Terms of Use

This document is a drafting template that has not been reviewed by counsel. Before it is published it must be reviewed and adapted by a qualified attorney licensed in the Operator's jurisdiction(s) and in every jurisdiction where miners may participate. The "non-custodial," "no money transmission," and "mining-pool carve-out" positions stated below are positions the Operator asserts — not adjudicated facts; they depend on the specific code behaviour described, and a regulator or court may disagree. Where the operative text says the Service "is not" a custodian, money transmitter, or debtor, read that as the Operator's asserted position. This template asserts no regulatory approval, license, or guarantee of compliance.

Pre-publish gate. Every bracketed placeholder — each item shown in square brackets below — must be filled in by the Operator and counsel before this page goes live; do not publish while any unfilled placeholder remains.

Operator: [LEGAL ENTITY NAME], [FORM OF ORGANIZATION], [REGISTERED ADDRESS], [JURISDICTION] ("Operator," "we," "us").

Service: the BTX mining pool and related informational pages at otc-pools.xyz (the "Service").

Effective date: [EFFECTIVE DATE].    Last updated: [LAST-UPDATED DATE].

By connecting a miner to, or otherwise using, the Service, you ("you," "Participant," "miner") agree to these Terms of Use ("Terms"). If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1.1 The Service is a mining pool: it coordinates the combined hashing work of independent participants to find BTX blocks, and it distributes the block rewards those participants collectively mine. Distributing newly-mined block rewards to the participants who contributed the work is an integral, inseparable part of operating the pool.

1.2 The Service is not intended to operate as, and the Operator does not consider it to be, a wallet, exchange, custodian, bank, deposit-taker, investment product, lending product, or money-transmission service. We do not accept your money or coins for safekeeping, investment, exchange, or transfer to third parties. The only value that flows through the Service is newly-mined BTX block reward that belongs to participants and is in transit to them.

1.3 You supply your own BTX payout address. That address is the destination to which we send your deliverable distributions. Our system is designed to send your distributions only to the payout address you register, and we do not redirect a deliverable distribution to any destination of our own choosing. (This is a design and policy commitment, not a claim of technical impossibility; the handling of amounts that cannot be delivered to your address is addressed in Section 6.2.)

2.1 We hold no deposits. You never send us funds. There is no account to fund, no balance to top up, and no withdrawal to request.

2.2 No stored-value account. Any figure the dashboard or API shows for you — your pending rewards — is informational only: an estimate of your not-yet-distributed share of block rewards the pool has already mined and that have matured on-chain. The Operator does not treat it as, and does not intend it to be, a deposit, an account balance, stored value, a debt owed by us, or a claim on any of our assets, and does not consider it to create a debtor-creditor relationship. It is not redeemable or withdrawable on demand; it is settled solely by the automatic distribution rules in Section 4. Because distributions run on a fixed schedule and above a minimum, a portion of your pending rewards below that minimum may be carried between cycles; that carried amount is disclosed in Section 6 and, as described there, is not a deposit, account, or debt.

3.1 Consensus maturity (unavoidable). By the BTX/Bitcoin consensus rules, a newly-mined block reward is unspendable until it reaches 100 confirmations (coinbase maturity). We physically cannot distribute a block's reward before then, regardless of intent. This is a network rule, not a holding period we impose.

3.2 Fixed batch schedule. After a block matures, its distribution is included on the next scheduled distribution tick. Distributions are batched on a fixed, published schedule (currently approximately every 2 hours) adopted solely to amortize post-quantum signature cost and on-chain transaction fees. The batch schedule is not a discretionary holding period, and we do not lengthen it to hold participant funds.

3.3 The only reasons your matured share is not yet distributed are (a) the 100-confirmation consensus maturity requirement, (b) the fixed batch tick in 3.2, and (c) the minimum-distribution and undeliverable-handling mechanics disclosed in Section 6. There is no manual approval step between maturity and distribution.

4.1 Once a block matures, each eligible Participant's share is credited and paid on the next scheduled tick automatically and by rule — no human approves distributions one by one, and the amount is fixed by the PPLNS rules in Section 5, not chosen by us. Apart from the published, automatic mechanics of these Terms — the fixed batch tick (Section 3.2), the PPLNS formula (Section 5), and the disclosed minimum distribution and undeliverable-payout handling (Section 6) — the Operator does not exercise discretion over whether, when, or how much an eligible Participant is paid.

4.2 No withholding of earned rewards. The Operator has no capability to hold or withhold a Participant's matured, distributable reward. Suspending a miner for abuse or protocol violation stops that miner from contributing new work; it does not freeze, forfeit, or withhold rewards already earned and matured before the suspension — those are still distributed by the automatic rules above.

4.3 Network fees borne by recipients. On-chain transaction fees for a distribution are deducted from the amounts sent to recipients, so we never net or fund distributions from our own assets. We retain only the fee in Section 7.

5.1 The pool uses PPLNS (Pay-Per-Last-N-Shares). When the pool collective actually finds and matures a block, that specific block's reward (less the fee in Section 7) is distributed proportionally among the Participants who contributed valid shares in the last N-share window (currently N = 50,000).

5.2 This is not PPS. We do not pay per share, do not guarantee any per-share value, and do not pay Participants out of our own funds. No reward is owed or paid unless and until the pool actually finds a block and that block matures on-chain. Your distributions are contingent on the collective mining real blocks; you are not our counterparty or contractor and we owe you no fixed payment.

