FAQ

Short answers, with links to the pages that go deeper.

Mining

Is mining in a browser real mining? Yes. The tab hashes real block headers with Argon2id against the real target, and a solution is a real block that pays the whole reward to your address. It is slower than a desktop miner with many threads, but it is the same work. See Mining.

Why Argon2id and not SHA-256? Each Argon2id attempt needs 8 MiB of memory. That makes memory bandwidth the limit instead of raw silicon, so a phone or laptop stays within reach of purpose-built hardware. SHA-256 mining is dominated by ASIC farms, and a phone earns nothing there.

How much will I earn? Your share of blocks is your hashrate divided by the network's. The Mine page shows the expected time to a block from live figures. Blocks are random: the expected time is an average, not a schedule.

Why can't I spend a reward right away? Rewards unlock 100 blocks after they are mined, about 17 hours. A reorg could otherwise remove a block whose reward was already spent. The app shows locked rewards as "maturing" with the moment each one unlocks.

Refreshing the page stopped mining. Is that normal? A reload destroys the tab's worker, so mining stops for a moment and then resumes automatically. Closing the tab stops mining until you open the app again, or turn on "Start when the app opens" in Settings.

Can I mine on several devices with the same address? Yes. Every device fetches its own templates and every block pays the same address. There is no conflict.

What is "Rejected"? A solved block the network turned down, almost always because another miner's block at the same height arrived first. Only that attempt is lost.

Is there a pool? No, by design. The browser app mines whole blocks on its own, with the explorer supplying templates and forwarding solutions. Nobody holds funds in between and there is no payout to wait for.

Wallet and keys

Where are my keys? When you create a wallet in the app, the 24 words are generated in your browser and shown once. The app keeps only your address. Nothing is sent to a server and nothing is stored that could spend your coins.

What if I lose the 24 words? The coins at that address cannot be spent by anyone, ever. Write the words on paper when they are shown, and use "Verify your recovery phrase" in Settings to check your copy.

How do I withdraw uARG to USDC or USDT? In the app, open Wallet, then Swap: pay uARG, pick the token and network to receive, paste the address to be paid, review and confirm with your password. The app shows the progress until the payout arrives, about an hour later on testnet.

From any other wallet, open Withdraw on the bridge page, enter the amount, pick the chain and token, paste the address to be paid and press Continue. The page shows a swap address (it starts with targ1qswap) with its QR code: send the uARG there as an ordinary transfer, no memo needed, and the page shows the progress. A swap address always pays the same token, chain and address, whatever amount and however often you send to it. Send only uARG to it: anything else sent there is lost, which is why the Argonmine wallets refuse to.

What can I send from the browser app? ARG, uARG and wARG, to any Argonmine address. Swap trades the three with each other; USDC and USDT on other chains go through the bridge. The browser signs the payment itself: the 24 words are kept there only locked under your password, and the key never leaves the wallet's worker. Nothing goes to a server but the signed payment.

Is there a password or two-factor login? There is no account, so there is nothing to log in to. The password only unlocks the wallet in the browser that keeps it; the 24 words are the whole wallet. Anyone with them has the coins; nobody without them does. Forgot the password? Forget the wallet in Settings and open it again with the 24 words.

Can I use my desktop wallet's address in the browser app? Yes. Choose "Use an address you have" and paste it. Rewards go there and the browser never sees the keys.

The coin

Is there a premine or developer fee? No. Every ARG that will ever exist is created as a block reward, starting from a genesis block whose coinbase is not spendable.

What is the supply? A little under 21 million ARG: 50 ARG per block, halving every 210,000 blocks. See Mining.

What are fees? Transactions pay a fee in ARG to the miner of their block. The default relay policy asks for at least one unit per byte, a fraction of a cent. The bridge is separate: its vaults keep 1 percent of every deposit and 1 percent of every redemption, enforced by the vault contract and shown on the bridge page before you confirm.

What are wARG and uARG? Assets on the Argonmine chain besides ARG. uARG is worth one dollar: it is backed one to one by USDC and USDT held in the bridge vaults on Ethereum, Base, BNB Chain and Arbitrum (testnets today), and is withdrawn on the bridge page to the chain and token you choose. wARG is wrapped ARG, one to one, planned after the bridge so ARG can be paired with uARG once a market sets its price. ARG itself never leaves the chain. See Assets.

Does ARG trade on other chains? No. The bridge brings value in and lets it out again as uARG; it does not export ARG.

The network

Testnet or mainnet? Testnet is the public network until launch; its coins have no value and its addresses start with targ1. Mainnet addresses start with arg1. The app shows which network it is on in the top bar and in Settings.

Does the explorer hold my coins? No. It reads the chain and serves pages and an API. The work server inside it builds templates and forwards solved blocks; it has no wallet.

Why no smart contracts? A scripting engine is the largest attack surface a chain can have. Argonmine has two output types and one signature scheme, which is enough to move value and carry assets, and small enough to review line by line. A safe predicate layer is a candidate for later. See Specification §12.

How do I run a node? Download a release or build from source, then argonmined. See Run a node.

What do I get for running a node? Nothing from the protocol, and that is deliberate: there is no masternode reward, no staking and no fee share, because every one of those would be coins created for something other than mining. What pays is mining, and every miner on the desktop app already runs a full node: the app is a node with a wallet and a miner inside. So the honest advice is: do not run a bare node for income, run the app and mine. Bare nodes still matter for the network, as seed nodes and as independent verifiers, and are run by people and projects with a reason to keep the chain healthy, exactly as on Bitcoin.

Has the code been audited? An internal review of the consensus and network code found 15 issues, all fixed, and the findings are published in the Security review. An external audit is part of the Launch runbook before mainnet opens. To report a problem, see the Security policy.