Comparison of mining pools

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Reward types & explanation:

  • 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. [1]
  • Prop. - Proportional. When block is found, the reward is distributed among all workers proportionally to how much shares each of them has found.
  • 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.
  • PPS - Pay Per Share. Each submitted share is worth certain amount of BC. Since finding a block requires <current difficulty> shares on average, a PPS method with 0% fee would be 50 BTC divided by <current difficulty>. It is risky for pool operators, hence the fee is highest.
  • SMPPS - Shared Maximum Pay Per Share. Like Pay Per Share, but never pays more than the pool earns. [2]
  • ESMPPS - Equalized Shared Maximum Pay Per Share. Like SMPPS, but equalizes payments fairly among all those who are owed. [3]
  • CPPSRB - Capped Pay Per Share with Recent Backpay.
  • 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)

Visual examples of the various payout methods

Name Location GH/s[1] Merged Mining[2] Reward Type Transaction fees Fee PPS Fee Prop / Score Protocol Launched Forum Website
21bitcoin CN, HK 2  ? Prop. kept by pool 0% RPC+LP 2011-06-20 Link Link
50BTC Germany 130 No PPS+stales[3] kept by pool 3% RPC+LP 2011-11-11 Link Link
ABCPool.co USA 430  ? PPS[3] kept by pool 4%[4] RPC+LP 2011-08-02 Link Link
ArsBitcoin USA 274 No SMPPS kept by pool 0%[4] RPC+LP 2011-06-15 Link Link
Bitcash.cz Czech Republic 10  ? Prop. kept by pool 0% RPC+LP 2011-07-21 Link

Link

Bitcoin-Station Germany 5  ? Prop. kept by pool 2% RPC+LP 2011-09-11 Link
Betcoin.co Pool USA 5.9  ? PPLNS kept by pool 0% RPC+LP 2011-07-07 Link Link
Bitarama.com USA 0.021  ? Prop kept by pool RPC+LP 2011-08-02 Link
BitClockers USA, EU 325  ? Prop. kept by pool 2% RPC+LP 2011-05-27 Link Link
Bitcoin Mining Pool USA 51  ? Prop. kept by pool 0%[4] RPC+LP Unknown Link Link
Bitcoin Pooled Mining (Slush) EU/London 1454 NMC Score kept by pool 2% RPC+LP 2010-11-27 Link Link
Bitcoinitalia Italy 0.45  ? Prop. kept by pool 0% RPC+LP 2011-07-12 Link Link
Bitcoins.lc EU 167  ? Prop. kept by pool 0% RPC+LP 2011-05-27 Link Link
BitLotto Pool Los Angeles 0.4  ? Prop kept by pool RPC+LP 2011-06-08 Link Link
BitMinter Germany 120 NMC PPLNS shared 0% RPC+LP 2011-06-18 Link Link
Bitp.it USA 20  ? ESMPPS kept by pool 0% RPC+LP 2011-06-08 Link Link
BitPenny USA 10 No CPPSRB 97% shared 3% Proprietary[5] 2011-02-08 Link Link
BTC Guild USA, EU 1410 NMC PPS kept by pool 5% RPC+LP 2011-05-09 Link Link
BTCMine UK 175  ? Score kept by pool 2% RPC+LP 2011-03-11 Link Link
btcmp.com Germany 18  ? PPS kept by pool 0% RPC+LP 2011-06-28 Link
BTCServ Germany 71 Converted to BC PPS kept by pool 0% RPC+LP 2011-07-09 Link Link
Btcworld.de Germany 2.5  ? Prop kept by pool  ? RPC+LP 2011-06-18 Link
CHWpool Chile 0  ? Prop kept by pool 1% RPC+LP 2011-06-30 Link
Coinotron Poland 7  ? Prop kept by pool 0% RPC+LP 2011-07-06 Link Link
DeepBit Germany 3673 No PPS / Prop. kept by pool 10% 3% RPC+LP 2011-02-26 Link Link
Eclipse Mining Consortium USA / Europe / AU / Asia 500 NMC DGM kept by pool 0% RPC+LP 2011-06-14 Link Link
Eligius Germany 450 NMC SMPPS kept by pool 0.000001%[4] RPC+LP, Binary 2011-04-27 Link Link
MasterPool Germany 20 NMC PPLNS shared 1 or 2%[6] RPC+LP 2011-07-18 Link Link
Mineco.in UK 94  ? PPLNS shared 0% RPC+LP 2011-06-15 Link Link
Mining Team Reddit (MtRed) USA, EU 95 NMC PPS kept by pool 7% RPC+LP 2011-05-25 1 2 Link
NoFeeMining USA 0 (closed)  ? RSMPPS shared 0% RPC+LP 2011-06-17 Link Link
Ozco.in USA/EU/AUS 88 NMC DGM kept by pool 0% RPC+LP 2011-06-07 Link Link
P2Pool Earth (P2P) 150 Yes/Solo[7] PPLNS shared <0%[8] Proprietary[5] 2011-06-17 Link Link
PolMine Poland 52  ? PPS shared 2% RPC 2011-06-13 Link Link
pool.itzod.ru Russian Federation 33 No RSMPPS kept by pool 0% 0% RPC+LP 2011-08-01 Link Link Link
rfcpool UK, EU 60 No PPLNS shared 0%[4] 0%[4] RPC+LP 2011-07-05 Link Link
Simplecoin.us US 25 NMC SMPPS / PPLNS / Prop kept by pool 0%[4] 0%[4] RPC+LP 2011-06-02 Link Link
Triplemining Europe 20.6  ? PPLNS kept by pool 1% [9] RPC+LP 2011-06-28 Link Link
UnitedMiners US 2  ? Prop kept by pool 0% RPC+LP 2011-06-28 Link Link
yourbtc.net Germany 18 NMC DGM shared 0% RPC+LP 2011-09-10 Link Link
pool.mkalinin.ru Russia 16 No PPLNS kept by pool 0% RPC+LP 2011-07-20 Link Link
  1. Note that pool hashrate is largely irrelevant but can be seen as a popularity measurement. Note however that it is a theoretical security issue if one pool gains above 50% of the total computational power of the network, thus consider joining a pool based on other metrics.
  2. Merged mining allows miners to mine on multiple block chains at the same time with the same hashing.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Pool also rewards stale shares
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 Donations are possible
  5. 5.0 5.1 Proprietary-protocol pools (BitPenny and p2pool) provide JSON-RPC to miners locally.
  6. Fee is a payout fee. Instant payout: 2%. Scheduled payout (each night): 1%
  7. P2Pool supports merged mining but payouts in the merged chain are not pooled.
  8. People are donating to P2Pool miners to encourage people to use it. The P2Pool author also accepts optional donations.
  9. Triplemining's 1% fee is redistributed using a weekly jackpot

See also