The 10 Biggest and Best Bitcoin mining Pools 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.

Best Bitcoin Mining Pool Comparison

POOL	LOCATION	FEES	PRIVATE POOL
BitFury	Georgia	0%	Yes
BTCC	China	2-3%	No
Slush Pool	Czech Republic	2%	No
Antpool	China	1%	No
BW	China	1%	No

The comparison chart above is just a quick reference. The location of a pool does not matter all that much. Most of the pools have servers in every country so even if the mining pool is based in China, you could connect to a server in the US, for example.

Which Countries Mine the most Bitcoins?

Bitcoin mining tends to gravitate towards countries with cheap electricity.

As Bitcoin mining is somewhat centralized, 10-15 mining companies have claimed the vast majority of network hash power.

With many of these companies in the same country, only a number of countries mine and export a significant amount of bitcoins.

China

China mines the most bitcoins and therefore ends up “exporting” the most bitcoins.

Electricity in China is very cheap and has allowed Chinese Bitcoin miners to gain a very large percentage of Bitcoin’s hash power.

It’s rumored that some Chinese power companies point their excess energy towards Bitcoin mining facilities so that no energy goes to waste.

China is home to many of the top Bitcoin mining companies:

F2Pool, AntPool, BTCC, and BW.

It’s estimated that these mining pools own somewhere around 60% of Bitcoins hash power, meaning they mine about 60% of all new bitcoins.

Georgia

Georgia is home to BitFury, one of the largest producers of Bitcoin mining hardware and chips. BitFury currently mines about 15% of all bitcoins.

Sweden

Sweden is home to KnCMiner, a Bitcoin mining company based in Stockholm. KnCMiner currently mines about 7.5% of all bitcoins.

US

The US is home to 21 Inc., a Bitcoin mining company based in California.

21 runs a large amount of miners, but also sells low powered bitcoin miners as part of their 21 Bitcoin computer.

Most of the hash power from the 21 Bitcoin computers is pointed towards 21’s mining pool. 21 Inc. mines about 3% of all bitcoins.

Other Countries

The countries above mine about 80% of all bitcoins.

The rest of the hash power is spread across the rest of the world, often pointed at smaller mining pools like Slush (Czech Republic) and Eligius (US).

If you cloud mine then you don’t need to select a pool; the cloud mining company does this automatically.

Why are Miners Important?

Bitcoin miners are crucial to Bitcoin and its security. Without miners, Bitcoin would be vulnerable and easy to attack.

Get this:

Most Bitcoin users don’t mine.

However, miners are responsible for the creation of all new bitcoins and a fascinating part of the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Mining, once done on the average home computer, is now mostly done in large, specialized warehouses with massive amounts of mining hardware.

These warehouses usually direct their hashing power towards mining pools.

Résultats du 2e tour de l’élection présidentielle - French Presidential Election 2017 Final Results 7/5/17

Résultats du 2e tour de l’élection présidentielle
Chiffres basés des sondages réalisés à la sortie des urnes par 2 instituts de sondage suisses.

Dernière mise à jour: 16h50

Marine Le Pen

50.7

Emmanuel Macron

49.3

Sondages du 1er tour à 18h:

Marine Le Pen

21.7

Emmanuel Macron

23

Jean-Luc Mélenchon

18

François Fillon

20

Nicolas Dupoint-Aignan

4.7

Benoît Hamon

6.4

Philippe Poutou

1.2

François Asselineau

0.5

Nathalie Arthaud

0.4

Jean Lassalle

1.1

Jacques Cheminade

0.18

MacronGate: Documents Link Macron to Possible Tax Evasion

      Breaking news in the French election! On May 3rd, just days before the election on May 7th, investigative journalist William Craddick posted an article stating that "Documents Indicate That Emmanuel Macron May Be Engaging In Tax Evasion."

CLICK HERE to see the video

According to these documents, French Presidential Candidate Emmanuel Macron opened a company in the Bahamas with a bank that has been previously involved in tax evasion cases.

Macron claimed he was not concealing assets or holding secret offshore accounts less than a month ago. The company was called La Providence LLC. La Providence is the name of Macron’s former high school, where he first met his wife, who at the time was his high school teacher.    

Macron denies the documents, and claims they are part of a conspiracy of "obviously Russian network" on France Inter Radio. Hillary Clinton made similar and her theories were debunked by the US Intelligence Community.

French prosecutors described the leak as “a suspected attempt to tar presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron” and have opened a probe into the origin of the leaks after Mr. Macron filed a complaint.

I found myself on the receiving end of a slew of tweets and messages all written in French! Apparently, the French media are now claiming I, Jack Posobiec, of Rebel Media, am a Russian agent, because I shared a link on my twitter account.

France Culture reporter Nicolas Vanderbiest said "we cannot be mistaken its the Russians" and shared a picture of my twitter account, with no proof, other than the fact that my name is Slavic.

