How a payout reaches your wallet, where to see earnings in the portal, and how to confirm the payment on a block explorer.
Basics
Your machine is hashing and you are waiting for the first bitcoin to arrive. This guide follows a payout from the machine to your wallet, and shows where to look at each step.
How a payout works
Your machine sends its work to a mining pool. The pool credits your account for that work day by day.
The credit builds up as a balance at the pool. It is yours, but it has not been sent yet.
When the balance reaches the pool's minimum payout, the pool sends it to your payout address.
The payment is a normal Bitcoin transaction. It goes on the network to your address and does not pass through a Firsthand account.
Good to know: The minimum payout and the payout timing are set by the pool and can change. A new machine can run for a while before the balance is large enough for the first payout. The Earnings page shows what has been earned and what has been paid.
Where to look in the portal
My miners: each machine, whether it is online, and its hashrate. If a machine is hashing, it is earning.
Earnings: what your machines have mined day by day, and the payouts that were sent to your address.
Earnings appear before payouts do. Mining for a given day is usually posted during the following day, so a blank line for today is normal.
Confirm the payment yourself
You do not have to take anyone's word for a payout. Every Bitcoin payment is public, and a block explorer lets you look it up.
Copy your payout address from your wallet app or your exchange deposit page.
Open mempool.space and paste the address in the search box.
The page lists every payment to that address, with the amount in BTC and the date.
A new payment first shows as unconfirmed. Once it is included in a block it is confirmed, usually within the hour, longer when the network is busy.
Open your wallet app. The same payment should now show in your balance.
Good to know: If your payout address is an exchange deposit address, the exchange credits your account after its own number of confirmations. Some exchanges also show mining payouts with a delay. The block explorer tells you whether the payment was made, and the exchange decides when it shows it.
If the payout has not arrived
Check My miners: is the machine online and hashing?
Check Earnings: is there mining recorded, and is a payout listed?
If no payout is listed, the balance has most likely not reached the pool's minimum yet. Nothing is lost: it keeps building.
If a payout is listed, look up your address on mempool.space. If the payment is there, the question is with your wallet or exchange.
If a payout is listed but the address on it is not yours, email hello@firsthandbitcoin.com straight away.
Careful: Bitcoin payments cannot be reversed. A payout sent to an address is final, which is why your payout address must be checked carefully before it is set. See Change your payout address safely.
Keep a record
Each payout has a date and an amount in BTC, and both are on the Earnings page. Keeping those records from the first day makes your accounting easier later. See Tax records for mined bitcoin.
Mining output depends on bitcoin's price, network difficulty and uptime, and is not guaranteed. Nothing here is investment advice.