Bitcoin Forum

I am watching Bitcoin Mining Pool distribution and I like what I see now. It looks much more decentralized then before, and no pool have more than 18% of hashrate at the moment.

I looked at stats from two website btc.com and coin.dance. We can see some new pools that are growing very fast, like Binance pool with around 7% of hashrate in last 24h. Biggest pools are still located in China.

https://i.imgur.com/eo5tjsG.png
https://btc.com/stats/pool

https://i.imgur.com/nEkjNDz.png
https://coin.dance/blocks/today

https://i.imgur.com/NXGxlGZ.jpg (https://i.imgur.com/NXGxlGZ.jpg)
https://btc.com/stats/pool

What do you think about fast growth of Binance pool? After hearing CZ talking about rollback in May, I am not very happy to see their pool growing so fast. :-[ They are now 7th biggest pool.

I currently use F2Pool. I was attracted to Binance pool as they were 'offering' a better pay-out which always seemed to track above other pool's quoted pay-outs, so I decided to try it out over a period of 5 days. At the time of trial, this was the quoted payout:

F2Pool: 0.00000825 per TH/s
Binance: 0.00000845 per TH/s

I run 5PH of gear, so the theoritical payouts:

F2Pool: 0.04125 BTC per 24h
Binance: 0.04225 BTC per 24h

For the trial, I used 5 x Whatsminer M31S+ 82T on each pool (setting a temporary test account in F2pool for these miners, so as not to confuse earnings with the rest of my gear). All 10 x miners were started and stopped at the same time.

At the end of the trial, the total earnings were as follows:

F2Pool: 0.022061 BTC / $209.58
Binance: 0.02196194 BTC / $208.64

So Binance actually paid less, despite 'promising' a higher payout per TH/s.

but they are meaningless tests as simply reflect the results of the pools luck for 5 days.

Now do a pie chart of pool by operating country and see your decentralization results.

Any PPS score isn’t really dependent on luck unless maybe fpps where they average txs fee with reward.

I’ll be very interested to see how LP shapes up once commitments hit our minimum in regard to “profitability” measures. Luck and tx fees will drive our result certainly.

These are both FPPS pools that quote a fixed payout based on your hashrate, so why should luck affect the payout?

the luck of hitting a block with a fee of .5 vs .4

both pools give a part of the fees so if 1 pool hit 10 blocks with fees of .5 and the other block hit 10 blocks with fees of .4

the block that was lucky enough to hit the higher fee blocks will pay more.

f2pool
binance
viabtc

all give some fee money back

no one has control of the fees of the blocks they hit (not quite true)

so the very small differences are entirely up to the luck of the fees for a block.

down the road 2024 this will become more pronounced.

blocks --------rewards----fees
640157.         6.25.        1.06672
640156          6.25         0.79108
640155.         6.25.        0.70532
640154.         6.25.        0.76962

last 4 blocks

you can give a more accurate number for your 5 day test

find every block each of your pools made look here

https://www.blockchain.com/explorer

lets say they made 30 blocks each

and the fee average was.   0.7 for binance
while the fee average was  0.8 for f2pool

the fact that f2pool paid more was simple due to fee luck.

lets say both pools had exactly 0.7 in fees. your conclusion would be correct

lets say binance did 0.8 in fees and f2pool did 0.7 in fees it would indicate binance is a bit sleazy.

So at the moment now we know f2pool paid better yes
we do not know which pool had better fee luck.

Fee luck will be the newest 'cool' factor for calculating how good a pool is.

when rewards were 50 fees did not matter much
when rewards were 25 fees did not matter much
when rewards were 12.5 fees started to matter
now rewards are 6.25 fees are important
fee luck is more important then ever

fee luck can be manipulated but this is a complex matter

this link can help you to understand ways that fee luck can be manipulated.

https://www.viabtc.com/tools/txaccelerator

every hour you can push 100 free tx ids they will go to the next viabtc block.

you can also pay extra to push a tx id.

Someone could easily  push 25 transactions on viabtc and pay 0.01 each to do so. that would add 0.25 to the fees.  I have a sticky that explains how fees can be played with by large pools.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2634505.msg26809430#msg26809430

I am sure we will see a variation of that sticky thread  along with viabtc tx accelerator concept I just mentioned.
As we move on this year and towards 2024.

That all makes sense, thank you.

So to make it a fair test, I guess I could look up the fee rewards for the blocks F2Pool and Binance Pool found during my test and bring those into the equation.

yeah find the average fee per block

since the amount of blocks hit does not matter  the amount of fees does not matter.

the average fee per each block would be the key.

In theory if both pools are trying to do it correctly then f2pool should have had a better average fee per block

I am interested to see what really happened.

The meaning of decentralization is really subjective here, one can assume it's cetnerlized because probably 70% of the pools are Chinese based, I could go to as far as pointing out the fact that 99% of the hashpower comes form mining gears made in China, and probably 2/3 of that comes from the same exact company (Bitmain), so true decentralization doesn't really exist in life, anything that has to do with wealth/profit/money can't be truly decentralization, there is however a different degree of decentralization, to me as long as not a single entity owns above 40% of the total hashrate, things should be fine, also pool distribution isn't as crucial as the actual physical ownership of the mining gears, if pool x does something stupid, it will be a matter of time before miners move to another pool, but if someone has access to 60% of the actual gears, it will take time to recover, a hard form will be needed, we will probably switch to different algo and after all that BTC might never recover, so that what worries the me most.

OP, aside from what others stated, you need to know which pools are owned by the same person/s, for an example, Btc.com and Antpool are owned by Bitmain, Bitmain are also the largest investor in Viabtc, so in theory, those 3 pools are owned by Bitmain.

Unfortunately that can only be done by the pool operators. They are the ones that can see the IPs their miners connect from, and make an educated guess of their geographical location.

Of course not every pool is going to want to reveal (or even collect) this info. From a pure speculative point of view, find out where in the world electricity is cheaper, and that's where you'll likely find the large farms.

It is true that most pools are located in China. Do we know what pools exactly are owned by Bitmain? I tried to find that information but I only found some rumors and not proven facts.

My comment  was on ownership of the pools. What also affects decentralization is the push for vertical “integration” which is buzz word for monopoly. One thing people miss are exchanges and their local as well. Where companies like Binance make it more apparent in this avenue as selling coin is important to miners for operational cost. Though I’m not certain on the operating country of exchanges I feel it’s important to consider where all the fee money is going that users provide to pools, to exchanges. Essentially my take is decentralization is a unicorn but users can do what they can to disperse this now multi billion dollar industry as close to their local economy as possible if they do actually care about any sort of decentralization, or specifically further centralization.

Facts:

Bitmain owns:

-Antpool and BTC.com


Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitmain

Bitmain openly admits ownership of both pools.

- Bitmain invested 2.9M dollars with Viabtc

Source: https://www.crunchbase.com/funding_round/viabtc-series-a--58443cc6#section-overview

Viabtc also happened to launch BCH fork which is oneway or the other Bitmain's coin, it's pretty safe to assume that Bitmain has the final say in Viabtc, I learned these information recently, and I stopped mining at Viabtc despite the fact that it is indeed a solid pool. I sadly went back to viabtc after a short while of testing many other pools, nothing was half as good, i will indeed leave viabtc for good once another good pool is found.

