Piglin Trade
In Minecraft, the piglin trade is the only renewable bartering loop in the Nether: drop some gold, watch a snorting piglin admire it, then collect a random drop from a fixed loot table. It is also the single source for the soul speed enchantment, which makes it more than a side hustle for any player venturing past the portal. This article covers the exact mechanics, the full piglin trade list, edition differences and how to set up a safe trading nook without ending up as lava décor.
Overview Piglin Trade:
How Piglin Bartering Works
Piglin bartering is a one-shot interaction:
- travel to the Nether dimension through a Nether portal
- locate an adult piglin in a non-bastion area
- drop or hand-trade 1x gold ingot
- wait for the admire animation
- collect the dropped item
So, you give 1x gold ingot, an adult piglin admires it for a moment, then drops one item from its loot table. There is no menu, no skill check, no reputation system.
To stay neutral while trading with piglins, wear at least 1x piece of gold armor; boots are the cheapest option. Without it, every adult piglin in a 16-block radius attacks on sight. Even with gold gear, opening containers, breaking gold-related blocks or mining gold ores triggers immediate hostility from every piglin in line of sight, so trade in a clean spot.
Who Doesn’t Trade
Not every piglin participates in trades, and knowing which variants ignore your gold saves you ingots and time:
- baby piglins: pocket the ingot, drop nothing
- piglin brutes: never barter, always hostile, even with gold armor
- zombified piglins: reverted zombie variant from overworld exposure, no trade behavior
The Piglin Trade List & Its Odds
What do piglins trade for gold? The full piglin trade list comes from a single weighted loot table totalling 459 weight points in current Java Edition. Each ingot you spend rolls the table once. Dividing the weight of an item by 459 gives you the piglin trading chances per ingot. Below is the complete piglin trade items breakdown, with stack size and approximate odds:
| Item | Quantity | Approx. chance (rounded) | Ingots needed on average (rounded) |
| blackstone | 8-16x | ~9% | 1 |
| crying obsidian | 1-3x | ~9% | 6 |
| ender pearl | 2-4x | ~2% | 15 |
| fire charge | 1x | ~9% | 11 |
| gravel | 8-16x | ~9% | 1 |
| iron nugget | 10-36x | ~2% | 2 |
| leather | 2-4x | ~9% | 4 |
| nether brick | 2-8x | ~9% | 2 |
| nether quartz | 5-12x | ~4% | 3 |
| obsidian | 1x | ~9% | 11 |
| potion of fire resistance | 1x | ~2% | 57 |
| soul sand | 2-8x | ~9% | 2 |
| soul speed enchanted book | 1x | ~1% | 92 |
| soul speed iron boots | 1x | ~2% | 57 |
| spectral arrow | 6-12x | ~9% | 1 |
| splash potion of fire resistance | 1x | ~2% | 57 |
| string | 3-9x | ~4% | 4 |
| water bottle | 1x | ~2% | 45 |
The Best Piglin Trade?
The rarest and most valuable drop in all piglin trades Minecraft offers is the soul speed enchanted book at roughly 1.09% per ingot. Piglin bartering is the only renewable source for the soul speed enchantment, which lets you sprint over soul sand and soul soil, exactly the terrain that fills the soul sand valley biome. The soul speed iron boots are slightly more common at ~1.74%, and the best piglin trade for most players is whichever drop matches their current goal: ender pearls for an early stronghold attempt, blackstone and quartz for builds, or crying obsidian for respawn anchors.
Bedrock vs. Java: Piglin Trade Differences
Although the core mechanic is the same in both editions, a few differences matter for farming and for peaceful-mode players:
- admire duration
- peaceful difficulty despawning
- loot table weighting
- hand-trading vs. drop-trading
In Java, admiration of the gold lasts about ~6 seconds while in Bedrock it takes ~8 seconds. Additionally, in Java, already-spawned piglins remain and still barter. They despawn and trading stops in Bedrock. There are also minor differences in older patches, particularly around soul speed and quartz quantities. However, both editions accept dropped ingots, but right-click hand-trading on Java triggers the admiration instantly.
Building a Piglin Trading Farm
Once you understand the mechanic, a piglin trading farm is the next step. The principle is simple: enclose 2 to 4 adult piglins, drop ingots through a slot, and catch the output below with a hopper feeding a chest. Volume is the entire point: what do piglins drop when trading is unpredictable per roll, but with 2 or 3 stacks of ingots the loot table averages out and you reliably get the rare drops.
Before you start, prep this checklist of essentials:
- 2-3x stacks of gold ingots for meaningful sample size
- 1x gold armor piece, boots stay cheap and effective
- shield, food, and a stack of blocks for emergency walling-up
- fences to keep hoglins outside the trading zone
- hopper-and-chest combo to catch every dropped item
- 1x potion of fire resistance for unplanned lava moments
Avoiding Bastions
Bastion remnants spawn many piglins, which makes them tempting for farms but they also spawn piglin brutes and hoglins together, which makes sustained trading there too dangerous. Build your farm in the open Nether, ideally roofed and at sufficient height to break hoglin pathing. Keep walls solid so piglins inside don’t see chest activity or gold mining outside, since either action turns the entire farm hostile in a single tick.
Auto-Restocking
Advanced piglin trading farms add a baby-piglin-to-adult conversion chamber, since babies pick up ingots without bartering. Letting them grow up over 20 in-game minutes turns them into trading-capable adults, and the farm self-sustains as long as new piglins spawn nearby in the crimson forest or Nether wastes biome.
FAQ
Piglins trade items, ranging from common blocks like gravel, soul sand, blackstone and string to rare drops like ender pearls, the soul speed enchanted book and soul speed iron boots.
Wear 1x gold armor piece, find an adult piglin in the Nether, and drop or hand-trade 1x gold ingot. Wait for the admire animation, then collect the dropped item.
Each gold ingot rolls a ~2% chance of yielding 2-4x ender pearls. With 1x stack of ingots, expect roughly 4 to 7 successful pearl rolls.
No, once a piglin enters the overworld and zombifies, it loses all trade behavior and ignores gold ingots permanently, even after returning to the Nether.
On Java yes: already-spawned piglins remain on peaceful difficulty and still barter. On Bedrock, piglins despawn on peaceful and bartering becomes impossible until you switch difficulty back.
Vanilla bartering can’t be biased. Every gold ingot rolls the same weighted table regardless of luck enchantments, time of day or piglin behavior. The only real options are larger volumes, more piglins farming in parallel, or datapacks that override the loot table.
No, piglin brutes (the bastion guards with golden axes) never barter and remain hostile regardless of gold armor. Treat them as obstacles, not trading partners.
Going for Gold Into the Piglin Trade
The piglin trade is one of the simplest mechanics in the game and one of the most rewarding once you commit to volume. Wear gold boots, dodge the brutes and the hoglins, and treat each ingot as a lottery ticket. The soul speed book eventually drops and your runs across the Nether become a victory lap. Whether you’re stocking up on ender pearls for the End or farming quartz for builds, do it in multiplayer with friends on a hosted GPORTAL Minecraft server. Because if you want to go the easy route in the bartering game, do so on the server side, too.
similar articles
Minecraft
Minecraft Biomes o’ Plenty
Minecraft
Minecraft and Pokemon = Pixelmon
Minecraft