When it comes to mining cryptocurrencies, you cannot translate the words "miner" and "pool" literally as "miner" and "pool". They have already received their content in Russian. " Miner"- the one who is engaged in bitcoin mining, and" pool"Is a vital thing for cryptocurrency mining.

The process of selecting a block signature, otherwise called, has a large computational difficulty... It is one of the most important parameters for the miner, since his income depends on the change in complexity. During the existence of Bitcoin, the complexity has been continuously growing in the long term, therefore, it is more and more difficult for the miner to calculate the block signature alone.

Basic award systems

PROP (Proportional)- proportional model, in which the block reward is divided strictly in proportion to the share sent by each miner. As soon as the block is found - the counter of accepted balls is reset and the counting starts from zero. This is the simplest system, but payouts are extremely volatile, especially for small pools. If a miner came and left during a "long" block, he will receive very little, and if he mined in a good period, he may receive a reward several times higher than the average by the calculator.

PPLNS (Pay Per Last N Shares)- also proportional distribution, but smoother. One of the most difficult systems to understand, at the same time the most efficient for both the pool and stable miners.

Payment is calculated for the number of balls sent not in the time elapsed between the two found blocks, but for a fixed number of certain time intervals, called "shifts" (shift). Each pool chooses the number and duration of "shifts" at its discretion.

Payments are made after the pool finds the next block. The amount of the reward is much less dependent on the time intervals between blocks. If the block is not located for a long time, then the payment rises smoothly, if the pool is lucky and the blocks are pouring, as if from a cornucopia, then the payment for each separate block decreases, but over time N * duration_shift the amount paid remains more or less constant.

Let's take a look at a simple example. The pool has a PPLNS system with 10 shifts, the duration of each is 1 hour. The hashrate of user devices is 1/100 of the total pool capacity.

The miner begins to receive a full reward, similar to the proportional system, only after he has worked at full speed of his devices for more than 10 hours. If at the time of receiving a block by the pool, he mined only 1 hour - he will earn only 10% of his share with proportional distribution, if 3 hours - then 30%.

Seemingly pure robbery. But if the user stops working on the pool, then in the next 10 hours he will still receive a reward - after 3 hours - 70% of the "normal" share, after 5 hours - 50%, and so on. The accrual will stop completely after the same 10 hours.

Let's say the pool found 3 blocks in 10 hours. In this case, the miner will receive 25 BTC * 3/100, that is, 0.75 BTC. If one block is found in 10 hours, then the actual income of the miner will be only 0.25 BTC. But, unlike the PROP system, the balls "accumulated" by it are counted for another 10 hours, and if a few more blocks are quickly mined, they will compensate for the unlucky period.

That is, the PPLNS system smooths out the influence of the factor of randomness, but cannot completely eliminate it. It is best suited for miners who are constantly working on the same pool. Another advantage is low or zero commissions, since the pool does not bear risks to users, paying only what is actually mined. Some pools include in the distribution and commissions received for conducting transactions. PPLNS has several flavors that do not fundamentally change the schema.

PPS (Pay Per Share)- a fixed payment for each ball accepted by the pool. In this case, the pool assigns a fixed reward for the ball. It is calculated on the basis of the block reward divided by the current difficulty in the network, and then multiplied by the number of balls sent by the user with difficulty 1. From the user's point of view, such a system is the most "fair", since all work is paid, regardless of its result - that is, it does not matter whether blocks are found or not.

But for the pool, this approach carries serious risks - since long periods between blocks, orphans (blocks not accepted by the network) lead to losses - the pool pays the reward to the miners in advance from the reserves, but does not receive income itself. Therefore, pools with a PPS system usually set a high commission - usually from 3 to 7%.

The PPS mode, in turn, has the following varieties:

SMPPS- each ball is valued at face value, but at the expense of a delay before payment so that the pool can find blocks to replenish the reserve. The interval is usually 120 blocks (the standard number required to spend bitcoins from an issue transaction). Usually, pools with this method of accrual do not charge a commission. Examples: Eligius (0%).

RSMPPS- when a block is found, the reward is distributed in proportion to the number of shares received from miners for the last block, excluding debts for previous blocks.

If after this distribution there is something left, the remainder is distributed in proportion to the debt for the penultimate block. If even after that there is something left, the debt for even earlier blocks is paid.
Such a payment system is beneficial for new participants in the pool, since the debt on old blocks is paid on a residual basis and does not affect the amount of payments to new participants. But the accumulated debt can become critical for the pool when the block reward is halved, as happened with tzod.ru. Currently, no large pool uses this mechanism.

In the long term, for a miner working on the same pool, it doesn't matter which payment system is used. Of course, systems without commissions are more profitable.

On the Bitcoin Wikipedia page Comparison of mining pools, you can find the most complete comparison table of pools with their characteristics. But it is not updated very often and many of the data may be outdated. Many of the pools that started first have already closed.

P2Pool - decentralized pool

Pools were often hacked by hackers, because they knew that there was always a lot of money on their wallets. It happened that the pool administrators themselves showed bad faith (for example, they disappeared with money and closed the server). To exclude such possibilities, a decentralized P2Pool was invented, the program code of which is open for review and modification. Each P2Pool node (node) is only one of the elements of the system. Participants should stay on one of the nodes to receive the maximum reward. It is not profitable here to "jump" from one node to another.

P2pool has many advantages over the classic pool, first of all, it is anonymity - you do not need to enter your personal data, you only need valid wallet and email addresses to get started. The decentralized structure provides 100% protection against DDoS, and if one of the nodes falls off, the results will be automatically picked up by another node. A commission is distributed among P2Pool miners, which further increases their income. Regular pool owners often keep commissions to themselves.

Merged mining - mining of several cryptocurrencies

Merged mining is the joint mining of several cryptocurrencies at once. Those hash solutions that were not useful when calculating the signature of a Bitcoin block are calculated for those configured for joint mining. Among the concurrently mined forks are Namecoin, Devcoin, IxCoin, I0Coin. All of them are of great complexity and low exchange rates.

Some Bitcoin pools involve co-mining one or more forks, usually Namecoin. It gives miners 1-2% additional income. Therefore, when choosing a pool, pay attention to the possibility of using merged mining.

Co-mining is supported by Litecoin and Dogoikin. Since both cryptocurrencies use the same Scrypt algorithm, there are no technical problems with this.

