Choosing a pool seems to be something new miners believe to be unimportant. A good deal just go with whatever is easiest to begin with, or whatever they are introduced to. But each pool can be a different mining experience – from total hashrate active, to payment methods, to amount the pool requires for payout. Use the explanations below to decide which pool is best for you.
What is a pool?
A pool is a collection of miners used to solve a block more quickly than solo mining (by yourself).
Should I join a pool or solo mine?
Given current network difficulty, if your rigs collectively produce less than 400-500MH/s, you should consider joining a pool. With solo mining, you are only rewarded for blocks that you solve. In a pool, you are rewarded for blocks that you contribute to solving, even if you don’t solve it yourself.
Payout methods
Different pools pay in different ways. Typically, PPLNS can be the most “bang for your buck” when you stay associated with a single pool. If you tend to hop pool-to-pool, a Prop reward-system would be better to invest your miner’s time in.
- PPLNS (Pay Per Last “N” Shares): Payment is decided based on the last number of shares in total, not just the shares for the last block-solving round.
- PPS (Pay Per Share): Worker is paid a set payout for each share.
- Prop (Proportional): Block’s reward is distributed proportional to the number of shares submitted by the miner.
- HBPPS (Hour-Based Pay Per Share): Each submitted share earns a fixed amount of coins distributed proportionally to how many shares were submitted in the past hour.
- RBPPS (Round-Based Pay Per Share): Each submitted share earns a fixed amount of coins distributed proportionally among workers based on total number of shares submitted.
Recommended pools
Terminology:
- Pool: Collection of miners
- Fee: Cost to mine on the pool
- Min Payout: How how you need to mine before Ether is sent to your wallet
- VarDiff: Your share difficulty will rise or fall depending on your overall hashrate. This ensures that low-hashrate users don’t get sent difficult blocks, and high-hashrate users aren’t sent easy blocks.
- Monitoring: View your hashrate and contributions
- Server Location: Where the server is geographically located
- Coins: What coins you can mine on the pool
- Payment Type: See above chart for ‘Payment Methods’
- Hashing Power: Overall hashing power across all miners in the pool
| Pool | Fee | Min Payout | VarDiff | Monitoring | Server Locations | Coins | Payment Type | Hashing Power |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AlpEreum | 0.50% | 0.05 | Yes | Yes | Asia, EU, US | ETH | Prop | 68.31 GH/s |
| Ethermine | 1.00% | 0.10 | No | Yes | Asia, EU, US | ETH | PPLNS | 10.1 TH/s |
| Ethpool | 1.00% | 5.00 | Yes | Yes | Asia, EU, US | ETH | Solo | 1.5 TH/s |
| EthereumPool | 1.00% | 0.10 | Yes | Yes | EU | ETH | PPLNS | 15.1 GH/s |
| MinerGate | 1 – 1.5% | 0.00 | Yes | Yes | US | ETH, BTC, LTX, DSH, ETC, XMR, ZEC, etc… | PPS, PPLS | 33.2 GH/s |
| Nanopool | 1.0% | 0.20 | Yes | Yes | Asia, EU, US | ETH, ETC, PASC, SC, ZEC, XMR | PPLNS | 4.5 TH/s |
Not-Recommended Pools
- F2Pool
Please research each pool before deciding which to mine for. Pool-hopping is time consuming and can result in a decreased payout by pools with PPLNS implemented. Some pools have payment reliability and uptime issues, so please keep that in mind while deciding which pool is right for you.