How to decide which pool to join

[Superpup]

I have a shortlist of around 10 pools to mine from depending on when blocks are discovered, but I'm not sure how to decide which one to join. Is it better to join a pool:

that has more miners connected
that has higher total hashrate

To me it makes sense to join a pool that has the lowest total hashrate, because then my hash rate would make up more of the total and so I'd solve more blocks... but is this the best way to decide, and if not, how to make the decision?

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[DrYM]

In the long-run, it doesn't matter. If you're in a small pool then the pool will find blocks more rarely, but when it does find one you'll get a bigger share, and on big pools there's lots of blocks but you get less per block. The mathematics behind this shows that this eventually evens out and you end up getting exactly the same. Just choose a pool that gives you the best interface, alerts on failed miners, and low fees.
Good luck.

[nur1labs]

if some coin is still fresh mining used solo method. if too high we must pool. as that estimate ROI target per year~

[fapar]

I have a shortlist of around 10 pools to mine from depending on when blocks are discovered, but I'm not sure how to decide which one to join. Is it better to join a pool:

that has more miners connected
that has higher total hashrate

To me it makes sense to join a pool that has the lowest total hashrate, because then my hash rate would make up more of the total and so I'd solve more blocks... but is this the best way to decide, and if not, how to make the decision?

Do the test on the day on pools with high, medium, low hashrates.
If the pool is low hashrate will find new blocks, it is certainly better to stay on it. But if you're going to pull an entire pool and the block will be once in three days or a week it is better to go to a pool with high hashrate and have a stable though small payments due to the frequent detection of blocks.

[two_btc]

In a long distance pool hashrate doesn't matter much.
1) Pool must be fair (for example we pay block reward + tx fee)
2) Pool could have cool statistics (like this) and help section.
3) Nice ping + real servers
4) Telegram monitoring bot
etc. etc.

[szafa]

Pool have the register option is the optimal.

[Superpup]

Thanks for your replies.

I'm checking and switching between pools with recently discovered blocks

Also, do you get more reward for solving blocks in harder pools, I'm guessing so because otherwise there would be no point, but I'm new to mining so not sure how it works

[shibob]

I always go with big pool which should have ~50% global hashrate with nice statistic and pool fee about ~1%.

[leonix007]

I have a shortlist of around 10 pools to mine from depending on when blocks are discovered, but I'm not sure how to decide which one to join. Is it better to join a pool:

that has more miners connected
that has higher total hashrate

To me it makes sense to join a pool that has the lowest total hashrate, because then my hash rate would make up more of the total and so I'd solve more blocks... but is this the best way to decide, and if not, how to make the decision?

Depends on the coins you want to mine every pool has to offer, there is a thing that called 'luck' and pool fees that you should be aware of, find a decent and respectable pools and test them by yourself.

Basically if there are a lot of miners connected means they enjoy the pool  

[evoqon]

Actually you will get almost the same total coins mined at the end, but less miner's pool will find block once a few hours... So, I prefer to join pool with most miners.

[crocozino]

ok, let's see tow cases here
one pool has like 80% of the whole network and because of this finding blocks every 30 minutes
another poll has 20% of the network and because of this finding blocks every  5-7 hours
yeas, each time pool #2 finds block - he pays higher reward then pook #1
but let's consider this situations - what if pool #2 can't find a block staight 13-15 hours ? how much you will get per day? and what if, once he finds the block eventually, this block becomes orphaned? 
you can say bullshit! i say real live - zcoin, suprnova and mph pools.

[patofet]

Uptime, ping and fee is for me the most important things in long term

[bitmagic1984]

Try to use well known pools. Avoid new pools sometimes those have more down time and you will loose.

[Superpup]

Thanks for the replies again, I've been switching between the official pools, hashparty and easyhash, keeping an eye to see who finds the blocks.

What does my machine do while there are no blocks, it still seems to be hashing something according to the miner outputs.

Also, can someone explain the difficulty when joining pools please, is it a good thing to join using the higher difficulty port, do you get more reward if you do?

Is there a guide somewhere to answer all these questions, would be useful for engineer type people like myself, who like to know how things work behind the scenes

[ahmedjamal1998]

It totally doesn't matter.

If you choose to go with a pool that has a high hashrate you'll get rewarded more frequently with smaller amounts as blocks are found in less time. But if choose a pool with a smaller hashrate, you wait more until a block is found and then the reward is big (but actually the same.)

Most of these pool use a system called PPLNS which totally depends on the number of shares that you submitted until the block was found. It is totally the same.

Thanks for the replies again, I've been switching between the official pools, hashparty and easyhash, keeping an eye to see who finds the blocks.

Currently I'm mining electroneum and I totally prefer pools with a lot of hashrate. Not for anything specific but just to be able to jump and leave if I decide to stop mining the coin.

Also, can someone explain the difficulty when joining pools please, is it a good thing to join using the higher difficulty port, do you get more reward if you do?

No. Doesn't matter. Put it on the middle one.

[Superpup]

It totally doesn't matter.

If you choose to go with a pool that has a high hashrate you'll get rewarded more frequently with smaller amounts as blocks are found in less time. But if choose a pool with a smaller hashrate, you wait more until a block is found and then the reward is big (but actually the same.)

Most of these pool use a system called PPLNS which totally depends on the number of shares that you submitted until the block was found. It is totally the same.

Thanks for the replies again, I've been switching between the official pools, hashparty and easyhash, keeping an eye to see who finds the blocks.

Currently I'm mining electroneum and I totally prefer pools with a lot of hashrate. Not for anything specific but just to be able to jump and leave if I decide to stop mining the coin.

Also, can someone explain the difficulty when joining pools please, is it a good thing to join using the higher difficulty port, do you get more reward if you do?

No. Doesn't matter. Put it on the middle one.

great, thanks

[charlie137]

check with fees first, then the functionality. the rest doesn't matter in a long run

[jijikill]

I always go with the lower fee one , that's the most important , as block reward is something unpredictable , pool fee is fix

[two_btc]

I always go with the lower fee one , that's the most important , as block reward is something unpredictable , pool fee is fix

That's a wrong idea in my opinion. I'll explain you why.
We have 1% fee on 2Miners pools.
Let's say there is another pool with 0.5% fee.
8 card mining rig gives 250 MH/s. It is 480$/month on ETH at the moment.
0.5% difference is 2.4$ or 3.5 hours of work. If the pool with lower fee would be down 4 hours a month you will get less reward after all!

We have a lot of cool stuff which makes your work more productive:
- Offline rig notifications are usually paid services. We got them for free.
- Many pools don't pay tx fees from blocks. It could be >3% of the block reward. We pay everything.
Etc. Etc.

[cpmcgrat]

I always go with the lower fee one , that's the most important , as block reward is something unpredictable , pool fee is fix

That's a wrong idea in my opinion. I'll explain you why.
We have 1% fee on 2Miners pools.
Let's say there is another pool with 0.5% fee.
8 card mining rig gives 250 MH/s. It is 480$/month on ETH at the moment.
0.5% difference is 2.4$ or 3.5 hours of work. If the pool with lower fee would be down 4 hours a month you will get less reward after all!

We have a lot of cool stuff which makes your work more productive:
- Offline rig notifications are usually paid services. We got them for free.
- Many pools don't pay tx fees from blocks. It could be >3% of the block reward. We pay everything.
Etc. Etc.

Unfortunately, nobody publishes their downtime metrics so this is a difficult metric to base off of. Do you publish your server metrics?