Mining pools, by what persists

The first mining pool ever (as Slush Pool), now Braiins — open-source firmware and Stratum V2 leadership, with Lightning payouts for small miners.

Solo mining as a service: win a block, keep (almost) the whole reward; win nothing, earn nothing. Famous for the occasional David-vs-Goliath block find.

The decentralization-first pool: transparent TIDES payouts direct from the coinbase, miners can build their own block templates. Ideology and product in one.

One of the oldest pools still operating ("Discus Fish") — long track record, large scale, standard custodial payouts.

Bitmain’s own pool and perennially among the largest — the concentration concern and the convenience are the same fact.

Large multi-coin pool with flexible payout schemes and merged mining — a mainstream choice outside the top two.

US pool with a data/derivatives business around it (hashprice index, hashrate forwards) — appeals to miners who think in financial terms.

The Japanese financial group’s mining pool — an institutional operator with a lower profile than its scale suggests.

The institutional US pool (a DCG company) — consistently among the largest by hashrate, aimed at industrial miners rather than hobbyists.

The exchange’s pool — payouts land in your Binance account, which is maximum convenience and maximum custodial dependence at once.

Operated by the listed miner MARA — primarily the company’s own hashrate, open to others; scale follows its corporate fleet.