Mac Metal Miner

GPU-accelerated SHA-256d miner for Apple Silicon with built-in wallet, ESP pool support, and ASIC proxy.

Mac Metal Miner (MMM) mines NEX using Apple's Metal compute shaders, delivering multi-gigahash performance from a single Mac. It connects to NEX's EqualShare Pool (ESP) via Stratum V1 and includes an integrated wallet, CLI terminal, and LAN proxy for external ASIC hardware like Bitaxe.

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Features

• Metal GPU Mining -- SHA-256d compute kernel optimized for Apple Silicon
• Built-in Wallet -- Send, receive, and check balances via JSON-RPC to nexd
• ESP Pool Integration -- Tiered stake-to-mine with automatic tier detection
• ASIC LAN Proxy -- Bridge external miners (Bitaxe, etc.) through MMM to the pool
• CLI Terminal -- Run any nex-cli command directly from the app
• Stratum V1 -- Full protocol support including mining.configure (version-rolling)
• Real-time Monitoring -- Hashrate, GPU power, temperature, and efficiency gauges
• Mining Efficiency Slider -- Throttle GPU usage from 1-100%
• Auto-reconnect -- Recovers from pool disconnects automatically
• Sleep Prevention -- Keeps Mac awake while mining
• Session Logging -- Logs to ~/Library/Logs/MacMetalMiner/

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Requirements

• macOS 14.0+ (Sonoma or later)
• Apple Silicon (M1 / M2 / M3 / M4)
• NEX pool connection (default: ESP pool on port 3333)

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Build

chmod +x BUILD.command
./BUILD.command

Produces Mac Metal Miner.app -- a standalone macOS application.

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ESP Pool Tiers

MMM integrates with NEX's EqualShare Pool. Stake NEX to unlock higher reward tiers:

Tier	Stake	Reward Share
Starter	0 NEX	5%
Nano	10 NEX	10%
Micro	50 NEX	15%
Standard	100 NEX	20%
Pro	500 NEX	25%
Ultra	1,000 NEX	25%

Your current tier is shown in the Wallet tab. Stake and unstake directly from the app.

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ASIC Proxy

MMM can act as a LAN Stratum proxy for external mining hardware:

1. Enable LAN mode in the app
2. Note the displayed IP and port (e.g. 192.168.1.x:3334)
3. Point your Bitaxe or other ASIC to that address
4. ASIC shares are submitted through your MMM session to the pool

The proxy handles mining.configure (version-rolling), job distribution, and difficulty forwarding.

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Performance (Approximate)

Chip	Hashrate
M1	~1.2 GH/s
M1 Pro/Max	~2.5 - 4.0 GH/s
M2	~1.5 GH/s
M2 Pro/Max	~3.0 - 5.0 GH/s
M3	~2.0 GH/s
M3 Pro/Max	~4.0 - 6.0 GH/s
M4	~2.5 GH/s
M4 Pro/Max	~5.0 - 7.0 GH/s

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Block Reward

95 NEX per block. Reward is distributed through the ESP pool based on your tier and share contribution.

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Architecture

File	Description
MacMetalMinerProMax.swift	Main application -- SwiftUI UI, Stratum client, wallet, ASIC proxy
SHA256.metal	Metal GPU compute kernel -- SHA-256d mining with parallel nonce search
BUILD.command	Build script -- compiles Swift + Metal into .app bundle

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License

MIT