Provider at a glance
- Category
- Bitcoin Mining Pools
- Entity
- Not verified
- Official website
- ocean.xyz
Independent rankingchecked How it works
Details
Scored 80 out of 100 under methodology 2026.10.18, from the evidence read in September 2026.
OCEAN
Non-custodial Bitcoin mining pool
Bitcoin Mining Pools
#1 Overall
Ranked #1 of 8 Bitcoin mining pools in the published ranking
80
ChainChoice Score
The ChainChoice Score, shown against 100: published scores run from 41 to 99.- High evidence confidence
Is OCEAN right for you?
Right for you if these matter most
- Which payout scheme — and therefore who eats a bad-luck or orphaned-block run, the pool or you?9/10, the category best
- Is the headline fee the whole fee — or are transaction fees, accelerator revenue and MEV quietly retained?9/10, the category best
- Who builds the block you are hashing on — and what do they leave out of it?8/10, the category best
Not yet tested for your country. Markets it lists: Global.
to test where you can use it.
The rank above is the published one, the same for every reader. Find my best Bitcoin mining pool shows where it lands for you.
What will OCEAN cost you?
Not priced on this basis
- Your monthly mining revenue
- $1k
How safe is OCEAN?
- Evidence: verified4 of 4 criteria rest on quoted, sourced receipts. Read September 2026.
- LicenceMiCA (EU): no register record on file here.
Alternatives to OCEAN
Compare all 4- 2ViaBTC9 points below · weaker on block template control (3 against 8)71
- 3SpiderPool11 points below · weaker on block template control (3 against 8)69
- 4F2Pool13 points below · weaker on block template control (4 against 8)67
For your setup
Find out if OCEAN fits you
The rank above is the published one — the same for every visitor. Answer the category's questions and this section shows where OCEAN lands for you, which criteria your answers weight up, and which stated needs the record does or does not meet. The published rank stays beside it.
- A few questions
- No account required
- Ranking-blind: no commercial input
- Personalised in under 60 seconds
Find my best Bitcoin mining poolNothing is inferred from clicks, popularity or commercial value.
Why it leads
Why OCEAN ranks #1
Each strength is read from evidence on a 0–10 ladder and weighted as the published methodology states. The 32 objective points these produce (24.0 here) sit inside the score; availability, friction, trust record and measured data add the rest. Best in this ranking on every criterion.
4 published criteria · Σ weight 100
CriterionWeightStrength · 0–10ScoreContrib.MedianBestRankEvidence
309+8.649.09#1/8Loading evidence…
264+3.333.04#1/8Loading evidence…
249+6.915.59#1/8Loading evidence…
208+5.124.08#1/8Loading evidence…
Hairline = best in this ranking · tick = its median · a missing bar is "not scored", never zero
Margin+9over ViaBTC, #2
RobustnessHoldsacross a one-point change to each of its 4 criterion scores, the re-run scores 80–81 and stays #1
Evidence4 of 4 scored4 quoted, 4 with a source link
What would move the rank
Each line is the ranking run again with one of OCEAN’s criterion scores changed and every other value held: the smallest whole-point change on that criterion that moves its rank, and where the re-run puts it. Up to 4 climbs and 3 falls are listed, smallest change first. Nothing here is a forecast.
Which payout scheme — and therefore who eats a bad-luck or orphaned-block run, the pool or you? 9 → 4 on its ladder · ViaBTC passes it−579#1 → #2
Is the headline fee the whole fee — or are transaction fees, accelerator revenue and MEV quietly retained? 9 → 2 on its ladder · ViaBTC passes it−778#1 → #2
Who builds the block you are hashing on — and what do they leave out of it? 8 → 0 on its ladder · ViaBTC passes it−878#1 → #2
Strengths
4 from the score dataWhere it leads
Best for readers who weight
- Which payout scheme — and therefore who eats a bad-luck or orphaned-block run, the pool or you? — 9/10, the category best
- Is the headline fee the whole fee — or are transaction fees, accelerator revenue and MEV quietly retained? — 9/10, the category best
- Who builds the block you are hashing on — and what do they leave out of it? — 8/10, the category best
Tradeoffs
0 from the score dataWhere it trails
No scored criterion trails the category best by two points or more, so no tradeoff can be stated from the data.
