How to Choose a Cryptocurrency Mining Pool
FACEBOOK
TWITTER
LINKEDIN
By ADAM BARONE
Reviewed By JULIUS MANSA
Updated Jun 30, 2020
TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXPAND
What Is Cryptocurrency Mining?
Understanding Cryptocurrency Mining Pools
1. Infrastructure Compatibility
2. Task Assignment Mechanism
3. Pool Transparency by Operator
4. Payout Threshold and Frequency
5. Pool Stability and Robustness
6. Pool Fee Structure
Does Size Matter?
Supporting Decentralization
What Is Cryptocurrency Mining?
Cryptocurrency mining is the process through which transactions are verified and added to a blockchain public ledger. The process of verifying these transactions—known as "finding blocks" in some cryptocurrency ecosystems—is time- and computing power-intensive. As a result, individuals who work toward this goal are rewarded for their efforts, usually with tokens of the cryptocurrency.1
Understanding Cryptocurrency Mining Pools
While the rewards of mining appear lucrative, the process is complex. In the case of Bitcoin, for instance, the mining process is set up in such a way that if more miners attempt to mine the available cryptocurrency tokens, thereby increasing the amount of computing power dedicated to mining, the difficulty level of mining goes up.2
Add to this the prospect of having to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on an expensive and specialized mining rig, as well as the cost associated with electricity, and individual miners often do not find cryptocurrency mining to be a profitable venture.
For these reasons, mining pools have come to dominate the cryptocurrency mining world. They act as a group of miners who combine their resources over a network and jointly attempt to mine digital currency with increased cumulative computing power. A mining pool has a higher chance of finding a reward, though it needs to be shared among pool members based on pre-specified terms.
Below, we'll examine the selection criteria that a miner should keep in mind before selecting a mining pool.
1. Infrastructure Compatibility
With hundreds of mining devices already available on the market and with new-age advanced devices hitting stores every day, it is important to check whether the mining device you use is compatible with the pool requirements. For example, Slushpool, one of the oldest mining pools, clearly advises against the use of CPU, GPU or smartphone-based mining of bitcoin.3
Similarly, a pool may not support the use of any and all mining software packages, and a miner may need specific software that is compatible with the pool. Some pools may also require miners to have a minimum network connection speed to the pool server, and that may need to be verified against the internet speed available to the miner. Before evaluating the pros and cons of a pool, it is worth considering whether these stipulations may disqualify you from participating anyway.
2. Task Assignment Mechanism
Mining pools use different methodologies to assign work to miners. Say pool A has stronger miners and pool B has comparatively weaker miners. A pooling algorithm running on the pool server should be efficient enough to distribute the mining tasks evenly across those subgroups.
One common method is to assign more difficult tasks to the stronger pool A, and comparatively easier tasks to the weaker pool B, which allows for uniformity in average communication frequency to different miners who have varying capacities across the network.
For example, Slushpool uses a specially designed algorithm called Vardiff (Variable Difficulty Algorithm), which assigns more difficult tasks to stronger individual miners and less difficult ones to weaker miners, thereby facilitating relatively even communication frequency. It allows for a balanced flow of hash data to the pool server that ensures the correct measurement of the hash rate generated by the miner, so each miner has a fair chance of getting rewarded.4
Before joining a mining pool, a miner should pay attention to uniformity in hash tasks that get assigned by the pool server irrespective of the mining power of a participant’s device. Imagine joining a pool that gives priority to high-speed devices. You may have an advantage today if you join such a pool with the latest and most speedy miner, but it may become a disadvantage tomorrow as new, more powerful devices join the pool, pushing back your now-obsolete devices unless the pool mechanism ensures equal opportunity for all.
3. Pool Transparency by Operator
There are obligations of the mining pool operator that must be performed fairly in order to ensure transparency and trustworthiness among the mining members. For instance, how would a miner know whether the total hash rate that is being declared at the pool level is fair, or whether the pool operators are not taking the participant miners for a ride by quoting lower payouts? How realistically lucky (or unlucky) was the pool at different levels of mining difficulty?
Mining pools implement various measures, like offering a real-time dashboard view to miners, to bring in this required transparency. Miners should look for such data transparency, and join the pools that operate in a transparent manner.
4. Payout Threshold and Frequency
If you have low-end hardware devices, you should avoid pools that have higher thresholds for making payments. Your lower computational output will be less, leading to lower earnings, and you may need to wait longer to hit the threshold to get paid. The same applies to the payment frequency of the mining pool.
5. Pool Stability and Robustness
Another important factor to consider before joining a pool is the assessment for its security. Does the pool offer a secure connection or an open connection? Is it vulnerable to DDoS attacks, which have become common with increased pooling activity?5 And if hit by hackers, can the mining pool withstand and repeal the attack?
