Is it safe to put my wallet address in a public miner config?

Yes, putting your public Monero wallet address in a public miner config is generally safe for your coins: the address alone cannot let someone spend them. But it can connect your identity to your mining activity, so keep your wallet’s secret information out of the file and consider using a separate mining address.

What your address does—and does not—expose

A miner config is a settings file that tells mining software where to connect and where your rewards should go. Your public wallet address is the destination for those rewards, not a password.

Someone who copies it cannot use it to:

• Spend your XMR.
• Recover your wallet’s private keys.
• Look up your wallet balance or full payment history on Monero’s public blockchain—the shared record of transactions.

Monero hides payment details in that public record. Publishing an address does not work like publishing a bank statement.

However, the address itself is still a recognizable label. If you post the same address on a public code repository, a forum account, and a mining dashboard, someone can connect those appearances. Monero’s payment privacy does not hide information you publish elsewhere.

The mining pool can reveal extra details

A mining pool combines work from many miners and shares the rewards. Some pools let anyone enter a wallet address to view that miner’s statistics without signing in.

Depending on the pool, someone with your address may see:

• Your mining speed, often called your hashrate.
• When your miner was last active.
• Worker names, which identify separate mining devices.
• Pending rewards or payout history recorded by that pool.

That is not access to your wallet. It is information the pool’s website exposes about your mining account.

Before making a config public, try opening your pool’s address-based dashboard while signed out. Check what another person could see. Avoid worker names that reveal your real name, employer, location, or device details.

Check the whole file, not just the address

The biggest risk is often another setting beside the address. Before publishing, remove:

• Your seed phrase, the secret words used to restore and control your wallet.
• Private spend keys, which authorize spending.
• Private view keys, which can reveal incoming payment details.
• Pool account passwords, access tokens, and dashboard credentials.
• Credentials for any service that remotely controls your wallet or miner.

Some pool configs have a field called pass that contains a harmless option rather than a real password. Others use it for sensitive information. Check your pool’s instructions instead of assuming it is safe.

If you publish a secret by mistake, deleting the file may not remove old versions or saved copies. Replace exposed credentials. If your seed or spend key leaked, move your funds to a newly created wallet.

The bottom line

You can share a miner config containing only your public payout address without giving others control of your XMR. For a public example, though, replacing it with YOUR_WALLET_ADDRESS is usually better: it protects your privacy and prevents someone from accidentally mining to your address.

For your own setup, use a dedicated mining wallet or a subaddress—an extra receiving address within your wallet—if your pool supports it. This reduces address reuse, but it does not erase any statistics the pool makes public.