Rumors:

Poolin is owned by a Bitmain's former employees, conspiracy theories suggest that bitmain still has control over them, however, they are actually fighting in court over Poolin mining pool, so it's unlikely that the co-founders of Poolin are "controlled" by Bitmain anymore.

https://i.imgur.com/CcMbqWt.png
https://coin.dance

https://i.imgur.com/imafBgB.png
https://btc.com

Here is the latest update from Bitcoin mining pools, and we can see that Binance pool is still growing and it is now around 10% from total hashrate or around 12,468 PH/s.
That means that now they are in top five pools, and they can easily climb to second or third place.
Total hashrate is around 133.40 EH/s and it is till growing.

Hate to say this but binance offers better than other pools epecially fees, initially they offer zero fees and lesser than other mining pools, If I have some of equipments maybe I'll do participate their pool due to this advantage and maybe just maybe others do the same. Though it might be hard for them to top the 2-3 largest pools coz afaik these top 3 has largest and miners with their own company's miner rigs especially poolin.

It is not that hard to see what they are doing with zero and low fees.
They want to become one of the largest Bitcoin pools like they are doing with everything leading to more centralization.
They only need 2% - 3% more to climb up, and that is not so hard to imagine, but Huobi is ready for fight also.

mikeywith pointed it out very clearly. Most of bitcoin mining pools are located in China and operated by Chinese companies. Base on geographical locations, you can call it as centralization and the risks of government take-over is not impossible by CPCC.

The total hashrates on network came from Bitman's mining pools were more than 51% years ago but to avoid community complain and bad impacts on price of bitcoin, they splited their pools. There are risks if Chinese mining pools make cooperations and have net hashrates up to more than 51%.

However, they don't want to create bad impacts on bitcoin price or create a worldwide fear on bitcoin, replay attacks. If those things happen, the adoption of bitcoin might be destroyed and might not be recovered after that. Mining pools or Bitman don't need catastrophy on bitcoin.

Binance pool, they can grow more in hashrates and move up to top mining pools but why is it important? Binance can not get their hashrates to 51% of the network. They can make cooperations with other pools but it is already cleared by mikeywith. The risk comes from combination of biggest pools and not come from a single pool, Binance, Huobi or any pool.

https://i.imgur.com/s9GMetN.png
https://www.coinwarz.com/mining/bitcoin/hashrate-chart

There was a significant reduction of hashrate in last few days and people speculate it was due to moving of miners in China better locations.

We can now see that Binance pool took the 5th place with over 10% of total hashrate in last 3 days based on btc.com statistics

1   Poolin   14.77 %   18.46 EH/s
2   F2Pool   13.85 %   17.31 EH/s
3   BTC.com   12.62 %   15.77 EH/s
4   AntPool   11.08 %   13.85 EH/s
5   Binance     10.15 %   12.69 EH/s   

And if we look at last 24h Binance is 3rd place with over 13% of hashrate

1   F2Pool   17.39 %   21.74 EH/s
2   BTC.com   13.04 %   16.30 EH/s
3   Binance     13.04 %   16.30 EH/s

https://i.imgur.com/egBQL7d.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/n6YMbE9.png

There is one controversial Blockseer Bitcoin Mining Pool that is started to censor transactions from blacklisted wallets.
This pool also requires all miners to pass KYC procedure!
Blockseer is first North America bitcoin mining pool that will meet all US Government compliance.
They are located in San Francisco and have parent company DMG located in Canada.
This is alert for everyone, and we should not allow this to spill over on other pools.

Website and info:
https://dmgblockchain.com/
https://stockhouse.com/news/press-releases/2020/10/29/dmg-s-subsidiary-blockseer-launches-bitcoin-mining-pool-focused-on-good

Much as I don't like crypto theft and money laundering, This move is not good for the Bitcoin Network at all. Imagine your transaction getting ignored just because the inputs are from suspicious sources you have no idea about.

What if miners just decided to stand in solidarity and abandon or boycott the said mining pool for other much better mining pools

https://i.imgur.com/ZGlOBms.png
https://btc.com/stats/pool?pool_mode=day

Big changes in Bitcoin mining pools this week:
- Binance pool is now 3rd biggest pool.
- Poolin, Slush and BTC.com mMining pools announced they will support Taproot

Schnorr is new algorithm for generating signatures, and Taproot is using Schnorr signatures for privacy and smart contracts.

This pool is only going to be ignored. Are they going to declare the other pools illegal then? How about the lone solo miners?

Technically you can still set up your own node and mine to it. A pool is kinda sharing this with a larger group and split the rewards when finding a block. I don't think most people would agree to set up and maintain a black list in their nodes.

Law enforcement should solve these things in the physical realm and leave the technology alone, don't try to mend it to their will, which is what some politicians probably want.

If anything this "compliance" is like a death sentence to American pools. Lets hope people with better knowledge of Bitcoin in the new government correct this.

https://i.imgur.com/DSz45cL.png
https://taprootactivation.com/

Bitcoin Taproot upgrade proposal now reached 74.2% and there is still no answer from Binance Pool, ViaBTC and SigmaPool is undecided, but they will have to accept is sooner or later:
https://github.com/taprootactivation/Taproot-Activation/pull/7/files

Top five Pools based on btc.com stats:

1   F2Pool   19.43 %   26.34 EH/s
2   Poolin   13.97 %   18.94 EH/s
3   Binance   11.14 %   15.10 EH/s
4   AntPool   10.26 %   13.91 EH/s
5   Huobi.pool   9.39 %   12.73 EH/s   

I don't like them stealing or smuggling money at all. I want those who steal or smuggle money, not just cryptocurrencies, to be given the maximum punishment because they are the enemies of the enemy society of the country because they honestly buy and sell these cryptocurrencies.  Good profits are available. I would urge everyone not to be in a good place like this cryptocurrency.

https://i.imgur.com/HS4c4X8.png
https://btc.com/

Binance pool is now third largest Bitcoin mining pool with almost 12% of total hashrate and they can easily take the second place from btc.com!
They still have no answer for Taproot proposal activation, and even ViaBTC pool accepted it recently, and taproot is now at 82.05% activation:
https://taprootactivation.com/

Binance is one good exchange platform no wonder if they can get higher percentage in bitcoin mining pool. However, do really binance made such mining pool or is it they are having partners? If so, they can always at advantage for there are many people trading in binance that include other crypto as well that might also be traded to bitcoin as well.

https://i.imgur.com/ANIfr57.png
https://btc.com/stats/pool

Binance pool moved up and they are now second biggest Bitcoin pool, and even CZ had to brag an tweet how they like that spot and they only want to help decentralization....yeah right, that is why they created centralized bnb coin  ::)

https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1344274116405170176

On positive side, Binance accepted Taproot proposal and now activation is at 91.05 % with only few pools left without answer.
https://taprootactivation.com/

https://i.imgur.com/CysiSjZ.png
https://explorer.btc.com/btc/insights-pools

In last 24h Binance pool moved to first place wit 23.31 EH/s   and 15.29 % from total bitcoin hashrate, but I am not sure how long they can hold in first place even after confirmation from coin.dance and btc.com.
Second largest pool in BTC.com followed by F2Pool, Antpool and Poolin.

Bitcoin Taproot Activation is still 91.05% with most major pools approvall.

