Binance is preparing to discontinue its Bitcoin mining pool after the service lost approximately 65% of its computing power compared with December’s levels. Miners who remain on the platform must transfer their operations to other providers before the November 10 shutdown deadline.
Data from Hashrate Index shows that Binance Pool controlled around 26 exahashes per second (EH/s) in December, equivalent to approximately 2.3% of Bitcoin’s total hashrate. The latest figures put its computing power at roughly 9.2 EH/s, reducing its network share to below 1% and placing it 11th among mining pools. Overall, the pool’s hashrate has declined by about 65%.
One exahash per second represents one quintillion computational attempts every second to solve the puzzle required to mine a Bitcoin block. Mining pools combine the processing power of multiple machines, allowing participants to receive more regular rewards rather than waiting to discover a block independently.
Binance Pool used a full pay-per-share (FPPS) payment structure, under which miners received compensation for their contributed computing power. The arrangement also placed the risk of finding fewer blocks than anticipated on the pool operator.
Earlier this week, Binance confirmed that Binance Pool, Pool Savings, Cloud Mining, its transaction accelerator and related services would cease operations at 7 a.m. UTC on November 10. The exchange cited an ongoing assessment of its product and service offerings but did not disclose a financial reason for the decision.
Miners have approximately four weeks to move their equipment to another provider. After the deadline, Binance will stop recording mining shares, which measure participants’ contributed work and are used to calculate rewards. Pool Savings customers must redeem their positions, while users expecting final payments are required to complete any outstanding identity verification by 11:59 p.m. UTC on November 10.
The exchange will permanently remove the pool’s webpages on November 24. Customers will have an additional two weeks to download their records and review the status of their payments before the pages disappear.
Binance’s Mining Business Follows an Earlier Lending Push
The closure comes several years after Binance sought to support the expansion of Bitcoin mining operations. In October 2022, the exchange announced a $500 million lending initiative through its pool to provide financing for miners.
The program offered secured loans with maturities of 18 to 24 months and annual interest rates ranging from 5% to 10%. Binance’s latest shutdown announcement did not explain how the closure would affect the lending initiative or reveal whether any loans remain outstanding.
Mining Pool Consolidation Reduces Options for Miners
Binance is not the first major provider to leave the Bitcoin mining pool market. SBI Crypto shut down its pool on July 31 after previously accounting for approximately 2% of Bitcoin’s total computing power. Cryptocurrency exchange OKX also ended its mining pool operations in February 2024.
In a December report, Hashrate Index identified Binance Pool as the last surviving pool from the period when cryptocurrency exchanges expanded into Bitcoin mining services.
Poolin, previously one of the industry’s largest operators with nearly 20% of global hashrate, filed for bankruptcy in July with around $173 million in liabilities. Its financial difficulties involved frozen wallet balances and delayed mining developments in Texas. However, Poolin’s share of Bitcoin’s network computing power had already fallen close to zero years before the bankruptcy filing.
The latest data indicate that Bitcoin block production is becoming more concentrated among a smaller group of large mining pools. Foundry USA, AntPool and F2Pool collectively accounted for about 64.2% of the network’s hashrate in Hashrate Index’s latest figures. In December, the three leading pools represented a combined 61.4%, with ViaBTC ranking third instead of F2Pool.
Mining pool operators generally select which transactions their participating machines attempt to confirm. When major pools close, miners have fewer established providers to choose from, potentially increasing the concentration of influence over transaction selection and block production.
However, miners are free to redirect their computing power to smaller pools. A pool’s percentage of the network also does not mean that it owns the hardware contributing that computing power.
If Binance Pool’s remaining hashrate were distributed entirely among Foundry USA, AntPool and F2Pool, their combined network share would reach approximately 65%, provided the rest of the Bitcoin network remained unchanged. Binance has not disclosed which providers its remaining miners are expected to join.
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