Binance Closes Mining Pool Due to Hashrate Decline

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance is closing its mining pool, which was launched in April 2020. The computational power directed to the service has dropped by nearly two-thirds since the end of last year.

According to Hashrate Index, in December, Binance Pool had approximately 26 EH/s – this was 2.3% of the Bitcoin network. Now the pool is around 9.2 EH/s, less than 1% and in 11th place. The drop is approximately 65%. One exahash per second is a quintillion attempts per second to solve the task for which a Bitcoin block is awarded.

Binance used the FPPS (full pay-per-share) payout model: it paid miners for their work and took on the risk that the pool would find fewer blocks than expected.

The exchange announced that Binance Pool, Pool Savings, Cloud Mining, the transaction accelerator, and related services will close on November 10 at 7:00 UTC, citing the current review of products and services. No financial explanation was provided. Miners have about four weeks to redirect their equipment. After the cutoff, Binance will stop crediting mining shares. Pool Savings users must redeem positions, and those awaiting the final payout need to complete identity verification by 23:59 UTC on the same day. Pool pages will disappear on November 24 – an additional two weeks to download records and check payout status.

Four years ago, Binance offered to finance the expansion of miners: in October 2022, it announced a $500 million lending program through the pool – secured loans for 18–24 months at 5–10%. This program is not mentioned in the closure notice, and the outstanding loan balance is not disclosed.

Fewer pools to choose from

Binance follows SBI Crypto, which closed its pool on July 31 (around 2% of the network's power), and OKX, which shut down its mining pool in February 2024. Poolin, once the largest pool with nearly a fifth of the global hash rate, also filed for bankruptcy in July with a debt of about $173 million: frozen funds in wallets and halted sites in Texas, and the pool's share had been close to zero for many years.

The largest pools now occupy a significant share of block production. Foundry USA, AntPool, and F2Pool together account for about 64.2% according to the latest Hashrate Index table. In December, the three largest held 61.4%, with ViaBTC being the third instead of F2Pool. If all remaining Binance power goes to the three largest pools, their combined share will reach approximately 65% with the rest of the network unchanged. Where exactly Binance miners will redirect is not disclosed by the company.

Traditional pool operators choose which transactions their machines confirm. The closure of pools narrows the choice of providers in a business that affects which Bitcoin payments get into blocks. Miners may redirect equipment to smaller providers, and pool shares do not imply ownership rights to the equipment.