Can P2Pool use subaddresses as the payout wallet?

No. Monero P2Pool requires a primary wallet address for mining payouts; it does not support subaddresses as the payout address. For Monero’s main network, use your wallet’s primary address beginning with 4, not a subaddress beginning with 8.

Which address should you use?

A Monero wallet can show several receiving addresses, but they are not interchangeable for P2Pool:

• Primary address: The wallet’s original, standard address. This is the type P2Pool needs.
• Subaddress: An extra receiving address generated by your wallet. These are useful for separating ordinary payments, but P2Pool cannot use them for payouts.
• Integrated address: An address with a payment identifier built into it. This is not a supported replacement for a primary address.

A standard main-network primary address has 95 characters. Integrated addresses also begin with 4, so checking only the first character is not enough.

Look for the wallet’s original primary address, usually under its first account. An address belonging to an additional account may be a subaddress even if your wallet labels it as that account’s main receiving address.

Why subaddresses do not work here

P2Pool is a decentralized mining pool: miners work together without a central operator holding everyone’s earnings. When the pool finds a Monero block, payouts go directly to eligible miners in that block’s coinbase transaction, the special transaction that creates the mining reward.

P2Pool’s payout system is designed to use standard primary addresses, not subaddresses. Subaddresses use a different address and key arrangement, so they are not simply alternative labels you can paste into the same setting.

This is a limitation of P2Pool’s payout mechanism. It does not mean subaddresses are invalid or unsafe for normal Monero payments.

How to set up your payout address

Before you start mining:

• Open your Monero wallet and copy its primary receiving address.
• Put that address in P2Pool’s payout-wallet setting, commonly supplied with the --wallet option.
• Check P2Pool’s startup messages for address or configuration errors.
• If you use a mining app that runs P2Pool for you, check its instructions for where to enter the primary address.

You only need to give P2Pool your public address, which identifies where rewards should go. You do not need to provide your recovery seed or private spend key. Those secrets let someone control your funds.

A request to enter your wallet seed into a mining website or payout form is a serious warning sign.

Keep your mining activity separate

If you wanted a subaddress for privacy or bookkeeping, create a separate wallet for P2Pool instead. Use that wallet’s primary address and safely back up its recovery seed.

P2Pool makes participating miners’ payout addresses publicly visible. A dedicated wallet helps you avoid using the same public address for mining and unrelated activity, though it does not make your participation invisible.

The bottom line

Use a standard primary Monero address for P2Pool, not a subaddress. If you want a distinct mining identity, use a separate wallet’s primary address rather than creating another receiving address inside your existing wallet.