Risk Disclosure

01 No reward is guaranteed

1. Spearmint Mining distributes rewards from blocks the pool finds. If the pool finds no blocks, there is nothing to distribute. The Operator does not advance rewards, does not promise any quantity of SPMTC, any rate per unit of hashrate, or any relationship between what you contribute and what you receive over any period.
2. Figures on the dashboard labelled "estimated" are projections from recent pool performance. They are not promises and are frequently wrong in both directions.

02 Variance, difficulty, and luck

1. Block discovery is probabilistic. A pool with a small share of network hashrate can go long periods without a block, and a miner with a small share of pool hashrate can go long periods without an allocation, even when everything is working.
2. Spearmint retargets difficulty every block. Difficulty can rise sharply if hashrate arrives suddenly, reducing the reward attributable to any fixed amount of hardware within minutes.
3. Under PPLNS, shares that fall outside the window when a block is found earn nothing for that block. Intermittent mining earns less than the same total work done continuously.

03 Orphaned blocks

1. A block the pool finds may be replaced by a competing block before it matures. When that happens the reward does not exist, allocations from it are reversed, and your pending mining reward goes down. On a new network with low hashrate, orphan rates may be higher than on established networks.

04 The network may launch late, or not at all

1. Spearmint has no mainnet. The launch window described at the start of the project as early 2026 did not hold. At the 11 September 2026 meeting the launch window was placed under review, with 2027 as the working assumption and no date set. Launch is gated on a security testing programme whose completion criteria are still being written.
2. The network may launch later than 2027, may launch with different parameters from those published, or may not launch. Hardware bought or reserved in anticipation of mining Spearmint may never mine it.

05 Early-network security

1. A new SHA-256 network begins with a tiny fraction of the hashrate that exists on Bitcoin. Anyone able to rent enough hashrate can reorganise recent blocks. Spearmint's aggressive difficulty retargeting and depth-tiered finality are designed to raise the cost of that attack, not to eliminate it, and the October 2025 and September 2026 meeting notes record residual risks, including oscillation and planned hash-rate schedules, as open questions.
2. A successful reorganisation can orphan blocks the pool found, reverse allocations, and in a deep enough case affect payouts already confirmed.

06 Protocol and software bugs

1. Spearmint Core is Bitcoin Core v29.0 with changed parameters and two consensus additions. The additions are new code, less reviewed than the base, and may contain errors. A consensus bug can cause a chain split, halt block production, or require an emergency change to the rules.
2. The pool software is a ckpool fork. Share accounting or payout errors are possible; the Operator's obligation on discovering one is to correct the allocation and pay the corrected amount, and the exportable share logs exist so you can check.

07 Costs may exceed rewards

1. SHA-256 hardware, electricity, cooling, and connectivity cost money whether or not you receive a reward. There is no level of reward at which mining is assured to cover those costs, and on a new network the reward may be worth nothing.
2. You should assume you can lose the whole of what you spend on mining.

08 SPMTC may have no market and no value

1. There is no exchange listing, no market, and no price for SPMTC, and none is promised. Spearmint Mining does not provide any way to sell, exchange, or convert SPMTC, and nothing on this website suggests that anyone will want to acquire it.
2. If a market ever exists, the price of a newly launched proof-of-work coin can be extremely volatile and can fall to zero.
3. Nothing about the supply rules — the cap, the halving schedule, the pre-launch acquisition — implies value. They are consensus parameters, stated so they can be checked, not a reason to expect appreciation.

09 Payouts are irreversible; keys are yours

1. Rewards are paid on-chain to the Spearmint address you mine under. Once broadcast, a payout cannot be reversed, recalled, or redirected by the Operator.
2. The Operator never holds your private key or recovery phrase. If you lose them, the rewards paid to that address are lost, and the Operator cannot recover them. If you mine under an address you do not control — an exchange address, a typo, someone else's — the reward goes there and stays there.
3. Spearmint Mining will never ask for your private key or recovery phrase. Anyone who does is not Spearmint Mining.

10 Regulatory risk

1. The service is designed to operate as a mining pool within the fact patterns described in published U.S. federal guidance, and the Pennsylvania licensing analysis is being reviewed by counsel before opening. That review is not complete. Its outcome could require the service to obtain a licence, change how it operates, restrict who may use it, collect information it does not currently collect, or not open.
2. Laws and guidance change. A future change at federal or state level, or in a jurisdiction where you are located, could require the service to pause, alter its payout mechanics, or exclude you. Mining cryptocurrency may be restricted or prohibited where you are; that is for you to determine.
3. See the Mining Service Disclosure for the guidance the design is built around and the questions that remain open.

11 Operator risk

1. Spearmint Mining is run by a small, named team. Illness, loss of key people, or loss of infrastructure could interrupt the service. Outages mean shares are not recorded while the service is down.
2. The Operator's operational keys could be compromised despite the security measures described at /docs/security/. A compromise could result in a block reward being stolen before it is apportioned; the Operator keeps the amount held at any time to a minimum through the daily run, but cannot reduce it to zero.
3. The pool fee, reward methodology, threshold, and schedule may change with 30 days' notice, and without notice where required by law or to counter an active threat.
4. The service may close. On closure, mature pending rewards above the dust limit are paid in a final run; anything below the dust limit cannot be paid on-chain.

12 Tax

1. Mining rewards may be taxable where you are, possibly at the time they are paid and at their value then, regardless of whether you ever sell them or whether a market exists. You are responsible for determining and meeting your obligations. The Operator does not give tax advice.

13 No advice

1. Nothing on this website is financial, investment, legal, or tax advice, and nothing on it is an offer or a recommendation to acquire SPMTC or to mine it. The site describes a network and a mining service so that you can evaluate them yourself.

14 Summary

version

0.1 — draft for attorney review

revised

13 September 2026

effective

Not in force; the service is not open