We have some changes in Bitcoin Mining pools as Binance dropped down in 5th place with just above 9% share, and BTC.com pool who is currently in 4th place has been purchased by online sport lottery provider 500.com and transfer should happen before April 15, 2021.
Poolin is still in first place with similar share like second placed F2Pool around 14%

You can see full list of pools with changes and recent stats here:
https://explorer.btc.com/btc/insights-pools

https://i.imgur.com/C6j0qHW.png

There was a big change in Chinese mining pools related with regional electricity blackouts for security checks resulting in reduced hashrate .
In last 24 hours F2Pool has 14.28% lower hashrate, Antpool -21.30%, BTC.com pool -20.93%, Poolin -35.99%, Binance pool -25.30%, Huobi pool -28.90%,
I noticed that even BTC.com explorer is not working correctly at the moment.

https://i.imgur.com/xijVmC0.jpg
https://explorer.btc.com/

I would like to ask miners to move away from Binance pool and other pools that are not supporting Taproot.
New Speedy Trial Taproot period has started and you can join any other pool with green check symbol: https://taproot.watch/miners

AntPool currently has biggest share of all hashrate with 16.86% and they are supporting Taproot.
Poolin is in second place with 15.49% and they are also supporting Taproot just like F2Pool, but ViaBTC is still not supporting it along with Huobi pool and few others.

https://i.imgur.com/lJLLyyn.jpg
https://explorer.btc.com/btc/insights-pools

After ban for Chinese miners we had some changes in hashrate and mining pool distribution and it is clear that Binance is slowly slipping down and they are currently on position number seven.
AntPool is top pool followed closely by ViaBTC Foundry USA is probably biggest positive change with 10.69% of hashrate and they are not based in China for change.
MARA Pool known for claiming to be compliant with regulators is also growing and now they are 2.77% of hashrate.
Generally speaking Bitcoin hashrate is slowly recovering after Chinese exodus and I expect to see more in next few months, and current total hashrate is 120580.33 PH/s.   

https://i.imgur.com/NUhKRaw.jpg
https://explorer.btc.com/btc/insights-pools

When looking at the pool rewards and the fact that it comes from a somewhat 'trusted' exchange it is no surprise that Binance catches a lot of new comers that want to get on mining.

While some others pools are well known among veterans it seems to me that lack of info is a factor that differentiates Binance from others  :-[ and likely contributing to the pool growth. Their rewards are also convincing.

One note on decentralization, we can't get full decentralization (that's the nature of things) but it becomes acceptable so long as not one entity owns most of  the pool. We need to compromise between full-centralization and part-decentralization, and to me the latter is far more attractive.

Pool rewards are the same across all pools that pay in the method, PPS+ for the case of Binance, I think the most important factor after the one you listed above was the fact that they offered 0% fees mining for 3 whole months, nobody can do that shit to be honest. PPS fees have to be high (the explanation is a bit too long but that's how it is), so when Binance offered 0% fees when pools like Viabtc was 4%, a ton of miners moved there, and after the 3-month free period, Binance didn't come back with a 3% or 4%, they came back with 2% which is the lowest PPS+ fee you can find in the market, at that time I think only f2pool was offering a similar fee, so Binance managed to keep most of the miners who came for the 0% fees.

On a side but related note, being a bit too picky, I did not like Binance pool at all, I might not have given it a fair test and it must have improved since I tested it in its early days, but it was far from stable, however, seeing miners still use it, they have probably improved a lot compared to when they started, I still don't use their pool service since I use their exchange, it's a bit too risky to be all in one place, which is funny because most miners who use Binance will tell you they do so because they can withdraw to the exchange for free.

Interesting changes in Bitcoin mining pools since last time I wrote here one month ago.
First thing we can see is new unknown pool showed up and it already has over 8% of total hashrate, taking position number seven.
Poolin and AntPool are sharing almost equal hashrate, after them are ViaBTC, F2Pool, Binance Pool and American pool Foundry USA.
Mara compliant pool dropped hashrate from last time and they now have only 1.26% of total hashrate.
Four biggest pools have more than 50% of Bitcoin hashrate.

https://i.imgur.com/i0R7YOC.png
https://explorer.btc.com/btc/insights-pools

October is not showing any major changes in top bitcoin mining pools, but we know that Iran turned their machines back up now.
Antpool is biggest pool followed by F2Pool, Poolin and ViaBTC, but good news is that Foundry USA is now fifth biggest pool, and Binance declined to seven place.
Mara compliant pool now have only 1.44% of total hashrate and they are on 11 place by size.

https://i.ibb.co/RgQsq5L/img9bb5165149af069984ae50470e23f1bd.jpg
https://explorer.btc.com/btc/insights-pools

Month of November is here and we have unknown pool back on place number four with 11.88% of total hashrate.
F2Pool is now bigest mining pool with over 21% of hashrate, followed by Antpool and ViaBTC pools and this 3 pools have more than 50% of total hashrate.
Binance pool dropped more hashrate from last month and they have less than 7% of hashrate.

https://i.ibb.co/p0fsJDy/img5dd786403a53442c893dbce94873226e.jpg

Month of December and holidays is here and we have some major changes in Bitcoin mining pools.
Foundry USA is now the biggest pool with over 16% of total hashrate, and they are followed by AntPool with 15.62% and F2Pool with 13.59%.
ViaBTC is now on position number four that is drop one place compared to last month, and Binance pool is back up on fifth position with just over 11% of hashrate.
Unkwnon pool is still active and it has nice share with over 10% of bitcoin hashrate.
Good thing is that 3 pools can't have 50% of hashrate and that is nice improvement from last month.

https://i.imgur.com/iARRLe9.jpg
https://explorer.btc.com/btc/insights-pools

First month of new year 2022 and I am taking a look on state of Bitcoin mining pools in January.
F2Pool jumped back in first place with 16.67% of total hashrate, but Foundry USA and AntPool are just behind them with both having 15.74% of total hashrate.
Poolin made a big comeback and they are now in fourth place, slightly above ViaBTC in fifth place.
Binance pool drop one place from December and they are now in 6th place with 10.65% of hashrate, followed by many smaller pools.
MARA Pool currently have 1.62% of hashrate that is drop from last month, and one unknown pool is here again with 1.16% hashrate.
Full list of pools can be found on link below image.

https://i.ibb.co/f1tjMVq/img91b11da62f4e0f7194ae711a790cb8b5.jpg
https://explorer.btc.com/btc/insights-pools

February report for bitcoin mining pools is showing change in first place with Foundry USA having over 16% of bitcoin hashrate now, followed by AntPool and F2Pool.
Pooling kept the same position like in January and Binance is back in fifth place and ViaBTC in 6th place with 8.13% of hashrate.
Unknown pool have 1705.47 PH/s or 0.90% of total hashrate, and Mara pool has 2% that is increase from last month.

http://s01.geekpic.net/di-AZSYSC.jpeg
https://explorer.btc.com/btc/insights-pools

Month of March is here already and it's time to see changes in bitcoin mining pools.
Foundry USD is biggest mining pool and it slowly increased since last few months with almost 18% of total hasrate.
F2Pool is now in second place but there is just a small difference with 3rd placed AntPool.
Binance pool is back on fourth place , followed by Poolin, ViaBTC and BTC.com.
MARA Pool is not very popular and it is droping hashrate with only 0.45% of total hashrate.

https://i.ibb.co/Cv76zDt/imgd2f49b16653ca9aa71a1e2f1d6118081.jpg
https://explorer.btc.com/btc/insights-pools

Month of April is here and we can see that Foundry USA pool is growing in first place, followed by F2Pool like last month, but this time Binance pool jumped back in third place with almost 13% of hashrate.
Rest of the pools are similar like last time I was checking with Poolin, AntPool, Via BTC and SlushPool having largest share oh hashrate, and it is clear that many miners from China gone underground.

