Bitcoin mining equipment manufacturer Bitmain has launched a new mining pool, it’s second after Antpool, as a part of its block explorer BTC.com’s offering. The new mining pool is open-source will not charge any fees until 2017. Bitmain has, through its Bitcoin block explorer BTC.com, launched a new mining pool that will be open-sourced to users. With the open-source protocol, the firm hopes to foster new technical standards for mining pools and remove restrictions that otherwise limit the efficiency of mining pools. Prior to launch, the new mining pool was put to its test to gain feedback about mining efficiency and its stability. Software simulators were used to replicate the load of up to 180,000 miners. Upon launch, the new pool demands no mining fees from users, until the end of 2016. Increased Efficiency by Lowering Wastage When two separate miners find the same block at the same time, only one is recognized by the network, while the other turns into an orphan chain. Orphan blocks can be frustrating for miners who don’t get a cut of revenue after invalid shares for blocks that do not require solving. To reduce the number of orphan blocks, the new pool comes with a “PoolWatcher” feature. As the name goes, the pool will now pay attention to other mining pools, listening for newfound blocks. As Bitmain explains, the pool will then start mining at the next height after the discovery of a block on any pool. This will, in effect, reduce the odds of mining orphaned blocks. BtcAgent, another offering by the pool is a software that could potentially benefit mining farm owners and larger mining operations to keep an eye on every miner in their local area network. Coupled with real-time pool stats, the feature allows for better monitoring. At launch, […]