Stephanie Lamy a writer for Danaides.org tweeted out that I was "conspiratorial" and that I was "brainwashing" anyone who reads the information. Interestingly, enough, despite going on a tweetstorm about it, she doesn't offer a single pice of evidence to refute the authenticity of the documents. In fact, come to think of it, neither did Emmanuel Macron.

I spoke to people on the board /pol/ at 4chan who confirmed to me that the first place they saw the documents was on the deep web. The deep web is an untracked part of the internet where many people visit to post things anonymously. Its also where the Hillary Clinton and DNC emails were first found.

On investigative journalism site GotNews.com - Jessica Gomez, a professional auditor with the Big Three accounting firms published and extensive examination of the documents.

The signature on the documents matches signatures that Macron made on books and posters and even other official documents. Minor information, such as the names, contact numbers, fax numbers of specific bank and company agents, also matches information found from other sources.

Gomez concludes, there is no reason to assume these documents are fake. She states: I would recommend that government investigators obtain a warrant to carry out further investigation into Emmanuel Macrons personal papers and correspondences, both written and digital.

Thanks to the great investigative work by Craddick and Gomez, information is now provided to the French electorate so that they can decide for themselves the authenticity of these documents.

In this day and age of gotcha journalism and fake news headlines, its all too important to conduct rigorous  investigations into all new information, especially with a presidential election, and the fate of a continent on the line.

Dernières nouvelles aux élections de France! Le 3 mai, quelques jours avant les élections du 7 mai, le journaliste d'enquête William Craddick a publié un article indiquant que «les documents indiquent qu'Emanuel Macron pourrait être engagé dans l'évasion fiscale». cLIQUEZ ICI pour voir la vidéo Selon ces documents, Candidat présidentiel français Emmanuel Macron a ouvert une société aux Bahamas avec une banque qui a précédemment été impliquée dans des cas d'évasion fiscale.Macron a affirmé qu'il ne dissimulait pas d'actifs ou détenait des comptes secrets à l'étranger moins d'un mois. La société s'appelait La Providence LLC. La Providence est le nom de l'ancien lycée de Macron, où il a rencontré sa femme, qui à l'époque était son professeur de lycée.

   Macron refuse les documents et affirme qu'ils font partie d'un complot de «réseau évidemment russe» sur France Inter Radio. Hillary Clinton a fait semblable et ses théories ont été déconsidérées par la communauté de l'intelligence américaine.

Les procureurs français ont décrit la fuite comme «une tentative présumée de lancer le candidat présidentiel Emmanuel Macron» et ont ouvert une enquête sur l'origine des fuites après que M. Macron ait déposé une plainte.

   Stephanie Lamy, un écrivain de Danaides.org, a rappelé que j'étais «conspirateur» et que j'avais «lavage de cerveau» quiconque lit l'information. Il est intéressant de constater que, bien qu'il ne soit pas questionné par une tweetstoria, elle n'offre pas une seule preuve pour réfuter l'authenticité des documents. En fait, pensez-y, Emmanuel Macron.

  Je me suis retrouvé à la réception d'une foule de tweets et de messages tous écrits en français! Apparemment, les médias français réclament maintenant, Jack Posobiec, de Rebel Media, je suis un agent russe, parce que j'ai partagé un lien sur mon compte Twitter. 
le journaliste de France Culture, Nicolas Vanderbiest, a déclaré: "on ne peut pas se tromper les Russes" et a partagé une image de mon compte Twitter, sans aucune preuve, sauf que je m'appelle Slavic.
J'ai parlé à des gens sur le tableau / pol / à 4chan qui m'ont confirmé que le premier endroit où ils voyaient les documents était sur le web. Le site Web en profondeur est une partie sans rythme de l'Internet où beaucoup de gens visitent pour publier des choses anonymement. C'est aussi là où les courriels Hillary Clinton et DNC ​​ont été trouvés pour la première fois Sur le site de journalisme d'investigation GotNews.com - Jessica Gomez, un auditeur professionnel avec les Big Three cabinets comptables publiés et un examen approfondi des documents. La signature sur les documents correspond aux signatures que Macron a faites sur des livres et des affiches et même d'autres documents officiels. Les informations mineures, telles que les noms, les numéros de contact, les numéros de télécopieur d'agents bancaires et d'entreprises spécifiques, correspondent également aux informations trouvées dans d'autres sources. Gomez conclut, il n'y a aucune raison de supposer que ces documents sont faux. Elle déclare: Je recommanderais aux enquêteurs gouvernementaux d'obtenir un mandat pour mener une enquête plus approfondie sur les documents personnels et les correspondances écrits et numériques d'Emmanuel Macrons. Grâce au grand travail d'enquête de Craddick et Gomez, des informations sont maintenant fournies à l'électorat français afin de pouvoir décider par eux-mêmes de l'authenticité de ces documents. En ce jour et l'âge du journalisme et des fausses nouvelles, il est trop important de mener des enquêtes rigoureuses sur toutes les nouvelles informations, en particulier avec une élection présidentielle, et le destin d'un continent sur la ligne.