https://i.ibb.co/BB0T5nQ/img4dd59d3c9b74cbefb64db98165945c4d.gif
https://explorer.btc.com/btc/insights-pools

Month of May is here and it's time for checking out changes in bitcoin mining pools.
Foundry USA pool is holding first place with around 20% of hashrate, and it is followed by F2Pool like last month that has 14.67% hashrate.
AntPool had a big jump in hasharate and they are currently third biggest pool with just above 13% of hashrate.
Binance pool dropped one place, and it followed by Via BTC, Poolin, BTC.com and other smaller pools.

https://i.ibb.co/3MLCWMH/img83f2a6b7953e6afef26f663e09380a08.jpg
https://explorer.btc.com/btc/insights-pools

Month of June is here and I am inspecting state of bitcoin mining pools again, and from this month I will check one more website for pie charts so we could get more accurate results.
There is no big difference in this two websites and order of mining pools is very similar but we have two more pools in mempool space website.
Biggest mining pool is still Foundry USA with over 21% of total hashrate, and it is followed by ANtpool, F2Pool that switched places from last month, and Binance Pool that is currently holding fourth place.
ViaBTC and Pooling are last two bigger pools that are breathing behind Binance neck with around 10% of hashrate.
Smallest detected pool is ULTIMUSPOOL that has similar hashrate like Kucoin pool with around 0.2% of hashrate.

https://i.ibb.co/yF9ymnJ/imgffa20fc33529d8e93b4fb564db5ea31c.jpg
https://explorer.btc.com/btc/insights-pools

https://i.imgur.com/YBowvDY.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

Month of July is here and it's time for one more lookup on bitcoin mining pools to see if there are any changes from last months.
FoundryUSA is still the biggest mining pool with just over 20% of total hashrate, but there is a switch in second place with Antpool climbing up with 15.27% of hashrate.
F2Pool is placed on third place but they have identical percentage with Binance pool, and Poolin is below them with almost 11% of hashrate, and ViaBTC is near them.
Terra Pool is smallest register pool with just 0.44% of hashrate and Mara pool is not register anywhere.

https://i.imgur.com/5jfKUHa.jpg
https://explorer.btc.com/btc/insights-pools

https://i.imgur.com/Tn9Vx0c.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

We are already in August and we can see nice increase from last month in Foundry USA pool that now has over 25% of total Bitcoin hashrate.
There is a change in second place with F2Pool having around 14% same like last month, but other pools now has smaller percentage share.
Antpool dropped to fourth place with 12% and Poolin is now third mining pool with almost 14% of hashrate.
Binance pool is o fifth place with more than 11% of hashrate with ViaBTC just behinf them havinbg 9% of hashare.
Other pools have significantly less shares, ULTIMUSPOOL is smallest registered pool and Mara pool is currently not detected.

I didn't notice much change between mempool and btc.com pie chart numbers, so from now on I am using only mempool space for graphics.

https://i.imgur.com/HeV08Sj.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

Month of September is here and I cam checking bitcoin mining pools again.
Foundry USA is still holding biggest share  of total hashrate with 21.49% but this month AntPool has very similar share with 20.39%.
F2Pool is just above 14% followed by Poolin and Binance pool with almost 10% of total hashrate and ViaBTC with 9.43%.
Rest of the pools are much smaller but I see Mara pool is back again with 1.32%

https://i.imgur.com/DKkSRlC.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

Centralization of BTC mining is now at it's worse level in years.

Requiring only a collusion of the top 3 mining pool operators to 51% attack btc.
Your last post show the top 3 mining pools with over 56% control.

A mere 3 people are now in charge of all of BTC security.   ::)

i think you do not understand how mining works
nor how mining pools work.
nor how good pool management software works
more how good asic miner monitoring software works

even within 1 pool. its not just 1 guy.
there are multiple stratums. managed by a few guys
where they have thousands of users who can pool jump anytime they like if they see that the current pool is not playing by the rules.

even if 3 pools did manage to get all their stratum managers to collude.and all their users onboard and not jump.
all they can do is two things:
"empty block"
or
try to go back a few blocks. re-do a block with a different transaction list. and then catch up to re-org the blockchain to then change the confirmed transaction lists of the blocks they can manage to change.
the further back they go the longer it takes and more riskier it is to try to change and catch back up to achieve that goal. so its not worth it unless they are trying to double spend large transaction amounts they want to appear as unspend to then spend again later.

they are more profitable to gain by just following the good ethics of block mining rather then trying to re-org transactions.

and if pools did want to waste hours trying to reorg a few blocks
most miner owners can tell as they can see their asic isnt working on the current blockheight, so they would pool jump to a pool that is (no asic miner owner profit to work on old blocks for hours)

And you would be wrong,

What they can do is DOUBLESPEND!
no matter how much energy is wasted, keep trusting 3 people, all they can do is destroy any credibility btc ever had,
in less than an hour.
 :)

Funny, how btc community freaking out about 1 mining pool
When GHash.io pool gained notoriety for briefly controlling more than 51% of bitcoin's computing power in 2014.
But just say 3 instead of one and the btc genius can't understand the word collusion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GHash.io

BTC cult member never let any security concern keep them from shoving their heads in the sand.

And they are so stupid and malicious they will team up to destroy bitcoin - which now brings them nice money - instead of stay clean and keep earning... right?
It's funny to read that you tell others they're wrong, when you are the one decoupled from reality.

Then why did the community freak out in 2014, when only 1 pool had the power,
the same nonsense about how they keep earning , fall on deaf ears then.

But say 3 people would never collude to double spend.  
If your nonsense were truth why have separate pools , let's just have 1 big pool with 100%
so all miners get a chuck of every new BTC and every transaction fee,
but no that won't happen, because you are full of B.S.  ;)

Laughable ,  :D :D :D
1 Pool operator might double spend, so no pool can have over 51% in 2014
3 Pool operators could collude with over 56% and double spend in 2022,
but since btc cult members don't understand the word collude, no worries.  :D :D :D

---

People Group together to rob people and business all of the time.
The truth is nothing is stopping those 3 mining pool operators from getting greedy an double-spending,
hell they may already be doing it and no one has caught them yet.
The reason the community freaked out in 2014, their were smarter people involved in crypto in those days,
now the IQ is much lower, mostly people so poor they are just willing to agree or say anything if they think it will improve their financial situation.
in 2014 , everyone knew :
Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts absolutely.
Now people want to pretend that can't happen, and it is never a question of if, but when.

---

My vacation is now over, so I shall leave you to spread your nonsense.
Good Luck in the Dark Winter, and the coming Hunger Games in 2023.

Because while 1 pool operator can randomly become evil, the chance for more than one do that decreases by a huge degree?
Because maybe FUD was working better back then than now?
I don't know. But ask yourself: did that pool get evil and has done 51% attacks (and why not)?

I am following state of mining pools since 2020 and I wouldn't agree with you on this.
Situation changed a lot after China introduced ban on bitcoin mining, but before most pools location was China.
Now we have biggest mining pool from United States and rest of them are distributed in different countries around the world, so it's impossible for three pools to come together.

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.
Three pools is not equal three people, except maybe in your imagination.

