Piglin Bartering in Minecraft: How to Trade with Piglins

Piglins run the Nether's only economy, and the currency is gold. Toss a gold ingot at a piglin's feet and it will study the ingot like a jeweler, then throw you something back — maybe gravel, maybe ender pearls, maybe a pair of boots that let you sprint across soul sand. It is random, occasionally insulting, and for some items the best source in the game.

Where to Find Piglins

Piglins spawn in the Nether, in groups of two to four, in the crimson forest and Nether wastes biomes. They also fill bastion remnants, where they are joined by piglin brutes — bigger, angrier relatives who never barter and hit very hard. Only adult piglins trade: babies will snatch a dropped ingot and give you nothing, and brutes and zombified piglins are not interested at any price.

What You Need Before You Barter

Two things. First, gold ingots — smelted from raw gold or gold ore (the Nether's own gold ore, mined from netherrack, is the convenient local supply) or crafted from nine gold nuggets. Second, at least one piece of gold armor on your body. Piglins attack players who are not wearing gold; put on a gold helmet or boots and they will leave you alone long enough to do business. Bring a stack of ingots — serious bartering eats gold fast, which is why a gold farm usually comes first.

How to Barter, Step by Step

1. Find an adult piglin in the crimson forest or Nether wastes, wearing your gold armor piece.
2. Drop a gold ingot near it (the drop key) or right-click the piglin while holding an ingot. Right-clicking is safer — baby piglins cannot intercept it.
3. The piglin picks up the ingot and examines it for about six seconds (eight on Bedrock).
4. It throws your item toward you. Repeat as often as you like — there is no cooldown.

Two ways to ruin a trade: hit the piglin, and it keeps the ingot and cancels the deal; or open a chest nearby, which piglins treat as theft and answer with violence. Scoop drops quickly, too — anything that lands in fire or lava is gone.

What Piglins Give You: Full Bartering Loot Table

Read the table like a player: the common tier is bulk building material, the middle tier quietly stocks you with quartz and string, and the rare tier is why people barter at all. Ender pearls without enderman hunting, fire resistance potions before you have a brewing setup, and Soul Speed — an enchantment that exists nowhere else — all come out of this slot machine.

Automating It: The Bartering Farm

The farm version is simple in principle: trap one adult piglin in a 1x1 cell, point a dispenser at it, and fire a gold ingot every six seconds (eight on Bedrock) using a redstone clock. Drops fall through the floor into a hopper collection system. Name-tag the piglin so it cannot despawn, mob-proof the area against ghasts, and stack multiple cells side by side to multiply the output. Feed it from a gold farm and it quietly prints pearls, potions and Soul Speed books while you do other things.