Record watch-outs
- That the money is real but, paid on-chain, you cannot touch it for more than a quarter. OCEAN's non-custody is genuine and verified on chain: 45 separate miner addresses paid out of block 963180's generation transaction, matching OCEAN's own leaderboard — but it only starts at 0.01048576 BTC. At difficulty 127,479,855,693,691 one S21-class 200 TH/s machine takes 108.5 days to get there and a 1 TH/s Bitaxe takes 59 years; until then OCEAN's terms are blunt that "the underlying bitcoin remains OCEAN’s, and you hold no property interest in, or claim to, any specific bitcoin", the float sits in a single pool address that has taken in 642.95 BTC, and the one feature that fixes this — Lightning payouts below the threshold — was paused at block 961,488 from 2026-08-07 to 2026-08-31; OCEAN's announcements page lists the pause as completed and the homepage again offers "Get paid on Lightning with BOLT12", but the route has already been switched off once for more than three weeks. The miner who reads "non-custodial" on the landing page and points a home rig at mine.ocean.xyz:3334 has bought a genuinely superior structure with an on-chain payment lag of more than three months and a Lightning workaround that has already been paused once, and §10(d) lets OCEAN forfeit and redistribute the accrued balance on a good-faith belief of breach with real-time notice consisting of deleting the address.
Competitive position
Where OCEAN leads and where it trails
Rank on every objective dimension among the rows scored on it. A criterion in the top third of its pool is listed as a lead, the bottom third as a trail; the middle is neither. Popularity, size and commercial terms are not dimensions.
Availability#1 / 814.0 of 20 · constant here
Published criteria#1 / 818.0 of 30 · pool best
Friction#1 / 82.7 of 10 · constant here
Trust record#1 / 83.2 of 8 · constant here
Measured data#1 / 88.3 of 18 · constant here
Where OCEAN leads
- Which payout scheme — and therefore who eats a bad-luck or orphaned-block run, the pool or you?#1 / 8
- Does the coinbase transaction pay you, or does the pool hold your coin until it decides to release it?#1 / 8
- Is the headline fee the whole fee — or are transaction fees, accelerator revenue and MEV quietly retained?#1 / 8
- Who builds the block you are hashing on — and what do they leave out of it?#1 / 8
Where it trailsNo criterion in the bottom third of its pool.
Closest alternatives
The 3 nearest rows by score
Nearest by published score in either direction. Each card states the criteria on which the two rows differ and the cost difference under the same scenario inputs; the compare arithmetic below shows why the higher one ranks higher.
ViaBTC#2 of 8 · score 71 · 9.0 points behind
OCEAN leads on
- Is the headline fee the whole fee — or are transaction fees, accelerator revenue and MEV quietly retained?9 vs 7
- Who builds the block you are hashing on — and what do they leave out of it?8 vs 3
ViaBTC leads onNo scored criterion
Largest single reason OCEAN is ahead: published criteria (+9.4 display points).Scenario cost: ViaBTC has no verified pricing for this scenario.
SpiderPool#3 of 8 · score 69 · 11.0 points behind
OCEAN leads on
- Does the coinbase transaction pay you, or does the pool hold your coin until it decides to release it?4 vs 3
- Is the headline fee the whole fee — or are transaction fees, accelerator revenue and MEV quietly retained?9 vs 7
- Who builds the block you are hashing on — and what do they leave out of it?8 vs 3
SpiderPool leads onNo scored criterion
Largest single reason OCEAN is ahead: published criteria (+10.9 display points).Scenario cost: SpiderPool has no verified pricing for this scenario.
F2Pool#4 of 8 · score 67 · 13.0 points behind
OCEAN leads on
- Which payout scheme — and therefore who eats a bad-luck or orphaned-block run, the pool or you?9 vs 8
- Does the coinbase transaction pay you, or does the pool hold your coin until it decides to release it?4 vs 3
- Is the headline fee the whole fee — or are transaction fees, accelerator revenue and MEV quietly retained?9 vs 6
F2Pool leads onNo scored criterion
Largest single reason OCEAN is ahead: published criteria (+13.0 display points).Scenario cost: F2Pool has no verified pricing for this scenario.
Against #2
80 vs 71 · gap 9.0Why OCEAN ranks above ViaBTC
DimensionThisViaBTCGap share
Availability · 23% weight · constant here14.014.0same
Published criteria · 35% weight18.014.4+9.4, better
Friction · 12% weight · constant here2.72.7same
Trust record · 9% weight · constant here3.23.2same
Measured data · 21% weight · constant here8.38.3same
Published criterionThisViaBTCPoints
Is the headline fee the whole fee — or are transaction fees, accelerator revenue and MEV quietly retained? · w2497+1.54, better
Who builds the block you are hashing on — and what do they leave out of it? · w2083+3.20, better
Net8071+9.0
Your scenario
OCEAN is not priced for this scenario
The pool fee on your mining revenue for a year. Excludes payout fees, any transaction-fee or MEV income the pool keeps, and your own hardware and power. Change an input and every figure recomputes from the published rate; the published rank does not move.
your cost/yr · default scenario — set your own
Your monthly mining revenue · your input$1k
Rate read from the provider’s published pricing ↗ on 29 September 2026.
your cost/yrCost is stated as your cost/yr in USD; it is never a yield, never annualised, and it does not enter the score.
