How to choose a good mining pool: what you need to know to be profitable

2021/7/132021/10/10

There are many mining pools, but we have summarized the important points such as which mining pool to dig and what criteria to choose in order to increase profits as much as possible.

Mining is done 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, so even a few percent difference can make a big difference in the year.I would appreciate it if you could refer to it.

How the mining pool works

Mining major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum requires a huge amount of calculation.

Nowadays, it is quite difficult to get rewards (find coins) only by the computing power that individuals can have, so it is mainstream to cooperate in "pool mining".

The mining pool will share the blocks that need approval with the pool participants and ask them to send back their hash (answer).If even one person can come up with an answer that meets the conditions, the pool will receive a block reward and will be distributed according to the amount of calculation of the participants.

reference:What is a mining pool?Explaining the relationship between the basic mechanism and blockchain

Mining pool selection criteria

There are five main criteria for choosing a mining pool.I will explain each of them.

• Profitability
• Total hash rate of the pool
• Pool usage fee, withdrawal fee
• Payment method
• Server location
• Types of virtual currencies handled

Profitability

First and foremost is profitability (the number of coins you can receive per hash rate you provide)..For example, Ethereum is expressed as "ETH / Hs", and when converted to yen, it is expressed as "Yen / Hs".

At the time of writing (July 2021, 7), ETH (Ethereum) has a highly profitable mining pool ranking like this.

It should be noted that "profitability fluctuates depending on the time of year, so just because profitability is high in this moment does not mean that it will continue forever."is.This is also related to the "total pool hash rate" described below.

Total hash rate of the pool

Mining rewards are based on block rewards found by the pool.This probability (= probability of successful mining) converges to "the ratio of the hash rate of the pool to the total hash rate".

However, in reality, there are fluctuations depending on the time.In some pools, you happen to get a lot of money in a short period of time, and then you don't get it for a while.

If you keep using one pool for several months, it's the same for all pools, but if notThe higher the hash rate of the pool, the betterIn a short period of timeYou can get stable profits.

Pool usage fee, withdrawal fee (minimum withdrawal amount)

The pool usage fee (the usage fee for participating in the mining pool) is about 0.5 to 2.0% of the mining reward.In many cases, it is automatically deducted from the reward you receive.

Withdrawal fee and minimum withdrawal amount, I want to choose a pool with a small amount so as not to lose the fee.Especially, it is mainly used for games and machine learning, and I think that it is a high priority for those who mine with 1-2 graphic boards at other times (although there is a way to leave it until it accumulates in the pool to some extent). , Cannot be exchanged for USDT or hacking risk remains). Miners who use 10 or more GPUs may not have to worry so much.

Payment method

It can be roughly divided into four types.

The main payment methods are as described above.Each has its advantages and disadvantages,The theoretical payout amount is PPS <PPLNS <FPPS≒ PPS +Higher and more stable in this orderTo do.

Revenues of PPS and FPPS are stable, but it seems that fees tend to be set high due to the risk on the pool side.

With PPS + / FPPS, transaction fees are included in the reward, so you can expect more profits than PPL / PPLNS.

Where you want to choose a pool of PPS + or FPPS where transaction fees are also included in the reward.

reference:Mining pool payment method (FPPS vs PPS + vs PPS vs PPLNS)

Server location

If the mining pool server is far from your mining rig, you may have more invalid shares.This is due to communication delays.

It's best if you're in the country, but at least choose one that has servers as close as possible to the same continent.

Types of virtual currencies handled

Various types of coins can be mined on the graphic board.ETH is currently the most profitable, but we don't know what will happen in the future, such as "EIP1559" and "Migration to ETH2.0 (PoS)".

When the profitability of ETH declines, it is important to check whether you are dealing with other coins that can be mined by GPU or if there is a switching function according to the profitability of the coin.

Sites to help you choose a mining pool

It is difficult to check the selection criteria introduced above for each pool.Therefore, I will introduce a site where you can compare many mining pools in a list.Both are overseas sites, so if you are not good at English, please use browser translation.

Mining Pool Stats

• Virtual currency that can be mined
• Mining pool for each coin
• Total hash rate of the pool
• Usage fee, minimum payment amount

It is a site where you can compare etc. in a list.

minerstate

• Highly profitable virtual currency by GPU
• Trends in profitability of each pool

Can be confirmed.

This is the site used to see the above "Profitability" ranking.With this kind of feeling, you can check the profit for each GPU on a monthly basis, so you can choose without being confused by the pool that is only expensive momentarily.

Here are some recommended mining pools where you can dig Ethereum.

These are the criteria for selecting a mining pool.