[GUIDE] Mining Pinch (PINCH) with Ethash GPUs: solo via a local node, incl. HiveOS

Mining Pinch (PINCH) with an Ethash GPU

Pinch is an independent Ethash Proof of Work chain (chain ID 5261646, no premine). Any card that mined Ethereum before the Merge can mine it. Announcement thread with the full specification: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5598995.0

How mining works on Pinch

Solo, no pool. You run the Pinch node next to your GPU miner. Every block you find pays your own reward address directly. No pool fee.
Getwork, not stratum. The node serves Ethash work at http://127.0.0.1:9560. Use a miner that speaks getwork over HTTP. The reference is ethminer (OpenCL for AMD, CUDA for NVIDIA).
Balance threshold. Since block 20,000 (PINCH-STAKE-1) a block is valid only if the reward address holds at least the threshold T. T is 0.25% of the mined supply, capped at 25,000 PINCH. Right now T is about 4,420 PINCH. Below T the node hands out no work and the GPU miner waits. The reward per block grows with the balance: T 50%, 4×T 60%, 8×T 75%, 20×T 100% of the scheduled 50 PINCH. Live value of T: pinch.network/stats.html

Getting to the threshold

Starter airdrop: new miners can receive the threshold amount. Join Pinch Network Miners on Telegram and post a fresh reward address. Places are limited.
Or buy wPINCH on Uniswap (Base) or PancakeSwap (BNB Chain) and bridge it to native PINCH at pinch.network/bridge.html. Returns to Pinch take about 5 to 30 minutes.

Requirements
AMD or NVIDIA card with at least 2 GB of memory (the DAG is about 1 GB and grows slowly). Python 3. The miner package from pinch.network/downloads.html. It downloads the node (core-geth 1.13.0 + the published Pinch patch) and checks it against a SHA-256 hash pinned in its source.

A. Windows, macOS or a plain Linux rig
1. Unzip the miner package and start the node in GPU mode:

Code:

python3 pinch_miner.py start --address 0xYOUR_ADDRESS --gpu

(Windows: python instead of python3.)
2. Wait until the node is in sync. python3 pinch_miner.py status shows the block height, peers, the threshold and your tier. Work served before sync is wasted.
3. Start ethminer on the same machine:

Code:

ethminer -G -P http://127.0.0.1:9560     (AMD, OpenCL)
ethminer -U -P http://127.0.0.1:9560     (NVIDIA, CUDA)

4. ethminer prints your hashrate; the node shows 0 for external miners. Blocks you find appear under your address in the explorer.

B. HiveOS
HiveOS is Ubuntu based, so the node runs in the rig shell (Hive Shell or SSH):

Code:

cd /home/user
wget https://pinch.network/downloads/pinch-miner.zip
unzip pinch-miner.zip && cd pinch-miner
python3 pinch_miner.py start --address 0xYOUR_ADDRESS --gpu
python3 pinch_miner.py service install     # keep the node running after reboots
python3 pinch_miner.py status

Then create a flight sheet:

Coin: add a custom coin named PINCH. Wallet: your reward address.
Pool: "Configure in miner".
Miner: ethminer. Pool URL: http://127.0.0.1:9560

Each rig needs its own node, because the work endpoint listens only on 127.0.0.1. Keep a few GB of free disk space for the node, the chain and the DAG. The HiveOS steps follow the standard ethminer setup but have not been tested on every HiveOS version. If something differs on yours, please post it here and the guide will be updated.

Troubleshooting

ethminer gets no work: the node is still syncing, or the reward address is below T. Check pinch_miner.py status.
Miners that only speak stratum cannot connect to the node directly. Use a getwork-capable miner such as ethminer.
PINCH lives only on chain ID 5261646. Tokens called PINCH on other networks are unrelated, except the official wPINCH listed on pinch.network.

Docs: GPU mining guide · Mining guide · PINCH-STAKE-1 specification

Questions, hashrate reports and HiveOS feedback are welcome in this thread.