Not priced on this basis
Under the default inputs · USDCategory median and cheapestNot statedOnly 2 of 8 rows publish a comparable price; a median and a cheapest row need at least 3.
6 of 8 rows in this ranking have no verified rate for this scenario and are absent from the median, not counted as free.
Evidence
Evidence read 29 September 2026
One row per published criterion: the page each strength was read from, its source type by domain, the reading date and whether the file and the published table agree. Open a row for the quote and the receipt.
4 of 4 cells scored
Score evidenceVerified4 of 4 criteria reconstruct from receipts
4 of 4 criteria reconstruct from a quoted, sourced receipt equal to the published strength.Public receiptsReading…4 quoted with a source URL
The receipt file has not been read yet.Evidence confidenceHighcoverage and corroboration, never freshness
4/4 criteria scored, with 4 dated sources quoted.RobustnessHoldsrank #1 across every one-point re-run
Whether the position holds when one criterion score is changed by one point and the ranking is run again. It is always a re-run of the ranking, never an estimate.The newest evidence read on the platform is 3 November 2026; this category's reading is older. The scores stand as read on 29 September 2026.
Reading the evidence ledger…
CriterionSourceTypeReadFreshnessStatusReceipt
Which payout scheme — and therefore who eats a bad-luck or orphaned-block run, the pool or you?strength 9 · weight 30Report an error—29 September 2026*
Unknown
No reading date is recorded for this cell or its category.No receipt
A strength is published but no quote or source page is on file for it.Does the coinbase transaction pay you, or does the pool hold your coin until it decides to release it?strength 4 · weight 26Report an error—29 September 2026*
Unknown
No reading date is recorded for this cell or its category.No receipt
A strength is published but no quote or source page is on file for it.Is the headline fee the whole fee — or are transaction fees, accelerator revenue and MEV quietly retained?strength 9 · weight 24Report an error—29 September 2026*
Unknown
No reading date is recorded for this cell or its category.No receipt
A strength is published but no quote or source page is on file for it.Who builds the block you are hashing on — and what do they leave out of it?strength 8 · weight 20Report an error—29 September 2026*
Unknown
No reading date is recorded for this cell or its category.No receipt
A strength is published but no quote or source page is on file for it.How you can lose money here, and what the ranking scores
- Liveness failure (OCEAN 8/10): 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%
- Custody failure (OCEAN 4/10): 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%
- Insolvency failure (OCEAN 9/10): 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%
Not assessed by this ranking: Exit failure. A high place says nothing about these; the Methodology tab says what each means. Also scored, as cost, quality or a summary of several families: Is the headline fee the whole fee — or are transaction fees, accelerator revenue and MEV quietly retained? (24%).
Facts
facts, not scoresWhat the record publishes
- Pricing
- FEE — https://
ocean .xyz /docs /terms §5 (fetched 29 September 2026, "Last Updated August 4, 2026"): "The standard fee for Services rendered is 2% of all Bitcoin network rewards and transaction fees per block found with help from OCEAN (successful “Block Reward”), less any incentives or promotional offers in effect for User at the time a block is found (“Total Fee”)." Homepage (https:// ocean .xyz /, fetched 29 September 2026): "2% fee" / "1% fee for miners who make their own blocks using DATUM"; https:// ocean .xyz /docs /datum (fetched 29 September 2026): "To further incentivize decentralization, DATUM miners receive a 50% discount on the OCEAN pool fee." || PAYOUT SCHEME — https:// ocean .xyz /docs /tides (fetched 29 September 2026): "TIDES is a Bitcoin mining pool payout system which reduces payout variance as low as possible without the pool operator needing to hold and buffer the Bitcoin rewards as a custodian." with "share_log_window is eight times the block’s difficulty worth of shares." and "Unlike hashrate-rental payout systems such as FPPS, TIDES can only reward miners with Bitcoin that is mined." || MINIMUM PAYOUT — homepage FAQ (https:// ocean .xyz /, fetched 29 September 2026): "Currently, the threshold is 0.01048576 BTC or 1,048,576 sats." plus "If you stop mining altogether or change to a new Bitcoin address, the pool will attempt to make discretionary payouts for balances above 0.00065536 BTC, should it be practical to do so. We reserve the right to change this policy from time to time." Lightning route (https:// ocean .xyz /docs /lightning, fetched 29 September 2026): "OCEAN will retry paying the owed amount via Lightning every block until the accumulated earnings reach the on-chain threshold (currently 0.01048576 BTC). At that point, earnings will payout on-chain to your Bitcoin address." The August Lightning suspension is over: https:// ocean .xyz /announcements (fetched 29 September 2026) lists "Lightning payouts pause at block 961,488. Temporary pause while dual-TIDES is possible." as COMPLETED, "From 2026-08-07 00:35:00 UTC until 2026-08-31 20:00:00 UTC", and the homepage again offers "Get paid on Lightning with BOLT12".OCEAN — official page at ocean.xyz ↗ · 29 September 2026 - Prices published in
- USDOCEAN — official page at ocean.xyz ↗ · 29 September 2026
- Licences held
- Not published
- Compliance level
- partial
- Regulatory note
- VERIFY-FIRST QUESTION (a) FROM THE SCOPING PASS, ANSWERED: local template construction is OPT-IN, NOT THE DEFAULT — which is the difference between 9 and 7, so here is the sentence. /docs/templateselection names the pool-built path as the default: "OCEAN Recommended (default, 2% fee) mine.ocean.xyz:3334 or default.mine.ocean.xyz:3101".
