How to mine eCash (ECX) or Bitcoin with a Bitaxe, NerdQAxe or NerdOctaxe
Small open-source miners are a good fit for MergedHash: there is no account to create and no minimum payout, and any block your miner finds is paid straight to your own address inside the block.
Before you start
You need three things: your miner on your network with its web page open, a bc1q… address from a wallet you control, and a decision between solo and shared mining.
- Use a bc1q… address from a wallet where you hold the private key or seed. That key receives your eCash or Bitcoin, Namecoin and Fractal Bitcoin rewards.
- Never use an exchange deposit address. Coinbase rewards sent there may be lost.
- bc1p (Taproot) and 3… addresses work for eCash and Bitcoin but are not paid on Namecoin, so bc1q is recommended.
- Rewards are spendable after 100 confirmations, like any coinbase.
The AxeOS / NerdOS fields
Open the miner's IP address in a browser, then go to Settings (on some versions Pool or Stratum). Bitaxe-style firmware has separate boxes for host and port:
mine.mergedhash.com3335 = eCash solo · 3338 = eCash shared · 3345 = Bitcoin solo · 3348 = Bitcoin sharedbc1q…yourAddress.bitaxe1xSome firmware wants the host with a prefix, as stratum+tcp://mine.mergedhash.com. If yours has one combined box, use stratum+tcp://mine.mergedhash.com:3335 (or the port you chose). The part after the dot in the user name (bitaxe1) is just a label so you can tell your miners apart; letters, numbers, dashes and underscores are fine.
Click Save, then Restart. Within a minute the dashboard should show the pool as connected and the share counter starting to rise. If the miner has a fallback pool, you can set the same host with the other port (for example solo first, shared as fallback), or another pool you trust.
Solo or shared?
Solo (3335 / 3345): if your miner finds a block, that whole block is paid to your address, minus the 1% pool fee. With a few TH/s the chance per day is small, and nobody can tell you when (or whether) a block will come. It is luck.
Shared PPLNS (3338 / 3348): every block found on the shared port is split among everyone who mined recently, by their share of the work. Payments are smaller and come more often. A very small contribution can wait for a later block before it gets its own output (an output that would cost more than about 1% of its value to spend is not written); it is never given to the pool.
NerdOS miners can split hashrate between two pools, for example 90% solo and 10% shared. Read more in solo vs PPLNS.
eCash or Bitcoin?
Both use SHA-256, so the same miner works on either; you choose with the port. eCash (ECX) is a 2026 Bitcoin fork with Drivechains (BIP300/301), and its network hashrate is far lower than Bitcoin's, so the same miner has a larger share of the eCash network. eCash blocks also carry sidechain (BMM) fees, which MergedHash passes to the miners. Bitcoin is the larger, more liquid coin, with much longer odds for a small solo miner. Either way, your work also merge-mines Namecoin, Fractal Bitcoin and Hathor (see merged mining).
Add Hathor (optional)
Hathor needs its own address, which starts with H. Your miner has only one address box, so the Hathor address goes in the password box instead:
x,htr=H…yourHathorAddressIf the password box is too short, use the shortest form with no spaces: htr=H…. Get the address from the official Hathor wallet (Receive). Without it you still mine eCash or Bitcoin, Namecoin and Fractal Bitcoin. Full steps: Hathor on the home page.
The coinbase check in AxeOS and NerdOS
Recent AxeOS and NerdOS versions check every job's coinbase and compare the part paid to your address with a maximum pool fee you set. On a solo port the coinbase pays only your address plus the pool's 1%, so the check stays green; allow at least a 1% fee.
On a shared (PPLNS) port the coinbase pays every miner in the recent-shares window, so other miners' outputs are in it too. The firmware can't tell those apart from a pool fee, so whenever other miners hold more of the window than your fee setting, the address shows red or the "honesty" score drops. That is normal on any PPLNS pool and doesn't mean anything is taken from you: the pool's fee is always exactly 1%. A very small miner may also be left out of some jobs, because outputs too small to spend are carried to a later block.
On a shared port you can set the check to info-only (or switch it off) for that pool, or raise its maximum fee. If you want the check to mean something, use a solo port. After changing it, reset the miner's statistics so the counter starts fresh.
Check that it works
Open the home page, paste your bc1 address into Look up your miner, and bookmark the page it opens. It shows your hashrate, workers, shares and every payout written to your address. The status page shows whether each port and node is healthy.
Bitaxe questions
My Bitaxe says "connected" but the pool page shows no hashrate.
The pool shows hashrate after it has received a few shares, which takes a few minutes for a small miner. Check the user name is exactly your address, a dot and a worker name, with no spaces.
Which difficulty should I set?
None. The pool adjusts each connection's difficulty automatically (vardiff) to about 6–12 shares a minute. Leave any suggested-difficulty box empty or at its default.
Can I run several Bitaxes on one address?
Yes. Use the same address with a different worker name on each (bitaxe1, bitaxe2, …). They are counted as one miner with several workers.
Do I need to register?
No. Your address is your account. There is nothing to sign up for and no balance to withdraw.
More guides: Bitaxe, NerdQAxe and NerdOctaxe · Antminer, Whatsminer and Avalon · Rented hashrate · Merged mining · Solo vs PPLNS · FAQ