How to Mine Zcash: Complete Tutorial

Before buying anything, run our profitability calculator with your real electricity cost. Your effective rate is your total monthly bill ÷ total kWh - not just the advertised supply rate. This number determines whether mining ZEC makes financial sense for you.

Rule of thumb: if your electricity cost is below $0.10/kWh and ZEC is above $80, a Z15 Pro will generally be profitable. Above $0.12/kWh, profitability is marginal at current ZEC prices.

The only ASIC worth buying for Zcash in 2025 is the Antminer Z15 Pro - 840 KSol/s at 302 Sol/W efficiency. No other option comes close on efficiency.

Before ordering: confirm your electrical panel has a spare 30A 240V circuit. The Z15 Pro requires 240V power - a standard 120V North American outlet will not work. Have an electrician install the circuit before your hardware arrives.

Where to buy: Bitmain's official website (bitmain.com) for new hardware, or authorised regional resellers for faster shipping.

You need a ZEC wallet before configuring your pool. We recommend Zashi - the official Zcash Foundation wallet for iOS and Android. It supports auto-shielding: your transparent mining payouts automatically move into the private shielded pool.

1. Download Zashi from the App Store or Google Play
2. Create a new wallet and write down your 24-word seed phrase on paper (never digital)
3. Navigate to Receive → copy your transparent (t-address) - it starts with "t1"
4. This t-address is your pool payout destination

Alternative: Ywallet (advanced users), Ledger hardware wallet (transparent addresses only), or a Coinbase/Kraken deposit address (if you plan to sell mined ZEC immediately).

Solo mining ZEC is not practical for individual miners - you'd wait months between block rewards. A pool combines your hashrate with thousands of other miners for consistent daily payouts.

Recommended pools:

Register, create a worker (any name, e.g. "worker1"), and enter your Zashi t-address as the payout wallet.

1. Connect your Z15 Pro to your router via ethernet cable
2. Find its IP address: log into your router's admin panel and look for new devices, or use a network scanner app
3. Open a browser and type the IP address - the Antminer web interface loads
4. Login: username root, password root (change this after setup)
5. Navigate to Miner Configuration → General Settings
6. Pool 1 URL: your pool stratum address (e.g. stratum+tcp://zec.f2pool.com:3357)
7. Worker: YourPoolUsername.worker1
8. Password: x (or anything - pool ignores this field)
9. Click Save & Apply - the miner reboots and starts hashing

After your miner reboots (takes ~2 minutes), verify everything is working:

• Miner web interface → Miner Status: should show all hash boards active, hashrate near 840 KSol/s, fan speeds 4,000–6,000 RPM
• Pool dashboard → Worker tab: your worker should appear within 5–10 minutes with accepted shares
• Zashi wallet: your first payout will arrive within 24–48 hours once you reach the pool minimum

Set up monitoring alerts: most pools send email alerts when a worker goes offline. Enable these - unexpected downtime is lost revenue. For multiple machines, Awesome Miner provides a centralized monitoring dashboard.

Need more detail on any step?