- Supported chains
- bitcoin
- Markets served
- global
- Primary markets
- Not published
- Restricted markets
- Not published
- Operating limits
- Not published
- Availability note
- Not published
No confirmed legal entity is on file for this record. Nothing is inferred from the brand name.
If something goes wrong with OCEAN: where to complain, and where to report a scam
Loading the routes for your country.
How this page is reviewed
Reviewed means this product in this category 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
History
What the record carries
Changes to published ranks are recorded in a ledger; every step and its cause is listed on the rank-history page. The entries below begin with the current verified snapshot, then the methodology versions whose changes applied to this category, newest first.
9 methodology entries
- 29 September 2026Current verified snapshot · methodology 2026.10.18Score 80, #1 of 8. 4 of 4 criteria scored. History starts here; earlier values are not interpolated.
- 10 October 2026
2026.10.8When nothing serves your country, the list shown for reference is the published ranking · platform-wide- fixed The reference list shown when nothing serves your country is the published order with the published scores, and a build check now fails any such list out of that order or with a score the ranking does not publish.
- fixed The explorer prints an overall rank only for a row the published ranking holds; a country entrant such as Coinbase Commerce for US merchants shows no overall rank.
- changed Published orders do not move. Country results change only where nothing serves the country: in India bill pay keeps Bitcoin Well first and now shows Strike second, as published; 35 such runs across all categories and countries now match the published list exactly.
- 10 October 2026
2026.10.6A criterion you require re-scores the rows that meet it · platform-wide- changed The explorer sends each criterion you require, at any band, as fit_required with your other answers; region, licence, chain and fact filters stay filters. On /best, a required criterion joins For you as a marked preference does, which needs your country; Overall stays the published ranking, filtered.
- added Every published criterion has a golden case as the explorer sends it (require:<criterion>), so the order a requirement gives is replayed and gated as the published order is, and a change to it needs an entry here.
- 16 September 2026
2026.09.15Dimension scores carry tenths, and eleven more categories are re-read from primary sources · platform-wide- changed Dimension scores resolve to tenths of a point (O-04b), and weightedTotal is rounded to six decimal places before the order is read. 518 published scores move across 107 categories that were not re-read; none of them moves by more than 4 points, and most move by 1.
- fixed 66 published scores change in the eleven re-read categories, against a verbatim source each. The largest moves are Reflexer RAI (−16), Beefy and Unrekt (−11), Aztec (−10) and Golem (+9) — all of them rows whose sources had moved since their last read.
- changed Published order moves in 38 of 119 categories and three #1s change: smart_contract_audits (Zellic → Certora) and travel_rule_compliance (Sumsub Travel Rule → CodeVASP) on the finer resolution, kyc_compliance (Veriff → Sumsub) on the re-read.
- added availabilitySource (O-04g): for a reader who states a country, a row whose availability in that country rests on a region tag its record gives no source for sorts below every sourced row. It is inert in every order published here, which states no country.
Methodology 2026.10.18, the same published run every visitor sees · receipt mining_pools:ocean:2026.10.18:a243c616467d
Are you OCEAN? Reply to this verdict, or send evidence, ask for a correction or claim the listing. Every message gets a public ticket number; none of it changes a rank unless a public page or a signed statement supports it.