The only pool in the set whose non-custody claim survives the chain — 45 distinct miner addresses paid straight out of the generation transaction of block 963180 — and the only one whose own terms say that everything you have earned below 0.01048576 BTC "remains OCEAN’s"; at a single S21-class miner that threshold is about a 113-day wait at the 29 September 2026 difficulty, and the Lightning route around it, paused from 7 August 2026 to 31 August 2026, is offered again. Strongest on “Which payout scheme — and therefore who eats a bad-luck or orphaned-block run, the pool or you?” (9/10): OCEAN's TIDES docs publish the share-log window (eight times block difficulty) and the proportional split, and concede the limit: miners earn only when the pool finds blocks, and a low-luck stretch pays each share fewer than eight times. Orphaned blocks go unaddressed. Weakest on “Does the coinbase transaction pay you, or does the pool hold your coin until it decides to release it?” (4/10): OCEAN's coinbase pays dozens of miner addresses directly, yet its terms say balances below the 0.01048576 BTC threshold remain OCEAN's, can be forfeited on termination, and are extinguished without compensation if a supported chain is dropped. Lightning payouts run again. Published price: FEE — https://
Bitcoin Mining Pools
Bitcoin mining pools evaluated on which payout scheme carries your variance and orphan risk (30%), whether the coinbase transaction pays you directly or the pool holds your balance until it releases it (26%), whether the advertised fee is the whole fee once transaction fees and MEV are counted (24%), and who authors the block template you hash on (20%).
Ranked here: Bitcoin mining pools, operators that aggregate miners' hashrate, assemble or relay block templates and pay miners out of block rewards. Not ranked here: cloud-mining contracts, hosting and managed mining, listed self-miners, hashrate marketplaces, staking pools, mining firmware, mining data and derivatives, and non-Bitcoin pools.
Show the arithmetic
How this page is reviewed
Reviewed means every product ranked on this page was read against its sources on or after that date; every ranked category is re-read at least every 45 days. Models research, extract and parse. A deterministic engine ranks. Every quote passes an adversarial refute pass.
Accountable for this review: Mathias Siemonsmeier, Founder.
How we review · Review calendar · Corrections log · How we make money
Ranked on 4 published criteria weighted 30/26/24/20, which set goal alignment — 30 of the 86 points. The rest: regional access 20 (constant here), evidence depth 18 (constant here), ease of use 10 (constant here), institutional trust 8 (constant here). Profile match is shown in breakdowns but carries no weight.
- Liveness failure: the operator stops, censors you or loses data.Scored by Who builds the block you are hashing on — and what do they leave out of it? · 20% (OCEAN 8/10, ViaBTC 3/10, SpiderPool 3/10)
- Custody failure: whoever holds the assets loses or withholds them.Scored by Does the coinbase transaction pay you, or does the pool hold your coin until it decides to release it? · 26% (OCEAN 4/10, ViaBTC 4/10, SpiderPool 3/10)
- Insolvency failure: the firm or issuer that owes you cannot pay.Scored by Which payout scheme — and therefore who eats a bad-luck or orphaned-block run, the pool or you? · 30% (OCEAN 9/10, ViaBTC 9/10, SpiderPool 9/10)
What matters most before choosing in this category
Decide first whether you want a predictable cheque or control of the block. Most pools have converged on FPPS or a variant, which means the POOL carries variance and orphan risk and you get a steady payout — that part of this market works, and the scores show it. What almost none of them does well is the next question: whether the coinbase transaction pays you directly, or the pool holds your balance until it decides to release it. Not one of the eight scores above 4 out of 10 there. And if you care who chooses the transactions in the block your machines are securing, that narrows the field to almost nothing.
The #1 overall and the scoring weights
How this category is reviewed
Reviewed on which payout scheme carries your variance and orphan risk (30%), whether payouts come direct from the coinbase transaction or sit in pool custody until it releases them (26%), whether the advertised fee is the whole fee once transaction fees and MEV are counted (24%), and who authors the block template you hash on (20%). Hashprice, hardware and the bitcoin price are market data, shown as facts and never scored.