To The Moon

From October 20-22, by the banks of Shanghai's Huangpu River, the 2026 Sustainable Global Leaders Conference returns once again. Nobel and Turing Award winners will take the stage to discuss the future and trends of technology, and the internet-famous professors who "rescue" people from anxiety and the era of involution—Macfarlane and Xiang Biao—will hold a live dialogue!

Limited spots available, first come first served. Let us journey together toward a sustainable future! [Click to register] Hashrate pointing to Binance Pool has dropped from 26 EH/s in December of last year to approximately 9 EH/s. Its remaining miners must choose another service provider before the November 10 deadline.

The cryptocurrency exchange Binance is shutting down its Bitcoin mining pool, which was launched in April 2020, as the hashrate directed to the service has fallen by nearly two-thirds compared to the end of last year.

According to Hashrate Index, Binance Pool was estimated at 26 EH/s in December of last year, accounting for 2.3% of Bitcoin's total network hashrate. Its latest table shows the pool at approximately 9.2 EH/s, representing less than 1% and ranking 11th. This means a decline of about 65%.

One EH/s represents ten quintillion guesses per second at the puzzle to win a Bitcoin block. Mining pools combine the hashrate of many machines so that owners can receive regular payouts rather than waiting alone to find a block.

Binance adopted a payout model known as Full Pay Per Share (FPPS), which pays miners for their work and assumes the risk that the pool finds fewer blocks than expected.

The exchange said earlier this week that Binance Pool, Pool Savings, cloud mining, its trading and related services will shut down on November 10 at 7:00 AM UTC, citing an ongoing review of its products and services. It did not provide a financial explanation for the decision.

Miners have roughly four weeks to redirect their machines elsewhere. After the deadline, Binance will stop counting mining shares, the record of hashrate work used to calculate payouts. Pool Savings users must redeem their positions, and anyone awaiting final payouts should complete the required identity verification before 11:59 PM UTC on that day. The pool page will permanently disappear on November 24, giving customers another two weeks to download records and check payout status.

Four years ago, Binance was still financing miners' expansion. In October 2022, it announced a $500 million loan program through the pool, offering secured loans with 18 to 24-month terms at interest rates of 5% to 10%. The closure notice did not mention the program or disclose any outstanding loan balances.

Fewer Mining Pools to Choose From

Before Binance, SBI Crypto had already shut down its mining pool on July 31, after its hashrate accounted for approximately 2% of Bitcoin's total network. Cryptocurrency exchange OKX terminated its mining pool services in February 2024.

Hashrate Index's December report described Binance Pool as the last surviving mining pool from the era of exchanges venturing into mining.

Further reading: SBI Crypto to shut down mining pool holding approximately 2% of Bitcoin hashrate. Poolin, once the largest mining pool with nearly one-fifth of global hashrate, also filed for bankruptcy in July, owing approximately $173 million. Its problems involved frozen wallet funds and stalled mining farms in Texas, while its pool share had dwindled to nearly zero over the years.

The largest mining pools now account for a greater share of block production. In Hashrate Index's latest table, Foundry USA, AntPool, and F2Pool together account for approximately 64.2%. In December, the top three pools accounted for 61.4%, when the third place was ViaBTC rather than F2Pool.

Traditional mining pool operators choose which transactions to confirm for the machines participating in their pools. Therefore, closing mining pools narrows miners' choices of service providers, and this industry influences which Bitcoin payments are included in blocks.

However, miners can redirect their machines to smaller service providers, and pool share does not establish ownership of hardware. If all of Binance's remaining hashrate were to transfer to the top three pools, assuming the rest of the network remains unchanged, their combined share would reach approximately 65%. Binance has not yet stated where its remaining miners will go.