Choosing Cryptocurrency Mining Pool

Key points

• Mining Pool Equipment
• Ensuring transparency of Mining Pools
• The Payout Scheme Should be reviewed
• Mining Pool Stability Should be a Must
• Pool Fees
• Mining Pool Size and Power
• Mining Pool

Choosing a mining pool can be very tricky. Few things should be remembered by a person when choosing a mining pool. 

Mining Pool Equipment

Cryptocurrency can be mined through various devices, depending upon their capability. For mining, most applications require a central processing unit (CPU) or a graphics processing unit (GPU). This method of mining is now not as profitable as it used to be, because of the amount of energy and time required to mine the coins. 

The best equipment to be used here is the ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit), a rig specifically designed for mining. 

There are many ASICs available in the market, it is important to understand about hash rate when choosing an ASIC. Hash Rate is the rate at which mining is being done. If the hash rate is higher, mining will be done faster and will consume more energy. 

Ensuring transparency of Mining Pools

The mining pool operator must be fair with all miners to ensure transparency and trust among pool members. A mining pool that has a real-time dashboard must be selected. It is also important that an investigation about the hash rate declared on the pool is done, to check if it is true. Any signs that suggest that pool operators use lower payout schemes should be considered. 

The Payout Scheme Should be reviewed

If the hardware devices owned by an individual are low-end, he should avoid pools having a higher threshold, for making payments. The computational output will be less and this will lead to lower earnings.        

Many pools use the Pay per share (PPS) method or pay-per-last-n-shares (PPLNS). In the PPS method, a fixed amount per submitted work is given and the payment is only released after the share is submitted. 

In PPLNS, the pool is paid when a block is mined. The reward is divided among the pool members based on their share. 

Mining Pool Stability Should be a Must

Stability is a critical factor when looking for a mining pool. It is essential to have information about any pool downtime experiences, which could affect your mining ability and profits. 

Pool Fees

Mostly all the mining pools require fees. There are very few pools that operate without any fee. One of the oldest pools, P2Pool, is one such pool, that has no fees, but the hashing power is also low, as it is a peer-to-peer mining pool without a mining farm operating as a central miner. 

Mining Pool Size and Power

The number of coins mined by a pool is directly proportional to its computing power. More the miners, less is the time taken to mine. 

More miners mean more computational power, which means the time taken to create a block will be less.  More miners also indicate that the pool and its management can be trusted.

Mining Pool

After weighing all the above factors a person should be able to pick the mining pool that serves him the best.         

Disclaimer: The article is just to provide information and shouldn’t be considered as any financial advice. It is advisable to conduct thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency. 

Photo by – WorldSpectrum on Pixabay