Antpool

Antpool is a cryptocurrency mining pool operated by Bitmain, the Chinese company best known for making ASIC mining machines. Launched in 2014, it combines the computing power of many miners so that they find blocks more often as a group and share the rewards. Antpool is one of the largest pools on the Bitcoin network and also supports mining of several other proof-of-work coins.

Mining pools are central to how Bitcoin is secured in practice. Most individual miners cannot expect to find a block on their own for years, so they join pools for steadier income. Because the pool operator chooses which transactions go into the blocks its miners produce, large pools such as Antpool are closely watched in debates about mining concentration and censorship resistance.

Imagine a lottery with a huge prize drawn every ten minutes, where your chance of winning depends on how many tickets you buy. A single person with a few tickets might wait years for a win. If thousands of people pool their tickets and agree to share any prize according to how many tickets each contributed, everyone gets small, regular payouts instead.

Antpool runs that kind of shared ticket scheme for Bitcoin mining. Miners point their machines at Antpool, the pool tracks how much work each one does, and when the pool wins a block it divides the reward, minus a fee.

Bitmain was founded in 2013 by Jihan Wu and Micree Zhan and quickly became the dominant maker of Bitcoin mining hardware. It launched Antpool in 2014, giving it a direct role in mining as well as supplying machines. Antpool became one of the biggest pools during the 2015–2017 block size debates, when it supported positions that favoured larger blocks, and it later mined Bitcoin Cash after the 2017 split. When China banned crypto mining in 2021, much of the hashrate in Chinese pools moved to miners in other countries, but Antpool continued to operate as a global service.

• Shares. Miners submit "shares", partial solutions that prove they are doing work, even though most shares do not solve a block.
• Block templates. The pool builds the candidate block, choosing which transactions to include, and sends the template to miners.
• Rewards. When a share solves a block, the pool collects the block reward and transaction fees.
• Payout methods. Antpool has offered schemes including full pay-per-share, which pays a fixed amount per share including expected fees; pay-per-share; and pay-per-last-N-shares, which pays based on recent shares when the pool actually finds a block.
• Fees. The pool deducts a percentage depending on the payout method.

Besides Bitcoin, Antpool has supported coins such as Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and other proof-of-work networks, with the list changing over time.

Pool rankings are estimated from the blocks each pool claims, so figures move from week to week. Through 2024 and 2025, Antpool was typically among the top two or three Bitcoin pools alongside Foundry USA, often with a share of total hashrate in the high teens or low twenties of percent. Analysts have also pointed out that several smaller pools appear to use Antpool's block templates or infrastructure, which, if correct, would mean its real influence over block construction is larger than its own reported share. Readers should check a live mining dashboard for current figures.

The main concern is centralisation. If a few pools control most of the hashrate, they could in theory censor transactions or coordinate a 51% attack, and a measure such as the Nakamoto coefficient for Bitcoin mining has at times been low. Antpool's ownership by Bitmain, which also makes much of the world's mining hardware, adds to these worries. Defenders reply that individual miners can switch pools quickly if a pool misbehaves, which limits operators' power, and that protocols such as Stratum V2 aim to let miners choose their own transactions. Like other large pools, Antpool also faces regulatory and political scrutiny over its links to China.

• Antpool