Decentralized Mining Pools
Mining pool architectures designed to reduce centralization, censorship risk, or trust requirements.
Solo CKPool
- Operator: KanoCK.
- Type: solo mining (no sharing among miners).
- Each miner runs a
ckpool-soloinstance against their bitcoind. - Connect ASICs via Stratum V1.
- If one of YOUR ASICs finds a block, you get the entire reward.
- Pool fee: typically 0% (solo) or 1.25% on shared variants.
Use case: decentralization purist; small farms; learning.
Public-Pool
- Solo-mining pool similar to CKPool but with web dashboard.
- Free-to-use for small-scale miners.
- Sometimes "shared luck" variants exist as public services.
BraiinsP2Pool
- Successor to original P2Pool.
- Decentralized share chain — peers gossip shares like Bitcoin blocks.
- Variance and rewards determined by share chain participation.
- Miner builds own coinbase (decentralized tx selection).
Datum (Ocean Mining)
- Datum protocol: decentralized template propagation.
- Stratum V2-style; miners choose own block content.
- Used by Ocean Mining for non-custodial payouts (winners get coinbase directly).
- Pioneered by Luke Dashjr / OceanCBTC.
Compared
| Aspect | Solo CKPool | BraiinsP2Pool | Datum (Ocean) | Standard Pool |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Variance | Full (per miner) | Shared (chain) | Per template | Pool absorbs |
| Centralization | None | None | Low | High |
| Tx censorship | Miner choice | Miner choice | Miner choice | Pool choice |
| Setup complexity | Medium | High | Medium | Easy |
| Network share | Tiny | Tiny | Small | Major |
Use cases
- Censorship resistance: ensure your txs don't get filtered out by major pools.
- Solo mining: small operations targeting a winning block (high variance).
- Reducing pool centralization at network level.
Limitations
- High variance — most miners need pool-style smoothing.
- Lower hashrate in network share = longer wait between rewards.
- Setup complexity for non-pool variants.
Why this matters
Bitcoin's security depends on no single mining cartel. The top 3-4 pools control > 60% of hashrate (as of 2025). Decentralized pools + SV2 reduce this concentration over time.