Setup & First ShareBeginner11 min read

Connect Any Miner to mkpool: The Universal Setup Guide (2026)

Published July 24, 2026

There are dozens of Bitcoin miners, industrial Antminers and Whatsminers, desk-sized Bitaxe and NerdQAxe boards, rented hashrate from a marketplace, but they all connect to mkpool the same way. Learn the four settings once and you can point anything at the pool. This guide is that pattern; the hardware-specific guides just add the details for a particular device.

The whole model rests on one idea: mkpool is non-custodial. You put your own address into the miner, and if it solves a block the network pays that address directly. The pool never holds your coins.

mkpool relays work and templates; the block reward is paid on-chain straight to the address you mine with.

The four settings

Every miner's pool configuration, whatever the firmware calls it, is built from the same four fields:

Stratum URL, where the miner connects, in the form stratum+tcp://<host>:<port>.
Worker / username, your own wallet address for the chain you are mining, optionally followed by a dot and a rig name, e.g. address.rig1.
Password, x. It is ignored unless it carries an option (see difficulty, below).
Backup pool, a second endpoint the miner falls back to if the first is unreachable. Optional, but strongly recommended.

That is the entire connection. The address in the worker field is the part that matters: on a zero-fee, non-custodial pool it is both your identity on the dashboard and the destination any reward is paid to.

Step 1: Match your miner to a chain

A miner can only mine chains that use its hashing algorithm. This is the one thing people get wrong: a Bitcoin ASIC cannot mine Litecoin, and a Litecoin miner cannot mine Bitcoin. Match your hardware to a chain from this list; it is generated from the live pool config, so every host is current:

Chain	Algorithm	Stratum host	Connect
Bitcoin (BTC)	SHA-256	btc.mkpool.com	btc/connect
Bitcoin Cash (BCH)	SHA-256	bch.mkpool.com	bch/connect
BitcoinII (BC2)	SHA-256	bc2.mkpool.com	bc2/connect
Bitcoin Cash II (BCH2)	SHA-256	bch2.mkpool.com	bch2/connect
DigiByte (DGB)	SHA-256	dgb.mkpool.com	dgb/connect
eCash (XEC)	SHA-256	xec.mkpool.com	xec/connect
Zcash (ZEC)	Equihash	zec.mkpool.com	zec/connect
Litecoin (LTC) · merge-mines DOGE	Scrypt	ltc.mkpool.com	ltc/connect

Most ASICs and every Bitaxe or NerdQAxe are SHA-256 machines, so they can mine any of the six SHA-256 chains above. Scrypt ASICs (Antminer L7, Elphapex, Goldshell) mine Litecoin, which merge-mines Dogecoin for free. Equihash miners mine Zcash.

Step 2: Set the URL and port

Point the miner at your chosen chain's host on a stratum port. Taking Bitcoin as the worked example, these are mkpool's live Bitcoin ports, straight from the pool config:

Host: btc.mkpool.com

Port	Difficulty	Encryption	Rented hashrate
3333	vardiff [1024 to 1M]	Plain	Owned miners
3334	vardiff [1024 to 1M] · TLS	TLS	Owned miners
3335	fixed 1,000,000 · TLS	TLS	Owned miners
3336	fixed 10,000,000 · TLS	TLS	Owned miners
3342	fixed 50,000,000 · TLS	TLS	Owned miners
3337	fixed 1,000,000	Plain	NiceHash · Braiins
3338	fixed 10,000,000	Plain	NiceHash · Braiins
3339	fixed 50,000,000	Plain	NiceHash · Braiins
3340	vardiff [1024 to 1M]	Stratum V2	Owned miners · Braiins
3380	fixed 1,000,000	Stratum V2	Owned miners · Braiins
3381	fixed 10,000,000	Stratum V2	Owned miners · Braiins
3382	fixed 50,000,000	Stratum V2	Owned miners · Braiins

Stratum V2 URL: stratum2+tcp://btc.mkpool.com:3340/9c9aZWzETaiJyqGGUSCn8GqFgTpxs96ert4d4jGeRnvxqRqhZar

For almost everyone the answer is the vardiff port (3333 on Bitcoin). Variable difficulty starts low and automatically adjusts the share difficulty to match your hashrate, so it works for a 1 TH/s Bitaxe and a 300 TH/s ASIC alike with no tuning. Only reach for a fixed high-difficulty port if you are connecting rented or aggregated hashrate. Which port suits which hardware is covered in detail in choosing a difficulty tier.

