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Study of technical and social characteristics of mining pools



The DTI team analyzed the most popular mining pools. The results obtained in the table .

Initially, the study was conducted for internal use, but in the process the team was faced with a lack of information:


To help the miners, we decided to develop a methodology for selecting and comparing pools , collecting all the necessary information in one place. It is divided into sheets of the table.
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"General Information" . We chose the top-8 cryptocurrency available for mining by capitalization. For each of them, they compiled a list of the largest pools in terms of production - 9 for Bitcoin and 3 each for the other currencies.

"Technical characteristics of Bitcoin pools" and "Technical characteristics of other pools" . They identified a list of important criteria for miners - hash rate, distribution and size of commissions, clarity and stability of the service, and others. Collected this information for selected pools.

"Community" . Found information about the social component of pools - who most often visits their sites, from which users of countries, how often they share information about the pool, and so on.

For a detailed study of the mining pools worth exploring the table . To understand the selection process, it is better to read the text below.

Step-by-step explanation of the work done



Step 1. Chose the top 8 cryptocurrency capitalization with Coinmarketcap . At the time of this writing (11/17/2017), this list included Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Dash, Monero, Ripple, IOTA. Of these, only the first six are mined, since they support the Proof-of-Work algorithm. Read more about it in the article on Habrahabr .

Step 2. Compiled a general list of mining pools for these currencies and sorted it in descending order of production. For bitcoin, we chose top 9 for analysis - the pool on the 10th place is constantly changing. For Bitcoin Cash we considered top-4 pools, and for other currencies - top-3. Information sources:

Bitcoin: https://btc.com

Ethereum: https://www.etherchain.org/statistics/miners

Bitcoin Cash: https://cash.coin.dance/blocks/thisweek

Litecoin: https://www.litecoinpool.org/pools

Dash: https://chainz.cryptoid.info/dash/##extraction

Monero : https://moneropools.com

Step 3. For each pool collected general information. This name, site, link to rating, list of supported cryptocurrencies, year of foundation (start of the site), owner of the pool. The results on the sheet "General Information" in the table.

Step 4. Analyzed what miners pay attention to when choosing. We chose six parameters:

Supported currencies. The pool must mine the selected cryptocurrency.

Pool type Some pools mine one cryptocurrency, others several at once. If these currencies use similar Proof-of-Work algorithms, then the pool can switch the mining to the most profitable mining capacity at the moment.

Withheld commission The lower the better.

Convenience control of farms. The ability to track the effectiveness of each individual miner, API access, the presence of a correct interface translation.

Payments. Frequency, the ability to manually adjust, the presence of automatic conversion.

Reputation. Payment stability and stability of the pool. For example, the pool with less ping is more stable.

Step 5. We found out that the commissions in the mining pools consist of: commissions for the found block and other additional fees - for example, for transferring the payment to the client’s wallet.

At the same time, there are 7 types of accrual of profit (reward) in mining pools. You can read about each in the cryptocurrency encyclopedia . Most used species:

Proportional. After finding a block pool, the reward is divided in proportion to the contribution of each participant.

Pps. Every sent number is rewarded. Estimated as current reward per block divided by current difficulty.

Score. The estimated reward system of the found number, the algorithm is determined by the pool organizer.

PPLNS. Similar to Proportional, but the division of the reward is proportional to the contribution to the complexity of the last found numbers multiplied by N, where N is usually 2.

# interesting The secret rule of miners is the choice of not too large pools due to the risk of “attack 51%” - capturing more than 50% of blocks of cryptocurrency by one mining pool. In this situation, the dominant player gets the opportunity to selectively skip certain transactions, so the confidence in the currency falls. As a result, it depreciates. More information about this can be found on BitcoinWiki and in the article on Habrahabr .

Step 6. Based on the 4th and 5th steps, we identified important technical parameters: the frequency of payments, the method of distributing the mining reward, the transaction fee, additional fees, auto withdrawal, feedback on the work with the pool, understandability of the site and the convenience of working with it.

For mining pools, Bitcoin additionally analyzed the stability of work, the proportion of unreclassified blocks, the number of errors in the calculation of the reward and the removal of the commission. The results on the sheets “Bitcoin pools technical characteristics” and “Other pools technical characteristics” sheets in the table.

