<ol>
<li><p>Is it correctly understood that most individual/small miners join mining pools?</p>
</li>
<li><p>Is &quot;pay-per-share&quot; (or some variations thereof) the most popular mining pool approach, which means that the pool pays a miner a guaranteed payout depending on the hash rate provided by the miner? In other words, the pool absorbs all the risk from how much mining rewards the pool actually earns.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>If 1-2 are true, then, for a given miner, the question whether to mine or not simply becomes a question of whether the cost of running the mining equipment and paying the pool fees is less than or greater than the current mining reward which depends on the current price of Bitcoin. Is that an accurate description?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-13T10:39:48.453Z
I suspect this question is better answered by reading online resources such as https://www.investopedia.com/tech/how-do-mining-pools-work/ I'm not aware of any widespread survey of a statistically significant and representative sample of small miners worldwide. Without that, we can only speculate or offer opinion that is at best weakly substantiated.
RedGrittyBrick
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-14T00:34:57.127Z
I have looked at online resources such as the one you linked to. This is a question that practitioners can shed light on.
arni
<mining-pools><mining-theory><mining-profitability><economic-theory><pool-payout-methods>
Do most small miners join mining pools? Is "pay-per-share" the dominant approach?
arni
# Do most small miners join mining pools? Is "pay-per-share" the dominant approach?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-12-13)

1. Is it correctly understood that most individual/small miners join mining pools?
2. Is "pay-per-share" (or some variations thereof) the most popular mining pool approach, which means that the pool pays a miner a guaranteed payout depending on the hash rate provided by the miner? In other words, the pool absorbs all the risk from how much mining rewards the pool actually earns.

If 1-2 are true, then, for a given miner, the question whether to mine or not simply becomes a question of whether the cost of running the mining equipment and paying the pool fees is less than or greater than the current mining reward which depends on the current price of Bitcoin. Is that an accurate description?

**Tags:** mining-pools, mining-theory, mining-profitability, economic-theory, pool-payout-methods

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I suspect this question is better answered by reading online resources such as https://www.investopedia.com/tech/how-do-mining-pools-work/ I'm not aware of any widespread survey of a statistically significant and representative sample of small miners worldwide. Without that, we can only speculate or offer opinion that is at best weakly substantiated.  
> **username_0**: I have looked at online resources such as the one you linked to. This is a question that practitioners can shed light on.  

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## 0 answers

