βIn the past few months, miners around the world have been very active, which can be seen by the soaring hash rate, which is precisely the sharp increase in the price of cryptocurrencies. At the beginning of 2020, Ether (ETH) can be bought at a price of 130 US dollars, and now, Ether has reached 500 US dollars. The price of Bitcoin (BTC), the king of cryptocurrencies, has risen by nearly $10,000.
So, how do users interact with the industry? For some time, it has been obvious that monorail mining is not an effective method. For Bitcoin, Ether and all major altcoins, the way the blockchain is constructed makes finding blocks more complex, which means that the function of a pair of GPU cards is not enough to generate a block.
The point is not that the mining machine is not capable of mining Ethereum, but that it is mathematically impossible. A miner can sit there looking for a block for months. The calculation is simple: divide the total hash rate of ether by your hash rate to get the average number of seconds it takes to find a block.
What to know before joining the mining pool
A mining pool is a server that combines the computing power of all participants connected to it. Miners join the pool via the Internet and redistribute their hardware to the pool. They jointly execute mathematical solutions to find blocks of specific cryptocurrencies. When the pool finds a block, the pool obtains consensus from other network participants and then receives rewards. The reward is shared among all members of the pool based on the amount of hashrate provided.
Before choosing a pool, it is important to know the size of the pool. As the pool grows, the chance of finding a block increases. But the more people join the pool, the less profit each participant gets. This is a double-edged sword: small but frequent payments, or large but few payments.
Before joining the pool, users need to find out the minimum payment, which is the minimum amount of encryption that must be mined before sending it to the user's wallet. If the minimum payment is high, then users will have to be part of the pool for a long time before they can earn any income.
Another important thing worth mentioning is that attending any gathering is not free. Users are required to pay a certain percentage of their revenue, generally ranging from 1% to 3%. Generally, participating in any pool does not require a lot of investment and knowledge. If the user has already assembled the rig, it is not difficult to figure out which pool to choose. Regardless of the cryptocurrency being mined, the following are things to keep in mind when choosing a pool:
The number of participants in the pool, which affects personal income. Ping time or time delay, which is the result of the user's computer needing to transmit information to the pool. Ping time depends on the distance. The lower the Ping, the shorter the time delay and the faster the data transmission. Higher frequency pings are not suitable because there are pauses between block changes in the cryptocurrency network, and with higher frequency pings, the user's computer can cross the value of the old block and mine in vain. Generally, the ping is generally 10 milliseconds; the minimum payment amount cannot be too large, otherwise the payment may not last long. There are many fraudulent pools or large revenue pools. Users need to know the reputation of the pool in advance. After building the rig, it's time to choose a mining pool. Of course, most pools can be used for Bitcoin or Ethereum mining. Below are some of the most popular pools for mining the first two cryptocurrencies. For Bitcoin, almost all major resource pools are in China, because China produces most of the Bitcoin mining hardware.
F2Pool
Founded in 2013, F2Pool is one of the oldest mining pools in China. It is the main mining pool for Bitcoin miners. This mining pool accounts for almost one-fifth of the total BTC mined. Mining pools use "pay per share+" or "PPS+" as the expenditure model. In this mode, the miner will receive a reward for each stock accepted by the mining pool, regardless of the block discovered by the mining pool. The pool takes into account network complexity, rewards, blocking time and the ability of the pool itself, and independently determines the cost of each share.
In addition to Bitcoin, the pool also mines more than 40 coins. The commission depends on the currency and ranges from 1% to 5%. For Bitcoin, the pool takes a reward to earn 2.5% of the commission and pay it daily. The user must withdraw the earned money within 90 days, otherwise the fund pool will retain the money for service development.
Purin
Poolin is a pool launched in 2017 by the parent company Blockin. This pool is very popular among Bitcoin miners. Poolin provides many currencies for you to choose: Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin SV (BSV), Litecoin (LTC), etc. Commissions are not fixed; they set different commissions for each cryptocurrency, and BTC charges 2.5%.
The payment mode depends on the selected currency: PPS or full payment per share, called FPPS. Under the latter method, the pool can also distribute transaction fees among miners, thereby increasing their income by 10% to 20%. This method is used to pay for Bitcoin mining fees.
