Brief history of the world's largest Bitcoin mining pools



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Brief history of the world's largest Bitcoin mining pools

Mining basins grow and shrink, and rise and fall completely. Today, there are more extinct mineral deposits than active deposits. The hash power of survivors secures hundreds of PoW cryptographic networks, ranging from major pieces such as BTC and BCH to obscure altcoins such as monero classic and zelcash. The following guide provides an overview of the origins of the world's largest mining pools, including their founders, geography and ideology.

Read also: The big banks will not touch cryptographic clients – but these small banks

Mining pools approaching their ninth anniversary

Mining pools have been operational since the end of 2010, when they emerged as a way for lonely miners to share computing resources and increase their chances of discovering blocks. Although much has changed since then in the exploitation of bitcoins, including the introduction of dedicated ASIC mining platforms and the rise of huge mining operations, the basic principle of the pools remains the same. With the exception of a few private exceptions, the pools are open to everyone.

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Distribution of the BTC mining pool hashrate for the last four days

In addition to the dominant SHA-256 mining currencies such as BTC and BCH, there are dozens of altcoins that can be exploited with the help of algorithms such as the popular equihash. The 2miners.com mining pool, for example, records the hatching and profitability of dozens of equihash pieces, its layout showing the type of metric that cryptocurrency miners have become accustomed to cracking to determine the most valuable parts. profitable. As mining fields approach their nine-year existence, a review of the nine largest BTC deposits, most of which extract pieces like BCH and ETH, describes the current state of mining. mining in pool.

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Stats of 2miners.com

Based: 2015

Owner: Bitmain

BTC hashrate (four-day average): 17.7%

Mined pieces: BTC, BCH, ETH

History: Originally created by Bitrail to serve as a web wallet, BTC.com still provides mobile and desktop portfolios, as well as a block explorer and a Bitcoin API. He is best known for his mining pool, which belongs to Bitmain since it was acquired by the mining company in July 2016.

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Trivia: In June 2017, BTC.com called on the sender of a transaction with a fee of 80 BTC attached to make themselves known, the pool offering to refund the accidental tax.

F2pool

Based: April 2013

founders: Discusfish and Wang Chun

BTC hashrate13.8%

Mined pieces: BTC, LTC, ETH, ZEC, SCC, DC, DASH, XMR, DCR, XZC, AION

History: F2pool is the oldest bitcoin mining pool in China and the second largest BTC pool in the world after BTC.com. It also operates the third largest Ethereum mining operation. As the Bitcoin Wiki explains, the F2pool was formerly called Discus Fish because of the signature of its coin called Disc 神仙 鱼 (Discus Fish), the nickname of one of the operators. Today, F2pool captures 12.38 EH / s on the BTC network, 50.36 TH / s on LTC and 21.42 TH / s on ETH. The pool also provides Android and iOS applications as well as a range of tools, including mining revenue comparisons.

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Decoded coinbase field for a block extracted by F2pool

TriviaIn 2014, F2pool controlled 25% of the BTC network and 31% of the LTC network, raising fears that it could launch a 51% attack.

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poolin

Based: 2017

BTC hashrate13.3%

Mined pieces: BTC, BCH, BSV, ZEC, LTC, DCR, DASH, XMR

History: Created by the founders of BTC.com, Poolin.com is another Chinese pool overseen by a company called Blockin. Poolin, one of the most innovative mining basins, has developed tools such as the automatic switching feature that alternates BCH and BTC according to the most cost-effective network. It also operates a fairly basic Lightning Network store, a mining profit calculator and many other mining applications and tools.

TriviaIn June 2019, it was revealed that Bitmain was suing three former employees for breaking a non-competition agreement by launching Poolin.

Antpool

Based: 2014

founders: Jihan Wu and Micree Zhan

BTC hashrate: 10.2%

Mined pieces: BTC, BCH, LTC, ETH, ETC, ZEC, DASH, SCC, XMC, BTM

History: Antpool, another company owned by Bitmain, is Jihan Wu's first mining pool. It provides a range of advanced tools to experienced miners, especially those who operate large-scale mines. The exploration of sub-accounts to a depth of three levels and anonymous exploration are all supported, as well as the same day payments.

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TriviaDespite charges of contributing to the centralization of mining, Bitmain launched Antpool in 2014 with a "commitment to contribute to the decentralization of the bitcoin network … and to the majority of hash power in the hands of consumers" .

Viabtc

Based: 2016

Founder: Yang Haipo

BTC hashrate7.8%

Mined pieces: BTC, BCH, BSV, CTL, ETH, ZEC, DASH, XMR, DCR

History: Like most mining basins, Viabtc provides a block explorer and portfolio. Another Chinese pool, Viabtc, has since expanded to offer wagering services, allowing holders to obtain a passive return on their payment items.

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Trivia: Viabtc is known to be a major supporter of larger blocks. In 2016, he exploited the first block Bitcoin Unlimited. He also proposed the name of Bitcoin Cash.

Slush Pool

Based: 2010

BTC hashrate6.7%

Mined pieces: BTC, ZEC

History: Slush, the world's first mining pool, can trace its story back to November 2010, when it was first introduced as Bitcoin Pooled Mining Server. Slush, which debuted in the form of a one man operation, then mined more than a million BTCs.

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Trivia: In March 2018, Slush Pool exploited the first BTC block using Asicboost technology.

Based: 2017

Founder: Jiang Zhuoer

BTC hashrate: 5.6%

Mined pieces: BTC, BCH

History: One of the most impenetrable Chinese basins, BTC.top functions as a private mining pool and, as such, is forbidden to ordinary miners. While other Chinese pools are trying to translate their services into English, BTC.top does not see the need, which makes it an enigma for Westerners.

TriviaIn July, BTC.top CEO Jiang Zhuoer debated Craig Wright, calling the BSV path "extreme" and the idea of ​​locking the protocol to the original version of "ridiculous" 0.1.

Bitfury

Based: 2011

Founder: Valery Vavilov

Mined pieces: BTC

History: Bitfury is an industrial mining company that created some of the first ASICs and, in 2014, operated a pool simply called pool.io. At the beginning of June 2014, this pool, about half of which was hash power from Bitfury ASICs, controlled more than 51 percent of the BTC network, prompting the company to withdraw some of its energy from the pool.

Anecdote: Bitfury is a very suspicious company that has voluntarily collaborated with the police to decononise transactions in bitcoins and erode confidentiality.

Bitcoin.com

Based: 2016

BTC hashrate0.6%

Mined pieces: BTC, BCH

History: The Bitcoin.com mining pool has been operational for three years and was launched on September 21, 2016, with the mandate to lobby for larger blocks. From the first day, the Bitcoin.com pool could handle blocks up to 16 MB, but would only operate 1 MB at that time, which all consensual rules of the BTC would accept. Today & # 39; hui. Bitcoin.com offers an extraction of computer and cloud equipment, the latter resulting in contracts ranging from six months to two years. Bitcoin.com provides its own mobile monitoring software, while the Bitcoin.com portfolio is a major full-fledged product with over 4.7 million installations.

Trivia: Bitcoin.com extracted the first ABC block from BCH on November 15, 2018 after the split with SV.

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What do you think of the different mining basins highlighted here? Let us know in the comments section below.


Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Blockchain.com


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Kai Sedgwick

Kai has been manipulating the words since 2009 and bought his first $ 12 bitcoin. It's been gone for a long time. He has already written white papers for blockchain startups and is particularly interested in P2P exchanges and DNMs.

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