Monero P2Pool

Decentralized pool for Monero mining.

Mining on the mainnet has started! You can check the pool status at https://p2pool.io/

Build status

Pool mining vs Solo mining vs P2Pool mining

Here's the comparison table of the different ways of mining. While pool mining is the easiest to setup, it centralizes Monero network and pool admin gets full power over your hashrate and your unpaid funds. Solo mining is 100% independent and the best for the network. P2Pool mining has all the advantages of solo mining, but also makes regular payouts possible.

Pool type	Payouts	Fee	Min. payout	Centralized?	Stability	Control	Setup
Centralized pool	Regular	0-3%	0.001-0.01 XMR	Yes	Less stable due to pool server outages	Pool admin controls your mined funds, what you mine and can execute network attacks	Only miner software is required
Solo	Rare	0%	0.6 XMR or more	No	As stable as your Monero node	100% under your control	Monero node + optional miner
P2Pool	Regular	0%	less than 0.0004 XMR	No	As stable as your Monero node	100% under your control	Monero node + P2Pool node + miner

Features

• Decentralized: no central server that can be shutdown/blocked. P2Pool uses a separate blockchain to merge mine with Monero. Pool admin can't go rogue or be pressured to do an attack on the network because there is no pool admin!
• Permissionless: there is no one to decide who can mine on the pool and who can't.
• Trustless: there is no pool wallet, funds are never in custody. All pool blocks pay out to miners immediately.
• PPLNS payout scheme
• 0% fee
• 0 XMR payout fee
• Less than 0.0004 XMR minimal payout
• Fast block times, down to 1 second
• Uncle blocks are supported to avoid orphans - all your shares will be accounted for!
• Configurable PPLNS window size and block time
• Advanced mempool picking algorithm, it creates blocks with better reward than what monerod solo mining does
• Password protected private pools

How PPLNS works in P2Pool

First you need to find a pool share. This share will stay in PPLNS window for 2160 pool blocks (6 hours). The moment P2Pool finds a Monero block and you have at least 1 pool share in PPLNS window, you'll get a payout! Monero block reward is split between all miner wallets in PPLNS window. Each miner gets a part of block reward proportional to the total difficulty of his/her shares in PPLNS window.

NOTE If P2Pool doesn't have enough hashrate to find Monero blocks faster than every 6 hours on average (~15 MH/s), not all your pool shares will result in a payout. Even if pool hashrate is higher, bad luck can sometimes result in a share going through PPLNS window without a payout. But in the long run it will be compensated by other shares receiving multiple payouts - your payouts will average out to what you'd get with regular pool mining.

Default P2Pool parameters

• Block time: 10 seconds
• PPLNS window: 2160 blocks (6 hours)
• Minimum payout = Monero block reward/2160, currently ~0.0004 XMR

Build instructions

Ubuntu 20.04

p2pool binary:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install git build-essential cmake libuv1-dev libzmq3-dev libsodium-dev libpgm-dev libnorm-dev libgss-dev
git clone --recursive https://github.com/SChernykh/p2pool
cd p2pool
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make -j$(nproc)

monerod binary compatible with p2pool:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install git build-essential cmake pkg-config libssl-dev libzmq3-dev libunbound-dev libsodium-dev libunwind8-dev liblzma-dev libreadline6-dev libldns-dev libexpat1-dev libpgm-dev qttools5-dev-tools libhidapi-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev libprotobuf-dev protobuf-compiler libudev-dev libboost-chrono-dev libboost-date-time-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libboost-locale-dev libboost-program-options-dev libboost-regex-dev libboost-serialization-dev libboost-system-dev libboost-thread-dev ccache doxygen graphviz
git clone --recursive https://github.com/SChernykh/monero
cd monero
git checkout p2pool-api-v0.17
git submodule sync && git submodule update --init --force --recursive
make release-static -j$(nproc)

Arch Linux AUR

Make the package: p2pool-git

Nix/NixOS

This is a flake only project. So you have to use nixUnstable with nix flakes to build or install p2pool. The commands below use the new flake specific reference-format, so be sure to also set ca-references in --experimental-features.

Because this project has submodules which are not fixed in nixUnstable yet you have to use the nix/master branch:

nix shell github:nixos/nix/master

Run the binary:

nix run git+https://github.com/SChernykh/p2pool?ref=master

Run the binary with arguments:

nix run git+https://github.com/SChernykh/p2pool?ref=master -- --help

macOS

p2pool binary:

brew update && brew install git cmake libuv zmq libpgm
git clone --recursive https://github.com/SChernykh/p2pool
cd p2pool
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make -j$(sysctl -n hw.logicalcpu)

monerod binary compatible with p2pool:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/SChernykh/monero
cd monero
git checkout p2pool-api-v0.17
git submodule sync && git submodule update --init --force --recursive
brew update && brew bundle --file=contrib/brew/Brewfile
make -j$(sysctl -n hw.logicalcpu)

Windows

p2pool binary (Visual Studio Community 2019 build): NOTE: You need to have the "Desktop Development with C++" module installed.

git clone --recursive https://github.com/SChernykh/p2pool
cd p2pool
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -G "Visual Studio 16 2019"

then open generated build\p2pool.sln in Visual Studio and build it there

Alternatively, you can select "Clone a repository" within the GUI, then select "Build" from the menu.

monerod binary compatible with p2pool:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/SChernykh/monero
cd monero
git checkout p2pool-api-v0.17
git submodule sync && git submodule update --init --force --recursive

then follow the instructions from https://github.com/monero-project/monero/#on-windows

How to mine on P2Pool

This guide assumes that you run everything on the same machine. If it's not the case, change 127.0.0.1 to appropriate IP addresses for your setup. It's highly recommended to create a new mainnet wallet for mining because wallet addresses are public on p2pool.

