Solo mining pays in rare whole blocks; a pool pays you a steady drip for the exact same work, minus a small fee. This is the path from nothing to shares landing. A 9th grader can follow it: get a wallet, check your machine, pick a pool, and run one line.
Your wallet address is where the pool pays you: a long string starting with btx1. Use one of these three. When you make it, you get a private key or seed phrase: write it down on paper, store it somewhere safe, and never type it into a website or share it with anyone. The address is safe to paste anywhere; the private key is the one thing that can never leak.
Back up the private key before you mine. If you lose the key or seed, the coins are gone forever, no support line can recover them. Paper, offline, in two places. Never paste it into a pool site.
Before you mine, make sure the box is actually healthy: right driver, all GPUs on the bus, not overheating, cards drawing full power, and the pool port reachable. Paste this one command into a terminal. It prints a full report and a plain GO or NO-GO verdict at the end. If any card is throttled, it tells you it is underpowered by X% instead of a vague "ok".
>=580. Older drivers cannot run current BTX binaries.UNDERPOWERED by X%; a healthy card reads ok. Underpowered means lost hashrate.unknown / error / fallen).3333 is reachable, blocked ports fail the box.GO (all clear, run it), NO-GO (driver, port, or heat failed, fix before mining), or UNDERPOWERED X% (safe to run, but a card is throttled more than 10% so you are leaving hashrate on the table).echo "=== BOX $(hostname) FULL CHECK ==="; \
DRV=$(nvidia-smi --query-gpu=driver_version --format=csv,noheader|head -1); echo "driver=$DRV (need >=580)"; \
NG=$(nvidia-smi -L 2>&1|grep -c GPU); echo "gpus_listed=$NG cores=$(nproc)"; \
echo "-- idx / util / watts / temp / clock / power.limit / max --"; \
nvidia-smi --query-gpu=index,utilization.gpu,power.draw,temperature.gpu,clocks.sm,power.limit,power.max_limit --format=csv,noheader; \
echo "-- power check (underpowered if throttled >10%) --"; \
UP=$(nvidia-smi --query-gpu=index,power.draw,power.limit --format=csv,noheader,nounits | \
awk -F, 'BEGIN{worst=0} {d=$2+0; l=$3+0; if(l>0){p=100*d/l; if(p<90){def=100-p; if(def>worst)worst=def; printf "GPU%s UNDERPOWERED by %.0f%% (%.0fW / %.0fW)\n",$1,def,d,l} else printf "GPU%s ok (%.0fW / %.0fW)\n",$1,d,l}} END{print worst > "/tmp/worst_underpower"}'); \
echo "$UP"; WORST=$(cat /tmp/worst_underpower 2>/dev/null||echo 0); \
echo "-- throttle reasons --"; \
nvidia-smi --query-gpu=index,clocks_throttle_reasons.active --format=csv,noheader 2>/dev/null; \
echo "-- GPU errors? --"; \
nvidia-smi --query-gpu=index,name --format=csv,noheader 2>&1|grep -iE "unknown|error|fallen" && echo "!! BAD GPU !!" || echo "all GPUs clean on bus"; \
HOT=$(nvidia-smi --query-gpu=temperature.gpu --format=csv,noheader|awk '$1>=87{c++}END{print c+0}'); echo "cards_at_or_over_87C=$HOT"; \
echo "-- pool port 3333 --"; \
timeout 5 bash -c 'cat < /dev/null > /dev/tcp/poolbtx.com/3333' 2>/dev/null && POOL=OK || POOL=BLOCKED; echo "port_3333=$POOL"; \
echo "===================== VERDICT ====================="; \
V="GO"; \
[ "${DRV%%.*}" -lt 580 ] 2>/dev/null && { echo "FAIL driver $DRV < 580"; V="NO-GO"; }; \
[ "$POOL" != "OK" ] && { echo "FAIL pool 3333 blocked"; V="NO-GO"; }; \
[ "$HOT" -gt 2 ] 2>/dev/null && { echo "FAIL $HOT cards >=87C (thermal oven)"; V="NO-GO"; }; \
[ "$V" = "GO" ] && [ "${WORST%.*}" -gt 10 ] 2>/dev/null && V="UNDERPOWERED ${WORST%.*}% (GO, not full power)"; \
echo ">>> $V <<<"Three solid BTX pools below, each with its exact start instructions. The top two are the preferred picks for reliability and payout history. The fastest miner is matador-miner: on LuckyPool and NinjaRaider you run their native matador command straight from their site; on btxpool.org, use the ready-to-run command builder below. The live producer concentration board shows each pool's real share of blocks if you want to spread out the network.
Paste your wallet address and pick a worker name below. Your ready-to-run command builds itself, hit Copy and run it in a terminal. It downloads the miner, unpacks it, and starts mining on btxpool.org. Uses the cu13 build; if your GPU is on older CUDA, change cu13 to cu12.
LuckyPool supports matador natively. Open their how-to-mine page, pick the region closest to you, and copy the matador command they show, it already has the right stratum for your region. Paste in your wallet and worker name, then run it.
btx-us-central.lproute.com:8660how to mine, pick your region ↗NinjaRaider also supports matador natively. Open their BTX guide, copy the matador command they list, drop in your wallet and worker name, and run it.
see guide for endpointBTX mining guide ↗Within a minute the miner prints accepted shares, that is you getting paid your slice of every block the pool wins. Paste your address on the pool's site to see your hashrate, shares, and pending balance. Payouts arrive to your address automatically once you pass the pool's minimum. Model your exact cost per BTX and break-even on the Mining Desk.