|
Compared with well-known Bitcoin companies such as Coinbase, Circle, Blockchain, and BitPay, the role of Bitcoin miners seems to be much more low-key, but its importance to Bitcoin is no less than that of these start-ups.
In addition to users who buy Bitcoin, the Bitcoin market, which is based on blockchain technology, also needs miners from all over the world to maintain it. Gathering the hash power of these miners, working together to mine, will produce new Bitcoins continuously.
Recently, foreign media Business Insider released the top 10 rankings of global Bitcoin mining pools:
10: Kano CKPool — 2.77% (hash power)
CKPool is a standard mining pool founded by Australian anesthesiologist and programmer Con Kolivas and Kano in September 2014. In order to spread the risk, the two also created a private mining pool - Solo CKPool.
This means that users can pool their resources to mine Bitcoin blocks faster, but only the user who finds the block will be rewarded.
9. KnCMiner—3.26%
KnCMiner is a Swedish mining company. Given the limited processing power of general computers, most miners in public mining pools purchase mining hardware from companies like KnCMiner.
KnCMiner received a £9.6 million Series B investment led by Accel Partners in 2015. KnCMiner claims to provide green energy and currently has data centers in Sweden and is planning to expand to Iceland and Finland.
8: HaoBTC — 3.66%
HaoBTC is a Chinese Bitcoin company. The company is headquartered in Zhongguancun, Beijing, and also has a Bitcoin mine in Kangding, Sichuan.
The company has adopted a new approach to mining operations: the company will pay corresponding interest to users who own wallets based on the number of bitcoins it owns.
According to the company, it currently has tens of thousands of users.
7. Slush—4.15%
Slush was founded in November 2010. It is recognized as the earliest mining pool in the world, and its influence is still great today.
The official name of Slush is Bitcoin Pooled Mining. SatoshiLabs, the founder of the mining pool, operates several other digital currency projects in addition to Slush.
6. BitClub Network — 4.15%
Unlike other mining pools, BitClub Network did not reveal the name of its founder, only saying that the mining pool is operated by a team including entrepreneurs, programmers, digital miners and MLM experts from all over the world.
MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) means multi-level marketing, which means that each user can get bonuses by inviting new users. Because this model is quite similar to pyramid schemes, it has always been controversial. However, BitClub Network insists that it is legal and not a "Ponzi scheme."
For some users, BitClub Network is like a cloud mining pool. Users do not need to own their own hardware, but only need to pay rent to Bitclub, which will provide them with the corresponding equipment. However, miners with their own equipment can also join.
5. BitFury—8.61%
BitFury was founded in Russia in 2011 by Valery Vavilov. It has management offices in San Francisco and Amsterdam and is a well-known mining hardware investment company in the industry. BitFury does not have a public mining pool, but has private mining pools in Iceland, Finland and the Republic of Georgia. In Vavilov's view, BitFury is not just a Bitcoin technology company, but a comprehensive Internet technology company. Vavilov said that in the next three to five years, the company will expand into different areas of the Internet to maximize the value of computers.
In July 2015, BitFury received an investment of 12.8 million pounds from DRW Venture Capital, iTech Capital and Georgian Co-Investment Fund, and this year it received a stake from China Credit, a subsidiary of Vanguard Group.
4: BTCC – 14.34%
BTCC (formerly known as BTCChina) is China's largest and earliest Bitcoin trading platform. It was established in June 2011 and is currently operated by Bobby Lee.
Bobby Lee graduated with a bachelor's and master's degree in computer science from Stanford University. He previously served as EMC Software Engineering Director in Greater China for EMC (an American information storage technology company whose main business is cloud computing and cloud storage solutions).
BTCC is not only a Bitcoin trading platform, but also provides other digital currency solutions and services.
3: BW Pool—15.33%
BW (CoinNet) is a mining pool under Bitbank, providing users with services such as Bitcoin mining, financial management and trading.
Bitbank is the world's first digital currency bank, formerly known as "JUA.com", and is one of China's largest digital currency financial management platforms. The accumulated bitcoin reserves exceed 200,000.
The current CEO of Bitbank is Hua Songxiu, the original founder of China Bitcoin (chbtc.com).
2: AntPool – 16.82%
AntPool is a digital currency mining pool developed by Bitmain in 2013 and headquartered in Beijing.
AntPool claims that it owns 56% of the world's mining machine technology and is the world's largest cloud miner.
1: DiscusFish/F2Pool—22.06%
F2Pool was founded by Wang Chun and Mao Shixing, two early enthusiasts of Bitcoin technology, and opened on May 5, 2013.
According to F2Pool’s estimates, it serves most of China’s mining communities, accounting for about half of the country’s computing power, and has more than 100,000 stratum links worldwide.
In July 2015, F2Pool generated the largest Bitcoin transaction in history to resolve a malicious attack of small Bitcoin transactions that blocked the network. |