Anyone who mines Litecoin receives an additional amount of Dogocoin and vice versa.

Multi-coin and multipools

There are pools not only for mining bitcoins, but also for other cryptocurrencies. Of the alternatives, Litecoin (Litecoin, LTC) is the most popular. Moreover, there is also specialized equipment (ASIC) for the Scrypt algorithm.

In its classic form, the pool is a server for connecting devices performing calculations according to the same algorithm - for Bitcoin, this is double SHA256. But over time, multi-coin pools also appeared. Miners who want to mine several cryptocurrencies are connected to them, switching to mining the most profitable at the moment. The miner performs all switches manually. To switch to another altcoin, it is enough to change the TCP port in the settings of the mining program.

In fact, a multi-coin pool differs from ordinary ones only in that the user does not need to create several accounts for each separate fork. All mined coins are transferred by a pool to one account, from where they are manually or automatically paid to the miner's wallets.

The next development step was multipools. Their main advantage is that mining automatically switches to mining the currently most profitable cryptocurrency. This takes into account the complexity, the price of the coin on the exchanges and many other factors. On multipools, as a rule, you can mine altcoins using several common hashing algorithms: SHA256, Scrypt, Scrypt-N, X11-13-15, etc.

It must be said that many modern cryptocurrencies - for example, Ethereum and DASH - use graphics processing units (GPUs) for mining. There are also Bitcoin forks that can only be mined on CPUs.

But, regardless of the equipment used, the principle remains the same: mining in pools is replacing solo mining, which significantly reduces the potential for decentralization, since the pool actually disposes of the capacities of the connected miners at its discretion. This includes, for example, a pool operator can include in its blocks only the transactions it needs. The strategic goal of decentralized currency enthusiasts should be to improve the technology of distributed mining so that anyone can use it - as easy as connecting to one of the usual pools.

Newbies have no idea how to choose the right platform for collective cryptocurrency mining. In a new article, we will look at the best mining pools, tell you how to distinguish an honest service from a financial pyramid and other scammers, explain in an accessible language what the specifics of different reward payment models are, and help beginners choose the optimal system.

Remember that solo mining has already lost its effectiveness, so combining computing power is perhaps the only way to continue to make money from mining coins in the era of industrial farms.

Features of mining in pools

Combining computing power increases the miner's chances of making a profit. With even super-modern equipment at your disposal, it is extremely difficult to regularly find blocks, as you have to compete with the owners of industrial farms.

I would like to highlight such an advantage as the versatility of collective mining. Consolidation of computing power will benefit both novices and experts with expensive equipment. Co-mining is the only way to impose competition on industrial ASIC farms.

The efficiency of mining coins directly depends on the chosen service. Each site has its own characteristic features: hashrate, method of distributing rewards, additional functions, etc. It is imperative to choose a service that matches your status. For example, for the owner of a GPU farm with a small hash rate, a medium platform is suitable.

Why is it beneficial

Solo-mining has lost efficiency due to the emergence of trusses and integrated circuits. Ordinary users are a priori unable to compete with corporate miners mining coins on an industrial scale.

The emergence of "pools" has stabilized the situation. Having united, the owners of insignificant capacities began to make money on mining again.

The main advantages of collective cryptocurrency mining:

• minimization of financial risks;
• saving money;
• decentralization and maximum reliability;
• increased chances of finding a block;
• fair distribution of remuneration.

Still not sure why team up with other users? Let's look at a specific example:

Suppose you have a farm of 6 powerful video cards, for example, Radeon RX 480. However, in 1 month you could not find a block: such a scenario is quite real, because you are opposed by pools and industrial miners, but no one canceled the mandatory payment for consumed electricity ... As a result, you have gone to a significant disadvantage based on the results of a month's work.

Pool mining completely eliminates the likelihood of losses. Even if you didn't generate the blockchain, you will still get money for the balls sent, which will completely cover your electricity bills. In this case, the miner will remain in the black.

Pooling systems

The payout model determines the profitability of the job.

There are several systems used by services for collective cryptocurrency mining. Let's take a closer look at each of them and highlight the most effective one.

PROP

Proportional- proportional model, according to which the reward for the found block is distributed in accordance with the share of the share sent by the miner. At the moment of confirmation of the transaction, the counter of accepted shares is canceled, the counting process starts over.

PROP is the simplest model, but far from the most profitable. Payouts are unstable, especially when it comes to pools with a small hash rate. If the user gets into the "long" round, and for SHA-256, Scrypt algorithms is a natural phenomenon, he will receive the minimum reward.

Everything is decided by the case: if you come closer to the end of a long round, then as a result you will get a really big profit. It is impossible to calculate the optimal time for entering the pool, because of this, problems arise with the stability of payments. Of course, PROP is not the most convenient model for a beginner.

PPLNS

Pay Per Last N Shares- an improved version of the proportional model: the distribution of the reward for the found block is smoothed out. The uniqueness of PPLNS lies in the fact that the model is beneficial for service administrators and miners.

The sent shares determine the size of the reward. The time elapsed between block generation is irrelevant. The calculation is based on fixed time intervals. Such intervals are called shifts (shift in translation from English "shift"). The number and duration of the pool shifts is determined at its own discretion.

When the pool detects a block, miners will receive a reward. The payout amount does not depend on the time intervals between the blocks. A long search for a block contributes to the smooth accumulation of rewards.

It is not easy for beginners to understand the essence of the PPLNS model, so let's look at a specific example.

Let's imagine that you are working with a service with 10 shifts, the duration of each is 60 minutes. The miner's hashrate is equivalent to 1/100 t of the total pool capacity.

The pool found 3 blocks in 10 hours, the user will receive 0.75 BTC (the calculation formula is 25 BTC * 3/100).

When 1 block is found in a similar time interval, the user's profit decreases to 0.25 BTC, but compared to the PROP model, the pool will continue to pay money to the miner for "unfinished" shares. In any case, the blocks found in the future fully compensate for the unsuccessful period.

The PPLNS system reduces the influence of the case on the calculation of the remuneration, but does not completely exclude it. Sites with such a payment system usually do not charge commissions.

PPS

Pay Per Share- a fixed reward for the balls accepted by the "pool". Pool independently determines the size of the reward. The payout amount is determined in accordance with the reward for the found block.

