What Is a Bitcoin Mining Pool? And How Do I Find a Reliable Pool to Join?

This article will explain how to find a reliable bitcoin mining pool, including information about using the default pool, and when to change the mining pool.

How to find a Bitcoin mining pool?

Finding a mining pool is an important step in mining cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Pools combine the computing power of various bitcoin miners and share the rewards they receive.

Mining through a pool is almost always more profitable than mining alone. There are many pools to choose from, some managed by companies and others by professional miners.

Slush Pool and CGminer are popular alternative bitcoin mining pools. Slush Pool was the first bitcoin pool to be created, and while it is no longer the largest, it still has a solid community and can provide many support tools to help new miners get started.

Crypto Compare is the easiest place to find alternative bitcoin mining pools, the site lists almost all available pools and allows you to filter them based on specific details or give them a 1-5 star rating based on their quality and reliability.

There are three things to keep in mind when looking for a mining pool.

Fees: The fee percentage is the fee that the pool owner takes from your total revenue, and this percentage can range from 0% to 10%. While it may sound tempting to join a pool for free, pools that charge low or no fees do so because they lack users and are trying to attract new members. Paying a higher fee to join a quality pool with a large number of users is usually worth it, as the pool will likely generate more revenue for you in the long run.

Location: While you can join a pool anywhere in the world, joining a pool closer to you will provide a better mining experience and higher income.

Reputation: The world of cryptocurrency can sometimes be politicized, with some mining pools deliberately changing their bitcoin mining patterns so that less bitcoin is traded on the blockchain; or refusing to switch to the latest version of bitcoin that offers a more secure and cheaper service. Searching for the name of a mining pool on Twitter will usually reveal any negative news related to the pool or its miners. Some mining pools you should avoid include BTC Nuggets, F2Pool, and AntPool.

Using default mining pools

Most bitcoin mining programs and services have their own official pools. These official pools are usually the default option, but you can change it to a custom pool in the program settings.

Official bitcoin mining pools are usually a reliable option for most people because they are usually filled with other bitcoin miners, and these pools also receive technical support and updates from the companies involved.

Examples of services that offer default mining pools include Bitmain, a popular Bitcoin miner hardware manufacturer.

Should you change your mining pool?

You can experiment with changing bitcoin mining pools to see if a different pool will increase your revenue. In most cases, using the default official pool should be perfectly fine.

If you want to mine a different cryptocurrency, there is a reason to change the pool. For example, the Windows 10 Bitcoin Miner app also allows you to mine for Litecoin by entering the address of the Litecoin pool in the Custom Miner option in the settings.

If the type of cryptocurrency pool changes, the address of the payout wallet should also change. For example, if you are mining in a Litcoin pool, make sure your payout wallet is the Litcoin wallet address. Using an incorrect cryptocurrency wallet will create an error and result in a loss of revenue.

There are some exceptions to this rule. Some pools allow you to mine one cryptocurrency and pay you in another. For example, mining pools allow you to mine Ether and pay you in Bitcoin. The official website or forum of a mining pool usually mentions if they offer this feature.

How does bitcoin mining work?

The process of confirming transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain is called Bitcoin mining, and the people involved in mining are called Bitcoin miners.

Bitcoin miners use specialized software on their computers to process transactions. The more powerful a miner’s computer is, the more transactions it can process, and the more bitcoin they are paid.

Mining rewards include a small fee charged to people who initiate bitcoin transactions, such as people who buy coffee using bitcoin mobile wallets.

Sometimes, the bitcoin blockchain also generates new bitcoins during the mining process, and the newly generated bitcoins are distributed to the members of the bitcoin pool that unlocked it.

What is a mining pool?

Joining a bitcoin mining pool is like buying a lotto ticket with a group of friends and agreeing to split the winnings if one of them wins. This gives you a better chance of making some money than buying a lottery ticket on your own and expecting to win.

Each bitcoin pool has a digital address that you can enter into the custom settings of your bitcoin mining software. Most mining programs and services have their own official pools, but many online communities have also created their own pools.

Some pools may be more profitable (more rewarding) than others, so it may be worthwhile to try out different pools on a weekly or monthly basis. However, you don’t necessarily need to use a custom pool, and professional miners are usually the ones who tweak these settings.

In addition to Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies that can be mined also have their own dedicated pools.

The quality of a pool is no substitute for hardware

A mining pool, no matter how good its reputation is, cannot compensate for low quality mining hardware. Mining revenue is dependent on how much computing power your computer has, so if you want your investment of time and money to be worthwhile, you need to invest in assembling a mining machine.

If you can’t buy a miner, cloud mining may be a viable alternative because it’s cheaper and easier to use.

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