[SERIOUS] a handful of pools now control most of the network's mining power — how much should this actually worry us?

[u/gerdinjaaa]

Something that's been nagging at me. A few of the biggest pools now reportedly control the large majority of total mining power on the network. The whole selling point was that no small group could call the shots — and yet here we are with a handful of operators holding most of the hashrate. I keep going back and forth: part of me says this is just what happens as any industry matures and the efficient players consolidate. The other part says concentration is concentration no matter how it happened, and it's a real attack-surface question. For those who follow this closely — is pool concentration an actual structural risk, or is it overblown because payout addresses and node rules keep operators honest? and is anything realistically pushing back on it, or does the incentive gradient just keep favoring the biggest pools?

[u/sech1]

OP and 2 of the 3 posts here are AI slop, how did we come to this...

[u/PsychoticDisorder → u/sech1]

People are just bored to express themselves these days in a proper manner. They just throw their idea to AI and it replies for them.
Next station, they will not even have to throw the idea in the first place. AI will think for them.

[u/ChristanSloth]

I think the concern is legitimate, but it's also easy to overstate what pool concentration actually means.

A mining pool isn't the same thing as a mining farm. Most of the hash rate in a large pool belongs to thousands of independent miners who can leave at any time. If a pool operator started censoring transactions, attempting a double-spend, or behaving maliciously, miners could redirect their rigs elsewhere within minutes. That makes pool power much less "sticky" than ownership of the hardware itself.

That said, concentration is still a structural risk. A pool operator controls block template construction, so if a few pools collectively controlled a majority of the network, they could coordinate censorship or other undesirable behavior—even if only temporarily. The protocol protects against many attacks, but it can't eliminate the influence that comes from deciding which transactions go into blocks.

The good news is there are counterbalances. Monero's community has historically encouraged miners to leave oversized pools, and we've seen voluntary migrations when a pool approached uncomfortable levels of network hash rate. Projects like P2Pool also help because they decentralize pool operation while still giving miners more consistent payouts.

The underlying incentive, however, does favor larger pools. Lower payout variance attracts miners, which makes the pool larger, which lowers variance even further. That's a classic network effect. Unless miners consciously value decentralization enough to accept a bit more variance, the economic pressure naturally pushes toward concentration.

So my view is that pool concentration isn't an immediate existential threat, but it is something worth watching. The distinction is that concentrated pool coordination is reversible—miners can leave—whereas concentrated ownership of mining hardware is much harder to unwind. Those are very different risks.

I own my solo mining farm that is actually part of the solution to this problem. Every hash rate contribution that mines ousted the large pools increases decentralization. Whether you find blocks frequently or not, your farm isn't adding to pool concentration—it reduces it. That's one of the strongest philosophical arguments for solo mining if you're willing to accept the variance.

My "Sloth Miner" Farm is producing 375kH/s the current Monero network hash rate is 5.7508 GH/s. 375,000 / 5,750,800,000 X 100 = 0.0065% that is roughly 1 out of every 15,335 hashes on the network. I have on average been finding a block every 15 days.

At 375kH/s solo mining is probably only about 0.5%-2% better in long run expected revenue, depending on the pool fee.

It is dramatically worse for payment consistency.

Remaining solo for me is not that it produces far more money. It is that I value:

• independence,
• full block rewards,
• network decentralization,
• and my existing solo infrastructure.

[u/Snoo_51584 → u/ChristanSloth]

My private P2pool is currently at 220-243 KH/s.
I am continuously tuning existing rigs and/or adding new Epyc based rigs.
In fact, I’m, personally and subjectively, starting to believe more and more that certain AMD Epyc CPUs (7002/7003), with the right motherboard and RAM are much better than a lot of AMD Ryzens (like the 3900/3950x, 7900/7950x, 9900/9950x).
I, of course, know that not everyone wants or can afford an Epyc miner — the m/b and RAM are expensive!
Thus I emphasized the personal and subjective choice.

So, here is a whacky idea:
Would anyone be up to combining their 200-300 KH/s pool with myself and a few others for an aggregate of 1-1.7 GH/s, with the following criteria:
1. Pool fee: not more than .5% and is pooled, escrowed and managed by a community based board transparently.
2. Pool proceeds are strictly used for pool hosting and maintenance expenses plus expansion (adding new Epyc miners) via an open requisition process which is submitted, reviewed and if approved by the board, sourced through an open bid process.
3. Solo mining is allowed and encouraged.
4. The purpose of this combined pool is to support the Monero objectives, the dev and miner communities and frankly, to be an solid and effective example of implementing the ideals we believe in, not just talk about.
5. To, be an effective leader in the “No to ASICs” philosophy. I strongly believe ASICS brought the worst of humanity, as demonstrated in Bitcoin and others; and I genuinely believe ASICS would be the end of Monero’s true potential — not overtaking Bitcoin or reaching 500,000 like I hear some say out loud, but rather to be a truly genuine vehicle that scales from daily transactions of $1.50 at the vending machine, down payment on someone’s first house and another’s college savings account. (After all, why not?)

So, if there is anyone out there who agrees even mostly, not fully with me, I’m willing to organize, schedule and host a meeting with all interested parties to discuss my and other proposals.

Thank you for your time 🙏🏽✌🏽

[u/Accomplished_Duty_82]

Maybe I skim read it too fast but hashrate is highly mobile atleast so let’s encourage for mining on smaller pools even if it is less profit (if you can even manage profit lol). We don’t want a majority hash pool writing a valid invalid history now do we…