Step 7. Evaluated the marketing component. Selected eight parameters:

Sociology. The number of visitors to the site over the past month, the country where they come from, and their interests.

Transitions. Sources of transitions, traffic from social networks.

Mention. The total number of available referral links to the pool, the number of requests in search services for which the site is on the 1st place, as well as reviews.

Information was taken from the official sites of the mining pools, from the bitcointalk.org forums and also with the help of the services similarweb.com , spywords.ru , buzzsumo.com , semrush.com . Results on the “Community” sheet in the table.

Step 8 . Analyzed and revealed the main patterns in the considered pools. The results are described in the conclusions of this article.

Brief description of selected mining pools


Pools that mine BTC (Bitcoin)



Antpool
Chinese mining pool. Uses different payment systems, it is possible to withdraw earned without commission. The withdrawal settings are not regulated. The popularity of the pool is proved by the number of visitors in November - 2.4 million people for the whole month, the target audience of the pool is people with an interest in engineering, who are capable of setting up equipment and possessing large capacities. Founded in 2013, owner Roger Ver.

BTC.com
Another Chinese mining pool. It is a site with useful statistics on mining Bitcoin (the number of blocks found, the time spent by the block, the effectiveness of mining pools, etc.). A large number of visitors to the main site (2.7 million people) is due to useful statistics for miners, the pool page is visited by 434 thousand people. Founded in 2015, owner Roger Ver.

ViaBTC
Cloud computing development company in China. Poole is a leader in mining Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash. Provides professional and stable mining services with very low commissions. Convenient interface with high security, stability and transparency. ViaBTC CEO is a former developer of Tencent Weibo (Chinese Twitter), and then FUTU, which received an investment in the Tencent Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In November, the pool was visited by 847 thousand people. Founded in 2016, owner Roger Ver.

BTC.TOP
Private Chinese pool, which can not be joined. Laconic website is completely in Chinese, the number of visitors in October was 1.5 million, in August there were 355 thousand. Founded in 2016 by Jiang Zhuoer, launched in 2017

Slushpool
The world's first Bitcoin mining pool, which has been operating since December 2010, is based in the Czech Republic. The only one has a Score awarding system - according to the miners, one of the most profitable. The pool has consistently maintained its leading position for several years, the number of visitors has been steadily more than 2.1 million, and is popular in the USA. Founder - Marek Palatinus, co-founder of SatoshiLabs .

F2Pool
Chinese service, working since 2013. The service recommends to immediately withdraw money from the accounts, since everything that remains there after 90 days, goes to the development of the pool. The number of visitors is 2 million people, with 50% from China. Pay extra miners in excess of the reward 3% for mining bitcoins for marketing purposes.

Bitfury
A closed multidisciplinary blockchain company, the largest industrial miner outside China, software and hardware developer for working with Bitcoin. The company has offices in San Francisco, Washington, DC, Hong Kong, London and Amsterdam, data centers in the Georgian cities of Gori and Tbilisi. The number of visitors is 105 thousand people; there are more than 17 thousand references to the pool.

Bit club
Closed British network, founded in 2014. During this time, created a global community that helps train, provide services and ultimately profit from Bitcoin, ClubCoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, DASH, Monero, Zcash and other cryptocurrencies. The network has the largest number of referral links - more than 18,000, the number of visitors to the main site bitclub.com is 4.5 million people, and the bitclubpool.com subdomain is 140 thousand people.

BTC China
This Chinese service does not have a Russian interface, the use of English is limited, so it is not very popular in Russia, despite 10-12% of the hashrate (which is one of the highest rates on the market). However, the pool has more than 50 thousand referral links. The number of visitors to the site of the main site is 4.5 million people, and the subdomain of the pool pool.btcchina.com is 290 thousand people. The owner is Bobby Lee. The pool was founded in 2014 on the basis of one of the largest Chinese stock exchanges.

Pula, which mine ETH (Ethereum)



Ethermine.org
The most convenient mining pool among extracting ether. It has an adjustable autowalk setting, minit ETH, ETC, ZEC, designed for large miners (minimum withdrawal from 0.05). The number of visitors is more than 10 million people, the most active users are Russians. Founded in the USA in 2016.

F2Pool
Description in the list of pools for bitcoin.