In my opinion, for a miner, PPS is the best option, because he receives money for the work performed (sent by share), but the service carries enormous risks, since it pays regardless of whether a block is found or not.

Pool administrators do not engage in altruism, so they insure themselves against bankruptcy by introducing a commission fee - from 3% to 7% ... Funds written off from the accounts of miners form a reserve from which money is paid to users for the found shares.

Comparative table of methods:

Way	Risk level	Suitable for beginners	Commission fee
PROP	High	—	—
PPLNS	Short	+	—
PPS	Absent	+	+

Choosing a service for long-term work, miners start from certain criteria that allow them to evaluate the effectiveness of a platform for collective cryptocurrency mining.

Hashrate is a key indicator that determines the speed of mining. This does not mean that owners of budget equipment should choose only the most powerful "pools". On the contrary, try to find a middle ground in this component.

Be sure to pre-calculate the profitability of mining cryptocurrency, take into account the cost of paying the electricity bill. Some sites are equipped with built-in calculators for calculating the profitability of work, for example, F2Pool. An alternative option is independent services (whattomine).

Consider the size of the minimum output. Services with too high a limit are not the best choice. Do not store coins in your internal account, transfer funds to your own wallet every day.

For owners of weak equipment, the commission fee is not of fundamental importance, the main thing is that its size does not exceed the 5% mark. If you have a powerful farm, then on the contrary, give preference to a "pool" that does not charge a commission.

The comments of practicing miners are the most objective assessment of the service. Study the reviews left by users on independent forums and thematic platforms. Only positive posts are published on the websites of the pools.

Where can I find real reviews? Personally, I get information from English-language forums, for example, bitcointalk. Real professionals who are well versed in mining communicate on such portals, beginners will emphasize a lot of interesting things for themselves.

Carefully study the reviews regarding the withdrawal of funds. Pools that delay payments are close to scams, so it's better not to work with such services.

Work experience is another important indicator. The sites that have appeared relatively recently are not able to provide a high hash rate. The low rate of cryptocurrency mining will not allow you to earn properly. Untrolled pools are at the stage of formation, it is possible that some of them will not attract active users, as a result of which they will cease to exist.

Trust trusted portals that have worked for at least 2-3 years.

Tip 5. Find out how profit is distributed among miners

Earlier, we examined the main ways of distributing rewards: PROP, PPS, PPLNS. The method that works for you depends on the capacity of the equipment you are using. For owners of ASIC devices or expensive GPU farms, the proportional model is suitable, since there is no commission here.

For beginners with weak equipment, PPS and PPLNS are suitable. Profit distribution for sent shares completely minimizes financial risk. Pay attention to the size of the commission, if the choice is between PPLNS with zero commission and PPS with 7% fee, then give preference to the first option.

Rating of the best mining pools

The TOP-3 includes multipools that meet all the previously considered criteria:

Video instructions for setting up and connecting Nicehash:

My advice to you: if there is no powerful equipment, register on Nicehesh. The official website has been translated into Russian with high quality. Rent computing power and start mining crypto. It is more expedient to choose not Bitcoins, but Ether or Zcash. The complexity of mining ZEC, ETH is noticeably lower, in addition, there are prospects for the growth of the value of these assets.

Independent pool statistics

Newbies don't know how to choose a top pool for cryptocurrency mining. Analyze the statistics of services for collective mining on independent monitors - Blockchain.info and BTC.com.

Portal administrators update information regularly. Convenient charts and diagrams will help a beginner compare "pools" and determine the most profitable ones. For miners from Russia, the BTC.com resource is more suitable, since it has a Russian-language version.

I want to draw your attention to the fact that independent monitoring is useful not only when choosing a platform for collective mining, but also in the process of searching for cryptocurrency for mining. It contains up-to-date information about the complexity of computational calculations, the amount of commission costs for transactions and many other important indicators.

Independent statistics are useful information. Study graphs and charts carefully and then make informed decisions.

Remember:

1. Mining pool is a server that distributes tasks between users in order to receive a reward for confirming a transaction as soon as possible.

The expressions “digital currency” or “electronic money” are no surprise today. Virtuality has become a reality long ago, and money, which circulates only on the Internet, is becoming more and more popular. Cryptocurrencies can not only pay when buying goods and services, they can also be earned on the World Wide Web. In this article, we will review the best mining pools, consider their features and talk about the basics of mining.

Let's start with the basic terms. Cryptocurrency is a specific currency circulating on the Internet. They do not have a single bank, all money is stored in users' digital wallets, and payments are completely hidden. With the help of your computer, you can receive new electronic money by mining.

What types of cryptocurrencies can you mine?

• Bitcoin,
• Dogecoin (based on Litecoin),
• Dash,
• Monero,
• Ethereum.

There are many other digital currencies, but these are recognized by analysts as the most promising.

Mining requires the installation of special software that can be downloaded from the official websites of cryptocurrencies, the addresses of which are available on the network. A reward in the form of digital coins is given to the user who, through complex mathematical calculations, found a new block - data to confirm the transfer. As soon as the solution is found and the reward is transferred, search for the updated block again. The reward for each cryptocurrency is different, in one of the most popular Bitcoin systems it is now equal to 25 coins.

Farm for mining cryptocurrencies - estimate the scale of mining.

A single user can start mining solo, but the efficiency of mining depends on the speed of the entire system, so the equipment must be powerful. Recently, the reward for mining is getting smaller, and the requirements for the speed and quality of computers are getting higher. It is almost impossible to earn crypto coins alone, so many independent users are united in a pool. In this network, the mining process is divided into all participants, it becomes joint, which significantly reduces the time for a solution. After finding a new block, the reward is divided among all participants. To connect to the pool, it is often enough to register your account and download the software. Next, you need to go through indexing through the BTC wallet, if you already have one, if not, then start its creation and start mining coins.

So they mine at home - artisanal conditions.

For self-mining, you need a very powerful graphics card and a high-speed processor. But even in this case, the probability of profit is very low - the computer will have to work for days, and all the bitcoins or other coins earned will simply be consumed by the electricity bill. It is much more profitable to invest the same money not in upgrading your computer, but to buy a share in the cloud pool. You need to pay for a share of the capacity of the data center and wait for profits. Everything that cloud pools mine, they will share among their shareholders.