Other chains, same pattern

For a chain other than Bitcoin, swap the host (for example ltc.mkpool.com for Litecoin) and use an address for that chain. Each chain's connect page, linked in the table above, lists its own ports.

Step 3: Use your address as the worker

Put your wallet address for that chain into the worker or username field. If your firmware has a separate rig-name field, use it; otherwise append the rig name after a dot:

Single miner: bc1qyouraddress
Named rig: bc1qyouraddress.livingroom

Set the password to x and you are done with the essentials.

Step 4: Add a backup pool

Every miner firmware supports at least one fallback pool, and using it costs nothing. Point Pool 2 at a different mkpool port, or even a different chain, with the same address, so a brief network hiccup or a single-endpoint blip never leaves an expensive miner sitting idle. The miner uses the primary whenever it can and only drops to the backup when it must.

Step 5: Verify on the dashboard

Save the configuration and give it a minute. Then confirm it is working from both sides. On the miner, look for accepted shares climbing and a hashrate near the model's rating. On mkpool, open the chain's dashboard, for Bitcoin that is the Bitcoin dashboard, and look up your address:

A connected worker shows

A live hashrate close to your miner's own readout.
An accepted-share count that keeps rising.
A recent "last share" timestamp.

What all those numbers actually mean, best share, the different hashrate windows, valid/invalid/stale shares, is explained in reading your worker stats.

Naming workers across several miners

If you run more than one machine, give each a distinct rig name after the dot, address.a, address.b, and so on. The address stays the same, so every miner pays the same wallet while reporting its own hashrate and shares separately. That turns the dashboard into a per-rig health panel: a dead or throttling unit stands out instead of hiding inside a combined total.

Device-specific guides

The four settings are all you need, but each device has its own quirks, where the config page lives, what the firmware supports, how to reach the web UI. Follow the guide for your hardware:

Antminer S21 series, and the same steps apply to older Antminers and Whatsminers.
NerdQAxe++ and NerdOCTAxe (AxeOS), which share their setup flow with the Bitaxe.
For encrypted connections, see Braiins OS and Stratum V2.

Disclaimer

Field names and menu locations vary by miner firmware; follow your device's documentation for the exact labels. Details are current as of July 2026. Nothing here is financial advice. Solo mining is probabilistic and can lose money depending on electricity cost and network conditions.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need an account to mine on mkpool?

No. mkpool is account-less and non-custodial. You put your own wallet address in the worker field; that address is both your identity on the dashboard and the destination the block reward is paid to, directly in the coinbase transaction. There is nothing to register and no balance to withdraw.

What do I put in the username and password fields?

The username (sometimes called the worker) is your wallet address for the chain you are mining, optionally followed by a dot and a short rig name, for example address.rig1. The password is x. mkpool only reads the password if it carries an option such as d=1000000 to set a static difficulty.

Can any miner mine any coin on mkpool?

Only within its algorithm. A SHA-256 ASIC (Antminer, Whatsminer, Bitaxe, NerdQAxe) can mine Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, BitcoinII, Bitcoin Cash II, DigiByte and eCash. A Scrypt ASIC mines Litecoin and merge-mines Dogecoin. An Equihash miner mines Zcash. A miner cannot mine a chain on a different algorithm.

Which port should I use?

Use the vardiff port for owned hardware; it auto-tunes the share difficulty to your hashrate. Use a fixed high-difficulty port for rented or aggregated hashrate such as NiceHash, which needs a set difficulty to report its full speed. Each chain's connect page lists its ports.

How do I know it is working?

Check the miner's own status page for accepted shares and a stable hashrate, then look up your address on the chain's dashboard on mkpool. Seeing your worker there with a live hashrate confirms the pool sees you. The pool's hashrate estimate is derived from your shares and lags the miner's readout by a few minutes.

Should I mine to an exchange address?

No. Mine only to an address in a wallet whose keys you control. Some exchanges do not credit coinbase (newly mined) transactions, and you would not hold the keys to a block reward sent there. Use your own wallet so you keep full control of any reward.

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