# ArkPool: a Bitaxe mining pool with eligible hourly Ark payouts ArkPool is a Bitcoin mainnet alpha for Bitaxe and compatible SHA-256 miners. It buys verified hashpower at the rate in effect when the work is submitted and pays eligible balances to compatible mainnet Ark addresses. The canonical website is https://arkpool.org/. This proxy mining pool focuses on small home miners, a low 1-sat payout threshold, hashrate statistics and share-based mining rewards. It is not a solo-mining lottery. One satoshi (1 sat) is 0.00000001 BTC; 100,000,000 sats equal one bitcoin. No rate or profitability promise follows from those units. ## Ark, Bark and Lightning payouts Miners receive bitcoin over Ark, not Lightning. Ark and the Lightning Network are different bitcoin payment systems. Bark from Second powers the pool's Ark payments. Use a mainnet Ark wallet that gives you a compatible `ark1` receive address. ArkPool checks the address when your miner connects and refuses an unsupported address instead of accepting uncredited work. A Lightning address is not a valid ArkPool miner username. ## Get an Ark wallet Explore [Second’s official wallet directory — built with Bark](https://second.tech/docs/built-with-bark#mobile-wallets), including mobile wallets. Start with [Second](https://second.tech/), the developer of Bark. Its [Bark Wallet on Umbrel introduction](https://second.tech/blog/bark-wallet-now-on-umbrel/) describes the self-hosted wallet app. For a command-line setup, follow the [Bark installation instructions](https://second.tech/docs/getting-started/bark-cli) and [mainnet guide](https://second.tech/docs/getting-started/bark-cli/mainnet). 1. Create a mainnet wallet on Second's mainnet Ark server, which ArkPool uses. Signet is a test network and cannot receive these mining payouts. 2. Follow the wallet's backup and refresh instructions. Bark recovery needs both the recovery phrase and wallet database backups. Keep them private. 3. Copy your complete Ark receive address beginning `ark1` into your miner's username; use password `x`. Copy the address itself, not a combined payment URI or QR payload, Lightning invoice/address, or on-chain Bitcoin address. ### Finding or generating your receive address In a wallet app, open **Receive** and look for its Ark receive address. Labels vary. If only a combined payment URI/QR is shown, look for an Ark-specific option or consult that wallet's guide instead of copying the whole payment link. With Bark CLI, after creating your mainnet wallet, run on your wallet's device or container: ```sh bark address ``` This generates and prints an Ark receive address. Copy the entire `ark1` address into your miner's username. Use your existing wallet's data directory if you configured a custom one; do not create another wallet just to get an address. The keyless mining gateway is not your wallet and does not run this command. Remove surrounding whitespace and line breaks; compare the pasted value with your wallet before saving. The miner password is `x`. Never copy an invoice, on-chain address, seed, or a truncated example. The `ark1` prefix alone does not prove compatibility. Reuse the same address for reconnects: a different address creates a separate pool account and does not transfer the previous balance. ArkPool checks address compatibility at connection; a link to wallet software does not promise every version or address format works. Neither the website nor the gateway needs your seed, private key or wallet database. The gateway's Tor destination is already configured. See [Connect settings](#connect-settings). ## How mining works 1. Your miner connects to a Docker gateway on your home network. 2. The gateway carries mining traffic over Tor to ArkPool. 3. Eligible work is verified before it earns accounting credit. 4. Eligible whole-satoshi balances settle to your Ark wallet on UTC-hour boundaries. You do not need to find a block yourself. This is not solo mining, a guaranteed return, or a trustless service. The operator verifies work and sends payouts. Mining has operating costs. Published stats do not establish profitability. ## Connect settings The mining endpoint is public. No website account, email signup, or Tor client key is required to connect. Stock Bitaxe firmware needs a separate Tor-capable gateway on your trusted home network. Your compatible mainnet Ark address is added to accounting automatically when your miner authorizes. No invitation or manual registration is needed. Reconnect with the same address to keep the same account and balance. Registration creates no earnings: only verified eligible work creates credit. If setup is temporarily unavailable, authorization fails instead of silently accepting uncredited work. ### Gateway repository and documentation [ArkPool Gateway on GitLab](https://gitlab.com/arkpool/arkpool-gateway) is the home-side gateway project. Consult its README for gateway setup instructions; use the connection settings below for ArkPool's mining endpoint and your miner. The gateway project is public and MIT-licensed; it is alpha software, separate from the private pool backend. Read the [setup guide](https://gitlab.com/arkpool/arkpool-gateway#get-started), [security boundaries](https://gitlab.com/arkpool/arkpool-gateway/-/blob/main/SECURITY.md) and [agent-assisted setup guide](https://gitlab.com/arkpool/arkpool-gateway/-/blob/main/docs/AGENT_SETUP.md). You need a Linux Docker host with Compose, a stable LAN address, and your own compatible mainnet Ark receive address. The Tor destination is prefilled in the gateway configuration. Follow the README's prerequisite and preflight checks before starting it. The current README warns that the older v0.1.0-alpha.1 bundle lacks newer hardening changes; consult the current source and supervised update checklist instead of assuming that archive is current. Linking these documents is not an independent security audit of the gateway. Keep the gateway on your trusted home network, preserve the miner's