Connect

There are two ways to mine here, and both pay the same way: your address is written directly into the coinbase of any block the pool finds, in proportion to your work in the payout window. The pool never holds your funds and there is no account to create.

This chain is mined with BLAKE2b, not SHA256d.

The Bitcoin Knots hardfork replaces the proof of work, and a gateway serves those headers over the Siacoin variant of Stratum v1. So the hardware is BLAKE2b hardware, the kind sold for Siacoin. A SHA256d bitcoin ASIC cannot mine this chain at all, whatever it is pointed at.

Run your own gateway

no gateway fee

You build your own block templates beside your own node and choose the transactions in them. This is what DATUM is for, and it needs a synced node of your own.

Point a miner at the public gateway

simplest

One stratum URL, with your address as the username. The operator runs the node and the gateway, and the pool charges a fee on the work that arrives through it.

Step 1

Your miner

BLAKE2b hardware

Stratum v1

Step 2

A gateway

beside a Bitcoin Knots node

DATUM, encrypted

Step 3

This pool

ratum-prime

The middle hop always exists. The only question is whether the operator runs it for you or you run it yourself. Pointing a miner at the pool's own port does not work: the pool implements DATUM, not stratum.

Option 1 · Run your own gateway

The gateway is a small program that runs beside your own node. It requests a block template from the node, serves stratum to your hardware, and connects to the pool over the encrypted DATUM protocol. You choose the transactions in every block you mine, and there is no gateway fee because the gateway is yours.

Before you start

A Bitcoin Knots node with the BLAKE2b change, synced, with RPC reachable from the gateway. A stock Bitcoin Core node validates the other chain and cannot be used. Until the node's template lists the !blake2b rule the gateway serves no work at all.
Matching versions. The header hash is byte-coupled across the node, the pool and the gateway, so the three must be upgraded together. Run ratum-gateway 0.1.23 or newer (earlier builds cap the coinbase at about 17 outputs and leave part of the pool's split for the operator to settle manually), or the CONVOY gateway's master branch from its BLAKE2b merge of 3 September 2026 on.
An address on this chain to be paid at, and a port your hardware can reach.

1 · Get the gateway

Prebuilt binaries for x86-64 and aarch64 Linux and for Windows are attached to every release. This pool also accepts the CONVOY DATUM gateway, whose master branch mines BLAKE2b since 3 September 2026. Both read the same configuration file and each ignores the keys it does not know, so switching between them only means replacing the executable.

ratum-gateway releases → CONVOY datum_gateway →

2 · Write gateway.json

The CONVOY gateway's own example, with this pool's datum block filled in. Three lines need editing, and the secondary tag is yours to choose.

bitcoind.rpcuser and rpcpassword are your node's RPC credentials, and rpcurl is where it listens. bitcoind.rpccookiefile, the path to the node's .cookie file, works on either gateway in place of the two credentials.
mining.pool_address is your address. It is what a miner is paid to when it sends no address of its own, so it must be valid on this chain.
mining.coinbase_tag_secondary is the label the pool shows beside your identity; the generated example's "DATUM User" is a placeholder here, and ratum-gateway leaves it empty by default. Do not reuse the public gateway's tag: the pool treats every share carrying it as work through the public gateway and charges that fee on it. coinbase_tag_primary is replaced by the pool's own tag while pooled and applies only to a block mined solo.
stratum.require_address_username: true is a key ratum-gateway adds: with it the gateway refuses at authorization a username whose address part is not an address. It is left out above because the CONVOY gateway ignores it; there a bare worker name reaches the pool and is rejected as BadUsername instead.
datum.pool_pubkey is this pool's identity, and your gateway checks the pool's handshake signature against it. It is filled in above from the running pool; compare it with the value the operator publishes before trusting it. Left empty, the CONVOY gateway fetches whatever key the far end presents and checks nothing, so keep it filled.
pooled_mining_only leaves your hardware idle rather than mining solo if the pool becomes unreachable.
The block is what datum_gateway --example-conf prints, with the same keys in the same order and the same placeholders, plus pool_host, pool_port and pool_pubkey in the datum block and a placeholder in place of the default secondary tag; datum_gateway -? documents every key. ratum-gateway has no such flag and reads this same file, noting at startup that log_rotate_daily has no effect on it. api.listen_port serves the gateway's own status page on port 7152; set it to 0 to keep that off.

3 · Run it, then point your miners at it

ratum-gateway -c gateway.json

It connects to the pool, waits for the node's template, and serves stratum on port 23334. Point your hardware at stratum+tcp://your-host:23334, giving each miner the address it should be paid at as its username.

A gateway closes new stratum connections, without a message, while its own miners measure above stratum.max_network_share_bps of the network hashrate: 10% by default, on mainnet only. Miners already connected are unaffected. Raise the setting, or set it to 0, if your hardware is that large a share of this chain.

Usernames and who gets paid

The pool credits work to the stratum username up to the first dot, and that part must be an address this chain's node accepts. Which username reaches the pool is decided by two settings in the configuration above, so this is also where you choose whether the miners behind your gateway are paid separately or together.

Gateway setting	Username the pool receives	Paid to
`pool_pass_full_users: true` the configuration above	the miner's own stratum username, unchanged	each miner's address, so miners behind one gateway are paid separately
`pool_pass_workers: true` `pool_pass_full_users: false`	the gateway's `pool_address`, then a dot and the miner's username	the gateway's address; the worker name still reaches the pool
both false	the gateway's `pool_address` alone	the gateway's address; no worker name reaches the pool

Both settings default to true, and pool_pass_full_users takes precedence when both are set, so an untouched configuration forwards raw usernames. A username that begins with a dot is a worker name only: both gateways append it to pool_address.

If shares are rejected

The pool rebuilds every share from its job and coinbase before crediting it, and one it will not accept comes back with a reason your gateway logs. These are the ones worth acting on.

Code	Reason	What it means
14	`BadUsername`	The username up to the first dot is not an address this chain's node accepts. A bare worker name is the usual cause.
43	`NoSplit`	The gateway mined a coinbase paying none of the outputs the pool specified. Upgrade it: work submitted this way is not credited.
25	`StaleBlock`	The share was for a parent that is no longer the tip. A few around every new block are normal.
21	`HighHash`	The share did not meet the difficulty it was assigned. Persistent HighHash indicates a miner working on a job it was not given.

Option 2 · Point a miner at the public gateway

The operator is not running a public gateway at the moment, so this pool can only be mined through a gateway of your own, as described above.