Most Popular Cloud Pools of 2018

Cloud pool	Annual income	Beginning of work
Hashing24.com	75%	11.11.16
HashCoin.io	155,00%	26.04.16
HashFlare.io	130,00%	23.04.15
Eobot.com	45,00%	23.12.03

The predecessors of pools were computer farms - these were racks with video cards placed on them that worked around the clock. In the beginning, they brought in a good income, but the complexity of mining has seriously increased since then, and now pools rule the ball.

Mining pools

The list of mining pools is extensive - there are already more than one and a half thousand of them in the world. The vast majority of users work through Bitcoin pools. The level of complexity of mining this currency is so high that it is impossible to make a profit alone, even with a supercomputer. Therefore, more and more new pools are being formed. There are other cryptocurrencies, younger than Bitcoin, which are faster and easier to mine. But they have no real value on the network, and they can only be earned with the hope that their rate will rise in the future, and this is more like speculative mining.

The most powerful mining pools. Top 5

Consider the largest and most common mining pools in 2018.

1. F2Pool (Discus fish) is a Chinese service that has been operating since 2013, the only one who practices the PPS payment system. This resource now holds about 1/5 of the entire network hash rate. The service recommends immediately withdrawing money from accounts, since everything that remains there after 90 days is spent on developing the pool. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cynVOKJHez8)
2. AntPool is also Chinese with a power comparable to that of F2Pool (18% hash rate). There is a choice of a Russian-language interface. Uses different payment systems, it is possible to withdraw earned money without any commission.
3. BTC China - this Chinese service does not have a Russian interface, the ability to use the English language is limited, so it is not very popular, despite the 10-12% hash rate.
4. BW pool is a Chinese project, with its help you can mine bitcoins, holds up to 9% of the network power. Profit is paid according to the PPLNS system, no commission.
5. Bitfury is the only top 5 pool located in Europe. It is owned by a computer hardware company with offices in Iceland and Georgia. It is engaged in bitcoin mining (controls more than 15% of the Bitcoin network), entry is prohibited for third-party participants.

These five largest pools together account for more than 50% of the network's capacity, the remaining pools account for no more than 5%, so it makes no sense to rank them. However, many of them are interesting in their characteristics, and we will look at a few.

Other mining pools

Miningrigrentals is a convenient and intuitive service for mining bitcoin. The English-language resource offers to rent "drilling rigs" and mine coins. The commission is small, you can withdraw money immediately.

Minergate is a powerful mining pool for bitcoin, etherium and other currencies. You need to download the program to your computer, make the settings and mining will go automatically. The mined money can be immediately withdrawn to your personal wallet minus a small commission.

Zpool is an American service without registration, a user-friendly interface is suitable for a novice miner. Withdraws money only in satoshi. The unique script provides high profitability to the pool.

Slush is a mastodon in bitcoin mining, the world's first pool, has been successfully operating since 2010. Uses 5% of the network capacity, invented his own profitable payment system, takes a commission of 2%, recently introduced support (Zec). Bitcoin and namecoin can be mined.

Eligius - registration is optional, a bitcoin wallet is used to enter, coins can be withdrawn without commission, its share is 4% of the power.

Ghash.io, once a powerful pool that reached 50% of the total network capacity, now demonstrates a modest 2-3%. It works without commission, there is a convenient cryptocurrency exchanger. There is a multi-pool here, offering to mine many currencies based on the Scrypt algorithm.

Mining Pool Hub is one of the promising mining services, suitable for beginners and professionals.

Mining pools Ethereum

Ethereum is a second generation cryptocurrency that is predicted to replace Bitcoin.

Ethpool.org is the first official Ethereum mining pool, due to the growing popularity of this currency, it was impossible to join it, and the pool worked only with the old ones. The capacity of this pool is about 20%. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHBFzomlHuw

ETH Nanopool - about 40% capacity, pool commission 2%. The pool is actively developing and growing.

Ethereumpool - has been operating for more than 2 years, has a capacity of about 2%, a commission of 2%, a withdrawal commission is fixed.

If you are new to mining, you can try mining on your computer with your own software. You can mine with a video card or processor. For the mining of currencies such as Dogecoin (based on Litecoin) and Monero, this will be sufficient. You can start mining the popular altcoin Dash, for this NVIDIA video card is suitable. However, such methods are suitable only for initial experiments, the profit will be small.

IMPORTANT! It becomes more difficult to mine cryptocurrency every year, the reward decreases, and the demand for it only grows.

Which mining pool to choose?

Before you make your choice, make a comparison of your favorite pools by some parameters:

• pool capacity - new pools that have not yet reached the required capacity will not be able to offer you a decent profit, determine the best options for yourself, study analyst ratings, find statistics on pool performance, for example, here BTC.com or here Blockchain.info.
• evaluate your own hardware - perhaps you need to raise the performance of the video card, and then mining will not be so profitable. If you mine with old hardware, the profit will not even pay off the cost of electricity,
• method of sharing profit - most often, the income from solving blocks is divided in proportion to the contribution of the participants, if you cannot make your significant contribution, then the distribution will be even more profitable,
• payments - find out if it is possible to withdraw the mined to a card or to an electronic wallet, as well as the percentage of the service commission.

Earning money through mining is not a reliable income, but for many it has become a convenient way of passive cash flow. The overview of mining pools is, of course, incomplete, it is impossible to cover all services. The best of them will be determined by the user himself, based on his capabilities and tasks.

From the author: hello dear reader! How can I see if I am on fire with the idea of ​​mining? Do you want to process transactions, bask near your video card and get cryptocurrency for it? I have dreamed for a long time that the time spent at the computer would be paid for, but you don't like freelancing? But you cannot start mining because your computer is weak ... Well, there is one place where you will be useful. Now I will introduce you to what a pool is, which pool to choose for mining, and why it is so popular.

What is it?

Pools are services that unite miners from all over the world to mine some kind of cryptocurrency. Remember, as a child, there were cartoons in which a bunch of small creatures combine and create the same creature, but huge? Poole is somewhat similar. He creates one huge miner that can beat big miners like Hashflare.

There are no sharks here

A pool is a playground for poor miners. Are you saying that I'm wrong? From some point of view, this is so, but if you track any of them, then it is based on participants with a small hash rate. And it is small because they cannot afford to invest huge amounts of money in mining.

