a special string to the end of your ETH mining address on one of your mining rigs, in the form pwd=my_password. Use a comma or period to separate. For example, 0x0123...0123,pwd=abc123. If you also use worker names, put the password at the end. For example 0x0123...0123,worker-001,pwd=abc123
IMPORTANT NOTE: You do not have to put the password on all your mining rigs! You only have to put it on one. Once that miner connects up to the pool for the first time, that password will be recognized and set on your account. That password will stay on your account even if that mining rig goes offline.
You can either send ETH to the pools minting account address on Ethereum Mainnet, or you can send WETH (Wrapped ETH) to the same address on the Matic Network. The address to send to in either case is 0x7d3ebd2b56651d164fc36180050e9f6f7b890e9d.
For detailed instructions on sending ETH, please see the Deposit ETH page. For sending WETH on Matic, see the next FAQ entry.
Yes. Send WETH to 0x7d3ebd2b56651d164fc36180050e9f6f7b890e9d. Make sure the transaction originates from your mining address, so the pool knows who sent it. In other words, send directly from YOUR wallet (ie. MetaMask). Do NOT send from an exchange wallet.
The following information may be of some use to you:This pool uses a Pay-per-Share (PPS) scheme. The basic idea is that you are awarded tokens on a regular basis, every 4 hours, regardless of whether the pool mines a block or not. Your rewards are calculated based on your submitted shares. This is in contrast to the Proportional payout scheme used by a lot of pools, where you only get tokens when the pool mines a block.
If the mining pool hits a run of bad luck and doesn't mine a block in a while, a portion of your rewards may be held back depending on the current pool balance, but it will be kept on your account and paid back later when the pool is having better luck.
The Pool Token Balance is where your payments come from and where mint rewards are deposited to. This is what makes it possible for the pool to payout on a regular time schedule, even when it has not mined a block. The idea is that hopefully the payments and the rewards will balance out. I initially seeded the pool account with 150 of my own tokens to kick things off.
A holdback is when tokens that you are owed are transferred into a special holding account instead of being paid out to you. This happens when the pool balance runs low due to a spell of bad luck.
Remember that as a miner, your token rewards are calculated assuming that the mining pool will be able to mine blocks at a perfectly consistent rate, but of course it doesn't work that way in real life. The actual profit of the mining pool is subject to variance, or to put it more simply, luck. If the mining pool has a run of bad luck and doesn't mine as many blocks as expected, the pool token balance can run low. When this happens, a portion of your mining rewards will be held back and put in a special holding account. Later, when the pool has better luck, the tokens will be paid back to you.
The Stratum protocol is a more efficient way for the pool and the miner to talk to each other. It uses the concept of "push notifications", where the pool sends certain mining parameters to the miner only when necessary. (If you are a computer dev, you could also compare it to a websocket connection).
This is in contrast to the legacy RPC protocol. RPC stands for Remote Procedure Call. Under this protocol, the mining software continuously queries the mining pool (often multiple times per second) to see if any of the mining parameters have changed. It does this by sending an HTTP request. This is very wasteful and inefficient, given that the mining parameters typically only change every 10 minutes on average.
First of all, note that most 0xBTC mining software does not support the Stratum protocol. This is especially true if you have a hosted FPGA mining rig on HashAltCoin (HAC). Your only option for a HAC hosted rig is to use the RPC protocol (port 8080).
However, if you are in possession of your mining rig, you can use a Stratum Proxy to connect to the pool. See The FAQ entries below on running a Stratum Proxy.