How to Mine Pepecoin (PEP) — Complete Guide

Should you mine Pepecoin?

Honest answer: it depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

Mining cryptocurrency is rarely a get-rich-quick path. Profitability on any proof-of-work chain depends on a moving target of factors, electricity cost, hardware efficiency, network difficulty, and the coin's market price. Mining PEP today might be profitable; conditions can change tomorrow. We don't publish profitability predictions because they go stale immediately.

That said, there are good reasons people mine Pepecoin:

You already mine Litecoin or Dogecoin. Because of merged mining, you can add Pepecoin to your existing setup and earn PEP at no additional cost in hash power or electricity. For most existing scrypt miners, this is essentially free upside.
You want to acquire PEP without buying it. Mining is one of two ways to get Pepecoin (the other is buying on an exchange). Some holders prefer the proof-of-work path for philosophical reasons, earning rather than purchasing.
You want to support the network. Hash power is what secures the chain. Even small contributions add up. Many community members mine modest amounts of PEP partly as a contribution to network decentralization.

To estimate current profitability for your specific hardware and electricity rate, check the Pepecoin calculator pages at MiningPoolStats or WhatToMine.

How Pepecoin mining works

Scrypt and merge mining

Pepecoin uses the same scrypt proof-of-work algorithm as Litecoin and Dogecoin. Scrypt is memory-hard by design, it requires significant memory access to compute, which historically made it more resistant to specialized hardware than Bitcoin's SHA-256. That advantage eroded over time as scrypt-specific ASICs became available, and today the scrypt mining landscape is dominated by ASICs the same way Bitcoin's is.

The interesting part is merge mining. Activated on the Pepecoin chain at block 42,000, merge mining (technically AuxPoW, "auxiliary proof-of-work") lets a miner submit the same hash work to multiple chains simultaneously. When a scrypt miner finds a valid proof-of-work solution, that single piece of work can produce a block on the Litecoin chain, the Dogecoin chain, and the Pepecoin chain all at once, without using any extra electricity or hash power.

The result: Pepecoin's network is secured by hash power that Litecoin and Dogecoin miners are already producing. From PEP's perspective, this means very high security relative to a standalone meme chain. From a miner's perspective, mining PEP alongside LTC or DOGE is effectively free additional revenue.

What you actually need

To mine Pepecoin natively (as opposed to earning it through unMineable, covered later), you need three things:

A scrypt ASIC miner. Mining scrypt with GPUs or CPUs is not practical at modern difficulty levels. You'll need dedicated scrypt hardware.
A Pepecoin wallet address. Your mining earnings get paid out to a PEP address. See our wallets section for options.
A mining pool that supports merge mining for PEP. Solo mining a Pepecoin block is theoretically possible but statistically improbable for any individual miner. Joining a pool aggregates hash power and pays out proportional rewards.

Mining Pepecoin with a Scrypt ASIC

Hardware

Scrypt ASIC miners are produced by manufacturers including Bitmain (the Antminer L-series), Goldshell (the Mini-DOGE and LT-series), and a handful of smaller vendors. Hardware choice depends on your budget, electricity cost, and noise/heat tolerance (these machines are loud and run hot).

We don't recommend specific models because the market shifts constantly. What's efficient today may be obsolete in twelve months. Resources like MiningPoolStats and the Pepecoin subreddit are good places to see what current miners are running and what their experiences are.

Choosing a mining pool

The Pepecoin community uses a number of merge-mining pools. Rather than recommending specific pools (which can change in reliability over time), we point you to the authoritative live list:

View Pepecoin mining pools on MiningPoolStats →

When evaluating a pool, look at:

Pool fee. Typically 0.5%–2%. Lower is better, but extremely low fees on small pools can correlate with reliability problems.
Hash rate share. Larger pools find blocks more frequently and produce smoother payouts. Very small pools mean longer waits between rewards (higher variance).
Minimum payout. The threshold before earned PEP gets sent to your wallet. If you're a small miner, low minimums let you receive payments faster.
Community reputation. Check Discord and r/pepecoin for current sentiment about specific pools. Mining pools are run by people, and the people behind them matter.

Setting up your miner

Once you've chosen a pool, the configuration steps are similar across most setups:

Get your Pepecoin wallet address. This is where mining rewards will be paid. Pepecoin addresses start with the letter P.
Register or note the pool's stratum endpoint. Pools publish a connection URL (something like stratum+tcp://pool-url:port) and any required worker setup steps. Some pools require account registration; others accept connections directly with your wallet address as the username.
Configure your miner. Connect your ASIC's management interface, enter the pool's stratum URL, your wallet address as the username, and a worker name to distinguish this machine from others you may operate.
Verify hash submission. After a few minutes of mining, your hash rate should appear on the pool's dashboard. If it doesn't, check your worker settings and network connection.

Most pools provide setup guides specific to their stratum configuration. Follow the pool's own documentation rather than generic instructions, since details vary.