Month of October is already here and we are entering in final stages of this year 2022, with no significant changes in mining pools.
Foundry USA is holding first place strong with 22.74% of total hashrate that is slightly more than last month, and it is again followed by AntPool with 18.51% in second place.
F2Pool is in same third position like last month but now we have Binance pool back in top four position with 14.69% of hashrate.
ViaBTC is in fifth place and after that we have other smaller pools, and MARA pool is back again with 2.62% hashrate.

https://i.imgur.com/bs8JxJz.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

Month of November started and it's time to check the state of bitcoin mining pools, with hashrate being in all time high.
Foundry USA is slowly growing and now it takes 25% of total hashrate, that is few percents more than it had last monht.
AntPool is in second place and this pool is also significantly larger in this month with almoust 22% of hashrate, so first two pools combined currently have near 50% of bitcoin hashrate.
F2Pool is in third place like last month but with less than 14% of hashrate, followed by Binance pool with 11% and VIaBTC with around 8% of hashrate.
Rest of the pools are smaller but Mara pool jumped a lot and now they have around 2.7% of hashrate.

https://i.imgur.com/R5zbQTo.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

This is last month of this year and it's time to check the state of bitcoin mining pools.
Foundry USA is biggest pool with 26% of hashrate and similar like last month in second place is AntPool with almost 21% of hashrate.
F2Pool is in third place followed by Binance pool 12.8% and ViaBTC 8.29%, so this state is very similar like last month of November.
There is one Unknown pool with 2.84% of hashrate and many other smaller pools.

https://i.imgur.com/lUGzME8.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

for easy viewing purposes of the changes of the four quarters of 2022.. putting the end of quarter charts side by side:

https://i.ibb.co/Cv76zDt/imgd2f49b16653ca9aa71a1e2f1d6118081.jpg march 2022
https://i.imgur.com/YBowvDY.jpg june 2022
https://i.imgur.com/DKkSRlC.jpg september 2022
https://i.imgur.com/lUGzME8.jpg december 2022

now you can see how much things have changed over the last year easier
top 3 pools went from

start               end
   |           to    |
   \                 /

top  17.5%        26.07%
2nd 13.51%      20.85% \_ antpool and f2pool flip ranks
3rd  13.48         14.22% /

i suggest for 2023, the OP stick to the same colour scheme/source via taking data and putting into his own chart tool to keep consistency should sources change their charts
so that people can easily reference his 'reports' and see, view, compare charts easily

I will think about introducing some changes but I can't promise to use my own tools and same colors all the time.
This takes a lot of precios time and I have only limited supply of that, just like bitcoin :)
I expect to see big changes in next report coming in few days, freezing temperatures in United States caused total bitcoin hashrate to drop by 40%, so much about global warming  ;D
https://decrypt.co/117916/bitcoin-hash-rate-suffers-near-40-drop-amid-u-s-deadly-winter-storm

New year started and it's time to check the state of Bitcoin mining pools.
We saw big hashrate in last month in North America that was caused by extreme cold weather and some mining farms had to stop operating.
Foundry USA is holding first place with over 28% of hashrate, and Antpool is in second place like last time. with 19% hashrate.
F2Pool is third biggest pool at the moment with 15% hashrate, and Binance pool is below them in forth place with 9.39% hashrate.
ViaBTC is not falling far behind Binance pool and them we have other pools with significantly smaller hashrate.

https://i.imgur.com/vuCLJ6K.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

Month of February is here and it's time to see what is happening with Bitcoin mining pools.
FoundryUSA continues to be biggest pool and it's increased a lot since last month, now it has over 32.5% of hashrate and with second place Antpool they both have over 52% of hashrate!
This is first time in a long time that we see two pools have this much hash power, so it's time to move miners to other pools to help decentrlaization.
Third place is now shared by Binance and F2pool that have same 13.59% of hashrate, that are followed by ViaBTC pool that have 7.8% hashrate.
All other pools are much smaller in size and I don't see anything interesting to say about them.

https://i.imgur.com/MmhvJMt.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

Data Shows 50% Of Bitcoin Hashrate Controlled By Two Mining Pools
The graph shows that over 80% of Bitcoin’s mining power is concentrated among just 5 pools. This contrasts with the beginning of 2022, when these five mining pools barely exceeded 60% of the hashrate.
https://bitcoinist.com/data-shows-50-of-bitcoin-hashrate-controlled-by-two-mining-pools/
Centralization in bitcoin mining is increasing rapidly.

This is old data from last month, and situation is different now, if you cared to look yourself this two pools now have around 46% of hashrate that is less than 50%.
Two mining pool means more centralized but this is not two people mining, it's many people joined together in this pools and thy can switch pools anytime.

Month of Mach is here and time for quick look at the state of mining pools.
Foundry USA is still biggest pool with more than 27% of hashrate but that is much less than they had month before.
Antpool is in second place with almost 19% of hashrate that is similar like last month, but we have switch on third place with comeback of F2Poll that has 16% hashrate.
Binance slipped to fourth place with 10.59% hashrate, followed by ViaBTC and BTC.com pools.
All other pools are smaller in size and I don't see anything unusual.

https://i.imgur.com/DYOceSO.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

New month is here and this is time to check the state of bitcoin mining pools.
There is no change in first place with FoundryUSA having almost 31% of total hashrate, that is few percent more than last month.
AntPool is in second place and they increased hashrate to more than 25%, this means that FoundryUSA and AntPool currently have around 56% of hashrate, this is not good at all!
F2Pool is in third place with almost 13% hasharte that is few percent less than last month, and it is followed by Binance pool in fourth place with 9.5%.
ViaBTC is only smaller mining pool that have more than 5% of hashrate, and all other pools have less.
This is maybe worst case of centralization of mining pools since I follow this subject from 2020, and I hope it wont get worse.

https://i.imgur.com/Oa83x0z.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

It depends on how you actually look at it, this is not the first time where two entities alone have more than 50% of the total hasharate, a few years ago Bitmain as an entity (antpool, btc.com and Viabtc) had 30-35% and along with Binance or f2pool they had more than half the total hashrate, so pretty similar to what is happening now, in fact it was even worse since those pools operated in the same country.

This however does not concern me more than the actual hashrate physical location, it went from China to now the U.S hosting half the hashrate, things like blacklisting certain addresses due to U.S sanctions only started happening when hashrate moved to the U.S, I hate both U.S and Chinese governments (more like I hate every government out there) but the U.S is worse in this regards, I think now if we have no choice but to mine to U.S or China pool, China pool would be better.

Clearly not the highest however ...

BTCGuild had a massive % of all mining for a long time.
Here's the months they mined over 1000 blocks and estimated % of all bitcoin blocks (assuming 144 a day) for that month:


2013
Feb 1050 26%
Mar 1749 39%
Apr 1879 43%
May 1772 40%
Jun 1222 28%
Jul 1236 27%
Aug 1552 35%
Sep 1805 42%
Oct 1754 39%
Nov 1454 34%
Dec 1488 33%

2014
Jan 1300 29%

It should also be pointed out that Foundry is not a pool per-se. They mine strictly for themselves and smaller farms that buy gear from them and have it hosted by Foundry. My guess is that the hosted farms are splitting the blocks w/Foundry so in one sense it *is* a pool. Just a huge private one...

As for tx censoring - only Marathon tried doing that last year. They soon stopped that when they saw no one else was censoring tx's and realized it was costing them potential income.

Well, the real issue that makes his analysis pointless is the fact that no large 'pool' would be willing to lose most of their income by trying to fuck over BTC.

Every full node has the BTC rules and would reject any blocks mined by any large pools that break those rules.

While that leads to a 'fork', even if that fork has 60% of BTC mining, the remaining % of BTC mining and the exchanges, will all stay on the valid fork.
This has even happened before, in July 2015, however the reason was stupid code, but the result was a large % of BTC mining off on their own, ignored, fork until they realised their stupidity.