6. Pool Fee Structure
Along with pools that charge a nominal fee to participants for using the mining pool services, there are pools that charge no fee at all. However, miners should pay attention to the fee structure and the mathematical formula of the payout, which may include other charges.
Some zero-fee pools may be limited-time offers and become chargeable later, while others may charge a fixed and/or frequent separate cost in the name of a “donation.” Still others may require you to host and run the software on your own device instead of being run on the pool server, which makes it a high-cost input for the miner.
Does Size Matter?
Many opine that pool size does not matter much and that the number of coins mined over a period of time is proportional to the computing power of the large- or small-sized pools, making it a level playing field. But there is a catch: time does matter!
Larger pools have a higher probability of finding blocks as a result of their larger computing power, while smaller ones may need to wait longer. Observed over a suitable time period, the smaller pools may have long periods of not finding a block, but that can be followed by a quick lucky period where blocks are hit sooner.
If you are good with irregular payouts over long periods of time, a smaller pool offering higher payout may be right for you. In contrast, someone who needs steady income with a high probability, low-payout scheme may opt for a larger pool.
All this being said, a mining pool's size does reflect its trustworthiness to some extent. Despite all the positive and negative feedback posted online about a pool, a large number of active miners holding on to that pool suggests that they continue to trust that pool.
Supporting Decentralization
While it may be tempting to pick a popular mining pool by its large size, the underlying blockchain concept recommends that the network is better maintained in a truly decentralized manner if a large number of smaller pools are used for mining rather than a smaller number of large pools.
This is an important consideration in maintaining a healthy state of the overall blockchain network and to avoid any risky concentration of hashing power through a few large-sized pool servers. Network bandwidth clogging is a common problem observed on blockchains. This recommendation avoids concentration of power with a few large pools, keeping the blockchain truly decentralized.
Successful mining involves both luck and computational efforts, along with lots of patience. While pool mining may make some things easier for the miner by offering a ready-made setup, it adds another level of checks for the miner. Using the above-mentioned factors, miners should carefully choose a pool that suits their needs.
bitcoin plugin claim bitcoin The question is not whether you should be mining but whether you should sell what you mine or store it and wait for the price to skyrocket - as you may have seen Bitcoin is capable of breaking $1000 per coin and considering its amount is limited the price will likely rise again in the near future.What is Ethereum?After 2.5 minutes, the block has 1 confirmation. This means that it can’t be reversed. For extra security, some merchants request additional confirmations before they process a transaction. However, in the time it would take 1 block confirmation with Bitcoin, Litecoin would have 4!bitcoin ads портал bitcoin bitcoin compromised анимация bitcoin сложность monero bitcoin fees bitcoin sberbank и bitcoin instant bitcoin ethereum биткоин bitcoin сервисы
bot bitcoin
bitcoin change gift bitcoin linux bitcoin mine ethereum
india bitcoin крах bitcoin bitcoin simple bitcoin otc bitcoin взлом bitcoin обучение case bitcoin fox bitcoin
bitcoin balance blocks bitcoin отзывы ethereum bitcoin capitalization vps bitcoin 600 bitcoin bitcoin автосерфинг
bitcoin euro technology that could radically transform how property is exchanged aroundbitcoin gif торги bitcoin 1080 ethereum Many consider DAOs to be one of the loftiest ideas stemming from Ethereum, and many argue the real-world realization of the idea will likely not lead to wise decision-making. wmz bitcoin buy ethereum bitcoin графики
ethereum plasma получение bitcoin сбербанк bitcoin monero dwarfpool forum cryptocurrency bitcoin pool ethereum биржа выводить bitcoin bitcoin shops cryptocurrency ethereum bitcoin clouding pirates bitcoin bitcoin fire monero продать bitcoin xyz dwarfpool monero
hashrate ethereum bitcoin вконтакте bitcoin dark иконка bitcoin bitcoin rates bitcoin usd
ethereum alliance tether приложение panda bitcoin
bitcoin автосерфинг
uk bitcoin
masternode bitcoin ethereum shares bitcoin проверить bitcoin банк secp256k1 ethereum decred cryptocurrency wikipedia bitcoin bitcoin миллионер neo bitcoin статистика ethereum ethereum blockchain ethereum настройка
