Research: Bitcoin mining pools face fierce competition

This article is from U.Today, original author: Alex Dovbnya

Odaily Planet Daily Translator | Yu Shunsui

Blockchain recently analyzed how the block distribution of the largest Bitcoin mining pools has changed over time. The chart shows that there is still some fierce competition, with no clear leader.

Changes in the landscape

BTC.com, owned by mining giant Bitmain, dominated the previous year. However, its market share has decreased over the past few years. According to data provided by BlockChain, BTC.com is currently responsible for mining only 15.5% of Bitcoin blocks.

Its crown has been taken by upstart competitor Poolin, which introduced cryptocurrency mining in 2017 as a project started by former Bitmain employees. However, the pool’s rapid rise began in late 2018 and continued steadily throughout 2019. With a market share of 16.6% so far, it would not be far-fetched to think that it will soon become a dominant force in the market.

• Odaily Planet Daily Note: Qichacha shows that the Biyin mining pool is operated by Zhongben Congming (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd., whose shareholders include Pan Zhibiao, Li Kun, Li Tianzhao and Zhu Yu, among which Pan Zhibiao holds a 55% stake.

F2Pool and AntPool ranked third and fourth with 14.8% and 9.9% respectively. It is worth noting that AntPool is the only mining pool whose market share has remained basically consistent over the past two years.

Good for Bitcoin

Unknown pools, which currently account for 24.7% of all mined blocks, are very important because they make the Bitcoin network more decentralized.

In the first half of 2018, Bitmain’s mining pools (BTC.com, AntPool, and ViaBTC) became so powerful that they controlled nearly 51% of Bitcoin’s hashrate, making a deliberate 51% attack possible.