The other option is to attempt to mine all blocks, ignoring all other miners, which is 'possible' with 51% or more of the BTC hash rate, and thus decide all transactions that get confirmed.
Again I cannot see this happening without BTC price crashing and thus their income crashing.

Indeed, there is no incentives for any pool or large miners to screw with BTC, the rewards will be a lot less than the risk taken but any one of those entities since those have so much at stake, however, there is valid concern in terms of the "law", so mining pools that operate whiting the same country could be "forced"to do some stupid things just to obey the laws and regulation.

It's not the first time for two mining pools have over 50% but it never happened for two of them to have over 56% like it is now.
Few percent is a big number that makes a difference for someone who wants to perform some kind of attack on Bitcoin, even if they are in different locations.
I would like much more to have three or more pools sharing around 50% of hashrate.

I said it was highest number since I am following mining pools in this topic, that started from end of July 2020.
We always criticized altcoins for having centralized mining pools, so I dont see why we cant do the same thing for Bitcoin.

I know it's not a single guy or company who is controlling all this hash power but it is still sort of centralization of mining power.

This is assumption, someone could perform attack even if there is no financial incentive, if they have unlimited funds and printing machine like governments.

But that has nothing to do with hashrate distribution between pools unless you think that the government is using public mining pools and even worse, spreading their hashrate between more than one pool, your concern is valid but not related to the subject, you are talking about 2 pools having 56% of the total hashrate, those two pools need to work together, run the same code and plan for the same attack, so this brings us back to the original "assumption", what does Bitmain get from screwing with BTC when everything Bitmain related depends on BTC?

If an entity is trying to perform an attack with no financial incentive then they would more likely use their own "unknown" pool, the fact that the largest pools are public pools suggests that only said pools can perform the attack, and thus, they would need a financial incentive.

"could" is just another version of "no one would do this, but lets pretend it's possible, so I can write something people will think is interesting"

No Govt has unlimited funds to attack bitcoin, maybe it was possible many years ago, but no longer possible.
Bitcoin is too large, and too well spread out around the world.

The side effect of any breaking of BTC rules would be to create a fork that current bitcoin miners would simply ignore.

The other option would be to build (currently) over 170EH of miners (1700000 x 100TH) in secret then get some massive power source (over 5.6GW) facility and have it mine bitcoin for weeks ... yeah not gonna happen either.

I don't know exactly what governments are doing but I know they are concerned about Bitcoin and they dont fit Bitcoin mining in their green agenda.
They cant stop mining, they can only try to ban it like China did, but look what happened with that, many miners migrated to other countries.
Making global bitcoin ban is possible to happen but I think chances are low, so they can only attack from inside.

There are other type of incentives, not just financial.
Someone can have incentive to eliminate things that mess with their plans.

I wouldn't say this is impossible to happen, and Bitcoin have some weak points.
They literally have money printing machine, and they can bring entire financial system down that is much larger than bitcoin.

Govt's have been trying for almost 14 years, nothing new there.
As you also pointed out, the biggest example of that had very little effect on Bitcoin, the miners just moved elsewhere.

A global ban that could stop bitcoin is impossible.

Aside: there is already a country that accepts it as legal tender.

Well I gave details about what messing can be done and you seem to have ignored them.
The details clearly say it wont happen.

You claim 'weak points' that can be exploited.
What are they?

What I've listed, that clearly isn't possible, you've ignored.

They made global ban for many things so they can do it for Bitcoin if they want, but I hope they wont.
If it happens everything will still exist with mining but it would be more underground.
I dont think Bitcoin can function globally if mining would only happen in El Salvador  :D

You think Bitcoin is perfect and have no weak points?
If someone would turn off internet globally that would seriously affect Bitcoin, and everything else yes, but that is weak point :)

No - I never said that - I gave two examples - did you read what I said at all?
I simply pointed out two that in reality would not be exploited.

Which falls under what I said at the start ...

Yes I did read what you wrote, but you didnt make any example of weak points that can be exploited in reality.
You wrote about fork and secret purchase of big amount of miners, but you say this is not going to happen.
After that I came to conclusion that Bitcoin have no exploitable weak points for you.

I really dont understand some of your interpretations, but you can have your opinion and I am glad we talked about this.

Going back to standard mode of tracking bitcoin mining pools, new report coming in May but I already saw two big pools going below 50% again, maybe some big miners are reading this topic  :D

Month of May is here and its time for one more report on the state of bitcoin mining pools.
We can see that transaction fees have gone significantly higher recently and we had top most transactions ever recorded on Bitcoin blockchain.
I am not happy to see that two pools again have more than 52% together and that is Foundry USA in first place with 27.67% and Antpool with slightly over 25% of total hashrate.
F2Fpool is in third place with much less hashrate with around 11%, followed by Binance pool in fourth place that have around 11% of total hashrate.
ViaBTC is fifth biggest mining pool with 5.66% hashrate and all other mining pools are much less in size.
Five biggest pools have almost 85% of total Bitcoin hashrate and smaller recorded pool is PEGA Pool with 0.63% hashrate.

https://i.ibb.co/8dTfkvx/ML7HA5l.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

Cointelegraph just released new article about this topic named Bitcoin hash rates threaten blockchain decentralization:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-hash-rates-threaten-blockchain-decentralization

It is time for another overview of Bitcoin mining pools as we entered moth on July.
I am not very happy to see that two biggest pools are still having over 51% of hashrate but it is on edge right now with 51.1%.
FoundryUSA is biggest pool with 29.2% hashrate and they are followed with second place AntPool that has 21.9% of total hashare.
Thee is a big difference with third place ViaBTC that have slightly more than 10% of hasharate, similar like Binance pool on fourth place.
F2pool have almost 9% hashrate on fifth place, and rest of the pools are significantly smaller, with some new small pools showing up this time.

https://i.ibb.co/Jc6mwBg/imgeb55a255fe03943ccbde1415e8b78684.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

Might as well add the 10% of Viabtc to Antpool and that would give you over 60% controlled by two entities (Foundry and Bitmian), while Haipo Yang tries his best to deny the fact his pool isn't indirectly owned by Bitmain, his attempts just keep failing, judging by the who is the largest investor in Viabtc, and the team that founded Viabtc, you can clearly see that it's just another branch for Bitmain.

Although, as I mentioned before, this isn't new, and there is nothing to worry about, 2-3 entities owning over 50% of the hashrate has been the norm for many years, and will always be the case.

I didn't know about this connection between this pools, but this is interesting observation that adds more on centralization of mining.
Bitmain is one of the biggest manufacturing of asic miners and it is expected from them to do all kinds of deals with different mining pools.

If you follow this topic from start you will see that situation changed a lot, and having more than 51% of hashrate was always problematic.

Before the China ban it was Bitmain with their pools (Antpool, BTC.com and Viabtc) arguably even Poolin which was founded by an ex-Bitmain employee before the 2020 lawsuit, and then, on the other side, you had F2pool, those pools combined always had well over 50% of the total hashrate, and don't be fooled by all the names, essentially, 2-4 Chinese men sitting in closed room had the final say on what to do with all that hashrate.


Fast forward, China banned mining, and U.S players started to get into the business, creating their own mining pools, and now it's no more 2-3 Chinese men, it's 1-2 Chinese and 1-2 Americas, still the same number of entities who control well over 50% of the total hashrate, and since BTC doesn't care about those folk's nationality or names, nothing has changed in terms of hashrate distribution.

