**NOTE** This is a highly experimental and untested software. I did some extensive testing locally, but there's zero guarantee it will work for you! It requires a custom monerod version and a specially configured Monero wallet (for now). No binaries are provided yet. Testing on mainnet has started! You can check the pool status at https://p2pool.io/
No ETA on the official release date, but hopefully before the end of September 2021.
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.
|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
* 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.
* 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.
Mainnet test has started! **PPLNS window = 2160 blocks, block time = 10 seconds**. 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 testing because **wallet addresses are public on p2pool**. The purpose of this test is to bring as much hashrate as possible and check if stratum server works fine!
- 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)
- Open this wallet in CLI: run `./monero-wallet-cli`, enter the wallet file name there and then enter the command `set refresh-type full`. **This step is important!** If you don't do it, you won't see p2pool payouts!
