{"id":10697,"date":"2023-01-21T07:32:41","date_gmt":"2023-01-21T07:32:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/?p=10697"},"modified":"2025-09-10T15:22:53","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T15:22:53","slug":"what-is-a-mining-pool-and-how-does-it-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/en\/what-is-a-mining-pool-and-how-does-it-work","title":{"rendered":"What is a mining pool and how does it work?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_82_2 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-transparent ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Alternar tabla de contenidos\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #ffffff;color:#ffffff\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #ffffff;color:#ffffff\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 eztoc-toggle-hide-by-default' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/en\/what-is-a-mining-pool-and-how-does-it-work\/#what_is_a_mining_pool\" >What is a mining pool?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/en\/what-is-a-mining-pool-and-how-does-it-work\/#how_does_the_bitcoin_mining_pool_work\" >How does the Bitcoin mining pool work?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/en\/what-is-a-mining-pool-and-how-does-it-work\/#is_it_more_profitable_to_mine_bitcoin_in_a_pool\" >Is it more profitable to mine Bitcoin in a pool?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/en\/what-is-a-mining-pool-and-how-does-it-work\/#how_do_you_choose_the_best_bitcoin_mining_pools\" >How do you choose the best Bitcoin mining pools?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/en\/what-is-a-mining-pool-and-how-does-it-work\/#bitcoin_mining_speed_how_long_does_it_take_to_extract_a_bitcoin\" >Bitcoin mining speed: How long does it take to extract a bitcoin?<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/en\/what-is-a-mining-pool-and-how-does-it-work\/#is_it_profitable_to_mine_bitcoins\" >Is it profitable to mine bitcoins?<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-7\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/en\/what-is-a-mining-pool-and-how-does-it-work\/#how_to_mine_bitcoins_with_my_own_pc\" >How to mine bitcoins with my own pc<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Tiempo de lectura:<\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 5<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutos<\/span><\/span><h2 class=\"bg section-bg fill bg-fill bg-loaded bg-loaded\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"what_is_a_mining_pool\"><\/span><b>What is a mining pool?<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<div class=\"section-content relative\">\n<div id=\"row-1374304124\" class=\"row align-center\">\n<div class=\"col small-12 large-12\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<div class=\"col-inner text-center\">\n<p>When talking about bitcoin mining, there is always the term \u2018mining pool\u2019, which could be translated literally as a mining pool.<\/p>\n<p>But what is bitcoin mining? How does it work and what advantages and disadvantages do these mining networks imply for Bitcoin?<\/p>\n<p>If a person decides to become a Bitcoin miner, the first thing they\u2019ll have to do is invest in Bitcoin mining equipment, whose costs can exceed 5000 Euros, no matter how long it takes to mine a bitcoin.<\/p>\n<p>Also, don\u2019t forget that<b>\u00a0Bitcoin mining is a random process\u00a0<\/b>and it\u2019s impossible to know when you\u2019re going to solve a block. What you can predict is that if you want to mine alone, it\u2019s very likely that it will take years to solve a block, in addition to the exorbitant costs of equipment and electricity.<\/p>\n<p>And it is to solve this problem that mining pools are born.<\/p>\n<p>We can define\u00a0<b>mining pools of bitcoins as decentralized groups organized and managed by third parties to coordinate the hash power of miners<\/b>\u00a0around the world and then share any resulting bitcoin in proportion to the hash power contributed by the pool.<\/p>\n<p>Mining pools are a way for individual miners to\u00a0<b>combine their hash power\u00a0<\/b>so they can mine as if they were a single large miner.<\/p>\n<p>Individual miners (in the context of group mining, these are called \u201chashers\u201d) share in the reward of any block found by the pool, based on their share of contribution given by the hash power.<\/p>\n<p>With pool mining, the miners can earn a relatively constant income, instead of an occasional massive fee.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"how_does_the_bitcoin_mining_pool_work\"><\/span><b>How does the Bitcoin mining pool work?<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>There are several variants of mining pools and sometimes new methods are proposed and introduced.<\/p>\n<p>In general, however, a pool is a platform with specialized software in which miners combine the computing power of their equipment for more efficient extraction than a specific crypto.<\/p>\n<p>There are pools that work with\u00a0<b>Proof-of-Work (PoW), Proof-of-Stake (PoS) or hybrid Proof-of-Work + Proof-of-Stake algorithms.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The mining pool distributes the reward generated by the joint efforts between the nodes in proportion to their contribution. The contribution is called \u2018share\u2019. Contributions are \u2018failed blocks\u2019, i.e. attempts to find a valid block that the miner has created. The miner is rewarded for all these attempts.