Bitong Ranking | 2018 Top 15 Mining Pools

With the development of the blockchain industry, there are now tens of thousands of digital currency mining pools around the world. This has caused miners to feel confused when choosing a mining pool, especially novice miners who are more easily disturbed by external opinions and make blind judgments based on only a few one-sided dimensions.

This list investigates and analyzes major mainstream BTC mining pools around the world, summarizes the indicators that affect the quality of mining pools and miners' income , reveals the development status of each mainstream mining pool, and assists miners in making correct and rational decisions.

Overall Ranking - Mining Pool Comprehensive Points Ranking

List

List Introduction

The BiTong research team collected various data from mainstream BTC mining pools for one month (August). For the mining pools that met the entry conditions, they scored various indicators based on their publicly available information and data and used certain statistical methods to obtain the comprehensive scores of the mining pools. Finally, the scores were arranged in descending order to obtain the list in this article.

1. Conditions for inclusion in the rating database

(1) The mining pool’s computing power share ranks within the top 20 in the world ;

(2) Only select non-private mining pools that are open to the public;

(3) Mining pool-related information can be obtained through public channels, and some mining pools that cannot obtain detailed and clear transaction data and information are excluded.

2 Scoring method

(1) Establish a rating database for mining pool data information;

(2) Each primary and secondary indicator is scored in the range of 60 to 90 points, with a passing score of 60 points. The calculation formula is as follows:

(3) From the perspective of benefiting miners, there are positive indicators and negative indicators , such as block rewards as positive indicators and fees as negative indicators.

3. Weight determination method

(1) First, establish a tree-like hierarchical structure between primary and secondary indicators;

(2) Pairwise comparison and expert scoring to construct a judgment matrix ;

(3) Conduct consistency check on the judgment matrix;

(4) Normalize the judgment matrix that meets the consistency and finally calculate the weight;

Comprehensive points = mining pool income points*30%+miner income points*25%+operation points*10%+experience points*20%+function points*15%.

4Indicator system

Comprehensive points

The comprehensive score is an indicator of the overall situation of a digital mining pool. It is obtained by weighted average and summation of the five scores of mining pool revenue score, miner revenue score, operation score, experience score and function score. The comprehensive score represents the comprehensive influence of the mining pool and does not constitute investment advice.

Mining pool profit points

The mining pool revenue points represent the mining pool's ability to mine BTC and the efficiency of mining immediately after the mining machine is connected to the mining pool. It is obtained by weighted average summation of seven indicators: computing power share, number of blocks, number of empty blocks, network delay, rejection rate, computing power recognition speed, and computing power curve update cycle. The higher the mining pool revenue points, the stronger the mining pool's ability to mine BTC.

Miner Revenue Points

The miner's profit points represent the amount of profit a miner gets after connecting to a mining pool. It is obtained by weighted average sum of seven indicators: block rewards, mining fees, mining fees, allocation mode, number of supported currencies, minimum payment standard, and arrival time. The higher the miner's profit points, the higher the profit a miner can get.

Mining pool operation points

The operation score represents the past operation of the mining pool, which is obtained by weighted average sum of six indicators: establishment time, number of effective miners, core team members, industry background, official website popularity, and security. The higher the operation score, the more stable the mining pool operation.

The three indicators of core team members, industry background, and security are quantified through subjective scoring. The quantification standards are as follows:

1. Core team members: Scoring is done by examining the qualifications of core team members disclosed by the mining pool. Mining pools that disclose complete information about core team members and where most of the members have relevant industry experience will be given a high score; mining pools that do not disclose information will be given a low score.

2. Industry background: Mining pools with a strong industry background (such as support from well-known mining machine manufacturers or exchanges) will be scored higher, while other mining pools will be scored based on their background and cooperative institutions.

3. Security: The number of risk events that have occurred in the mining pool in history and the handling of risk events are examined, and different mining pools are scored. The fewer risk events and the better the handling, the higher the score of the mining pool.

User Experience Points

The experience score represents the subjective feelings of miners about the services provided by the mining pool. It is obtained by taking the weighted average of five indicators: web page stability, interface interaction, supported languages, degree of globalization of the mining pool, instructions for use, and customer service quality (including response speed and answer quality).

The higher the experience points, the better the mining pool experience. Among them, the five dimensions of web page stability, interface interaction, instructions, mining pool globalization, and customer service quality are subjective scoring items. The scoring standards are as follows:

1. Web page stability: Web page stability is divided into web page jump speed and whether the web page is displayed normally. For some mining pool official website web pages that jump slowly or cannot be opened normally, scores will be given according to the severity. If important links cannot be opened or APP cannot be downloaded normally, the score will be low; if other non-critical links cannot be opened or open slowly, the score will be given according to the actual situation. If there is no such situation, the score will be high.

2. Interface interaction and instructions for use: The scoring method for these two indicators is similar. The BiTong research team scores them based on the subjective experience of the web page interface and the completeness of the instructions for use.

3. Degree of globalization: Whether the mining pool has global nodes has a great impact on the user experience of the mining pool. The more global nodes there are, the higher the degree of globalization of the mining pool.

4. Customer service quality: Customer service quality includes customer service response speed and answer quality. Among them, the customer service response speed is determined by the time spent by the BitTorrent research team to contact the customer service through telephone, work orders, QQ groups, etc. The faster the response speed, the higher the score, and the lowest score is given if the contact cannot be successfully made; the answer quality is scored by the team based on the usefulness of the customer service reply after asking the customer service.

Functional integration

Function points represent other value-added services provided by the mining pool in addition to basic functions (such as mining machine management, computing power detection, profit distribution, etc.), including online transactions, apps, digital currency wallets, cloud computing power, API interfaces, etc. The higher the function points, the more value-added services the mining pool provides.

The evaluation of functional points is divided into two parts: the types of value-added functions and the level of development of value-added functions. The more types of functions and the higher the level of value-added service development, the higher the functional points score.

List Analysis

1. 2/3 of the mining pools in the TOP15 list are from China

From the perspective of the mining pool’s location, except for SlushPool (Czech Republic), KanoPool (Australia), Bitcoin.com (unknown), Bitclub (Iceland), and ConnetBTC (Israel), the remaining 10 mining pools on the list are all from China.

2. China’s mining pools account for more than 80% of the total network computing power

In terms of computing power share, the combined computing power share of China’s major mining pools has reached 85.06%, far exceeding that of other countries.