Bitcoin

Mining pool

By Paul Brock·Updated on 22-04-2026
TL;DR

A mining pool is a group of miners combining their hashrate and distributing block rewards proportionally to stabilise income.

Solo mining is a lottery: years can pass before finding a block. Mining pools bundle hashrate and distribute earnings — smaller, predictable payouts. Dominant pools in 2026: Foundry USA, AntPool, ViaBTC, F2Pool. Hashrate centralisation in few pools is a recurring governance discussion.

Example

A 50 PH/s operator joins Foundry. Daily yield is predictable at ~0.0042 BTC, vs. monthly one large solo block with 50% variance.

Frequently asked questions

Is pool centralisation a problem?

Partly. Pools choose which transactions enter blocks and could censor. Initiatives like Stratum v2 return transaction choice to miners (not pools).

Related terms

MiningHashrateBlock rewardCoinbase transactionChild-Pays-For-Parent (CPFP)Topic cluster

Further reading

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