<\/p>\n<p>The operator of the Mining Pool only checks the validity of the blocks provided by the participants.<\/p>\n<p>Once one of the participants finds a valid block, the pool compares it with the current difficulty of the entire network and sends it to the common Bitcoin network for verification, where it is validated by other nodes.<\/p>\n<p>After receiving the validation, the consortium will account for the contribution (share) of each participant and will distribute the prize according to their commissions.<\/p>\n<p>So the mining pool pays the miners for their hash rate, based on the expected value of the hash rate. The higher the hash rate of a miner, the lower the target fee and the miner will be equally rewarded for the \u201charder\u201d work.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"is_it_more_profitable_to_mine_bitcoin_in_a_pool\"><\/span><b>Is it more profitable to mine Bitcoin in a pool?<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>One of the first questions potential cripto miners face is whether\u00a0<b>it\u2019s more advantageous to mine for yourself or join a \u201cpool.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Well, in both cases, the pros and cons are exactly the same.<\/p>\n<p><b>If you decide to \u2018sail\u2019 alone, the advantage is that you won\u2019t have to share the reward<\/b>. However, the chances of getting a reward are very slim. On the contrary, while a mining pool has many more possibilities to solve a block and therefore to get the reward, the latter will be shared among all the members of the pool.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, it would not be correct to say that mining bitcoin in a pool is more profitable than mining alone.<\/p>\n<p>However,\u00a0<b>if we evaluate the profitability of mining in the long term, mining with a pool would guarantee more stable revenues,<\/b>\u00a0as pools pay a constant reward.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, with the mining process there are many technical challenges that also cause losses and in this case the pools have minimized these losses by perfecting the mining process as much as possible.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col small-12 large-12\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<div class=\"col-inner\">\n<h2 style=\"text-align: left;\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"how_do_you_choose_the_best_bitcoin_mining_pools\"><\/span><b>How do you choose the best Bitcoin mining pools?<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The mining pools were created in 2010 and quickly became very popular.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">By early 2015, the vast majority of Bitcoin miners were already in the pools.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">In June 2014,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ghash.io\">Ghash.io<\/a>, one of the most popular groups (operating until 2016), became so large that it contained 50% of the total capacity of the Bitcoin Network.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Fortunately, today the situation of mining pools is very different and the possibility of a pool reaching 51% of the network is no longer the main concern, as it was a few years ago.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">If you want to jump into the world of mining pools, but don\u2019t know which pool to choose, here\u2019s what to monitor when choosing a Bitcoin mining pool:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<li><b>Equipment:<\/b>\u00a0If you\u2019ve already purchased mining devices, you should select a group that meets the requirements of your mining devices\u2019 features; otherwise it\u2019s a good idea to choose the group first and buy the equipment recommended by it later;<\/li>\n<li><b>Reputation:\u00a0<\/b>before joining a mining pool, we recommend that you research and solicit comments from users who are part of a pool;<\/li>\n<li><b>Hashrate:<\/b>\u00a0or the speed of calculation of the hardware used, which is also\u00a0<b>the profit rate of the mining activity<\/b>. Older pools have more hashrate, which guarantees more frequent block results and therefore higher profits. However, state-of-the-art pools tend to impose high requirements on participants\u2019 equipment;<\/li>\n<li><b>Reward system:<\/b>\u00a0Today there are only two most widely used reward systems: PPLNS and PPS.\u00a0 The PPS is considered the fairest,\u00a0<b>but the most stable payments are received from pools that operate with PPLNS;<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>Commissions:<\/b>\u00a0It is very important to study carefully the conditions of membership in the group. Generally,\u00a0<b>the lowest commissions are paid by the pools that work with PPLNS<\/b>, as in this case they are as protected from risks as possible. On these platforms, the commission is generally 0.5-1% or even zero.\u00a0<b>With PPS, commissions can sometimes be as high as 4-7%,<\/b>\u00a0because the pool must pay the miners for all work done.