Every question an owner asks, answered step by step.

How to read your invoice, cash out what you mine, keep it safe, borrow against it and keep clean records. Written for people, not for engineers.

Getting started

Your dashboard, your invoice, your first payout.

Sign in and set your password: Open your portal from the emailed link, choose a password, add two-factor sign-in if you want it, and sign in on the iPhone app.
Read your dashboard: every card on My miners: What each card, chart and machine tile on My miners tells you, from profit today to the status dot on every machine.
Understand your Earnings page: How to read the Earnings page: the period switch, what was mined, what was paid to you, and the month by month table.
Read your invoice and monthly report: Where your invoices are, what each status means, what the monthly report shows, and how to download the PDF.
Pay your hosting invoice: Pay a hosting invoice step by step: crypto or Cash App online, or a bank transfer by ACH or wire, and when it shows as paid.
Autopay explained: hosting paid from what you mine: With autopay, your hosting is covered from your mining income and the rest goes to your wallet. How to switch it on or off.
A machine is offline: what happens next: What you see when a machine stops, who is already on it, the usual causes in plain words, and when to write to us.
Turn on alerts on your phone: The five alerts the Firsthand app can send to your phone, what each one means, and how to switch them on or off.
Buy another machine, or move one to another site: How to order another machine from the shop, choose its site and pay, when it appears in your portal, and how to ask for a move.

Cashing out

Turn mined bitcoin into money you can spend, your way.

How to turn mined bitcoin into money: The three ways owners cash out mined bitcoin: a card, a peer to peer sale or an exchange and a bank wire. Who each one fits, and the rules to follow.
Which exchange is right for me?: Bybit for a card, Binance for peer to peer sales outside the US, Kraken for US persons and LLCs. How to choose in five minutes.
Bybit Card: spend while holding BTC: Open a Bybit account, deposit BTC from your wallet, order the Bybit Card and understand how each payment draws on your balance.
Binance P2P: sell BTC for local currency: How a peer to peer sale works on Binance, how to pick a buyer, and the one rule: never release until the money is in your own bank.
Kraken for US LLCs and businesses: Open a Kraken business account for your LLC, deposit BTC, sell for USD and send the dollars to the company's bank by wire or ACH.
Set your payout wallet: an exchange or your own wallet: Should mined bitcoin go straight to an exchange or to a wallet you control? The trade-off, the checks, and how to change your payout address.
Send bitcoin from your wallet to an exchange: Choose the Bitcoin network, send a small test, understand fees and confirmations, and track your transfer with its txid on mempool.space.
Sell in small regular amounts, or hold?: How owners handle mined bitcoin: sell only what covers costs, sell everything, or hold. A neutral look at each, and how to set a routine.
Cash-out mistakes to avoid: Six mistakes that cost owners bitcoin when cashing out: wrong network, wrong address, early P2P release and more. What to do instead.

Wallets and custody

Where your bitcoin lives and how to keep it safe.

Wallets explained: where your mined bitcoin really lives: A wallet holds keys, not bitcoin. Exchange account, phone wallet or hardware wallet: what each one is and which to mine to.
Set up a SafePal wallet for your mining payouts: Step by step: unbox a SafePal S1 or S1 Pro, create the wallet, back up the phrase, find your bc1 address and use it for payouts.
Seed phrase safety: the one thing you cannot lose: What the recovery phrase is, how to store it on paper or steel in two places, what to do if a device is lost, and inheritance.
Cold storage basics: keep the bitcoin you are not spending offline: A simple routine for owners: mine to a hot or exchange address, sweep to an offline wallet each month, and test your backup.
Receive your first mining payout: How a payout reaches your wallet, where to see earnings in the portal, and how to confirm the payment on a block explorer.
Change your payout address safely: How to ask for a new payout address, why we confirm it with you first, and how to check an address so nothing goes astray.

Borrowing

Get dollars without selling the bitcoin you mined.

Borrow against your bitcoin instead of selling it: How a bitcoin-backed loan works: collateral, loan-to-value, interest and liquidation, with one worked example and the risk in plain words.
Lending options compared: Ledn, Unchained and Aave: Custodial lenders versus on-chain protocols: who holds your collateral, what they ask of you, how rates are set, and what can go wrong.
Aave step by step: borrow USDC against wrapped bitcoin: A walkthrough of Aave v3: wrap BTC, connect a wallet, supply collateral, borrow USDC, watch the health factor, repay and withdraw.
Health factor and liquidation: how much room to leave: How to read the health factor, how far the price can fall before liquidation, what to do when it drops, and how to set alerts.
Auto-loan explained: rules that watch your loan for you: How Firsthand auto-loan rules work: you set a target, the portal watches the position and proposes the action, and your wallet signs it.
Repay a loan with mining income: A monthly routine: payouts arrive in BTC, you convert the share you need to the loan currency, repay, and track what is left.

Tax and records

What to keep, what to export and who to hand it to.

Tax records for mined bitcoin: what to keep: The records most accountants ask a mining owner for, and where each one lives in your portal.
US owners: the Taxes page in your portal: What the Taxes page shows US owners, what you can set and export, and what your preparer still has to check.
Export your data for your accountant: Every file you can take out of your portal: invoice PDFs, the earnings CSV, the US tax files, and the read-only Owner API.
Owning machines through a company: What changes in practice when an LLC or company owns your machines: invoices, the exchange account, and separate wallets.

Going deeper

Hashrate, difficulty, pools, sites and the owner API.

Hashrate, efficiency and uptime: the three machine numbers: What TH/s, J/TH and uptime mean, how they differ, and where to see each one for your own machines.
Hashprice and difficulty: what sets mining income: How bitcoin price, network difficulty, transaction fees and the halving combine into hashprice, the income of one unit of hashrate.
Choosing a site: what really differs: Electricity rate, climate and cooling, uptime record and shipping: what differs between hosting sites and where to see each figure.
Mining pools and payouts: What a mining pool does, how FPPS pays you, why there is a payout minimum, and why pool hashrate readings wobble.
Use the Owner API: Read your machines, earnings, invoices and a summary from your own tools with a read-only key. How to create, use and revoke it.
Payback and machine lifetime: How to think about payback, why an older machine earns less, and what owners look at before replacing or adding machines.