 
I have been professionally mining BTC long before this topic took place, and I have been following hashrate distribution years before Foundry USA pool came into existence and the fact that 2-3 entities owning over 50% of the hashrate have been the case since at least 2016, it's a lot more than just looking at a pie chart and thinking you solved the puzzle, you need to understand how are all these pools are connected, then use that knowledge to compare hashrate distribution for the past decade, and you will come to the same conclusion.

Furthermore, pool distribution is pretty irrelevant compared to gear ownership and the physical location of that hash power, at least 80% of the hashrate comes from a single manufacturer, that's more to worry about than some random pool distribution which can change drastically over the course of a few hours, the physical location of the gears and the law which they operate under is also a serious matter.

I'd rather see 3 large pools each owning 33% but hashrate divided between 50 different countries where no country has over 10% of it, rather than seeing 100 pools, each with 1% hashrate but 70% of that hashrate located in the same countries with the same laws and regulation, even worse, that majority of that 70% is owned by a single entity.

Than you should contact everyone who is following state of mining pools and tell them they are wasting time, because you know better and they are all irrelevant  ;D
I could say the similar thing for every other thing in the world that follow statistics, we don't really need it and we don't need to care about 51% attack.
This is not accurate science, but I could argue that one or two companies like BlackRock own everything in the world, and there is not real competition anywhere.

It is not so hard to use VPN or Tor to hide real location, so you cant be sure what country is really mining.

Alas, you have to learn to read things in thier context, i said


Also, "everyone who is following pools' share hashrate" do it with a software that reads the blockchain and put it into a chart/table, that is fine, what is not, is people copying the already available charts and thinking they have spotted something that nobody else know about, and creating some stupid fud on how 51% attack is going to happen because a few pools have 51% of the total hashrate, those same people have no clue that this is no news and it has been the case for a decade.




This is not how mining works, and I am not going to explain why because then you will just get upset and take it personal again.

You need to think outside the box.

So I am now creating stupid fud, and that makes you what? Smart guy who knows everything?  ::)
We are so happy to have genius in this forum that takes everything he writes from his own head, unlike other people who only copy things  :D
Thank you for your service and for mining bitcoin.

I didnt take anything personal, and I didnt get upset.
If anyone needs explanation about bitcoin mining I will refer them to you.

Yes, that is exactly what you are trying to do, not sure if you do it intentionally or due to lack of understanding of how btc mining work, i saw a few folks trying to "correct" you, Kano went as far as saying your whole analysis is pointless, I tried to be nice and tell you the same thing in a different way, but you keep on insisting on thinking that you know better than all of us here who have been mining btc long before you heard about this whole mess.

Clearly you have no deep understanding regarding the mining subject, common sense would be learning from people who do, but you seem so salty and do not want to listen to the points we lay before you.

I am not going to engage in this topic again, I said what I have to say, btc mining is not centralized and there is nothing to worry about, let the readers decide who makes more sense.

I dont know anything, and I think Bitcoin price dipped a little because of my 'fud' but you stopped it going down further  ;D
Good thing we have such a smart people like you in forum who know everything.
I think you are one of the smartest people who know everything about bitcoin mining.

Thank you.
Go with peace, try to learn other people and spread more wisdom around the world.

Month of August is here and it is time for another overview of bitcoin mining pools.
Domination of two pools continue to grow with FoundryUSA taking the first place with over 31% of hashrate, followed by AntPool that has over 24% hashrate, that is over 55% hashrate for this two pools.
F2Pool is now on third place with over 14% of hashrate that is nice jump from last month, and after them comes Binance pool with significantly less hashrate around 8% hashrate.
Next pool on the list is ViaBTC with 4% hashrate and all other pools are much smaller in size.
For more details you can check mempool website.

https://i.ibb.co/tBDM1MP/img53fb2a16655c03a319a78e8fd0c27343.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

September is here and we are again checking current state of bitcoin mining pools.
Situation is not much different from last month, FoundryUSA is still biggest pool with 3'.67% hashrate followed by AntPool in second place with 22% hashrate.
F2Pool is third biggest pool with 14% hashrate, and Binance is taking fourth place with 7.33% hashate.
ViaBTC hgained few more percent and they have 6.667% hashrate right after Binance pool.
EMCDPool is new pool that showed up and they already have over 3% hashrate, maybe they will have more hashrate in future.
There are no other big changes and hashrate is still on the rise with total of 456.7 EH/s.

https://i.ibb.co/ZNj3F4j/imgc220593741f2dceb82c85b74d0297029.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

Two big pools are still cruising bitcoin mining water and they currently more than 54% total hashrate.
FoundryUSA is holding number one place with over31% hashrate, and AntPool remained on second place with 23% of hashrate.
ViaBTC jumped to third place with almost 13% hashrate that is big improvement from last month, and after them we can see F2Poll with almost 10% hashrate.
We can see a big drop in rest of the pools with Mara pool leading the bunch with 3.85% hashrate.
Biggest surprise for me is big drop in Binance pool that only has 3.21% hashrate, and we can see last month they had more than 7% hashrate.
Maybe Binance exchange regulation situation is affecting their pool, but this can be only temporary so I am waiting to see situation in next month.

https://i.ibb.co/TgjMg7k/imgb4bdc4892ef91271a9677f180759f8ca.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

Evaluating BTC’s Q3 mining report as it sheds light on these patterns
Bitcoin’s hashrate stood at 17% in January; it later grew to 27% in October.
On another note, several public Bitcoin miners are aggressively expanding to adapt to the Bitcoin halving that takes place next year.
The recent bull run in the market has put the spotlight back on Bitcoin BTC. We decided to look at its relationship vis-à-vis the performance of the crypto mining sector.
https://ambcrypto.com/evaluating-btcs-q3-mining-report-as-it-sheds-light-on-these-patterns/

November is here and it is time to make another overview of bitcoin mining pools.
Surprising jump in AntPool made it biggest pool right now with almost 28% of hashrate, and after long time we can see FoundryUSA falling to second place with 27.27% hashrate.
Both of this pools combined have more than 55% of hashrate right now and that is small increase from last month.
F2Pool is now in third position with increase from last month when they were on fourth position and now they have over 13% of hashrate.
ViaBTC has fallen to 4th place with 11.27% that is small drop from last month, and they are followed by Binance pool with almost 8% hashrate, that is significant jump from last month.
Rest of the mining pools are much smaller in size and there is a trend of more reduction in their size.

https://images2.imgbox.com/2f/e9/W8x5zZ0u_o.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

4 large pools have 80% hashrate, 5 large pools have 87.7% hashrate
According to the news, Russia ranks 2nd in mining, but where do Russian miners mine?
They probably choose Chinese mining pools :)
If a law on mining appears in Russia, then perhaps we will see changes in this schedule.

I cant believe that it is already December, the last month of the calendar year, but we are here to make another report.
Situation didnt change much from last month, and Foundry USA are sharing the first place with Antpool, both of them have around 27% hashrate.
ViaBTC is back in third place with almost 13% hashrate, and they are followed by F2Pool with 9.29% hashrate, they just switched places from last month.
Luxor pool made a good jump and they took over 4th place from Binance that have the same share of 6.43% hashrate.
All other pools are much smaller in size, but it is good they exist.
All miner together have 477.05 EH/s total hashrate.

https://images2.imgbox.com/28/f1/0k4wjTg2_o.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

Welcome to year 2024!

