For miners in Nigeria and across Africa running small SHA-256 machines (Bitaxe, NerdQAxe, a few Antminers), where power is expensive and every share has to count: MergedHash (
https://mergedhash.com) is a non-custodial pool that earns three kinds of rewards from the same share, and gives them all to miners.
1. eCash (ECX) and drivechains (BIP300/301)
eCash (ECX) is a 2026 Bitcoin fork with drivechains switched on. Sidechains run on top of ECX without changing the base layer. They add new features (fast payments, privacy, different apps), and they're secured by miners' hashrate. Sidechains such as Thunder and FreeBank already run on ECX, with more proposed (zSide, Shuttle, Sidepot). Every new sidechain means more use for the network and more fees for miners. The ECX network is also far smaller than Bitcoin's, so a small miner's odds of a block are much better.
2. Sidechain fees (BMM)
With BIP301 (Blind Merged Mining), each sidechain pays a fee to the miner who records its block in the ECX coinbase. On MergedHash those fees go to miners along with the block reward.
3. Merged mining
The same shares also mine Namecoin, Fractal Bitcoin and Hathor, with no extra power. 400+ merged blocks paid so far:
https://mergedhash.com/blocksAll of it goes to miners
Many pools keep merged-mining rewards or sidechain fees for themselves. MergedHash pays miners everything advertised on the site, directly in the block's coinbase to your address: no balances held, no minimum payout, nothing to withdraw. The fee is just 1%, half of the 2% many solo pools take.
Ports (host mine.mergedhash.com):
- eCash (ECX): 3335 solo / 3338 shared (PPLNS); 3337 / 3339 high difficulty
- Bitcoin: 3345 solo / 3348 shared; 3346 / 3349 high difficulty
User: your BTC address.worker. Password: x, or x,htr=YOUR_HATHOR_ADDRESS to receive Hathor.
Guides:
https://mergedhash.com/guidesDiscord:
https://discord.gg/DF6TrsFDMJ