Late January 2026 made that painfully clear. Severe winter storms across the US forced several of the largest Bitcoin mining pools, including Foundry USA and Luxor, to sharply curtail more than 110 EH/s of hashrate to help overloaded power grids, temporarily slowing block production to around 12 minutes and cutting rewards for miners who thought their setups were “set and forget.”
For most people, “mining” is just a humming computer in the corner that produces “magic internet money.” But for those who are “in the game,” it is a daily battle for efficiency, where the electricity price, network difficulty, and asset price converge at a single point — in the profitability report.
However, there is one factor beginners often overlook, and professionals consider their main lever — the choice of mining pool.
The wrong pool can cost you 10–15% of your monthly income. This is not an exaggeration. It is the harsh reality built out of unstable connections, unfair reward distribution, or outright hidden fees. A mistake in choosing a pool can not just reduce your income, but completely wipe out profitability in a bear market.
So how do you find one that delivers maximum payouts and ironclad stability? I dove into this topic, went through technical forums, and collected insights from those who live this every day.
1. Anatomy of the ideal pool: A veteran’s checklist
Before blindly switching your hashrate to a pool with a flashy “0% fee” banner, experienced miners advise running a hard audit across four key parameters.
Criterion No. 1: Payout model (PPLNS vs. FPPS)
This is your first and main choice.
● FPPS (Full Pay Per Share): You receive a guaranteed payment for every share (unit of work), regardless of whether the pool finds a block or not. It is stable and predictable. Ideal for those who want to “set and forget” or mine in short sessions.
● PPLNS (Pay Per Last N Shares): You receive a share of the blocks actually found by the pool. If the pool is lucky (high “luck”), you earn more than with FPPS. If not, you earn less.
Big pools map neatly onto these models: Foundry USA and Luxor stick to FPPS-style payouts, while AntPool, F2Pool, and ViaBTC offer PPS+/PPLNS hybrids. That way, you can dial volatility up or down instead of being locked into one option.
Criterion No. 2: Real fee and “hidden” charges
This is one of the biggest “legal” tricks in the industry.
● Declared fee: This is what you see (for example, 1%).
● Real fee: This is what you don’t see.
● The main thief here is transaction fees and additional rewards in the block. This is the “gold dust” that exists in every block on top of the standard block reward. Some pools quietly keep 100% of all transaction fees for themselves, sharing with miners only the “naked” block reward. You think you are paying 1%? In reality, they may be keeping 10%, 15%, or even 20% of your total possible profit.
Insight: Always look for wording in the pool’s description that confirms you are paid all transaction fees, and clarify whether these payouts are included in your PPLNS reward.
Criterion No. 3: Stability, ping, and stale shares
This is pure technical efficiency. Your rig must have an uninterrupted and fast connection to the pool’s server.
● Ping: The higher it is, the more stale shares you will have. This is work you did but will not be paid for, because the pool has already found a block or moved on to the next one.
● Uptime: The pool must have DDOS protection and backup servers. Any downtime of the pool is 100% loss for you during that time.
Look for pools with regional servers (for example, in Europe, Asia, the US) so you can choose the one closest to you and minimize ping.
Criterion No. 4: Transparency and payout threshold
You don’t need a “black box,” you need a transparent dashboard.
● Statistics: You should see your reported and actual hashrate, the number of accepted, rejected, and stale shares, as well as a transparent payout calculation.
● Payout threshold: A low threshold (for example, 0.0001 BTC) is a huge plus. This is your money, and it should be in your wallet, not “frozen” on the pool’s balance for weeks or months.
2. Voices from the farm: What do operators say?
I spoke with the operations director of a mid-sized mining farm to learn about their approach to choosing partners.
Operations director of a mining farm:
“For us, stability is king. I can’t allow 500 rigs to sit idle for an hour because of a DDOS attack on a pool or a server crash. We never move all our power at once. We always test a new pool with part of the hashrate (about 10%) for at least two weeks. We don’t look at the advertised profitability, but at RWP — Real-World Profitability. We literally run two identical rigs, on the same hardware and overclocking, on the old pool and the new one. And after 14 days, we look at the final wallet balance. The numbers on the pool’s dashboard are marketing. The numbers on your wallet are real. And the numbers often surprise you.”
3. On the radar: Why WhitePool is drawing attention?
While many large pools can feel clumsy and increasingly focused on their own margins, professional chats are increasingly paying attention to pools that combine strong payouts with transparent rules. One of the examples that was repeatedly mentioned in our conversations as a reliable and profitable option is WhitePool.
I analyzed it using the same checklist that experts shared with me. What makes it attractive for professionals?
Honest and full payouts: WhitePool does not play the “black box” game. They use a transparent FPPS model, which, according to feedback and our analysis, includes distributing not only the block reward, but also a substantial part of transaction fees. This directly solves the problem of “hidden” charges (Criterion No. 2). This is the very “honest” income miners talk about.
Low and transparent fee: The pool offers one of the most competitive fees on the market. What matters is that this fee is honest. It is better to pay a transparent 2% to a pool that gives you 100% of the transaction fees than 0.5% to someone who keeps 100% of the fees for themselves.
High technical stability: Miners testing WhitePool (Criterion No. 3) note not just uptime, but connection quality. A low percentage of stale shares and geolocation-based servers ensures minimal ping. “I moved part of the hashrate to WhitePool for a test,” one miner shares. “In three weeks, not a single disconnect. The stats in the dashboard match my workers’ metrics one-to-one. That’s a sign of honest work.”
Miner-focused (UI and payout threshold): Add to this a convenient, fast, and uncluttered interface, as well as one of the more competitive payout thresholds on the market (Criterion No. 4). WhitePool does not try to “lock in” your funds or confuse you with complicated stats. It just works.
Conclusion: Your choice — your money
Choosing a pool is not a decision you should make “once and for all,” and it definitely should not be an act of “faith” or loyalty. It should be a cold, ruthless calculation.
Industry veterans advise: don’t be afraid to test. Don’t “betray” your old pool — just “check” it. Move 10–20% of your hashrate to a new, promising pool like WhitePool and leave it there for a week. Compare the real daily profitability per 1 TH/s.
Events like the recent US winter storm, which knocked more than 100 EH/s of hashrate offline and forced major pools to pull back, are exactly the kind of stress you’re hedging against when you spread your power and test new partners in advance.
Let the numbers speak for themselves. In the end, there is no place for emotions in mining. There is only math, stability, and final profit. And, according to our data, WhitePool today offers very convincing math.
Top comments (0)