5.3 Solo mining. If you mine with the solo option, the block reward is paid directly to your address in the block's coinbase (less the fee in Section 7). We never receive, route, or hold solo rewards, and solo mining creates no pool-side balance, ledger, or custodial entry attributable to you. (For operational and statistical purposes the pool may retain non-custodial share and block records that identify the solo finder, but these hold no funds and confer no balance.)

6.1 Minimum distribution amount, and carryover. A distribution to an address must be large enough to be worth sending on-chain, because on-chain fees are deducted from the amount sent (Section 4.3). The minimum distribution amount is 0.1 BTX, chosen so that on-chain and post-quantum-signature transaction fees stay economical. Until your accrued share reaches 0.1 BTX, it is held as pending rewards and carried into later distributions; it does not expire, and the Operator does not sweep or forfeit it. It remains your proportional share of rewards the pool has mined, and is paid automatically once it reaches the minimum — including if you stop mining and later resume. It is not a deposit, an account, or a debt the Operator owes, and the Operator does not treat the carried amount as its own asset. Attainment of the minimum is not guaranteed.

6.2 Undeliverable payouts. If a distribution cannot be delivered because the destination is an address the network cannot pay (for example an invalid or unspendable payout address), that amount is redistributed pro-rata to the next PPLNS distribution round — returned to the mining collective — rather than held for you; this may direct the amount to other Participants' addresses, and the commitment in Section 1.3 not to redirect a deliverable distribution does not prevent this disposition of an undeliverable one. If a distribution instead fails for a transient reason (for example the node is busy, the wallet is locked, or a send times out), it is retried automatically on each payout cycle until it clears. There is no manual claim process and no manual support recovery of funds, and one undeliverable address no longer blocks the other payouts in the same batch.

6.3 It is your responsibility to configure a valid, spendable BTX address. We are not liable for distributions rendered undeliverable by an address you control or misconfigured.

7.1 We charge a flat 1% pool fee, deducted from each block reward before distribution, solely as compensation for operating the pool and its full nodes.

7.2 The fee is the residual of a smaller distribution; it is not separately invoiced, held, escrowed, or accumulated as a balance, and it is not a charge for custody, exchange, or transmission of value. The fee percentage may change prospectively on published notice; changes never apply to already-matured distributions.

8.1 You must be legally permitted to use the Service in your jurisdiction and be of the age of majority there. You are responsible for determining whether your use is lawful where you are.

8.2 No deposits means no fund-KYC. Because we take no deposits and do not hold customer funds for safekeeping, we do not operate a hosted-wallet or custodial-account KYC program of the kind that applies to firms that take in and hold customer funds. This does not waive any legal obligation the Operator may independently have; see the counsel-review notice at the top of this page.

8.3 Sanctions / prohibited persons. You represent that you are not located in, and are not a person or entity subject to sanctions administered by, [SANCTIONS AUTHORITIES — e.g. OFAC, EU, UN, other applicable]. We may refuse or discontinue service to any person to comply with applicable law.

8.4 Prohibited conduct. You must not attempt share/weight manipulation, submit invalid or stolen work, attack, overload, or reverse the Service, or use it for unlawful purposes. We may suspend a miner from contributing further work for abuse or protocol violation (subject to Section 4.2 regarding already-earned rewards).

9.1 Volatility & finality. BTX and all cryptoassets are volatile and transactions are irreversible. You bear all market and network risk.

9.2 No guaranteed reward. PPLNS pays only when the collective finds blocks (Section 5.2). Variance, network difficulty, orphan/stale blocks (which can occur on any proof-of-work chain, including BTX), and your own hashrate mean you may receive little or nothing over any given period. We guarantee no amount, rate, or frequency of distribution.

9.3 Network & consensus risk. Chain reorganizations can orphan a found block; an orphaned block yields no distribution. Post-quantum signing and node/RPC conditions can delay a scheduled distribution tick.

9.4 Operational risk. The Service may be interrupted, degraded, or discontinued at any time, with or without notice.

9.5 Regulatory risk. The legal treatment of mining pools is unsettled and varies by jurisdiction. The non-custodial positions asserted here may be challenged; see the top-of-page notice.

10.1 AS-IS. THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY OF UPTIME, DISTRIBUTION AMOUNT, TIMING, OR RESULTS.

10.2 LIMITATION. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE OPERATOR AND ITS PRINCIPALS SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, LOST REWARDS, OR LOST DATA. THE OPERATOR'S TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THE SERVICE SHALL NOT EXCEED [LIABILITY CAP — e.g. THE TOTAL POOL FEES YOU PAID IN THE 30 DAYS PRECEDING THE CLAIM]. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW CERTAIN LIMITATIONS; THOSE MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

10.3 Indemnity. You will indemnify the Operator against claims arising from your breach of these Terms, your unlawful use, or your mis-configured payout address.

11.1 We may update these Terms prospectively; continued use after the updated effective date constitutes acceptance. Material changes will be posted on the Service.

11.2 Governing law: [GOVERNING LAW / JURISDICTION]. Dispute resolution: [ARBITRATION / COURTS / VENUE — insert operator's chosen mechanism]. [CLASS-ACTION WAIVER — include only if valid and intended in the governing jurisdiction.]

11.3 If any provision is unenforceable, the rest remain in effect.

[CONTACT EMAIL / CHANNEL]. This channel is for questions and notices only; it is not a fund-recovery or "claim your balance" mechanism.

For the plain-language explanation of how payouts and the non-custodial posture work, see the Payout & No-Custody Policy. If that page and these Terms ever conflict, these Terms control. This is a draft template; fill every bracketed placeholder and obtain counsel review before publishing.