Wallet software compatible with p2pool payouts

• Official Monero CLI and GUI v0.17.2.3 and newer
• Monerujo v2.1.0 "Vertant" and newer
• Cake Wallet v4.2.7 and newer
• MyMonero

General Considerations

• Create a separate restricted user account for mining. p2pool is relatively new and may still have serious bugs/vulnerabilities!
• You have to use the primary wallet address for mining. Subaddresses and integrated addresses are not supported, just like with monerod solo mining.
• Check that ports 18080 (Monero p2p port) and 37889 (p2pool p2p port) are open in your firewall to ensure better connectivity. If you're mining from a computer behind NAT (like a router) you could consider forwarding the ports to your local machine.
• You can connect multiple miners to the same p2pool node. The more the better!

Step-by-step guide:

GNU/Linux

• Download binaries from https://github.com/SChernykh/p2pool/releases/latest
• Alternatively, grab the latest source code for both p2pool and monerod and build them (see above, also notice that the branch name for monerod changed, you'll need to checkout p2pool-api-v0.17)
• Prepare enough huge pages (each of monerod/p2pool/xmrig needs them): sudo sysctl vm.nr_hugepages=3072
• Get xmrig (linux-static-x64) binary from https://github.com/xmrig/xmrig/releases/latest
• Check that ports 18080 (Monero p2p port) and 37889 (p2pool p2p port) are open in your firewall to ensure better connectivity
• Run ./monerod --zmq-pub tcp://127.0.0.1:18083 don't forget --zmq-pub parameter in the command line
• Double check that it shows Monero 'Oxygen Orion' (v0.17.2.3-7dbb0d1fc) on startup. Wait until it's synchronized.
• Run ./p2pool --host 127.0.0.1 --wallet YOUR_WALLET_ADDRESS
• p2pool has very verbose logging by default, it will spam a lot, no I mean A LOT in both console and in p2pool.log. Logs help testing immensely!
• You can use logrotate with a config like this to control logfile growth:

  <path-to-logfile>
  {
      rotate 7
      daily
      missingok
      delaycompress
      nocreate
  }
  

• Wait until initial p2pool sync is finished, it shouldn't take more than 5-10 minutes, once completed xmrig should be able to connect to the stratum server on port 3333.
• Run ./xmrig -o 127.0.0.1:3333. Note that you don't need to specify wallet address for xmrig. Wallet address set in xmrig config will be ignored!
• To set custom fixed difficulty for your miner (for example, 10000), run ./xmrig -u x+10000 -o 127.0.0.1:3333
• xmrig should connect and start mining
• Also check p2pool.log for any warnings and errors: grep -E 'WARNING|ERROR' p2pool.log

Windows

NOTE: Windows SmartScreen may block incoming connections by files that are "Downloaded from the Internet". You can allow 'p2pool.exe' and 'monerod.exe' by double-clicking them, clicking "More Info", then click "Run Anyway" and then closing them immediately so you can run them from the command line. Advanced users can use the PowerShell cmdlet Unblock-File to remove this flag.

• Download p2pool binaries from https://github.com/SChernykh/p2pool/releases/latest
• Download xmrig binary from https://github.com/xmrig/xmrig/releases/latest (xmrig-6.15.0-gcc-win64.zip is the current version)
• Expand the p2pool binaries into an appropriate location (%USERPROFILE%/bin or C:/bin/ are good options)
• Expand xmrig binary into appropriate location (same folder as p2pool is fine)
• Prepare huge pages (each of monerod/p2pool/xmrig needs them):
  • On Windows 10 or above, run xmrig at least once as Administrator (right-click Run As Administrator)
  • On earlier versions of Windows, you'll need to run it as admin at least once per login.
• Open a command prompt and navigate to the folder where you extracted p2pool.
• When running these commands, Windows Firewall may prompt to allow connections, click "Allow"
• Run .\Monero\monerod.exe --zmq-pub tcp://127.0.0.1:18083 NOTE: don't forget --zmq-pub parameter in the command line
• Double check that it shows Monero 'Oxygen Orion' (v0.17.2.3-7dbb0d1fc) on startup. Wait until it's synchronized.
• Run .\p2pool.exe --host 127.0.0.1 --wallet YOUR_WALLET_ADDRESS
• Wait until initial p2pool sync is finished, it shouldn't take more than 5-10 minutes, once completed xmrig should be able to connect to the stratum server on port 3333.
• Run .\xmrig.exe -o 127.0.0.1:3333. Note that you don't need to specify wallet address for xmrig. Wallet address set in xmrig config will be ignored!
• To set custom fixed difficulty for your miner (for example, 10000), run xmrig.exe -u x+10000 -o 127.0.0.1:3333
• Windows Quickstart: Create a batch (.bat) file with the following contents and place it in your p2pool directory along with xmrig.exe.

start cmd /k .\Monero\monerod.exe --zmq-pub tcp://127.0.0.1:18083 
start cmd /k .\p2pool.exe --wallet YOUR_WALLET_ADDRESS
start cmd /k .\xmrig.exe -u x+3000 -o 127.0.0.1

Donations

If you'd like to support further development of Monero P2Pool, you're welcome to send any amount of XMR to the following address:

44MnN1f3Eto8DZYUWuE5XZNUtE3vcRzt2j6PzqWpPau34e6Cf4fAxt6X2MBmrm6F9YMEiMNjN6W4Shn4pLcfNAja621jwyg