Best Bitcoin Mining Pools in 2024

Learn about what Bitcoin mining pools are and how they work, as well as the best Bitcoin mining pools to join in 2024.

What is a mining pool?

A crypto mining pool is a joint group of crypto miners who combine their computational resources over a network. This combined effort strengthens the probability of finding a block or successfully mining, leading to more frequent mining reward payouts.

Why join a mining pool?

With how competitive Bitcoin mining is these days, it's extremely unlikely that you'll see much success as a solo miner - unless you have a large-scale operation. This is because the difficulty of mining continues to increase as more miners join the fray. As such, the vast majority of miners running a rig at home opt to join a mining pool to increase their chances of success.

Read next: What is hashrate?

How to choose a mining pool

When choosing a mining pool, you would be wise to look at these features:

• Fees: Most pools require fees (a cut from your rewards), but not all of them are the same. A lower fee is good news, don’t let it be the only attribute you look at. Sometimes a low fee will reflect the power of the pool. For example, one of the most powerful pools, F2Pool has fees on the higher end of 2.5%. This doesn’t mean you shouldn't consider using it, since it has other qualities that may make the higher fee worth it.

• Minimum payouts: This refers to the minimum amount you need to mine before you are paid in a 24-hour period. For example, if the minimum amount is 0.005 BTC, and today you mine 0.002 BTC, you won’t get paid. But if tomorrow you mine an extra 0.003, totaling 0.005BTC, you will receive your rewards.

• Pool size: In general, the more participants a pool has, the less time it takes to mine—pool size can equate to more or less computing time. Larger pools have a higher probability of creating blocks due to their larger computing power, while smaller ones generally take longer. A mining pool's size can also reflect its trustworthiness to some extent. For example, many active miners in a pool suggest that the pool and its management are trusted.

Read next: Best Bitcoin Mining Machines

What are the best Bitcoin mining pools in 2024?

F2Pool

F2Pool mines around 18% of all blocks, which makes it an absolutely mammoth in the mining pool world. Part of F2Pool's large share is due to it being founded in 2013: one of the earliest for Bitcoin mining. You don’t have to restrict your mining to BTC, however. You can also mine multiple different cryptocurrencies in different pools.

F2pool takes 2.5% of your mining rewards as a transaction fee with a minimum withdrawal of 0.005 BTC per day. It has an advanced support and ‘help’ section with a clean, slick-functioning website.

• Hash rate: 30.60 EH/s

• Payment method: PPS+

• Payment frequency: Daily

• Payout thresholds: 0.005 BTC minimum

• Fees: 2.5%

• Supported equipment: ASIC, GPU

Braiins

Formerly Slushpool, Braiins is the oldest mining pool still functioning and has mined a staggering 1,282,222 BTC since 2010. And, despite being an oldie, it comes with a phone app too. In terms of fees and rewards, Slush takes up to 2.5% of your mining rewards as a transaction fee with a generous minimum withdrawal of 0.0001BTC.

• BTC pool hash rate: 12.3 EH/s

• Payment method: Score

• Payment frequency: Daily

• Payout thresholds:  0.0001 BTC

• Fees: 0% when using Braiins OS+; otherwise 2% – 2.5%

• Supported equipment: ASIC, GPU

Antpool

Antpool is a medium-sized crypto mining pool operated by Bitmain Technologies. Despite its rather clunky UX, Antpool is a reliable and profitable platform to join. One advantage Antpool has is that you can choose between PPLNS (0% fee) and PPS+ (4% fee from the block reward and 2% from mining fees). Payments are made daily when the amount exceeds 0.001 BTC. This is low compared to others, meaning you’re more likely to get consistent payouts.

• BTC pool hash rate: 24.04 EH/s

• Payment method: PPS+, PPLNS

• Payment frequency: Daily

• Payout thresholds: 0.001 BTC

• Fees: 4% on PPS+, and 0% on PPLNS payment modes.