Earning Pepecoin without an ASIC: unMineable

If you don't have scrypt ASIC hardware but still want to earn PEP through mining, unMineable is an option worth understanding, including its limits.

How unMineable works

unMineable is a multi-algorithm mining pool that lets you mine coins like Ethereum Classic, Kaspa, or Ravencoin with your regular GPU or CPU, then receive your earnings paid out in the coin of your choice, including Pepecoin.

It's important to be clear about what's actually happening: you are not mining the Pepecoin chain when you use unMineable. You're mining a different chain, and unMineable uses your earnings to buy PEP on the open market and send it to you. From your perspective, the result is "I mined and got PEP." From the Pepecoin network's perspective, no hash power was contributed.

When this makes sense

unMineable is a reasonable option if:

You have a gaming GPU or capable CPU and want to use spare compute time productively.
You're not ready to invest in dedicated scrypt ASIC hardware.
Your goal is to accumulate PEP, not specifically to support the Pepecoin network's hash rate.

It's worth knowing the trade-offs:

Fees stack up. unMineable charges a pool fee, and the conversion from your mined coin to PEP isn't free. You'll generally net less PEP this way than if you mined scrypt directly with comparable hash power.
Hardware longevity. Continuous GPU mining wears on consumer hardware. If you'd be paying to replace a GPU sooner, factor that in.
You're not securing the chain. If contributing to network decentralization matters to you, unMineable doesn't accomplish that goal. (To be clear: unMineable is still legitimate; it just plays a different role than direct mining.)

For setup instructions, refer to unMineable's own documentation, which is kept current by their team.

Tracking your mining

Once you're mining, you'll want to keep an eye on your earnings and on the network as a whole.

Pool dashboard. Your pool will provide a page showing your current hash rate, accepted/rejected shares, and pending payouts.
Block explorers. Once you receive a payout, you can track the transaction on Pepecoin block explorers like PepeBlocks or PepecoinExplorer.
Network statistics. MiningPoolStats tracks Pepecoin's network hashrate, difficulty, and pool distribution over time.
Profitability calculators. Use a calculator that takes your hash rate, electricity cost, and current market conditions to estimate net earnings. WhatToMine and CryptUnit both support PEP.

Mining FAQ

Can I mine Pepecoin with a GPU?

Technically yes, but practically no. Scrypt is GPU-mineable in a theoretical sense, but at modern Pepecoin network difficulty, GPUs cannot compete with scrypt ASICs on a cost-per-hash or efficiency basis. If you only have GPU hardware available, unMineable is a more realistic path to earning PEP than direct mining.

Can I mine Pepecoin with a CPU?

Not effectively. Scrypt mining at any meaningful scale requires either GPU or ASIC hardware, and even GPUs are outperformed by ASICs by orders of magnitude. CPU mining of PEP is functionally a curiosity rather than a real option.

Is solo mining Pepecoin viable?

For most miners, no. Solo mining means you're trying to find a block by yourself with no help from a pool, and when you do, you get the entire block reward instead of a proportional share. The catch: at typical individual hash rates, you might wait years (or decades) between blocks. Pool mining trades a small fee for predictable, regular payouts. Most miners use pools for that reason.

How much electricity does mining Pepecoin use?

That depends entirely on your hardware. A modern scrypt ASIC like the Antminer L7 series consumes around 3,000–4,000 watts under load, similar to several hair dryers running continuously. Smaller miners like the Goldshell Mini-DOGE consume 200 watts or less. Profitability is heavily influenced by your local electricity rate; a calculator like WhatToMine accounts for this when estimating returns.

Do I have to mine PEP separately from LTC or DOGE?

No — that's the whole point of merged mining. With a pool that supports it, your same hash power produces blocks for all three chains simultaneously. You'll receive payouts in each coin (or whatever coin combination the pool is configured for) without splitting your hash power between them.

What's a typical mining pool fee?

Most reputable mining pools charge between 0.5% and 2% of your earnings. Below 0.5% is sometimes a sign that a pool is poorly funded or unreliable; above 2% means you're giving up more revenue than necessary. Compare current fees on MiningPoolStats alongside other factors like hash rate share and payout minimum.

How often will I receive PEP payouts?

Payouts depend on the pool's payment policy and your mining hash rate. Most pools have a minimum payout threshold (some amount of PEP must accumulate before a transaction is sent to your wallet). At higher hash rates you reach the threshold faster — sometimes daily for substantial miners, sometimes weekly or longer for smaller setups. Check your specific pool's documentation for payment frequency and minimums.

Stay informed

Mining conditions change. New pools launch, old pools wind down, network difficulty fluctuates with hash power, and hardware efficiency keeps moving. To stay current:

Follow r/pepecoin and the Pepecoin Discord for community discussion on mining setups, pool reliability, and hardware tips.
Check Pepecoin News to keep up with announcements, network upgrades, and changes that affect miners.
Bookmark MiningPoolStats for live pool and network data.

For more on the Pepecoin project itself, its history, network features, exchanges, and community, see our complete Pepecoin guide.