A notable feature of Poolin is that it can be mined on ASICs and GPUs from Nvidia and AMD. The development team regularly updates the software every two weeks to ensure the stability of the service.
BTC.com
BTC.com is one of the largest international cryptocurrency mining pools. It is controlled by mining equipment manufacturer Bitmain, which produces Antminer brand ASIC mining machines. The Chinese platform was launched in 2013.
The commission for each block mined in the pool is set to 4%. In addition to Bitcoin, many other cryptocurrencies can be mined through BTC.com, including Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin. Representatives of mining pools keep records of their users' income.
Ant pool
AntPool is a Chinese project that was launched in 2014. Just like BTC.com, the pool is controlled by Bitmain. In addition to BTC, AntPool can also mine seven other cryptocurrencies, including privacy-oriented coins Dash and Monero (XMR).
Payments are made every day, the service commission is low, and some payment fees are zero. In AntPool, payment is mainly made using the standard method "Pay per Last N Shares" or PPLNS, in which the user gets the last share payment based on the luck of the pool.
With this method, there is no fixed share payment, the main problem is the speed of finding the block. When the pool uses the PPLNS method, the payment comes from searching for the "time offset" between the two blocks. This means that if the block is not found for a long time, the payment will gradually increase.
A distinguishing feature of Chi is the ability to work in "solo" mode, but that is not literally. The swimming pool makes it possible to conduct "solo" mining through joint efforts. This means whoever finds benefits.
Spark pool
SparkPool was registered in China and launched in January 2018. Six months later, the pool has entered the list of leaders in Ethereum mining. In addition, SparkPool allows mining of coins such as Nervos' public knowledge base (CKB), Grin and Beam.
Mining is performed using the Ethash algorithm, while payment is performed using the PPS+ method. Payments are made every day according to Singapore standard time, and the minimum payment amount is 0.1 ETH. If the balance exceeds 0.0105 ETH, the withdrawal will be automatically made on the 28th of each month, and the withdrawal fee is 1%.
Registration with the pool is optional. Users can mine anonymously, but if so, not all functions of the pool are available.
Ethylamine
Ethermine is one of the most popular mining pools dedicated to Ether mining. This pool is the largest pool in Ethereum. The pool servers are located in Europe, Asia and the United States.
The pool uses the PPLNS payment model. The minimum payment amount is 0.5 ETH and the maximum amount is 10 ETH. There is no commission for withdrawals, and if the blockchain network is stable, the payment will arrive immediately. This pool is only used to mine cryptocurrency on GPU processors.
Spider pond
SpiderPool is a five-year-old Chinese project that only supports four currencies: ETH, BTC, BSV and BCH. Nevertheless, the pool is still very popular among ether miners.
For non-Chinese users, there is not much information available, and the commission for the pool is 2%. The minimum payment amount depends on the currency, but users can apply for an amount below the minimum threshold once a week. Otherwise, payment will be automatically made once a day.
Nanocell
Nanopool specializes in most coins mined using GPU cards. Currently, it supports Ethereum, Ethereum Classic (ETC), Zcash (ZEC), Monero, Ravencoin (RVN) and Pascal (PASC) mining. The pool not only allows users to mine a single cryptocurrency, but can also mine two different cryptocurrencies at the same time and distribute power proportionally between them. Like any other mining pool, Nanopool charges fees based on the income of its users. The pool uses PPLNS payment method.
When the minimum payment amount (0.05 ETH) is reached, Ether will be automatically withdrawn from the miner's account balance in Nanopool to his wallet.
Nanopool does not have a clear payment schedule, but payments are made in multiple stages within a day. Once the miner's account balance exceeds the set minimum value, it will be paid in the next round of payment.
To dig or not to dig?
When choosing a swimming pool, everyone should pay attention to the list of available currencies to ensure that the cryptocurrency they choose is on the list. Also, please consider the payment and commission model, as it is best to use a pool that provides the lowest commission and pays for the transaction. Another problem is the distance of the pool server: the closer the server, the more stable the mining process will be.