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Frequently Asked Questions
MacMetal Miner is a Bitcoin mining application built specifically for Apple Silicon Macs (M1/M2/M3). It uses Apple's Metal GPU framework to achieve maximum hashrate.
No, not for income. Solo mining with consumer hardware is essentially a lottery. At 350 MH/s, you'd need to mine for ~37,000 years on average to find a block.
However, if you DO find a block, you'd receive 3.125 BTC + fees ($300,000+).
- The dream of hitting the jackpot
- Learning about Bitcoin
- Supporting decentralization
- Fun - it's like a lottery that does useful work
- Zero pool fees - if you win, you keep everything
Yes. Bitcoin mining is legal in most countries. You're simply running computations on your own computer.
| Chip | Expected Hashrate |
|---|---|
| M1 | ~200-250 MH/s |
| M1 Pro | ~280-300 MH/s |
| M1 Max | ~350-400 MH/s |
| M2 | ~220-280 MH/s |
| M2 Pro | ~300-330 MH/s |
| M2 Max | ~380-420 MH/s |
| M3 | ~250-300 MH/s |
| M3 Pro | ~320-360 MH/s |
| M3 Max | ~400-450 MH/s |
- Thermal throttling - Mac gets hot and slows down
- Battery power - Plug in for full performance
- Other apps - Close GPU-intensive applications
- Pool difficulty - Very high difficulty means fewer reported shares
- Share: A proof of work that meets the pool's difficulty (easy)
- Block: A proof of work that meets the network difficulty (extremely hard)
Pools use shares to measure your contribution, even though you're unlikely to find a real block.
Pool difficulty determines how hard shares are to find. Lower difficulty = more frequent shares, but same statistical chance of finding a block.
| Difficulty | Approx. Shares/sec at 350 MH/s |
|---|---|
| 0.0001 | ~40/sec |
| 0.001 | ~4/sec |
| 0.01 | ~0.4/sec |
| 0.1 | ~0.04/sec |
Mining is intensive but safe:
- CPU/GPU: Designed for sustained loads
- Thermals: Mac throttles to protect itself
- Battery: Plug in during mining
- SSD: Mining doesn't write to disk excessively
Running 24/7 at high load may reduce component lifespan slightly, but modern Macs are built for this.
Some pools require registration, others don't:
No registration:
- public-pool.io
- solo.ckpool.org
Registration required:
- Braiins
- ViaBTC
- 2Miners
For beginners: public-pool.io (0% fee, no registration)
For reliability: solo.ckpool.org (2% fee, battle-tested)
For control: Ayedex Pool (0% fee, self-hosted)
- Pool requires registration (create account on website)
- Incorrect worker format
- Pool is down or overloaded
- Firewall blocking connection
A stale share is submitted after the pool already moved to a new block. It happens naturally and isn't a problem unless it's excessive.
Use SegWit (bech32) addresses starting with bc1q:
bc1q2xh89ghtpxya8hj34vulfvx3ckl6rf00umayjt
They have lower fees when spending.
Solo mining: Only when you find a block (extremely rare)
If you find a block:
- Block reward goes to your address
- Wait for 100 confirmations (~17 hours)
- Funds are spendable
As of 2024 halving:
- Block subsidy: 3.125 BTC
- Transaction fees: Variable (~0.1-1 BTC typically)
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Total:
3.25-4 BTC ($300,000+)
Your Mac doesn't have a compatible GPU. MacMetal requires Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3).
- Check internet connection
- Verify server and port are correct
- Try a different pool
- Check firewall settings
- Verify Bitcoin address is valid
- Check pool difficulty isn't too high
- Ensure clock is synchronized
- Try a different pool
- Rebuild from source
- Check Console.app for crash logs
- Ensure you have Xcode Command Line Tools
Ayedex Pool is a self-hosted solo mining pool included with MacMetal Miner. It connects to Bitcoin Core and lets you mine with zero pool fees.
No. You can use any public pool. Ayedex Pool is for users who want:
- Zero fees
- Complete control
- True trustless mining
- To run their own infrastructure
Bitcoin Core provides:
- Block templates (what to mine)
- Block submission (when you find one)
- Network connectivity
Without Bitcoin Core, the pool can't communicate with the Bitcoin network.
Yes:
- Open source - Code is inspectable
- No network access except pools - Doesn't phone home
- Keychain storage - Addresses stored securely
- No private keys - Never handles your wallet keys
No. MacMetal only knows your public address (where to send rewards). It never has access to your private keys or wallet.
To securely store your Bitcoin address between sessions. You can deny this - the app will still work, but won't remember your address.