Of course, you can find a few big players, but these will be exceptions. Think for yourself, what is the reason for the Genesis Mining team to team up with someone and share the reward if they can independently solve the block and get everything for themselves? Therefore, there are no mining sharks on such services. If they were, then you would not receive the award.

Everything is fair

So why didn't you get anything? Because the reward is divided in proportion to the input power. Yes, yes, if you wanted to take a weak laptop and get into the pool for easy money, then this will not work. For such a contribution, you can get nothing.

Let's say that the total pool hashrate is 1000 TH / s. At the same time, 60% is invested by Bob, and another 40% is invested by about 5,000 different miners. In this case, Bob will receive 60% of the reward, and another 40% will be received by all 5000 other participants. For example, if this is, then Bob will receive about 7 BTC, and another 5.5 will be divided among the others.

What is the benefit of this to Bob? None, for alone he could get everything. What is the benefit to you? Also none, because all other participants lose half of the reward. Therefore, a large power from one source appears only as an exception.

Distribution methods

Most of the pools are based on a reward proportional to the input power per block. However, there are three payout options for mining:

• PROP is the very basic way. It is calculated how much power was added to a specific unit, and a reward is paid for it;
• PPLNS - this method also implies a fee for a share of the contributed capacity. However, if in the previous one there is a binding to a block, then here to a period of time. That is, the longer you are active, the more you get. With this method, the highest commissions are often charged;
• PPS - you will receive a fixed reward for each sent hash. Also, the longer you are active, the more you get. But if in the previous version you received a reward as a percentage of the power over a period of time, then there is a specific rate and time does not matter.

As you can see, the methods of power distribution are somewhat similar to each other, however, each has its own unique trait. The payment method can play an important role for you, because you may not be able to mine for a long time, but you will give more power, or, on the contrary, you can be online all the time, transferring fewer hashes.

Learning to choose

I understand perfectly well that in the era of advanced technologies, you can simply google "which is the best pool to choose." But this era is also distinguished by the mass of advertising, which, first of all, will appear on such a request. As you know, advertising does not always give the best product. Therefore, it is important to know how to make the right choice.

1. Rating. When it comes to online services, the rating plays an almost key role. It determines the level of trust of miners to a certain pool.
2. Total hash rate. Bigger is better. The speed and probability of solving the block depends on the amount of hashrate. It is also worth paying attention to the hashrate of the cryptocurrency that you will be mining. For on the pool, it can be 6 EH / s, but for a specific crypt only 1 GH / s.
3. Own power. If it is small, then the reward will be small. But the payback includes not only the cost of the hardware, but also the electricity bills.
4. Reviews. Reviews form the rating. Of course, there are many fakes and misinformation, but truthful comments form the basis.

Apart from this, there are also criteria for splitting pools. They practically do not play a role in the choice, but if you are too finicky, then you can go over it.

• functionality (how clear is the service interface);
• type of cryptocurrency (suddenly there is no desired one);
• the presence of a commission and its size;
• power requirements (some pools do not allow weak miners).

In addition to this article, your assistant in choosing a pool will be services Blockchain.info and btc.com... They have collected in a bunch the most normal services, and also provided basic statistics of their work.

BTC.com

The most powerful pool in the network, which holds 30% of the bitcoin capacity. At the time of this writing, it contained more than 6 EH / s for one cue ball. However, this is its disadvantage. Everything that is mined on it is Bitcoin and its forks, Superbitcoin and United Bitcoin. If you are in a fierce pursuit of digital gold and nothing can stop you, then this pool will be the best.

But if you belong to the category of people who are tired of the hype around the cue ball and want to be different from the masses, then you should consider the following options.

Antpool

It cannot bypass the previous platform in terms of total capacity, but in general it is very popular among miners. Compared to cryptocurrencies, BTC.com is Bitcoin and Antpool is Ethereum.

The first thing this service can boast about is the number of cryptocurrencies. It allows you to mine the best cryptocurrencies in the world, including:

• Bitcoin;
• Litecoin;
• Ethereum;
• Zcash;
• Dash;
• Siacoin;
• Bitcoin Cash;
• Monero (no power at the time of writing).

Take a walk - I don't want to. There is also a Russian interface here. And not machine translation, as they do on many new platforms, but really well-designed and translated text. Pool commission or 0% or 2.5%, depending on the payment method.

Minergate

Has won the heart of many users for its simplicity and wide functionality. Works with 15 cryptocurrencies, providing good power. Of course, he sags very much in comparison with the giants in the pool area, but this does not prevent him from being one of the best. The average commission is 1%. Withdrawals are available both to a personal wallet and to an exchange address.

Viabtc

At the time of this writing, it is the third in terms of total hashrate pool on the network. Here you can mine up to 7 cryptocurrencies. Like previous platforms, ViaBTC has created a mobile application for mining control. All you need to do is enter your username and password, as well as the name and password of the created worker.

We start to work

After choosing a pool, the question arises of how to use it for mining. In the narrow circles of beginners, there is a misconception that it is enough to register on the service, and over time, capacities will be pulled out to your address. In theory, this is possible if you get a viral miner file on your computer. But you do not need this, since you will not receive a reward for this.

Getting started will take a little time and require special care. An improperly configured pool, at best, will simply prevent you from starting work, and at worst will disable yours.

First of all, after registration, find the "My Workers" tab. You will need to create a worker. Who is this worker? This is a guy (possibly a girl) who will connect to your computer to receive computing power from it and send it to the pool. In a slightly simpler way, you create an encrypted node between you and the pool. When creating, you will need to give it some name and password, which will be required in the future.

After creation, download the miner program. Choose the right one for your equipment:

• cgminer for AMD graphics cards;
• cudaminer for Nvidia;
• cpuminer for CPU mining.

Next, you need to configure the bat file. The basic setup consists of specifying the IP address of the pool, your worker's data and the wallet address to which you want to send a reward for successful mining. In addition, you will be able to indicate the intensity of the miner, respectively, and the load on the entire system. You can find these commands in the instruction text file or in the help on the site.

And what did people find in them?

Why are pools so popular? Why are they used by tens of thousands of miners around the world? There are simple answers to all these questions. The most important thing is that the pools have equalized the chances of many network participants and opened up access to mining even for poor users.

