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Bitcoin mining pool once handling 2.3% of network shuts after hashrate falls 65%
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- DeepHorus
Binance will shut down its bitcoin mining pool and a suite of related services on Nov. 10, giving participating miners roughly four weeks to redirect their machines to another provider. The exchange said the closure, set for 7 a.m. UTC, follows an ongoing review of its products and services, though it offered no financial explanation for the decision. Binance Pool, launched in April 2020, was once one of the largest pools in the industry.
The decline in computing power has been steep. According to Hashrate Index, Binance Pool commanded an estimated 26 exahashes per second in December, equal to about 2.3% of Bitcoin's network. Its latest ranking places the pool at roughly 9.2 EH/s β under 1% of the network and 11th overall β a drop of approximately 65%. One exahash per second represents a quintillion guesses each second at the puzzle that earns a bitcoin block.
Binance used a payout model known as full pay-per-share, or FPPS, which paid miners for their submitted work while the exchange absorbed the risk that the pool would find fewer blocks than expected. After the Nov. 10 cutoff, Binance will stop crediting mining shares, the records used to calculate payouts. Pool Savings users must redeem their positions, and anyone awaiting a final payout must complete required identity checks by 11:59 p.m. UTC that day. Pool pages will disappear permanently on Nov. 24, giving customers two more weeks to download records and verify payout status.
The closure marks a sharp reversal for Binance's mining ambitions. In October 2022, the exchange announced a $500 million lending program through the pool, offering secured loans for 18 to 24 months at interest rates of 5% to 10%. The shutdown notice does not address that program or disclose any outstanding loan balance.
Binance is not the first to exit. SBI Crypto closed its pool on July 31 after accounting for roughly 2% of Bitcoin's computing power, and crypto exchange OKX ended its mining pool services in February 2024. Hashrate Index's December report described Binance Pool as the last surviving pool from the era when exchanges expanded into mining. Poolin, once the largest pool with nearly a fifth of global hashrate, filed for bankruptcy in July owing about $173 million.
The exits could further concentrate block production. Foundry USA, AntPool and F2Pool together controlled about 64.2% of the network's computing power in Hashrate Index's latest table, up from 61.4% held by December's three largest operators. Because pool operators choose which transactions participating machines confirm, fewer pools narrow miners' options in a business that influences which bitcoin payments are included in blocks. Miners can still redirect their hardware to smaller providers, and pool shares do not confer ownership of the machines.