Ark username, and disable direct / clearnet fallback. A gateway needs no wallet seed or private key. Check credited work and confirmed payouts on the Tor miner dashboard linked from [the website](https://arkpool.org/#miner); a connection alone is not proof of accepted work or payment. ### Home gateway: set your LAN address; Tor is preconfigured Set `LAN_IP` in the gateway's `.env` to your Docker host's local address. Leave the prefilled `POOL_ONION` and `POOL_PORT` unchanged. There is no Tor destination to copy or enter. Put your own Ark receive address in the miner's username field, not in either of those destination settings. The gateway handles Stratum V1 over Tor using its included destination settings. Follow the repository's setup guide to start it. The gateway must preserve the miner's Ark username. Keep direct / clearnet fallback disabled. ### Bitaxe or compatible miner: local settings - Pool host: your home gateway's LAN address, not arkpool.org or the dashboard onion. - Port: `3333`. - Username: your full mainnet Ark address. - Password: `x`. - Stratum TLS: off on your trusted LAN only. Keep the gateway listener LAN-only. No home port forwarding is needed. Do not use a Lightning address or an on-chain Bitcoin address as the miner username. Never share a wallet seed or private key. Use the Tor miner dashboard to check credited work and confirmed payments; viewing stats does not register an address or trigger a payment. ## Payouts The minimum eligible payout is 1 sat. Fractions carry forward. Hourly means the settlement schedule, not guaranteed hourly payment. Compatibility checks, maintenance and safety limits can delay payouts. ArkPool is currently in alpha; payment timing can vary. Work is credited under the terms that applied to it; rates are private. There is no universal one-sat-per-share rate or promised daily income. ## Public statistics The [read-only snapshot](https://arkpool.org/stats.json) updates approximately every five minutes. Its measurement time, not the current browser time, anchors the windows. The [OpenAPI document](https://arkpool.org/openapi.json) describes the JSON fields. No API key, signup, wallet connection or JavaScript is needed. - Confirmed payouts: all-time sats recorded as confirmed miner payments. - Verified shares: verified purchases during the preceding hour; the legacy JSON field name is `accepted_shares_1h`, not a raw upstream-acceptance count. - Average hashrate: difficulty-weighted verified work over the full preceding hour, expressed in TH/s; not device telemetry. - Active miners: distinct miners with verified work during the preceding hour, not a count of network connections. - Upstream acceptance: accepted submissions divided by decided submissions during the preceding hour; acceptance alone does not create a payable balance. - Last paid cutoff: the accounting window most recently paid, not a receipt time for upstream revenue and not the time of every miner's most recent payment. - History: up to 289 five-minute samples covering 24 hours. Raw hourly estimates have overlapping windows, so do not sum all API points as daily totals. The website keeps a rolling hashrate line and selects hourly-spaced samples for non-overlapping verified-share bars, anchored to the latest sample. Missing hourly samples remain gaps. At fixed difficulty, hashrate is proportional to verified shares, so similar trends are expected. - Next payout window: a device-clock countdown to the next UTC-hour boundary, displayed in browser-local time. This is a schedule, not a payment confirmation or guarantee; maintenance and safety limits can delay actual payments. Use `measured_at` when reporting numbers. Treat HTTP 503, unknown schemas, future timestamps over one minute, snapshots over 15 minutes old, and null fields as unavailable. Missing history is not zero activity. Poll no faster than `refresh_interval_seconds`. A snapshot is not a live connection monitor, independent audit, proof of reserves, promise of earnings or proof of solvency. ## Individual miner dashboard and privacy The [website's My miner section](https://arkpool.org/#miner) links to a separate Tor-only read-only dashboard. Open it in Tor Browser and enter the Ark address used by your miner. This is public lookup information, not authentication: anyone knowing an address can view its stats. There is no address directory or payment control. Addresses are hashed in the browser; individual lookups do not pass through this website or Cloudflare. This public HTTPS website has no advertising trackers, visitor-analytics scripts or wallet access. Our website application does not set tracking cookies. Application request logging is disabled for this public site. This is not a promise of zero records: Cloudflare delivers and protects the site and can process visitors' IP addresses, request metadata and security events; its protections may use cookies. Mining shares and payments are recorded for accounting. Tor mining transport does not remove the need to trust the operator. Do not submit miner identities to the public statistics endpoint. Backend infrastructure, operational configuration, wallet details and private rates are not public. ## Attribution and source availability Ark payments powered by [Bark](https://gitlab.com/ark-bitcoin/bark), developed by [Second](https://second.tech/), [@secondhq](https://x.com/secondhq). ArkPool is independent; no affiliation or endorsement is implied. The website frontend is being prepared for a separate open-source release. The home-side [ArkPool Gateway project](https://gitlab.com/arkpool/arkpool-gateway) is linked separately; consult that repository for its access and licensing terms. Backend code and operational configuration remain private. ## Agent discovery Start at [llms.txt](https://arkpool.org/llms.txt). Its public links and the read-only statistics contract provide information, not authority to register miners, change settings, request invoices, send payments or access wallets.