The pool forms one large miner. This alone is worth the existence of such sites. After all, transactions occur due to the work of miners who open new blocks and write transactions in them. Today, this can still be done alone, but in 10 years the height of the blockchain will be so huge that even giant farms from East Asia will be powerless. But in the pool, one way or another, the block can be opened. In a few years, top cryptocurrencies will only be traded through pools. The exception will be the successful implementation of the Lightning Network.

Reliability

Please tell me if someone can influence the work of the pool? Moreover, can anyone influence mining? This is simply not possible. It takes huge resources to hack the miners (or at least one of them) in the pool. Massive DDoS attacks will be ineffective, since the pool is designed for a large number of incoming streams.

In addition, verified pools never steal money from their miners. After all, then they will leave. This means that the pool will not have any profit at all. Such services are completely dependent on the participants, so there is no reason to throw miners.

Minimum risk - maximum luck

Once again: the pool is perceived as one huge miner. Therefore, regardless of the complexity of the block or the competition in the entire network, you will receive your reward. Where did I get this confidence? Analyze the top pools. The percentage of luck is not released below 98. What kind of risk can there be? 2%? In my opinion, when among 5 tons of cherries they find one rotten one, they get more upset.

Gathered a crowd - saved money

Imagine going to an expensive restaurant or renting a yacht. Firstly, it's not cool to do such things alone. Well, okay, you can still think of entertainment on the yacht. But it will not be long: it will quickly get bored. But what will you do in a restaurant alone? Of course, if this is not your place. Eat, at best, listen to good music and chat with a beautiful waitress. Spend enough, but the pleasure will not be proportionate.

But how can you have a carouse when there are at least 4-5 people. On the yacht, this is already a good party, and in the restaurant - great get-togethers. The costs will be less, and you will not think about them at all. Because you will go home in a great mood.

Thanks to the pool, you can avoid buying a bunch of expensive equipment. Average power will be enough to start mining. Even if in proportion you will receive a slightly smaller reward, but you will receive it. Suddenly mining is your lifelong dream. But without the pool, you would not be able to implement it, because you are not ready to invest as much money in it as the big players in this area are investing.

Underwater rocks

Like any service on the network, pools have several disadvantages.

1. Fraud. Every now and then there are short-lived services that use the power of miners to make money. They are simply paying out a smaller reward than is possible. Until the miner comes to his senses, the pool is gone.
2. Once again a scam. A miner file can be uploaded to your computer. You will not even suspect that you are not using some of your capacities. Even if you leave such a pool, the file itself will remain and will bother you.
3. Competition. Yes, you don't need a lot of power to become a member of the pool. But on large services like Antpool, there are often large miners who take the lion's share of the reward, and you are left with a trifle. However, this rarely happens. And it is better to rejoice in little than to have nothing.

The first two stones can be easily bypassed if you are careful enough. It's like walking on a crystal clear lake and seeing the bottom at its deepest. Just take a closer look. As for the latter, nothing can be done here. But as statistics show, large fish do not stay in the pool for a long time, because they do not want to share anything.

The weak are active again

When cryptocurrencies were founded, they could be mined on weak computers. Then there was the popularization of digital money, mining became more difficult. ASICs also added, which completely ruled out the possibility of home mining. But at the same time, pools began to appear. They have leveled the game and now home mining is available again. Of course, it will be more expensive than 7-8 years ago, and you can't get Bitcoin at home either. However, you can buy a couple of video cards again and annoy your family with eternal stories about the newly solved block.

Subscribe to our telegrams and pages on social networks. As soon as we find a good pool, we will immediately notify you about it.

Happy mining! See you later!

• SHA-256 (Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Paccoin, Peercoin, Pascal coin, etc.);
• X11 (currencies Dash, Pura, etc.);
• Ethash (currencies Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Metaverse ETP, Ubiq (mining pool), etc.);
• Scrypt (currencies Litecoin, Dogecoin (DOGE), BitConnect (BCC), Bitdeal, etc.);
• Equihash (Zcash, Komodo, ZenCash (ZEN (pool mining)), etc.);
• Cryptonight (Monero, Bytecoin (BCN), Aeon, etc.);
• Dagger (Pirl et al.);
• NeoScrypt (Vivo, Innova et al.);
• Blake (2b) (Decred, Siacoin).

How mining pool works

So, as we have already found out, you, being a member of the pool, provide the server with the computing power of your equipment and in return you receive your share of the mined coins.

The contribution of each participant to the closing of the block is estimated in a ball (from the English "share" - share, part). The ball is part of the work of finding a solution to the block signing hash function, which is issued by the pool to the miner. The task of the mining pool is to collect shares from miners and check their validity. When the pool server sees that the ball satisfies the current complexity of the network algorithm, it claims to have found a block. For the closure of the block, the mining pool receives a reward, which it must subsequently distribute among the miners participating in the pool. There are several approaches to distributing remuneration:

• PROP or proportional approach is the simplest way to distribute the reward for finding a block. In accordance with this approach, the reward is divided in proportion to the share sent by each participant in the mining pool. Payment of remuneration is carried out only upon signing the block.
• PPLNS (Pay Per Last N Shares) - is considered the most efficient way to distribute the block signing reward. Payments are made not upon finding a block, but for "shifts" (a certain number of time intervals).
• PPS (Pay Per Share) - is considered the most optimal option for distributing rewards for finding a block from the standpoint of a pool member. In this case, the miner participating in the pool receives a certain reward for each share sent to him. The size of this payout is calculated by dividing the reward for finding a block by the complexity of the network. For a mining pool, this option is not the most preferable, because the risks with this payment option are much higher (therefore, pools that use this approach charge a large commission).

It is also worth noting that the server owner charges a commission from the reward that the miners participating in the mining pool receive for closing a block. Typically, commission costs are between 0.1 and 5 percent. In addition, some mining pools often resort to some tricks in order to make more money. For example, sometimes some unscrupulous servers underestimate the consumed computing power of miners, which allows them to earn an additional 10% of the reward amount. Of course, not all co-mining pools use this practice; there are also honest, profitable pools that value their name. In addition, there are cryptocurrency mining pools that claim to have no fees (like the zen mining pool). Be careful, as a rule, such services charge hidden fees.

How to choose a mining pool

We figured out the essence, but then a completely natural question arises: which pool to choose? For beginners, choosing the best mining pool is not an easy task. But we will help you navigate all this variety of pools, each of which is trying to assure potential customers that their server is the most profitable pool.

