BNT (Blocknet) Mining Guide: CPU-only, from signup to hashrate

BNT (Blocknet) is a newly added coin on this pool. Its mining algorithm is Argon2id — nothing like PRL or QTC — and it is CPU-only: no GPU required. A plain server or even an idle desktop can mine it.

The trade-off is memory: each CPU thread needs 2 GiB, plus roughly 1 GiB of system reserve. An 8-core / 16 GiB box usually tops out around -t 6.

This guide takes you from "nothing installed" to "hashrate visible on the dashboard". Every step has a command you can copy. Chinese version: BNT 挖矿教程（中文）.

Straight talk first: BNT is still in beta on AFKPool, has no public price feed (our price shows 0), and the whole network is only around 100 KH/s. What you mine is a coin, not cash. Judge the risk yourself.

1. Where the numbers come from

This pool does not produce blocks itself. It relays the AFKPool BNT pool:

There is exactly one endpoint to connect to:

afk+tls://miner.88pool.com:9454

Note it is afk+tls://, not stratum+tcp:// — the AFKPool protocol runs over TLS only and has no plaintext port. So you must use the official AFK Miner, or any miner that explicitly supports afk+tls://. Classic stratum miners (SRBMiner, bzminer, lolMiner) cannot connect.

2. Get the miner: AFK Miner

The official releases come in two packages:

• Linux x86-64 (glibc 2.27+): download v0.1.5
• HiveOS: download the HiveOS package

There is no official Windows build. On Windows use WSL2 (Ubuntu 22.04 is fine) or run HiveOS. With WSL2 everything lives on the Linux side — do not run it from PowerShell.

Verify the download first (strongly recommended — the miner is the one thing that can touch your earnings):

sha256sum afk-miner-0.1.5-linux-x86_64.25e28038da1f1833.tar.gz
# expected: 25e28038da1f183324ec415fec189bd8d4418e544c297e972d14c22370bb5d46

Unpack it:

tar -xzf afk-miner-0.1.5-linux-x86_64.25e28038da1f1833.tar.gz
cd afk-miner-0.1.5-linux-x86_64
chmod +x afk-miner

The archive contains a single afk-miner binary; every command below runs from that directory.

3. Step 1 — create an account

Open https://www.88pool.com/register and fill in username, password and confirmation. No email verification — you are signed in immediately.

The username is permanent and cannot be a coin ticker (BNT, PRL and friends are rejected).

4. Step 2 — create a subaccount

After signing in you land on the Miner Center. Switch the coin selector to BNT, then:

1. Find the "My subaccounts" section and click + New subaccount
2. Enter a short name only, e.g. bnt001 (letters / digits / underscore / hyphen, 1–32 chars)
3. Submit

The name appears in the list. That short name is your mining identity — earnings are attributed to it. Use one subaccount per machine so you can tell which rig went offline.

You must create the subaccount here before mining. Unknown names are rejected by the relay (the miner logs [21,"unregistered subaccount: …"]). That is deliberate: it stops strangers from freeloading on this relay.

5. Step 3 — build the miner username

This is where BNT differs from PRL and QTC, and it is the most common mistake.

For PRL and QTC the miner username is just the short name (bnt001). But AFK Miner validates -u locally as a BNT address, so a bare short name makes it exit immediately:

Error: BNT address requires its network checksum

So -u must be "BNT address.subaccount":

WegA4h8qFxtQ6MtzTbCpx7EnPzGAPQQ47f8Tyu3qrs7PiCGWjhcsewJ8U6Grq5yTiEnyBxXnvAP1o5kqsN1dxekZs8ETx.bnt001

Two parts joined by a dot:

• Before the dot: this pool's BNT address (the long string above — fixed, do not change)
• After the dot: your own subaccount name (bnt001 in the example)

The rule is simple:

• Everything before the dot is fixed — that is this pool's BNT address (you can also copy the full username from the "Relay endpoint" panel in the Miner Center)
• Replace the part after the dot with your own subaccount name
• The relay attributes earnings using only the part after the dot, so never paste someone else's subaccount name

6. Step 4 — verify before you mine

AFK Miner has --check-connection: it performs the TLS handshake, authorizes, and fetches one job — no hashing, no shares submitted. It is the cheapest way to validate your configuration.

./afk-miner --check-connection \
  -o afk+tls://miner.88pool.com:9454 \
  -u WegA4h8qFxtQ6MtzTbCpx7EnPzGAPQQ47f8Tyu3qrs7PiCGWjhcsewJ8U6Grq5yTiEnyBxXnvAP1o5kqsN1dxekZs8ETx.bnt001 \
  -p x

A successful run looks like this:

INFO AFK Miner v0.1.5 · BNT · AFK TLS
INFO AFK TLS verified; no hashing or submissions performed pool="afk+tls://miner.88pool.com:9454" height=Some(70238)

If you see AFK TLS verified, the certificate, address and subaccount are all good — continue. height is the current block height and keeps increasing.

Common errors:

You do not need --tls-ca. This relay uses a regular Let's Encrypt certificate (miner.88pool.com) that chains to the system trust store, so miners need zero extra configuration.