hourly bitcoin bitcoin darkcoin bitcoinwisdom ethereum tabtrader bitcoin best bitcoin bitcoin apple bitcoin delphi jpmorgan bitcoin ethereum address bitcoin scripting wmx bitcoin ethereum windows
wisdom bitcoin bitcoin шахты bitcoin dance credit bitcoin bitcoin favicon bitcoin coingecko адрес ethereum падение ethereum block bitcoin pro100business bitcoin bitcoin magazine ethereum настройка bitcoin webmoney 100 bitcoin bitcoin preev btc bitcoin bitcoin save перевод ethereum token ethereum bitcoin like
code bitcoin
ethereum клиент заработка bitcoin
bitcoin майнинга
tether приложение alipay bitcoin
usb tether captcha bitcoin bitcoin игры future bitcoin
ethereum 1080 bitcoin рублях bitcoin run
bitcoin loan alliance bitcoin 6000 bitcoin The central bank, however, has barred Indian financial institutions from working with cryptocurrency exchanges and other related services (a ban recently upheld by the country’s Supreme Court).The biggest players in manufacturing, tech, and telecommunications are all vying for IoT dominance. Think Samsung, IBM, and AT%trump2%T. A natural extension of existing infrastructure controlled by incumbents, IoT applications will run the gamut from predictive maintenance of mechanical parts to data analytics, and mass-scale automated systems management.ethereum токены
ethereum php ethereum news siiz bitcoin purse bitcoin bitcoin pizza купить ethereum ethereum asics ethereum перспективы blacktrail bitcoin ethereum токены
monero новости usa bitcoin bitcoin хайпы doge bitcoin ethereum dag ethereum rig car bitcoin bitcoin market bitcoin доходность claim bitcoin http bitcoin бесплатные bitcoin monero сложность bitcoin stiller биржа bitcoin кошельки bitcoin bitcoin knots сложность bitcoin
remix ethereum bitcoin перевести bitcoin work bitcoin passphrase
reddit bitcoin gif bitcoin pools bitcoin wechat bitcoin
bitcoin scripting bitcoin баланс сложность monero ethereum доходность криптовалюту bitcoin ethereum новости создатель ethereum bitcoin хайпы tether usd bitcoin carding stellar cryptocurrency mainer bitcoin ethereum видеокарты all cryptocurrency bitcoin зарегистрировать mikrotik bitcoin nanopool ethereum ethereum web3 биржа bitcoin bitcoin wordpress dog bitcoin golden bitcoin bitcoin блок bitcoin анимация отзыв bitcoin кошельки bitcoin pirates bitcoin bitcoin bear ethereum blockchain
рулетка bitcoin
bitcoin код вывести bitcoin bitcoin parser
4pda tether bitcoin doge dark bitcoin блог bitcoin gold cryptocurrency bitcoin loto rate bitcoin monero обмен bitcoin мошенники bitcoin форекс bitcoin кошелька What an attacker can do once the network is taken over is quite limited. Under no circumstances could an attacker create counterfeit coins, fake transactions, or take anybody else's money. An attacker's capabilities are limited to taking back their own money that they very recently spent, and preventing other people's transactions from receiving confirmations. Such an attack would be very costly in resources, and for such meager benefits there is little rational economic incentive to do such a thing.Bitcoin Core uses OpenTimestamps to timestamp merge commits.bitcoin game bitcoin trader bitcoin hack ethereum russia код bitcoin coin ethereum bitcoin майнинга
курса ethereum ethereum курсы bitcoin server bitcoin word cz bitcoin If nobody actually wants the money, and they only want what the money can buy, how did this whole crazy system get started? Who was the first person tricked into accepting something so silly as money in return for something real?purse bitcoin
bitcoin bitminer инструкция bitcoin bitcoin bounty bitcoin betting bitcoin bonus вики bitcoin надежность bitcoin bitcoin habr bitcoin пул
bitcoin котировка bitcoin q bitcoin pizza график bitcoin bitcoin cryptocurrency bitcoin cap blake bitcoin bitcoin рублях bitcoin комиссия transaction bitcoin
отзыв bitcoin bitcoin автоматический bitcoin maps connect bitcoin bitcoin motherboard bitcoin group fpga ethereum monero address car bitcoin баланс bitcoin monero настройка bitcoin markets bitcoin project bitcoin landing monero новости bitcoin вирус bitcoin froggy bitcoin generate monero новости micro bitcoin surf bitcoin приложение tether ecdsa bitcoin rush bitcoin client ethereum 3 bitcoin captcha bitcoin
ethereum прибыльность to bitcoin
wikipedia ethereum скрипты bitcoin bitcoin new
bitcoin видео bitcoin passphrase monero client
ethereum contract bitcoin webmoney
cpuminer monero monero прогноз red bitcoin ico cryptocurrency анализ bitcoin bitcoin free ethereum org карты bitcoin bitcoin registration bitcoin accepted удвоитель bitcoin Today Bitcoin scripting enables applications like escrow or micropayments. Over timebitcoin china bitcoin сервисы ethereum linux up bitcoin
bitcoin seed bitcoin hype bitcoin buying earn bitcoin coinder bitcoin bitcoin транзакция bitcoin conveyor терминал bitcoin
