Renters and providers
Mine on P2Pool (your own node)
Opt-in guide for RandomX miners who want fully decentralized mining: run your own monerod and P2Pool (main, mini or nano), point XMRig at it, and watch it on the read-only NonceWard P2Pool view.
On this page
What P2Pool is#
P2Pool is a decentralized Monero pool. There is no pool server and no pool wallet: every Monero block that P2Pool finds pays the miners in its PPLNS window directly in the block's coinbase. Nobody, including NonceWard, ever holds your coins.
This path is opt-in. NonceWard Pool (stratum.nonceward.com) stays the easy option: it needs only XMRig. P2Pool needs your own Monero node and P2Pool node, but gives you solo-mining independence with regular payouts.
| NonceWard Pool (RandomX) | Your own P2Pool | |
|---|---|---|
| What you run | XMRig only | monerod + p2pool + XMRig |
| Who pays you | SupportXMR, to your address | the Monero block itself, to your address |
| NonceWard fee | 1 % as mining time | none (we are not in the path) |
| Share check by NonceWard | yes, every share | no (P2Pool checks its own shares) |
| Dashboard | pool.nonceward.com/miner/… | pool.nonceward.com/p2pool (read-only, public data) |
The NonceWard fee does not apply#
We do not run a P2Pool node for you and we do not proxy P2Pool traffic, so no NonceWard fee is taken on P2Pool, and no referral or affiliate code is involved. P2Pool itself has a 0 % fee. The flip side: NonceWard does not verify your P2Pool shares and cannot help with your node; the NonceWard P2Pool view only reads public data from p2pool.observer.
P2Pool can also merge mine small donations for its author using spare merge-mining capacity; per the P2Pool README this never changes your Monero payouts. Builds made with -DWITH_MERGE_MINING_DONATION=OFF opt out.
Before you start#
- A new wallet just for mining. All P2Pool payout addresses are public. Use a primary address (starts with
4). P2Pool v4.11 and newer can also pay a subaddress of that wallet with--wallet MAIN --subaddress SUB. - Disk, RAM and time. monerod must download and verify the Monero blockchain before P2Pool can start (
--prune-blockchainkeeps the disk use smaller). Plan for hours to days for the first sync. - Clock. Synchronize your system clock (NTP) before mining.
- Firewall. Open TCP 18080 (Monero p2p) and the P2Pool p2p port: 37889 (main), 37888 (mini) or 37890 (nano). Keep the Stratum port 3333 private unless other rigs of yours connect to it.
- Separate user. Run the miners under a restricted OS user.
- Official downloads only. Monero, P2Pool releases, XMRig releases. Check the published hashes before running anything.
Pick a sidechain: main, mini or nano#
All three pay the same way; they differ in share difficulty. With a small hashrate on a hard sidechain your shares are rare, and a share only pays if it is still in the PPLNS window when P2Pool finds a Monero block. The NonceWard P2Pool view shows, for each sidechain and your hashrate, the expected time between your shares and the chance of having at least one share in the window, computed from the live difficulty. Pick a sidechain where you expect several shares per window. Add --mini or --nano to p2pool (not both); without either you mine on main.
Linux setup#
sudo sysctl vm.nr_hugepages=3072./monerod --zmq-pub tcp://127.0.0.1:18083 --out-peers 32 --in-peers 64 \
--add-priority-node=p2pmd.xmrvsbeast.com:18080 --add-priority-node=nodes.hashvault.pro:18080 \
--enforce-dns-checkpointing --enable-dns-blocklist --prune-blockchain./p2pool --host 127.0.0.1 --wallet YOUR_MONERO_PRIMARY_ADDRESS --mini./xmrig -o 127.0.0.1:3333If your upload bandwidth is below about 10 Mbit/s, use --out-peers 8 --in-peers 16 on monerod. --zmq-pub is required: P2Pool learns about new Monero blocks through it.
Windows setup#
Unpack monerod, p2pool and XMRig into one folder (for example C:\bin\p2pool, with Monero in a Monero subfolder), run XMRig once as Administrator for huge pages, then open three command prompts in that folder:
.\Monero\monerod.exe --zmq-pub tcp://127.0.0.1:18083 --out-peers 32 --in-peers 64 --add-priority-node=p2pmd.xmrvsbeast.com:18080 --add-priority-node=nodes.hashvault.pro:18080 --enforce-dns-checkpointing --enable-dns-blocklist --prune-blockchain
.\p2pool.exe --host 127.0.0.1 --wallet YOUR_MONERO_PRIMARY_ADDRESS --mini
.\xmrig.exe -o 127.0.0.1:3333Prefer a graphical app? Gupax sets up and runs P2Pool and XMRig together.
XMRig settings#
- The wallet address in XMRig is ignored on P2Pool: payouts go to the address given to p2pool.
- More rigs: run
xmrig -o IP_OF_YOUR_P2POOL_NODE:3333on each (same network, or a VPN). - Fixed share difficulty for a rig:
xmrig -u x+10000 -o 127.0.0.1:3333. - A machine with little RAM can run p2pool with
--light-mode(no 2 GB RandomX dataset in p2pool). - The NonceWard light-footprint and solar-hours settings from pool.nonceward.com/start work here too: keep the thread hint and schedule, just use
-o 127.0.0.1:3333.
Check that it works#
- Type
statusin the p2pool window: it shows the sidechain, your hashrate and your shares in the PPLNS window. grep -E 'WARNING|ERROR' p2pool.loglists problems.- Open the NonceWard P2Pool view, choose your sidechain and enter your address: it shows your shares in the current window, total shares and recent payouts as published by p2pool.observer, an independent explorer that NonceWard does not run. Your address is sent to p2pool.observer through our server; nothing is stored.
- Payouts appear in your wallet like any Monero transaction (Monero CLI/GUI 0.18+, Feather, Cake Wallet, Monerujo and Monero.com support them).
Renting and P2Pool#
Renters on nonceward.com can point a rental at their own P2Pool node's Stratum port (it must be reachable from the internet). The rented rig's shares are then checked by the NonceWard proxy as usual and forwarded to your P2Pool. See Renters.
Last updated: November 1, 2026