Prepared by Glenn Lyvers, Instant Access · Version 0.1 · 13 September 2026 · Draft for review by counsel
01 In one paragraph
Computing-power contributors collectively mine Spearmint blocks through Spearmint Mining. When a block reward is earned, the mining service calculates each participating miner's share according to the published reward methodology and distributes the applicable mining reward to the Spearmint address supplied by that miner. That is the whole service. The operator runs the Stratum server, the reward calculation, and the payout run. It does not hold anything for anyone.
Two things are kept distinct on this site. Spearmint is the decentralised network and software, directed by Instant Access and operated by whoever runs nodes and miners. Spearmint Mining is mining infrastructure operated by Instant Access from Pennsylvania, USA. The operator does not own every SPMTC and does not control the network.
02 What it is not
The distinction below is built into the software, the database, and the interface — not only into these words.
- A Stratum endpoint for SHA-256 hardware
- Share accounting per payout address and worker
- PPLNS reward calculation with a published pool fee
- Automatic payout of mature mining rewards to the address the shares were mined under
- Public worker and pool statistics, exportable share logs
- Support for mining and network operation
- Cryptocurrency exchange or brokerage
- Bank, payment processor, or money-transfer service
- Custodial or hosted wallet
- Remittance
- Investment, savings, or staking product
- Marketplace for buying or selling SPMTC
- Transfers of value between users
- Conversion of SPMTC to any other currency
03 Custody
About the "pending mining reward" figure
Between a block maturing and the next payout run, the dashboard shows a pending mining reward for your address. This figure is an accounting estimate of mining rewards awaiting distribution. It is not a deposit account and not a hosted cryptocurrency wallet. It exists only because paying every share individually would be operationally impractical; a 1 SPMTC threshold and a daily run keep the interval short, and an inactive-address sweep pays out anything above the network dust limit after 30 days without shares. The full mechanics are in the Mining Reward and Payout Policy.
04 The guidance we design against
These are the sources the design was checked against. Each was read in its current form in September 2026. None of them is summarised here as a conclusion; they are listed so that a reader can see what the structure is trying to fit and where the fit is untested.
FinCEN FIN-2019-G001, section 5.4 (May 2019)
FinCEN's guidance on convertible virtual currency business models discusses centralised mining pools directly. On distributions to pool members it says the distribution "does not qualify as money transmission under the BSA, as these transfers are integral to the provision of services". It then warns that if the pool leader combines pool management "with the service of hosting CVC wallets on behalf of the pool members", the leader "will fall under FinCEN's definition of money transmitter for engaging in account-based money transmission".
The design responds to that line, not to the sentence before it. There are no hosted wallets: the payout address is the miner's identity and rewards go only to it. There is no way to redirect a reward to a different address. Payouts are mechanical, on a published schedule, with a short and disclosed hold. The guidance does not expressly address how long an unpaid reward may sit in the pool's accounting before it starts to resemble an account, which is why that question is on the attorney review list.
Pennsylvania Act 7 of 2025
Pennsylvania amended its Money Transmitter Act, now titled the Money Transmission and Virtual Currency Transmission Business Licensing Law, effective 26 August 2025. The new section 2(a)(2) provides that no person shall "engage in the business of transmitting virtual currency by means of a transmittal instrument for a fee or other consideration with or on behalf of an individual without first having obtained a license from the department". The statute contains a carve-out for the use of a self-hosted wallet, with a proviso for transmission "as part of a third-party service on behalf of another individual in exchange for a fee". It contains no exemption for mining, for mining pools, or for activity integral to another service.
OFAC
The operator is a U.S. person, so U.S. sanctions obligations apply regardless of where any server sits. OFAC's October 2021 Sanctions Compliance Guidance for the Virtual Currency Industry names miners among the businesses encouraged to run a tailored, risk-based programme, and specifically recommends geolocation and IP-address controls and screening of digital-wallet addresses against the SDN list. The comprehensively sanctioned jurisdictions at the time of writing are Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and the Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions of Ukraine; the Syria programme was revoked in 2025 and is not in that list. The controls proposed for this service are proportionate to what it actually knows about a miner — an IP address, a payout address, and sometimes an email — and are set out in the Sanctions and Restricted Persons Policy.
Other sources, in one line each
- SEC Division of Corporation Finance staff statement, 20 March 2025 — describes mining-pool operator activity on proof-of-work networks as "primarily administrative or ministerial", while noting that different compensation or participation arrangements could change the view. It is a staff statement, not a rule, and the fit of PPLNS and the fee is on the review list.
- Tax reporting — whether and how a pool operator must report payouts to U.S. miners is a question for counsel and a CPA; it is not addressed by this site.
05 How the product enforces the posture
Each item in the posture corresponds to a feature that exists, or to one that was deliberately left out.
| Posture | What the software does about it |
|---|---|
| No deposits | No deposit address exists for any miner. The database schema has no deposits table. Nothing enters the system from a miner except shares over Stratum. |
| No transfers between users | There is no transfers table and no API endpoint that moves value between payout addresses. The only value-like column is reward_allocations.net, which exists to be paid out. |
| No hosted wallet | The service never generates a key for a miner and never receives one. Rewards go to the external address the shares were mined under. |
| No address change | There is no redirect feature. To use a different address, mine with it; rewards already allocated to the old address are paid to the old address. |
| Payouts are automatic | There is no withdraw button. A daily run pays every mature pending reward at or above 1 SPMTC; the inactive-address sweep clears the rest. |
| The fee is compensation for infrastructure | The 1% pool fee (proposed) is taken from the block reward before apportionment. It is never charged on a payout transaction and is never described as a transaction fee. |
| No exchange, no conversion | The service only ever handles SPMTC, and only the SPMTC it mined. There is no price feed, no order book, no other asset. |
| Sanctions controls | IP-country gate on the website and the Stratum endpoint for comprehensively sanctioned jurisdictions; payout-address screening against SDN-listed digital-currency addresses; every decision logged. |
| Minimum identity | No accounts, no passwords, no names, no government ID. Optional email for notifications, registered by a message signed with the payout address. |
06 Regulatory change control
The features that would change what this service is — hosted wallets, deposits, withdrawals from custodial accounts, user-to-user transfers, swaps, fiat on- or off-ramps, cards, payment processing, custody of private keys, lending, interest, staking, investment products, mixing, payment forwarding, and receiving cryptocurrency from users for onward transmission — are listed in a developer document with the rule that none of them may be implemented without a new legal review. Any change touching payouts, the reward ledger, payout addresses, or any new inbound-value path carries a compliance-impact label and a named reviewer. See Regulatory change control.
07 Status and what is still open
The pool is not open. The network is pre-launch, with 2027 the working assumption and no date set (September 2026 meeting). Before the pool opens to the public, the questions on the attorney review list need answers, beginning with the Pennsylvania licensing analysis. The legal pages linked in the footer are first-pass drafts prepared for that review and are not in force.
Every legal, compliance, and developer document on this site is dated. If a document conflicts with the way the software actually behaves, the software is wrong and will be changed, not the statement.