Nanopool
American service, established in 2015. Auto withdrawal several times a day, supports ETH, ETC, SC, ZEC, XMR, PASC currencies. The total commission for all processes is 1%, but according to rumors the value is greatly underestimated. The number of visitors 10.7 million people, is popular in the United States and Russia. Founder Alexander Barkovsky, who is the technical director and founder of Finom .

Pools that mine BCH (Bitcoin Cash)


Bitcoin.com
Chinese mining pool Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. Mining leader in Bitcoin Cash. The PPS or PPLNS award system, the other commissions are 0. The Bitcoin.com site is visited by more than 15.3 million people, the pool.bitcoin.com page is 1 million people. Founded by Roger Wer in 2016.

BTC.TOP
Description in the list of pools for bitcoin.

ViaBTC
Description in the list of pools for bitcoin.

Antpool
Description in the list of pools for bitcoin.

Pools that mine LTC (Litecoin)


LitecoinPool.org
Poole was founded in 2011, minite only LTC, reward system PPS, two-factor authorization, customizable auto-withdrawal system. Visitors to the site more than 950 thousand people, active users are Americans and Russians.

Antpool
Description in the list of pools for bitcoin.

F2Pool
Description in the list of pools for bitcoin.

Pooles that mine DASH


Antpool
Description in the list of pools for bitcoin.

ViaBTC
Description in the list of pools for bitcoin.

Coinotron
Payments every 2 hours, custom auto withdrawal, reward system PPLNS 1.5%, RBPPS 2.5%, PPS 3.5% - all other commissions are absent. The mines that mine pool - ETH, ETC, ZEC, BTG, PASC, LTC, DASH, FTC, VTC, PPC. About 459 thousand visitors in the last month, with 29% from Russia. Founded in 2011.

help The third place in the list of mining pools is often replaced. Considered this pool as the third-largest

Pools that mine XMR (Monero)


Minexmr
Mine only XMR, reward system only PPLNS, total commission to pool 1%. Auto withdrawal is possible on any wallet. It is designed for large miners (the minimum output is 5 XMR), the number of visitors to the pool is 824 thousand in November, it is popular in Russia. Founded in 2013.

Minergate
Mine ZEC, ETH, BTC, LTC, BCN, XMR, BTG, XDN, QCN, FCN, MCN, AEON, DSH, INF8. Daily payments, PPS and PPLNS award system, 1% transaction fee. An understandable site, detailed instructions, founded in 2012. For 1 month, the site is visited by more than 10 million people, with 20% from Russia.

Supportxmr
The new pool, founded in 2016, only mines XMR, award system only PPLNS, commission per transaction from the pool 0.6%, payments every 2 hours. Designed for medium-sized miners (maximum payout of 5 XMR), the number of visitors in November is 746 thousand people, popular in the USA.

Conclusions: common features of the considered mining pools



  1. The most popular types of accrual awards are PPLNS (69%) and PPS (56%).
  2. Transaction fees for pools of bitcoin forks are usually equal to 0% (for two thirds of the mining pools).
  3. Transaction fees for the remaining pools are usually ~ 1%.
  4. All mining pools have a limit on the minimum withdrawal amount , in the case of transfers to amounts less than those specified in the conditions, a commission is necessarily charged.
  5. All pools make payments to miners every day, every fourth allows you to make payments more often.
  6. Two-thirds of the mining pools are mined by more than one cryptocurrency , more than half are 3 or more.
  7. More than a third of the reviewed mining pools were founded in 2016-2017, all the rest from the list until 2016.
  8. More than 35% of pools are created in China , from the top-10 minting Bitcoin - 60% from China.
  9. All pools have a simple and intuitive interface , 15 of 16 have versions in English.
  10. For the most popular mining pools, the number of visitors is more than 400 thousand in 1 month.
  11. The top 3 countries whose citizens visit the mining pool sites are China (44% of the pools visited), the USA (78%) and Russia (100%).
  12. All mining pools are in the top of the results in the search engines Yandex and Google at least 5 requests. For 78% the number of requests in the top is more than 10, more than 55% have the number of requests in the top more than 30.
  13. More than 61% of pools have the number of referral links more than 1200, 39% have the number of links more than 4000.

Bonus: interesting facts


In the process of preparation, we met interesting information that did not fit into the main table.

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/345900/

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