10 Best and Biggest Bitcoin Mining Pools Comparison 2017

Now that you have your bitcoin mining hardware, your next step is to join the best bitcoin mining pool.

What is a mining pool? 

Mining pools are groups of cooperating miners who agree to share block rewards in proportion to their contributed mining hashing power. While mining pools are desirable to the average miner as they smooth out rewards and make them more predictable, they unfortunately concentrate power to the mining pool’s owner. Miners can, however, choose to redirect their hashing power to a different mining pool at anytime. 

Get a Bitcoin Wallet and Mining Software 

Before you join a mining pool you will also need Bitcoin mining software and a Bitcoin wallet. 

The Biggest Mining Pools 

The list below details the biggest Bitcoin mining pools. This is based on info from Blockchain’s pool share chart: 

1. AntPool 

Antpool is a Chinese based mining pool, maintained by BitMain. Antpool mines about 15% of all blocks. 

2. DiscusFish/F2Pool

DiscusFish, also known as F2Pool, is based in China. DiscusFish has mined about 12% of all blocks over the past six months. 

3. BitFury Pool 

BitFury is one of the largest producers of Bitcoin mining hardware and chips. BitFury currently mines about 12% of all bitcoins in three data centers across Georgia. It’s a private pool and can’t be joined.     

4. BTCC 

BTCC is China’s third largest Bitcoin exchange. Its mining pool currently mines about 7% of all blocks. 

5. ViaBTC 

ViaBTC is a somewhat new mining pool that has been around for about one year. 

6. BW Pool 

BW, established in 2014, is another mining company based in China. It currently mines about 8% of all blocks. 

7. BTC.Top 

BTC.top is another new pool. It does not appear to have a website, so it may be a private pool. 

8. Slush 

Slush was the first mining pool and currently mines about 6% of all blocks. Slush is probably one of the best and most popular mining pools despite not being one of the largest. 

9. Bitclub.Network 

Bitclub Network is a large mining pool but appears to be somewhat shady. We recommend staying away from this pool. 

10. GBMiners 

GBMiners is another somewhat shady pool that should probably not be joined.  

So, lets start your bitcoin mining today..