How the World's Largest Mining Pool Is Helping Miners 'De-Risk'

"There have been days that F2Pool has lost 100 BTC in terms of having to pay miners without mining blocks themselves, but over a long period of time and with a significant amount of network hashrate those ups and downs even out," said Thomas Heller, the mining pool's global business director.

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F2Pool is the largest bitcoin mining pool in the world, controlling 20% of the collective computational energy, also called hashrate, on the Bitcoin network. On the fifth and final episode of Bitcoin Halving 2020: Miner Perspectives, Heller discusses the economic incentives driving cryptocurrency mining and mining pool operations.

Though miner revenue has decreased sharply over the last two years from around $0.60 per terahash to $0.10, Heller explained that bitcoin mining continues to be profitable due to the release of more efficient hardware and the discovery of cheaper sources of electricity. Positive movement in bitcoin's price is also a major factor, albeit a frustratingly unpredictable one.

Heller, who operates a slew of his own mining machines, said that without "significant price action" over the next two weeks leading up to Bitcoin's mining reward reduction, also called the halving, both he and other miners would have no choice but to turn off "older machines."

For more information about the halving event, download the free CoinDesk Research explainer report, which features over 30 different charts and additional commentary from bitcoin mining industry experts.

CoinDesk - Unknown — Download CoinDesk's Bitcoin Halving Research Report here.

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Christine Kim

Bitcoin Halving 2020: How the World's Largest Mining Pool Is Helping Miners 'De-Risk'

F2Pool, the largest bitcoin mining pool in the world, controls 20% of the network's hashrate. F2Pool's Thomas Heller explains the economics of mining.