7. Step 5 — start mining

Drop --check-connection and add a thread count:

./afk-miner \
  -o afk+tls://miner.88pool.com:9454 \
  -u WegA4h8qFxtQ6MtzTbCpx7EnPzGAPQQ47f8Tyu3qrs7PiCGWjhcsewJ8U6Grq5yTiEnyBxXnvAP1o5kqsN1dxekZs8ETx.bnt001 \
  -p x \
  -t 4

-t 4 means four CPU threads. A few notes:

• Memory is a hard gate: 2 GiB per thread plus ~1 GiB system reserve. -t 4 needs at least 9 GiB free. If you are short, the miner exits during startup with N CPU workers require X bytes including system reserve; only Y available — lower -t.
• Omit -t and the miner first runs a benchmark (up to ~90 s) to pick thread count and the best kernel. Good for a first run.
• --no-gpu skips NVIDIA detection when you want CPU only. -t 0 is the opposite — CPU disabled, GPU only.
• --cpu-kernel dense|cached|recompute|recompute-cached forces a CPU strategy; usually unnecessary, automatic mode compares them for you.
• --stats-file /tmp/bnt.json writes runtime stats as JSON for monitoring or HiveOS.

To keep it running in the background, use tmux or nohup:

nohup ./afk-miner -o afk+tls://miner.88pool.com:9454 -u address.bnt001 -p x -t 4 > bnt.log 2>&1 &
tail -f bnt.log

8. Step 6 — confirm your hashrate shows up

One or two minutes after the miner starts, open Miner Center → BNT:

• bnt001 flips to online under "My subaccounts"
• A hashrate appears under "My rigs"
• On the home page /public the BNT row's online-worker count goes up by one

Only accepted in the miner log means the pool actually recorded your work. Job received alone just means you got a job. Shares are random — a small machine may wait several minutes for the first one.

9. How earnings work and when they arrive

The sequence, none of which can be skipped:

1. Your submitted share is accepted upstream → counted as verified work
2. AFKPool finds a block → rewards are allocated by work in the preceding PPLNS window (12 shifts), after a 5% upstream fee
3. Allocated rewards must mature for 60 blocks
4. Once mature and ≥ 1 BNT, upstream pays out in batches every 30 minutes
5. After upstream pays this pool's account, our settlement rules credit your account balance
6. You withdraw from Miner Center → Withdraw, entering your own BNT address

So you are not paid minute-by-minute. Block finding is luck, maturity takes 60 blocks (~5 hours), and payouts batch every 30 minutes. Realistically it is hours to a day from submitting shares to a withdrawable balance here.

To estimate earnings (theoretical, before the 5% fee):

daily ≈ your hashrate ÷ network hashrate × (86400 ÷ 300) × 439.46

Example: 1 KH/s against a 130 KH/s network → 1/130 × 288 × 439.46 ≈ 973 BNT/day (theoretical; ~924 BNT after the 5% fee). Actual results move with luck and difficulty.

10. FAQ

The miner exits immediately saying there is not enough memory.
Each thread needs 2 GiB plus 1 GiB reserve, so -t 4 needs 9 GiB. Lower -t or use a bigger box. Do not lean on swap — Argon2id wants real RAM.

Can I mine with CPU and an NVIDIA GPU at the same time?
Yes. Without --no-gpu the miner detects GPUs and uses them too; use --no-gpu or -t 0 to restrict it to one side.

What happens if two machines share a subaccount name?
Upstream merges them into one worker — hashrate adds up, connection count is shown separately. Use distinct names (bnt001, bnt002) if you want separate trends.

Connected but no shares?
Check the miner log for accepted. Job received alone means you got a job but have not produced a valid solution yet; CPU Argon2id is slow, so a small machine legitimately waits minutes. If the log shows constant reconnects, check network and port.

The pool shows 0 earnings but the upstream dashboard has a balance?
Two different ledgers. Upstream "available balance" is the pool account's change, auto-swept at thresholds — it is not your balance here. Your balance is the number in the Miner Center, derived from upstream earnings by the revenue-share rules.

Why is the price 0?
AFKPool does not publish a BNT quote and no major exchange lists it. We do not invent prices, so the USD column shows "—" and the price shows 0. That is not a bug.

Can I use a different miner?
Any miner that explicitly supports afk+tls://. Classic stratum miners (SRBMiner, bzminer, lolMiner) will not work — they do not speak this protocol.

11. Risk notice

• BNT is in beta on AFKPool; protocol and parameters may change
• There is no public market price — what you mine is a coin, and whether it is worth anything is not guaranteed by this pool
• Network hashrate is only ~100 KH/s, so your share swings a lot and daily income is unstable
• Running a CPU at full load costs real electricity — do the math before you commit

Mining carries risk; invest carefully. The parameters above (fee, minimum payout, maturity) come from upstream AFKPool and will be reflected on our pages if upstream changes them.

Related pages: /public pool home · /coin/BNT BNT data page · /statistics pool statistics · PRL mining guide · QTC mining guide