• Supported equipment: ASIC

BTC.com

Also owned by Bitmain Technologies, BTC.com opened its mining pool in 2016. They have since established themselves as one of the largest pools around.

With only 1.0% in transaction fees, BTC.com has one of the lowest. However, as is obvious from its name, Bitcoin (and Bitcoin Cash) is the only supported crypto for mining. BTC.com provides pretty clear information on which user is mining the most tokens, power consumption, hash rates, electricity price, and returns. It also has a cool function on their site which shows you the stats and from other mining pools, as linked earlier.

• BTC pool hash rate: 13.630 EH/s

• Payment method: Advanced FPPS

• Payment frequency: Daily

• Payout thresholds: 0.005 BTC

• Fees: 1.5% fee

• Supported equipment: GPU

Poolin

Created by a group of former Bitmain employees, Poolin grew to ascendency with impressive speed. It’s now one of the world’s largest mining pools. The pool charges a 2.5% BTC mining fee.

• BTC pool hash rate: 21.01 EH/s

• Payment method: Solo, PPS, PPLNS, PPS+, and FPPS

• Payment frequency: Daily

• Payout thresholds: 0.005 BTC

• Fees: 2.5%

• Supported equipment: ASIC

ViaBTC

Via Bitcoin has an intuitive dashboard that reflects data on the mining pool hash rate and miners. It also has a vast range of mining options, and crypto mining packages, including Monero and DASH. However, it has 4% fees for PPS, and 2% for PPLNS, which are higher than many other pools on this list.

• BTC pool hash rate: 20.37 EH/s

• Payment method: PPS & PPLNS

• Payment frequency: Daily

• Payout thresholds: 0.0001 BTC

• Fees: 4% fee for PPS or 2% fee for PPLNS

• Supported equipment: ASIC

Read next: Best Bitcoin Mining Software

How do Bitcoin mining pools work?

In a mining pool, each participant contributes their processing power to the collective effort of finding a block. When the pool successfully finds a block, the participants receive a reward - most often in the corresponding cryptocurrency.

These rewards are usually distributed among the contributors based on the proportion of each individual's processing power or work relative to the entire group, commonly referred to as shares. Typically, the pool's software handles the calculation of share payouts and transfers them to the users' wallets.

Cryptocurrency mining pools don't all operate in the same manner, but several common protocols govern many of the most popular ones.

Proportional mining pools are among the most prevalent. In these pools, miners contribute to the pool's processing power by sending shares of work until the pool finds a block. Rewards are then distributed to miners based on the number of shares they submitted for that block.

Peer-to-peer mining pools aim to prevent centralization within the pool structure. They incorporate a separate blockchain related to the pool itself, designed to prevent cheating by pool operators and to ensure the pool's stability by avoiding single points of failure.

Read next: Best Bitcoin Cloud Mining Platforms

Mining pool payout methods

Many types of payout schemes have been tried by various pools, but most now use one of four main methods:

1. Pay-Per-Share (PPS)

2. Full-Pay-Per-Share (FPPS)

3. Pay-Per-Share-Plus (PPS+)

4. Pay-Per-Last-N-Shares (PPLNS)

PPS is a straightforward payout method where you are paid for the shares or blocks you contribute to the pool.

PPS+ and FPPS are similar in that you receive a proportional amount of the reward based on the quality of the shares you provided, and the pool also pays a transaction fee reward.

PPLNS can be a bit more complex. When a block is found, the pool software identifies the last blocks you contributed after the previous and new winning blocks were found. Your payout is determined by the number of shares you contributed during that period. This usually requires staying connected to the pool until a block is found; disconnecting between blocks can result in losing your contributions and payout.

Don't forget the tax bill...

Your mining rewards are taxable. It depends on where you live, as some countries give hobby miners tax breaks, but generally, you'll pay Income Tax based on the fair market value in fiat currency of your mining rewards at the point you receive them. Learn more in our crypto mining tax guide.

Read Next: How To Mine Crypto at Home