Comparison of mining pools

Reward types & explanation:

• CPPSRB - Capped Pay Per Share with Recent Backpay. [1]
• DGM - Double Geometric Method. A hybrid between PPLNS and Geometric reward types that enables to operator to absorb some of the variance risk. Operator receives portion of payout on short rounds and returns it on longer rounds to normalize payments. [2]
• ESMPPS - Equalized Shared Maximum Pay Per Share. Like SMPPS, but equalizes payments fairly among all those who are owed. [3]
• POT - Pay On Target. A high variance PPS variant that pays on the difficulty of work returned to pool rather than the difficulty of work served by pool [4]
• PPLNS - Pay Per Last N Shares. Similar to proportional, but instead of looking at the number of shares in the round, instead looks at the last N shares, regardless of round boundaries.
• PPLNSG - Pay Per Last N Groups (or shifts). Similar to PPLNS, but shares are grouped into "shifts" which are paid as a whole.
• PPS - Pay Per Share. Each submitted share is worth certain amount of BTC. Since finding a block requires <current difficulty> shares on average, a PPS method with 0% fee would be 12.5 BTC divided by <current difficulty>. It is risky for pool operators, hence the fee is highest.
• Prop. - Proportional. When block is found, the reward is distributed among all workers proportionally to how much shares each of them has found.
• RSMPPS - Recent Shared Maximum Pay Per Share. Like SMPPS, but system aims to prioritize the most recent miners first. [5]
• Score - Score based system: a proportional reward, but weighed by time submitted. Each submitted share is worth more in the function of time t since start of current round. For each share score is updated by: score += exp(t/C). This makes later shares worth much more than earlier shares, thus the miner's score quickly diminishes when they stop mining on the pool. Rewards are calculated proportionally to scores (and not to shares). (at slush's pool C=300 seconds, and every hour scores are normalized)
• SMPPS - Shared Maximum Pay Per Share. Like Pay Per Share, but never pays more than the pool earns. [6]
• FPPS - Full Pay Per Share. Similar to PPS，but not only divide regular block reward (12.5 BTC for now) but also some of the transaction fees. Calculate a standard transaction fee within a certain period and distribute it to miners according to their hash power contributions in the pool. It will increase the miners' earnings by sharing some of the transaction fees.

A statistically valid analysis of some pools and their payout methods: Bitcoin network and pool analysis

Name	Location	Size	Merged Mining	Reward Type	Transaction fees	PPS Fee	Other Fee		GBT	Launched	Variance	Forum	Website
AntPool	China	Large	No	PPLNS & PPS	kept by pool	2.5%	0%	Yes	No	?	?	link	link
BCMonster.com		Small	No	PPLNS	shared		0.5%	Yes	No	2016-01-13	Dynamic	link	link
BitcoinAffiliateNetwork		?	NMC, DOGE	?	kept by pool	?	?	Yes		2014-07-15	User/Dynamic	link	link
BitMinter		Small	NMC	PPLNSG	shared		1%	Yes	No	2011-06-26	User/Dynamic	link	link
BTC.com		Medium	NMC	FPPS	shared	0%	4%	Yes	No	2016-09-13	User	link	link
BTCC Pool	China, Japan	Large	NMC	PPS	kept by pool	2.0%	0%	Yes	Yes	2014-10-21	Dynamic	?	link
BTCDig		Small	No	DGM	kept by pool		0%	Yes		2013-07-04	User/Dynamic 20SPM	link	link
btcmp.com		Small	No	PPS	kept by pool	4%		Yes		2011-06-28	Diff 1		link
btcZPool.com		Large	BitCoinZ	PPLNS	shared	1%	0%	Yes		2017-06-25	VarDiff		link
BW Mining	China	Medium	?	PPLNS & PPS	?	?	?	Yes		?	?	?	link
Eligius		Small	NMC	CPPSRB	shared		0%	Yes	Yes	2011-04-27	Dynamic: 32 shares/m	link	link
F2Pool		Large	LTC, NMC, SYS, EMC	PPS+	shared	2.5%	0%	Yes	No	2013-05-05	Dynamic	link	link
GHash.IO		Small	NMC, IXC, Devcoin	PPLNS	shared		0%	Yes	No	2013-07-01	User	link	link
Give Me COINS		Small	NMC	PPLNS	shared		0%	Yes	Yes	2013-08-12	Dynamic	link	link
Golden Nonce Pool		Small	No	DGM	kept by pool		0%	Yes		2018-03-27	Dynamic	link	link
Jonny Bravo's Mining Emporium		Small	No	PPLNS	shared		0.5%	Yes	No	2015-11-19	Dynamic	link	link
KanoPool		Medium	No	PPLNSG	shared		0.9%	Yes	No	2014-09-20	User/Dynamic 18SPM	link	link
kmdPool.org		Large	Komodo	PPLNS	shared	1%	0%	Yes		2017-11-25	VarDiff		link
Merge Mining Pool		Small	NMC, IXC, Devcoin	DGM	shared		1.5%	Yes	No	2012-01-08	User	link	link
MergeMining	Global	Small	CRW, DVC, HUC, I0C, IXC, XMY/MYR, NMC, SYS, UNO, TRC, ARG, EMC	PPLNS	shared		1%	Yes	No	2016-12-01	User		link
Multipool		Small	NMC	Score	shared		1.5%	Yes	No	2012-03-15	User	link	link
P2Pool	Global (p2p)	Small	Merged mining can be done on a "solo mining" basis	PPLNS	shared		0%	Yes	No	2011-06-17	User	link
Poolin	Global	Medium	NMC DOGE VCASH	FPPS	shared		4%	Yes	Yes	2017-10-01	Dynamic	link	link
Slush Pool	Global	Medium	NMC	Score	shared		2%	Yes	No	2010-11-27	User	link	link
ZenPool.org		Large	ZenCash	PPLNS	shared	1%	0%	Yes		2017-10-25	VarDiff		link

SPV Mining / Old Bitcoin Core

The following pools are known or strongly suspected to be mining on top of blocks before fully validating them with Bitcoin Core 0.9.5 or later. Miners doing this have already lost over $50,000 USD during the 4 July 2015 fork and have created a situation where small numbers of confirmations are much less useful than they normally are.

• BTC Nuggets
• F2Pool
• AntPool

The following pools are believed to be currently fully validating blocks with Bitcoin Core 0.9.5 or later (0.10.2 or later recommended due to DoS vulnerabilities):

• BitMinter
• BTC China (described as SPV mining, but they're performing effective valiation)
• BTC Public Mining Pool
• CKPool
• Eligius
• Golden Nonce Pool
• P2Pool
• Slush Pool
• BCMonster.com
• Jonny Bravo's Mining Emporium

See also

• Pooled mining
• Pool Distribution Summary
• Bitcoin Mining
• Video: What is Bitcoin Mining
• Bitcoin Mining Pools
• Bitcoin Mining Pools Comparison