Given the popularity of Bitcoin in the press and other altcoins such as Litecoin and Dogecoin I thought it would be a good opportunity to explain how mining in a pool works in contrast to mining solo.
The best analogy I an offer is that mining is rather similar to lotteries.
If you choose to mine solo you could compare that to buying a lottery ticket for yourself. The odds are fairly low that you will have a ticket with all the winning numbers but if you do have them all you’ll win the jackpot. In altcoin mining, if you calculate the correct cryptographic result for a transaction block you can snare the entire reward for yourself.
Pro: big pay out. Con: pay outs may be very few and far between.
In contrast, mining in a pool is like being in a lottery syndicate. You pool your resources with others in order to gain increase the chance of holding a winning ticket (or calculating the correct cryptographic result in mining). in a lottery syndicate, you can usually buy shares in it to increase your stake of the potential winnings. When mining in a pool, you increase your stake by how much computing power you contribute to the pool between each successful block discovery.
Pro: more frequent pay outs. Con: pay outs will be smaller depending upon the size of the pool.
However, when mining in a pool you should take into account how quickly they can pay out your earnings, their fees (usually 1% or 2% of your earnings) as well as the accessibility and responsiveness of their administrators. Personally, I mine with Rapidhash and Rog does a pretty good job of looking after things. The IRC channel is also a bit of fun as well if you’re into chatting.
So there you have it – you’ll probably make more in the short to medium mining in a pool. Mining with a slightly smaller pool may see a balance between pay outs amount and frequency compared to the massive mining operations but your mileage may vary.
To the moon! 🙂
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