[Question] Do big mining pools have benefits ? Are they very profitable ?

[Jiuks]

I always wondered how much these pools were profitable. Do we have any infos about that ?

[1715082069]

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[DarkStar_]

How profitable those pools are? AntPool makes the transaction fee off of every block and so does BTC.com. BCMiner takes a 0.5% cut but pays fees, same with slush except 2% and BitMinter with 1%. Kano.is also pays the tx fees - 0.9%. Do they have benefits? Yes. If you own a large pool, you have a higher chance of winning orphan races (confirming your own block).

If your wondering how profitable the miners are, there isn't an answer to that since electricity fees vary.

[Jiuks]

How profitable those pools are? AntPool makes the transaction fee off of every block and so does BTC.com. BCMiner takes a 0.5% cut but pays fees, same with slush except 2% and BitMinter with 1%. Kano.is also pays the tx fees - 0.9%. Do they have benefits? Yes. If you own a large pool, you have a higher chance of winning orphan races (confirming your own block).

If your wondering how profitable the miners are, there isn't an answer to that since electricity fees vary.

Do these major pools earn A LOT of money ? What is the monthly range of benefits they have ? [0;$1000] ? [$1000;$5000] ? [$10000;$20000] ?

(I'm talking about mining pools owners, not miners)

[DarkStar_]

Do these major pools earn A LOT of money ? What is the monthly range of benefits they have ? [0;$1000] ? [$1000;$5000] ? [$10000;$20000] ?

(I'm talking about mining pools owners, not miners)

Yes. I'll use AntPool and pretend everyone mines PPLNS, which is the easiest to calculate and has less variance on the amount the pool makes. AntPool keeps the tx fee on PPNLS, and doesn't take extra fees after that. In the last month, they found 699 blocks. The average tx fees paid every day according to blockchain.info is around 60 BTC, but considering they SPV mine, I'll use 50 BTC for my calculation. 50BTC/144blocks = ~0.347BTC/block.
0.347BTC times 699 = 242.553BTC. Preev rates gives me 147,700$ USD. If your thinking of running a pool to make easy money, don't even bother imo.

[MFahad]

I always wondered how much these pools were profitable. Do we have any infos about that ?

With a small rig or medium rig, I prefer a medium pool.  Too small of a pool and you might as well be solo mining, too big and your hash is buried beneath the rubble.

[noormcs5]

I always wondered how much these pools were profitable. Do we have any infos about that ?

With a small rig or medium rig, I prefer a medium pool.  Too small of a pool and you might as well be solo mining, too big and your hash is buried beneath the rubble.

Sometimes I mine for a while and then stop, shift work is best for me because those 20 minute shifts pay since I was there and even if the block is not solved, I can leave and not lose those payouts.  

[AdolfinWolf]

I always wondered how much these pools were profitable. Do we have any infos about that ?

With a small rig or medium rig, I prefer a medium pool.  Too small of a pool and you might as well be solo mining, too big and your hash is buried beneath the rubble.

Interesting, so if i have a small rig, i'd be better off not mining then mining in bigger pools, i was already wondering if that would make a difference, which rig would you say is the minimum to mine in big pools?

[Shiroslullaby]

I would still mine to one of the pools like Kano.
You can get technical advice from them on this forum, which is worth a ton, IMO.
They also have lower fees and in general you are going to make the same, or more.
There are some threads here where people have done the math showing you actually make more money in the long run from these pools.

[philipma1957]

I would still mine to one of the pools like Kano.
You can get technical advice from them on this forum, which is worth a ton, IMO.
They also have lower fees and in general you are going to make the same, or more.
There are some threads here where people have done the math showing you actually make more money in the long run from these pools.

I did a thread that showed long term set it and forget mining at Kano.is is the most profitable way to mine.

My miners mine there 24/7/365.

[noormcs5]

You also have to learn the payout systems and which is for you.  It takes time to figure it all out.

[talks_cheep]

I would still mine to one of the pools like Kano.
You can get technical advice from them on this forum, which is worth a ton, IMO.
They also have lower fees and in general you are going to make the same, or more.
There are some threads here where people have done the math showing you actually make more money in the long run from these pools.

I did a thread that showed long term set it and forget mining at Kano.is is the most profitable way to mine.

My miners mine there 24/7/365.

philipma1957 is absolutely right. Kano.is is the best pool for anyone to mine. Too bad there are so many noobs who mine at crappy antpool.

[jonnybravo0311]

Besides learning the payout system used by a pool, also check out the fine print.  For example, why people mine at Antpool is beyond me.  They pay absolutely 0 transaction fees to their miners.  What this translates to is an average 3.1% fee.  Even though they claim 0% PPLNS, the reality is different because they don't pay the transaction fees.  Oh, Antpool is one of the worst offenders for producing empty blocks as well.  In fact, any pool that produces empty blocks is denying miners income.  There is absolutely no need for producing empty blocks, yet quite a few pools out there do so consistently.

Kano's pool is one example of a pool that gets it right.  Transaction fees are always paid out to miners.  There are no empty blocks.  My pool also always pays transaction fees to miners and does not mine empty blocks.  DrHaribo's pool, BCMonster... all good choices that will earn you more coins for your hash than the big guys will.

[Meuh6879]

Oh, Antpool is one of the worst offenders for producing empty blocks as well.  In fact, any pool that produces empty blocks is denying miners income.  There is absolutely no need for producing empty blocks, yet quite a few pools out there do so consistently.

Good for us, the 0.13 Bitcoin Core change this :

Code:

+Compact Block support (BIP 152)
+-------------------------------
+
+Support for block relay using the Compact Blocks protocol has been implemented
+in PR 8068.
+
+The primary goal is reducing the bandwidth spikes at relay time, though in many
+cases it also reduces propagation delay. It is automatically enabled between
+compatible peers.
+[BIP 152](https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0152.mediawiki)
+
+As a side-effect, ordinary non-mining nodes will download and upload blocks
+faster if those blocks were produced by miners using similar transaction
+filtering policies. This means that a miner who produces a block with many
+transactions discouraged by your node will be relayed slower than one with
+only transactions already in your memory pool. The overall effect of such
+relay differences on the network may result in blocks which include widely-
+discouraged transactions losing a stale block race, and therefore miners may
+wish to configure their node to take common relay policies into consideration.

[-ck]

Oh, Antpool is one of the worst offenders for producing empty blocks as well.  In fact, any pool that produces empty blocks is denying miners income.  There is absolutely no need for producing empty blocks, yet quite a few pools out there do so consistently.

Good for us, the 0.13 Bitcoin Core change this :

Code:

+Compact Block support (BIP 152)
+-------------------------------
+
+Support for block relay using the Compact Blocks protocol has been implemented
+in PR 8068.
+
+The primary goal is reducing the bandwidth spikes at relay time, though in many
+cases it also reduces propagation delay. It is automatically enabled between
+compatible peers.
+[BIP 152](https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0152.mediawiki)
+
+As a side-effect, ordinary non-mining nodes will download and upload blocks
+faster if those blocks were produced by miners using similar transaction
+filtering policies. This means that a miner who produces a block with many
+transactions discouraged by your node will be relayed slower than one with
+only transactions already in your memory pool. The overall effect of such
+relay differences on the network may result in blocks which include widely-
+discouraged transactions losing a stale block race, and therefore miners may
+wish to configure their node to take common relay policies into consideration.

That doesn't help not in the slightest since they're including NO transactions. This only helps orphan races when there are two equally sized blocks and one pool is including spammy transactions and the other one includes the standard included transactions.