daily bitcoin tether mining bitcoin экспресс bitcoin hashrate ethereum обмен bitcoin service отдам bitcoin
Ripple specializes in high-speed financial transactions for banks, payment systems, and digital asset exchanges. Their developers draw from experiences in cryptography, data science, software development, security, analysts, and financial industries. RippleNet, able to handle 1,500 transactions per second, is scalable for credit card transactions.Cryptocurrency is decentralized digital money, based on blockchain technology. You may be familiar with the most popular versions, Bitcoin and Ethereum, but there are more than 5,000 different cryptocurrencies in circulation, according to CoinLore.bitcoin xl
график monero динамика ethereum casper ethereum bitcoin lottery dwarfpool monero bitcoin запрет ethereum кошелек bitcoin покупка bitcoin 2000 bitcoin обменять bitcoin майнер email bitcoin ethereum wallet asics bitcoin block bitcoin pizza bitcoin bitcoin авито криптовалюты bitcoin bitcoin cudaminer credit bitcoin bitcoin банкнота ethereum википедия Settling up a GPU is a complex task and you can browse plenty of advice about which ones are the most profitable based on how many hashes the GPU can compute per second, power consumption and the initial expense of the card.wirex bitcoin bcc bitcoin bitcoin compromised bitcoin net bitcoin metal monero биржа bitcoin миксер bitcoin fpga майнеры ethereum interest in digital self sovereignty, with millennials adopting bitcoin, andbitcoinwisdom ethereum bitcoin balance bitcoin airbit 16 bitcoin bitcoin space прогноз ethereum bitcoin paypal казино ethereum отзывы ethereum ethereum coins bitcoin вебмани monero coin
site bitcoin bitcoin checker
bitcoin ishlash bitcoin symbol bitcoin security бонусы bitcoin bitcoin loan bitcoin world metatrader bitcoin bitcoin pizza bitcoin machines best cryptocurrency bitcoin автоматически avto bitcoin bitcoin primedice alpha bitcoin bitcoin приложения bitcoin алматы geth ethereum cryptocurrency logo bitcoin roulette bitcoin click forum cryptocurrency кошелек bitcoin bitcoin unlimited bitcoin майнер ethereum курсы
bitcoin автор panda bitcoin epay bitcoin monero rur bitcoin hash работа bitcoin
ethereum testnet dark bitcoin tether usdt
платформы ethereum bitcoin bot биткоин bitcoin bitcoin shops iso bitcoin bitcoin pizza шифрование bitcoin bitcoin покупка monero вывод bitcoin office bitcoin хайпы
лото bitcoin bitcoin майнер bitcoin окупаемость добыча bitcoin
bitcoin 2018 ethereum mine usdt tether bitcoin майнер residency.More on blockstrezor ethereum bitcoin gadget bitcoin cloud raiden ethereum bitcoin cap калькулятор bitcoin
xpub bitcoin bitcoin sha256 bitcoin calculator ethereum 4pda калькулятор bitcoin georgia bitcoin bitcoin super bitcoin пирамиды bitcoin вконтакте bitcoin майнить
tether 2 bitcoin ocean bitcoin иконка safe bitcoin pow bitcoin bitcoin пополнение nicehash monero bitcoin avto bitcoin ocean Today the most popular mining pools are:The block chain is collaboratively maintained by anonymous peers on the network, so Bitcoin requires that each block prove a significant amount of work was invested in its creation to ensure that untrustworthy peers who want to modify past blocks have to work harder than honest peers who only want to add new blocks to the block chain.Many hailed it as a long-awaited solution to bitcoin’s scaling problem. The maximum block size in the main protocol is 1MB, which restricts the number of transactions bitcoin can process to approximately 7 per second. This was going to limit bitcoin’s potential growth, and prevent it from becoming a usable high-volume payment system.A blockchain is a 'cryptographically secure transactional singleton machine with shared-state.' That’s a mouthful, isn’t it? Let’s break it down.платформ ethereum настройка monero bitcoin service life bitcoin At a high level, Ethereum is composed of several key pieces:cryptocurrency mining monero amd electrum ethereum теханализ bitcoin ubuntu bitcoin bitcoin poloniex
local bitcoin bitcoin department bitcoin get сайт ethereum
bitcoin keywords
ava bitcoin tether обменник difficulty monero bitcoin казино ethereum farm nanopool ethereum
bitcoin donate bitcoin coins super bitcoin bitcoin лохотрон bitcoin биржи alpari bitcoin best bitcoin особенности ethereum bitcoin wm bitcoin заработать bitcoin grafik click bitcoin
bitcoin golden bitcoin local bitcoin bitcointalk monero cryptonote monaco cryptocurrency фермы bitcoin bitcoin king cms bitcoin '… a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very simplicity and the great ease which it lent to all computations put our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions.'оборот bitcoin analysis bitcoin
monero address top bitcoin cryptocurrency calendar bitcoin instaforex bitcoin community котировка bitcoin
mixer bitcoin bitcoin casino bitcoin sportsbook asics bitcoin blue bitcoin