This is going to be the last 2023 report for state of bitcoin mining pools.
FoundryUSA remains biggest pool with over 32% hashrate, that is big increase from last month, and they are followed by AntPool with 24.66% hashrate.
This two pools combined currently have almost 57% of total bitcoin hashrate!
VIaBTC is in third place with only 11.64% hashrate and in 4th place F2FPool have almost 9% hashrate.
Binance have 7.53% hahsrate this month that is small increase from last month, and after them MARA pool showed significant increase with 5.48% hahsrate.
Rest of the pools are much smalle in size and trend of centralizations continues.
I didnt talk about this so far but I heard that some of the biggest mining pools are asking miners to perform KYC verification and that is not good.

https://images2.imgbox.com/11/e7/AqNcQdTs_o.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

Listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX: PHX), Phoenix Group announced its latest agreement with Bitmain. The company stated that its $187 million investment was in Antminer-brand bitcoin mining rigs from the ASIC manufacturer. However, Phoenix did not reveal the total hashrate capacity obtained or the precise model types of the rigs purchased. The deal follows Phoenix’s recent procurement with another significant acquisition, this time from Bitmain’s rival, Microbt.
https://news.bitcoin.com/uae-based-phoenix-group-bolsters-mining-capabilities-with-187m-bitmain-deal-amidst-global-asic-race/

Month of February is here and it is time for another monthly overview of bitcoin mining pools.
I heard some people saying how it is no important that two pools have more than 50% of hashrate, but I dont know if they know that all miners in those pools have to be KYC verified!

AntPool had a big jump in hashrate since last month and now they have the same percentage as Foundry USA, each of them have 28.34 hashrate, that is over 56% in this two pools.
F2Pool is holding third place with significantly less hashrate of 12.83%, followed by ViaBTC pool will 12.3% of hashrate in 4th place.
All other pools have decreased a lot and most surprising in Binance that now has only 3.74% of hashrate.
Secpool and lucor are below with around 3% and everyone else is below that.
Important change is that top four pools have over 80% of hashrate now!

https://images2.imgbox.com/dc/6d/Jo7qa5Ml_o.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

Let say all the individual miners have been KYC verified in both pools. Why is it a worry that both pools hold over 50% of the network hash rate?
Like, are the owners of the mining pool going to telephone each individual miner to co-ordinate the 51% attack? Help me understand this danger.

In my opinion, Decentralization of bitcoin mining = individual miners, not mining pools. We could have 100 different miners from 100 different countries in one mining pool, having a total hashrate of 40%.

Crypto miners around the world used as much electricity as all of Australia in 2023, the EIA found.
In the US alone, crypto mining takes up 0.6% to 2.3% of the country's electricity demand — as much as states like Utah or West Virginia.
The EIA now wants some crypto miners in the US to report details about their energy use.
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/bitcoin-crypto-mining-electricity-energy-us-government-cryptocurrency-australia-eia-2024-2

https://i.ibb.co/K796RTv/image.jpg (https://ibb.co/S0KNWFC)
🇨🇳 China still has a 15% global share of the Bitcoin mining hash-rate, despite an official ban on Bitcoin
USA: 40% 2. China: 15% 3. Russia: 12% 4. Canada: 5% 5. Kazakhstan: 3.5% 6. UAE: 3% 7. Malaysia: 3% 8. Norway: 1.5% 9. Ethiopia: 0.3% data by Hashlabs.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1axcq99/china_still_has_a_15_global_share_of_the_bitcoin/

JUST IN: 🇨🇳 China still has a 15% global share of the Bitcoin mining hash-rate, despite an official ban on #Bitcoin

1. USA: 40%
2. China: 15%
3. Russia: 12%
4. Canada: 5%
5. Kazakhstan: 3.5%
6. UAE: 3%
7. Malaysia: 3%
8. Norway: 1.5%
9. Ethiopia: 0.3%
https://twitter.com/btc_archive/status/1760410452968763537?s=46&t=lL3uiyI8HZs93hTqHZ260Q

With more delay than usual I am posting state of bitcoin pools in month of March.
FoundryUSA is back in the first place with biggest hashrate of 31.91%, and Antpool is below them in second place with 27.66%.
ViaBTC pool jumped up in third place with 12.77% and they switched placed with F2Pool that is now in fourth place with only 7% hashrate.
Three pools Binance, Mara and Unknown have the same 3.55% hasharate, than we are going down with much smaller pools.
Bitcoin reached new ATH and miners are having biggest profits in history.

https://images2.imgbox.com/45/77/JLMfmt3U_o.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

Month of April arrived and this is time for another look at the state of bitcoin mining pools.
There was some news that miners are moving from United States to other countries in last few weeks, but FoundryUSA is holding fine and sharing the first place with AntPool.
Both of them have 29.14% of total hashrate, that is over 58% hashrate for only two pools.
F2Pool is in third place with significantly lower number of nearly 12% hashrate, followed by ViaBTC with 10.6% hashrate.
Now we are heading to much smaller pools with Braiins and Binance pools having 3.31% and other pools have less.
I am expecting to see big changes in next month report, but lets wait and see.

https://i.ibb.co/wcN1t78/img515ad005832da4a85a247f9ddd09eba1.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

Around April 20, the halving will cut the amount of Bitcoin that "miners" can earn each day for validating transactions to 450 from 900 now. Based on Bitcoin's current price, it could spell revenue losses of around $10 billion a year for the industry as a whole. Marathon Digital Holdings, CleanSpark, and other miners, which compete for a fixed Bitcoin reward by solving mathematical puzzles using superfast computers, have invested in new equipment and sought to buy smaller rivals in an attempt to cushion the drop-off in revenue.

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com//markets/cryptocurrency/bitcoin-halving-could-deal-a-10-billion-blow-to-crypto-miners/articleshow/109297461.cms?

Month of May is here and it is time for another look at the state of bitcoin mining pools after Bitcoin halving was finished.
Antpool remains in the first place with 24.44% of hashrate but there was few percent decrease from last month.
Foundry USA pool is second largest pool with almost 23% of hashrate and they also record drop in hashrate from last month.
F2Pool is now in third place with over 15% of hashrate, with increase from April, followed by ViaBTC pool that has around 11% hashrate.
After them we have more smaller pools with BTC.com being the biggest.
It is good that two pools dont have over 51% hashrate anymore, but it could be better pool distribution.

https://i.ibb.co/c1PHZXy/img42ddbe01c56511dd084aa30595c06021.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools

A single custodian now controls the coinbase addresses of at least 9 pools, representing 47% of total hashrate.

As demonstrated by this consolidation of mining reward outputs from AntPool, F2Pool, Binance Pool, Braiins, btccom, SECPOOL and Poolin:
https://mempool.space/tx/b1dc9e09a97d0ac8ed57179c276dff19d484c1f74b96cd9af547107af4f18086
https://twitter.com/mononautical/status/1777686545715089605

Month of June and summer is here, that is a good time for another overview of bitcoin mining pools.
Antpool remains biggest mining pool for a second month in a row with almost 28% of the hashrate, and it is followed by FoundryUSA pool with 25.87%.
ViaBTC has taken over third place with 9.79% of hashrate and F2Pool slipped one place below them with 8.39%, that is big drop for them from last month.
Mara Pool have shown biggest increase so far and they have 7.79% hashrate, with all other pools having less than 5% hashrate.
Binance pool is holding on 2.8% and I think wont exist for much longer now when CZ is in prison, but lets wait and see what happens.

https://i.ibb.co/z76GQSS/img257578134be6e2d3e58a572b9682d04a.jpg
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools