Save and Gain (SANDG) Pool Setup — SHA256/SHA256d Operator Checklist

A Save and Gain pool on SHA256/SHA256d succeeds when the “boring” parts are correct: synced nodes, predictable difficulty behavior, and safe payouts. Below is our operator‑focused checklist for launching and maintaining a SANDG pool.

SANDG pool operations: keep balances explainable and payouts clean

If your SANDG pool is going to earn trust, miners must be able to reconcile shares → credits → payments. That comes from conservative wallet handling, transparent policies, and avoiding “mystery balance” drift during restarts.

• Define your credit timing: do you show pending balances immediately or only after the daemon reports spendable rewards? Explain the difference in one sentence on the dashboard.
• Plan for wallet load: payout batching and UTXO growth can slow wallets down over time; monitor transaction creation latency and mempool acceptance.
• Write down your fee/relay assumptions: confirm what fee policy the daemon enforces so payouts don’t get stuck in mempool limbo.
• Treat vardiff as a load-balancing tool: variable difficulty should keep share submissions within a manageable range while preserving miner feedback.

SANDG stack choice: fewer moving parts vs deeper customization

For SANDG, reliability usually beats novelty. Pick a pool core you can upgrade and monitor without heroics, and keep your deployment reproducible.

• Yiimp deployment: quick operator portal and classic UX. Use Yiimp setup guide and then invest in payout batching and wallet safeguards.
• Miningcore deployment: clean service boundaries and metrics; ideal when you want to integrate monitoring and runbooks tightly. Start from Miningcore setup guide.
• Custom deployment: useful for special payout rules, compliance requirements, or when you need to integrate proprietary accounting systems.

SANDG pool build deliverables (end-to-end)

• Node + wallet deployment: build/install, config review, and a documented backup/restore path for wallet state.
• RPC boundaries: private RPC, limited credentials, and an allowlist model so only payout services can call sensitive methods.
• Stratum endpoints: tuned connection limits, anti-abuse rules, and vardiff configuration; here vardiff means share difficulty adapts per worker.
• Payout processing: batching, change management, and pointers to payout schemes and SOLO vs PPLNS vs PROP so you can pick a model that matches miner expectations.
• Operator dashboards: health signals for node sync, wallet unlock state, payout queue length, and reject rates.
• Security hardening: host firewalling, secrets storage, backup verification, and controls from security hardening.

We treat an SANDG pool as a small payments system: the pool should fail safe, and operators should be able to explain every payout job.

SANDG miner quick-start snippet (safe defaults)

Keep the miner onboarding minimal and precise. If you publish multiple ports, label which ones are TLS and which ones are plain TCP.

stratum+tcp://POOL-DOMAIN:3333
stratum+ssl://POOL-DOMAIN:3443
username: SANDG_WALLET_ADDRESS.worker01
password: x

Add a short note for new miners on how you format workers (dots vs underscores) and how quickly statistics appear after they start hashing.

SANDG payout hygiene and wallet performance checks

• Batch size tuning: test how many outputs per transaction your wallet can build reliably, then set a conservative cap to avoid payout failures.
• Dust / minimums: confirm the daemon’s minimum relay rules and choose a payout minimum that avoids creating unspendable tiny outputs.
• Wallet rescans: document what happens to pending balances if you ever need to rescan or restore from backup; miners should not be surprised.

SANDG production rollout checklist

• Sync the node and verify basic wallet operations: createaddress, listtransactions, and a small self-send for sanity.
• Lock down RPC credentials and confirm no public-facing service can reach wallet methods.
• Start Stratum, connect a single miner, and validate that shares credit and reject reasons are logged clearly.
• Run a payout in a staging mode (or to an internal address) to verify fee policy, output count, and mempool acceptance.
• Enable continuous monitoring for wallet latency, payout job errors, node height drift, and unexpected orphan rates.
• Write and test the “payout paused” procedure so you can stop payments safely during incidents.
• Go live gradually—start with a limited miner set, observe, then scale up.

Save and Gain pool FAQ (setup + operations)

If you want SANDG deployed with strong payout hygiene, Contact us and describe your payout cadence and miner volume.