In general, it should be noted that the main thing that interests us in the mining pool is the opportunity to earn money. Accordingly, the choice of a pool should be based on this very criterion. There are several parameters, the analysis of which will allow you to form a more or less accurate idea of ​​the "quality" of this or that mining pool:

• pool power. The higher the computing power of the pool you choose, the more chances it will have to find the block first. In the context of making a profit, this is an incredibly important question, because if the server cannot effectively close the blocks, then it will not be able to offer you normal profit, which means that you will just waste your time and money in vain. New mining pools just can't boast of decent capacities, so such options should be abandoned.
• approach to the distribution of rewards among the miners participating in the mining pool. We talked about this in the previous paragraph of our article. You will need to find out which approach is used by a particular mining pool. You must choose the option that suits you, so as not to miscalculate with the profitability of your mining. For example, if the mining pool you are interested in adheres to the system of proportional division of the reward, and you cannot make a significant contribution to the development of the block, then you, accordingly, will not be able to get a normal profit.
• method of making payments. It can be like withdrawing mined coins to a cryptocurrency wallet or withdrawing funds to a card; withdrawal currencies may also differ. There are a lot of options, you need to choose exactly the one that suits you specifically.
• commission costs. Be sure to study this issue, because the profitability of mining will also depend on this. You don't have to chase minimal commissions; the main thing is that, subject to the payment of commission costs, you can still make a decent profit.
• your original data. This is, of course, about your cryptocurrency mining hardware and your electricity tariff. In theory, you can mine in a pool, or, in practice, not all options will turn out to be profitable. For example, mining on a central processor is generally the lowest profitable option, but under the condition of high electricity tariffs, it is generally unprofitable. In any case, mining on old, low-performance hardware will not be able to bring you a good profit, therefore, you must make sure that your mining hardware produces a decent hash rate. Also pay attention to the cost of electricity in your region or country, because your mining costs and, as a result, your profit will depend on this price. Check out the electricity rates that your supplier offers, there may be discounted rates that you can take advantage of.

It will not be superfluous to also search the network for information about the mining pools that interest you. Read forums, reviews and reviews, view the rating of the best mining pools. The network also provides independent pool statistics (for example, on the blockchain.info website).

In general, there is no single answer as to which mining pool to choose. Each miner has its own best option. Accordingly, you should evaluate mining pools based on your own goals and wishes.

How to set up a mining pool

Now that you have decided on the ideal mining pool for you, you can move on to the next step - setting up your mining pool. Setting up a mining pool is quite simple and quick, even a beginner can cope with such a task without any problems.

Of course, before you start working in the mining pool, you need to create your personal account. We will consider this process using the example of bitcoin mining in the SlushPool mining pool (on other platforms, the setup procedure may be slightly different, but not critical; the essence is the same).

To do this, you will need to go to the site and find the "Register here" button in the upper right corner of the page. You will need to fill out a short registration form in which you must provide your username, email address, password, and also agree to the platform rules. You will receive an activation link by e-mail, clicking on which will complete the registration process.

Now that you have your own account, you must set up your account, edit or add new workers, add the address of the cryptocurrency wallet to which your reward will be paid, set up two-factor authentication (if desired, for greater reliability and security), etc. .d.

In addition, it is worth noting that the platform has an online calculator that allows you to calculate how much profit you can get if you mine in this mining pool using your mining equipment. You just need to indicate the hashrate of your device and the calculator will calculate the approximate reward that you can receive, and you will only have to take into account your electricity costs.

Next, you will need to connect your mining equipment (in our particular case, an ASIC miner) to the mining pool. If you are using a standalone ASIC miner with the Stratum protocol, then it will not be difficult to install it, since such mining equipment, as a rule, is equipped with a user interface of one kind or another, and you only need to specify the address of the server (s) (url (s)) , username and password:

• URL: stratum + tcp: //stratum.slushpool.com: 3333
• userID: userName
• Password: whatever

You will need to enter your user ID and worker name. The password can be a random word as it does not address security issues. If someone tries to connect to the server using your account, they will mine in your favor.

If you are using an ASIC miner connected to your personal computer, then you will need to download and install which you intend to mine. (NOTE: you will need a miner program in any case if you are going to mine on a central processor or video card!)

As a rule, the official website of the mining pool of your choice lists the mining software packages that this particular platform supports. There are also links that will allow you to download the miner program. For example, SlushPool offers you to download either cgminer or BFGminer, which only work with ASIC miners (in principle, mining bitcoins not on an ASIC miner makes no sense). You download the mining program and unpack it to a place convenient for you on your personal computer, and then install it (the installation guide will also be presented on the official website of the mining pool, or you can find it on the net). You will need to tell the miner the server (s) address (url (s)), username and password. To do this, you will need to create a file with the bat extension. This can be done very simply: create a new document in the text editor "Notepad", write in it approximately the following command - ./cgminer --userpass userID.workerID: Any password --url stratum + tcp: //stratum.slushpool.com: 3333- and save this file in bat format.

Further, if, of course, you have not already done so, you will need to set the address for payments. Please note that a mining pool is not a wallet, so you cannot create your payment address on the pool website. However, there are many wallet providers (see our articles and). You can easily create yourself a wallet or use the cryptocurrency wallet of the exchange. Go to the "Payments" tab and enter your wallet address there.

This, as a rule, completes the mining setup in the pool and you can proceed directly to the mining of your chosen cryptocurrency.

Popular mining pools

Pool name	Cryptocurrencies that can be mined	Commission	Service features
		from 2 to 5 percent	The presence of a convenient, Russian-language interface; availability of own software; payments are made in bitcoins to an external wallet or NiceHash wallet; high service reliability.
Minergate	eth, btc, dash and other digital currencies	1.5 percent	Good capacities; funds are withdrawn to a personal wallet or exchange wallet.
Zpool	Supports almost all algorithms.	1.25 - 2 percent	No need to register; withdrawal of funds is carried out in bitcoins; the presence of a unique script; great for beginners.
F2Pool	Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Zcash (ZEC), Siacoin (SIA), Dash, Monero (XMR).	5 percent	Payments are made in accordance with the PPS approach; holds just over seven percent of the network hashrate.
	Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum	It is stated that there are no commissions (in fact, not so)	The presence of a convenient, Russian-language interface; holds just over 13 percent of the network hashrate; supports payment options PPS, PPLNS; daily payments.
BTCC pool	BTC, BCH, LTC, SBTC	1 - 4 percent
BW pool	BTC, LTC, ETH, ethereum classic (ETC), UB	1 to 4.5 percent	Lack of a Russian-language interface; good power; daily payments; payment systems PPS, PPLNS, solo are supported.
Slushpool	Bitcoin, Zcash	2 percent	The presence of a convenient, Russian-language interface; availability of our own profitable payment system.
Dwarfpool	Monero, Ethereum, Zcash, Expanse (EXP)	1 percent	Good capacities; registration is not required; automatic payments every hour; the RBPPS payment system is supported, the availability of round-the-clock, Russian-language support.
Suprnova	Bitcoin Cash (BCH), LCC, Bitcoin Gold (BTG), Garlicoin, Vertcoin, VERGE, KredsCoin, ROICoin, Criptoreal, MUNCoin, ZCoin, ZERO, BitcoinPrivate, Credits, Wavi, Dynamic, Polytimos, Electroneum, Starks, Ravencoin, Pigeonum Minexcoin, ZCLASSIC, ZENCash, ZCASH, BitcoinZ, BitSend, BitCore, Einsteinium, Komodo (KMD), HUSH, DashCoin, LBRY.io Credits, Ethereum, UBIQ, Decred (DCR), Sibcoin, MonaCoin, GroibestlCredits, Digits, Digits , FlorinCoin	1 percent	PPLNS payment system supported, decent hash rate, instant payouts.
MiningPoolHub	Adzcoin, Auroracoin (Qubit), Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Dash, Digibyte (DGB), Electroneum, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Expanse, Feathercoin, Gamecredits, Geocoin, Globalboosty, Groestlcoin, Litecoin, Maxcoin, Monacoin, Monero, Musicoin , Myriadcoin, Sexcoin, Siacoin, Startcoin, Verge, Vertcoin, Zcash, Zclassic (ZCL), Zcoin, Zencash	0.9 percent	Automatic switching from one cryptocurrency to another, exchange of mined coins for any other altcoins, good capacities, the ability to select a coin for mining on the site using the "Hub" function, PPLNS payment system is supported.

Mining pools Bitcoin

List of top pools for Bitcoin mining:

• Slush pool
• Eligius
• Bitminer
• Kano CKPool
• F2Pool
• Bw pool
• Bitfury
• Minergate
• Give me Coins
• Mining Pool Hub
• GHash.io

Ethereum mining pools

List of top mining pools Ethereum:

• Suprnova
• Coinotron
• ETHpool
• DwarfPool
• 2Miners
• Ethereumpool
• Weipool
• Alphapool
• Coinmine
• Ethermine
• F2pool
• Miningpoolhub
• Minergate

Mining pools ZCash

List of top mining pools ZCash:

• 2miners
• Flypool
• Suprnova
• Coinmine
• Dwarfpool
• F2Pool
• ZSolo
• Miningpoolhub
• Equipool

How to create your own mining pool

Pool mining is a pretty tempting and promising idea for making money. But the fact that a part (albeit small) of honestly earned money must be given to the server owner does not please many. Such miners are interested in whether it is possible to create a mining pool with their own hands. From the news, many have heard that bitcoin enthusiasts from Russia have created a mining pool, but whether it is so easy to do this and what the future holds for these Russian mining pools is unknown. Let's see if it's realistic to create your own pool at all.

Theoretically, it is quite possible to create your own pool for mining cryptocurrency, but for this you will need certain knowledge and skills, because we are talking about writing software. Of course, now on the network (for example, on the Github website) you can find the mining pool server software, but its performance and reliability are questionable.

In any case, if you absolutely do not understand this issue, but still want to organize such a business, then it is better to hire specialist developers who will make a pool for you, which means that we are talking about quite a big investment. But also take into account the fact that in order for you to make money on your mining pool, you will need good computing power, which means that your pool must be popular with miners. And gaining the trust of miners and promoting your own pool is not so easy! So, if you are not ready for this option, then you still better refuse it.

Pools VS Cloud Mining

Currently, another popular and profitable option for making money by mining digital currencies is. Essentially, cloud mining is the same mining in a pool, but without using your own equipment for mining cryptocurrencies. In this case, the cloud mining service offers you to rent your computing power for a certain fee (in other words, buy a hash rate). Companies that provide cloud mining services are powerful data centers with mining farms located in countries where electricity tariffs are incredibly low or there is access to green energy (energy obtained from alternative sources). In addition to paying for capacity on some platforms, you will also need to pay a commission (in this way, some services cover their mining costs, in particular, electricity costs).

A logical question arises: is it better to mine cryptocurrencies in a mining pool or use the services of a cloud mining service? Of course, if you do not have a powerful one, then you better opt for the cloud mining option, because buying computing power will cost you several times cheaper than purchasing top-end equipment. In addition, for a beginner, this option is the most convenient, since you will not need to configure mining equipment and software, monitor the operation of this equipment, pay electricity bills, etc. Also, it is worth noting that the cloud mining option is ideal for those who live in regions or countries where electricity tariffs bite, because in their case, mining in a pool can easily turn out to be unprofitable. If you have good mining equipment, then perhaps you should still choose the mining option in the pool, because in this case it is not worth spending money on hash rent.

Accordingly, there is simply no single answer to the question of which is better: pool mining or cloud mining. The choice is entirely yours. In any case, to get a more accurate answer to the question posed, you should resort to using a mining payback calculator. On the official websites of mining pools or cloud mining services, as a rule, there are special calculators that will help you roughly calculate the profit you can get. You can also make calculations manually, for this you will need to subtract all mining costs from potential income.

Conclusion

In general, mining pools are a great option for passive earnings. Pool mining allows you to greatly increase your chances of success, which is especially important nowadays, when the competition in the mining industry is incredibly serious and the complexity of the network is constantly growing. Even solo mining on powerful hardware may not give the desired results, especially when it comes to mining top cryptocurrencies.

The main thing in this context is to choose the right mining pool, because an insufficiently powerful pool is unlikely to be the first to find a block, which means you will wait for your profit for a very long time. Accordingly, before deciding on a particular platform, you should thoroughly study all the options and only then make any decisions. This article should just guide you in this matter and help you make the right choice.