I’ve always used Brains for mining. Now I'm thinking of switching pools, but I noticed a big difference in rewards. The calculator on White Bit shows I could get 20% more. Is that right? Why is there such a gap? I thought it would even out in the end, but it seems I’m getting more per block, just fewer blocks overall. What am I missing here?
Why do mining pool rewards vary so much?
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pools can definitely have variance. Like, if my pool hits 1 block a month with average luck, that’s 1 heads and 1 tails on 2 flips. White Bit could be on a hot streak and find 7 blocks in 6 months. So, that’s 116% payout vs 100% with normal luck. A smaller pool finding just 5 blocks in 6 months would be at 83%. Huge differences from a few blocks.
How often did you check those rewards? I say if you're looking at just a few days, yeah, you might see 10-20% differences. But over a longer period, like 6 months, those differences tend to shrink. Also, make sure you're comparing pools with similar hashrate, it matters a lot.
What causes downtime for mining pools? I’ve noticed it with home setups, like when one of the miners had server issues. But even then, the profits were still better than regular pools.