Getting Started Guide - Firo

This guide contains information about our Firo mining pool.

Table of Contents

top Stratum Info

Algorithm: FiroPOW

Stratum addresses:

  • firo.mintpond.com
  • firo-asia.mintpond.com
  • firo-eu.mintpond.com
  • firo-us.mintpond.com

Ports:

  • 3000 - difficulty: 64
  • 3001 - difficulty: 256
  • 3005 - difficulty: 64 (SSL/TLS)
  • 3006 - difficulty: 256 (SSL/TLS)

top Mining

See How to Mine Firo for more information and tools to help you set up your mining rig.

top Parameters

Stratum Addresses

There may be multiple geographical stratums. The address with no geo-tag (i.e. -us) is at the top of the list and will automatically choose the closest stratum for you.

High Latency/Ping

If you are experiencing high ping or latency on a stratum, try different stratums. High latency is often caused by issues in the network between the stratum and client. Choosing a different stratum may yield better results.

Ports

MintPond port numbers are arranged where higher ports have higher difficulty (higher ports for faster miners) and ports are duplicated with SSL/TLS secure connections at +5 of the normal port equivalent.

Single card or slower multi-card rigs should use lower ports.

Faster multi-card rigs or hash rentals should use higher ports.

If you are getting kicked/banned for submitting too fast, you should move to a higher port.

If it's taking a very long time to find shares, you should move to a lower port.

Username

Your username is your wallet address that you wish to receive funds to.

Worker Name

The worker's name is optional and is added after the wallet address, separated with a period.

The worker's name cannot have more than 20 characters. It must consist of alphanumeric characters. Only the underscore and dash special characters are allowed. The stratum will not authorize your worker if these rules are not followed.

Password

The password you use in your mining software sets the password used to change your payout settings in the dashboard.

Your password will not be recognized until you submit at least 1 share to the pool.

Since only one password will be valid, use the same password in all your miners to prevent confusion.

Do not use commas (,) in your password. These will be interpreted as parse control characters for options.

The password length is limited to 20 characters.

The password you set will not be valid until a few minutes after you submit your first share.

Changing to a new password can take up to 20 minutes of continuous mining.

top Options

Options are advanced parameters that are set using the password argument. They are added after the password and separated using commas.

You will not normally need these but they are here for reference.

Starting Difficulty (sd)

Sets the initial difficulty of the miner. Values less than the minimum allowed are ignored.

-p myPassword,sd=2048

Minimum Difficulty (md)

Sets the minimum difficulty. The stratum VarDiff will not set your difficulty below this value.

-p myPassword,md=2048

Verbose Mode (verbose)

Modifies the level of messages returned by the stratum.

Levels

  • 0 - No messages.
  • 1 - Normal. This is the default when the verbose option is not used.
  • 2 - High.

You may specify the verbose level as follows:

-p myPassword,verbose=0

Or you may simply put "verbose" to set the maximum level (2):

-p myPassword,verbose

Strict Mode (strict)

MintPond silently rejects some of the stale shares at the beginning of a new round since they are normal and includes them in your hashrate estimate. If you don't want this behavior you can mine in "strict" mode which will explicitly reject stales and exclude them from being counted towards your hashrate.

This does not affect earnings.

-p myPassword,strict

Multiple Options

You can include more than one option:

-p myPassword,sd=2048,strict,verbose

top Payments

Payments are sent to you at the scheduled time after your pool balance reaches the minimum balance.

Confirmations

Firo requires 100 confirmations before the block rewards are unlocked. This is a feature of the coin to be reasonably sure the block won't be orphaned.

While the block is awaiting confirmation, your reward will be added to the “Unconfirmed” balance in the dashboard.

Once confirmed, your share of the reward is added to your pool balance.

Minimum Balance

The payments processor will wait until your pool balance meets the minimum balance before sending it to your wallet.

The default minimum balance is 1 Firo. You can lower or raise your minimum balance by going to Settings popup in the dashboard. This can be reached by clicking on “Payouts” at the bottom of the dashboard (Desktop) or by clicking on “Settings” in the nav menu located in the top-right corner.

You will need the password you assigned via your miner to change the settings.

Payout Schedule

The payout schedule determines when you receive payments.

By default, you will receive payments on the hour whenever your minimum balance requirement is met. You can change your payout schedule by going to Settings popup in the pool dashboard. This can be reached by clicking on “Payouts” at the bottom of the dashboard (Desktop) or by clicking on “Settings” in the nav menu located in the top-right corner.

You will need the password you assigned via your miner to change the settings.

A Word about UTXO's

Each payment you receive is a single UTXO (Unspent Transaction Output) added to your wallet. When you send coins, UTXO’s are added until they sum to at least the amount you are sending. The more UTXOs required, the larger the transaction size.

Many small UTXOs in a wallet can cause high sending fees and even make the send impossible without manually breaking the transaction into multiple smaller transactions.

This is one reason that MintPond miners are given a higher degree of control over their payouts with minimum balances and scheduling.

top Additional Tools

MinerBox - iOS and Android App to track your mining progress.