Terms of Service

1. Acceptance & Eligibility

By connecting mining hardware to our stratum endpoints, or by using our website, API or tools, you enter into a binding agreement with the mkpool project ("mkpool", "we", "us"). If you do not agree, do not use the service. You confirm that you are at least 18 years old (or the age of majority where you live), that you have the legal capacity to accept these Terms, and that mining and holding the relevant digital assets is lawful in your jurisdiction. If you use the service on behalf of an organisation, you confirm you are authorised to bind it.

2. Non-Custodial Pool Model

mkpool operates strictly as an open-source, non-custodial Stratum solo mining pool. By connecting your hardware to our server endpoints, you acknowledge that mkpool never holds, custodies, controls or manages your digital assets at any time. We do not operate user accounts, balances, withdrawal queues or web wallets, and we cannot freeze, reverse, recover or seize funds. Block rewards are paid directly on-chain in the coinbase transaction the moment a valid block is solved, to the payout address you supply as your stratum username. You are solely responsible for the accuracy and security of that address and of the private keys controlling it. We cannot help recover funds sent to an address you do not control or mistyped.

3. Reward Distribution & Donation

Block rewards found on this pool are distributed directly to the payout wallet address submitted as the stratum username in the block's coinbase output. A community-funded output of 2% is currently allocated to development and infrastructure maintenance within the same coinbase transaction. The pool's reward arrangement, including the donation percentage and any future fee, is set by mkpool and may be changed at our discretion at any time. The figure in effect is always shown on this page and on the relevant pool dashboard, and by using our stratum endpoints you agree to the reward model in effect at the time you mine.

4. Service Provided "As Is" Without Guarantees

mkpool is provided on an "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" basis. We make no representations, warranties or service-level commitments regarding stratum connection stability, uptime, share latency, hashrate reporting accuracy, or the discovery of any block. Solo mining is probabilistic: finding a block is never guaranteed regardless of how much hashrate you contribute or for how long. You are responsible for configuring fallback pool profiles in your hardware. See our Disclaimer for the full scope of this limitation.

5. Acceptable Use & Prohibited Activities

You agree that you will not use mkpool to:

• break any law, regulation or sanctions programme applicable to you, including anti-money-laundering, counter-terrorist-financing or tax laws;
• launder proceeds of crime, finance illegal activity, or mine using stolen hardware, stolen electricity, or compromised devices (e.g. botnets or cryptojacking);
• attack, overload, probe, reverse-engineer for abuse, or attempt to gain unauthorised access to our infrastructure, or interfere with other miners (including DDoS, share withholding, or block-withholding attacks);
• mine where cryptocurrency mining, holding or use is prohibited or restricted in your jurisdiction; or
• misrepresent your identity, location, or the lawful origin of your hardware or funds.

You are solely responsible for determining whether your use is lawful where you are. Breaching this section is a material breach of these Terms.

6. Sanctions & Geographic Restrictions

You represent that you are not located in, ordinarily resident in, or a national of any country or territory subject to comprehensive sanctions, and that you are not listed on, or owned or controlled by a person listed on, any sanctions list maintained by the United Nations, the United Kingdom (incl. OFSI), the European Union, or the United States (incl. OFAC). You may not use the service on behalf of any such person. Because mkpool is non-custodial and account-free, we rely on these representations rather than identity checks. If any becomes untrue, you must stop using the service immediately.

7. Assumption of Mining & Blockchain Risk

Mining digital currencies involves specialised hardware, volatile network difficulty, fluctuating asset prices and real financial risk. You alone bear your electricity, hardware, cooling and operating costs, and any tax due on rewards. You accept that blocks you solve may be orphaned, stale, or invalidated by chain reorganisations, forks, protocol changes or network conditions outside our control, and that mkpool is not liable for any resulting loss of reward.

8. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, mkpool and its contributors will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, nor for any loss of profit, revenue, mining reward, digital assets, data, or goodwill, arising out of or relating to your use of (or inability to use) the service, whether based in contract, tort, negligence, strict liability or otherwise, and even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages. Our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to the service is limited to one hundred pounds sterling (£100). Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or any other liability that applicable law (including your mandatory consumer rights) does not allow to be limited.

9. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless mkpool and its contributors from any claim, demand, loss, liability or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your use of the service, your breach of these Terms, your violation of any law or third-party right, or your mining or handling of digital assets. This does not apply to the extent a loss results from our own fraud, gross negligence, or wilful misconduct, or is otherwise non-excludable by law.

10. Third-Party Services & Links

The service relies on third-party providers (for example our CDN and security provider, transactional email and messaging provider, and the messaging platforms you choose for alerts), and may link to external sites such as exchanges, explorers and hardware vendors. We do not control and are not responsible for third-party services or content, and a link is not an endorsement. Your use of any third party is governed by that party's own terms. Details of the providers that process personal data are set out in our Privacy Policy.

11. Suspension & Changes to the Service

mkpool is operated on a best-effort basis and may be modified, suspended, rate-limited or discontinued (in whole or in part) at any time without notice. We may refuse, throttle or block any connection or payout address that we reasonably believe breaches these Terms, threatens the stability or security of the pool, or must be restricted to comply with the law, without liability to you. Because the service is non-custodial, blocking an address affects only its ability to use this pool, not any on-chain funds.

12. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. The "last updated" date above reflects the current version, and material changes take effect when posted on this page. Your continued use of the service after a change constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms. If you do not agree, stop using the service.

13. Governing Law & Disputes

These Terms and any dispute arising out of or in connection with them are governed by the laws of England and Wales, United Kingdom, and you and we submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales. Before starting any formal proceedings, please contact us at legal@mkpool.com so we can try to resolve the matter informally. If you use the service as a consumer, this clause does not deprive you of the protection of any mandatory laws that apply to you and cannot be overridden by agreement, including the right to bring proceedings in the courts of your country of residence.

14. General

If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable, the rest remain in full force. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them to a successor of the project. We are not liable for any failure or delay caused by events beyond our reasonable control (force majeure), including network, power, hosting or upstream-protocol failures. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy and Disclaimer, are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the service. The mkpool software is additionally licensed under GPL-3.0; that licence governs the source code, while these Terms govern use of the hosted service.

15. Contact

Questions about these Terms can be sent to legal@mkpool.com.