<\/li>\n<li><b>Withdrawal:\u00a0<\/b>We advise you to also consider how to withdraw the rewards from each pool: wallet, credit cards, electronic money, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Today the most popular pools are\u00a0Poolin,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.f2pool.com\/\">F2Pool<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pool.btc.com\/\">BTC.com<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/v3.antpool.com\/home\">AntPool<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.viabtc.com\/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwnqH7BRDdARIsACTSAdur3HH8MBloG_Scq5s-RHE2PyH6D3eNMTBhn6DhtsZWhJHNcZuSaV4aAuX4EALw_wcB\">ViaBTC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col small-12 large-12\">\n<div class=\"col-inner\">\n<h2 style=\"text-align: left;\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"bitcoin_mining_speed_how_long_does_it_take_to_extract_a_bitcoin\"><\/span><b>Bitcoin mining speed: How long does it take to extract a bitcoin?<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">There is no specific answer, since, as we\u2019ve just seen, the time for mining depends on factors such as computing power, type of equipment and type of competition.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The reward for the resolution of a block changes over time (which changes on average every 4 years:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/en\/halving-crypto-what-it-is\/\">Bitcoin Halving<\/a>) , and is currently 12.5 BTC.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">In an ideal situation, with the highest computing power and the ideal equipment, it would take about 10 minutes to extract 1 BTC.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">But, as we have already said, it is an ideal situation that does not find easy answers in reality.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">If we consider today\u2019s rate of difficulty,\u00a0<b>a lone miner, with the most efficient mining equipment, could take almost five years<\/b>\u00a0to extract a single bitcoin.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"is_it_profitable_to_mine_bitcoins\"><\/span><b>Is it profitable to mine bitcoins?<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The bitcoin miners have existed since its creation in 2009. Today, only the United States has almost 2,625 active miners or nodes, followed by Germany and France with respectively around 2022 and 700 nodes. These three countries have the largest number of individual miners.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">As we\u2019ve seen, making a profit from Bitcoin mining can take a long time and, as with other forms of investment, there are always high risks involved if you want to reap high rewards.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><b>So we can say that Bitcoin mining can be a profitable business for those who can afford the best mining equipment or contracts.<\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">However, for small-scale miners, this becomes much more difficult, especially if we think of the halves that halve the block rewards every time and that occur every four years, i.e. every time 210,000 bitcoins are mined.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: left;\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"how_to_mine_bitcoins_with_my_own_pc\"><\/span><b>How to mine bitcoins with my own pc<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Bitcoin was the first kryptonet to use the SHA-256 algorithm as part of its Proof Of Work scheme, which requires an incredible amount of CPU effort.\u00a0<b>The SHA-256 hashing is a powerful process\u00a0<\/b>that not all computers are capable of handling.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">So if you want to mine bitcoin with your PC, you must use a highly efficient computer\u00a0<b>hardware system, with high computing power<\/b>\u00a0and capable of using the least amount of electrical energy possible.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Application-specific integrated circuits (<b>ASICs<\/b>), field-programmable gate array (<b>FPGAs<\/b>) and graphics processing units (<b>GPUs)<\/b>\u00a0are the most widely used<b>\u00a0mining hardware today.<\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><b>ASICs are generally the mining devices of choice for bitcoin miners.<\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><b>ASICs are designed to perform faster hash calculations without consuming too much power<\/b>, as they have 40-60+ TH\/s hashrate if they consume 2,000 to less than 3,000 watts.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Among the leading brands in this space are Bitmain, Ebang and Innosilicon.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Many miners also use GPUs, which can often be found in gaming equipment. However, experts say they are more suitable for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/en\/how-to-mine-ethereum-a-complete-guide-for-newcomers\/\">mining other cryptos such as Ethereum.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Tiempo de lectura:<\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 5<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutos<\/span><\/span>What is a mining pool? When talking about bitcoin mining, there is always the term \u2018mining pool\u2019, which could be translated literally as a mining pool. But what is bitcoin mining? How does it work and what advantages and disadvantages do these mining networks imply for Bitcoin? If a person decides to become a Bitcoin [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrencies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10697"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24622,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10697\/revisions\/24622"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitnovo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}