There seems to be some confusion regarding some of the largest Bitcoin mining pools in operation today. F2Pool, Antpool, and BTCC Pool are sometimes referred to as “one mining pool” However, this is not the case, even though they may operate on the same mindset. What is rather worrying, though, is how none of these pools are verifying block headers right now.
Clearing Up Some Mining Pool Misconceptions
After a video had surfaced on Youtube talking about the “soft underbelly of Bitcoin”, there was a lot of confusion on the Internet. Reddit users interpreted this video as a sign of how F2Pool, Antpool, and BTCC Pool were one and the same entity. This is not the case, though, but they do share a similar frame of mind when it comes to making decisions.
One of the things all of these pools seem to be doing right now is how they no longer validate block headers. This makes them “effectively” the same pool, but that doesn’t mean they are one and the same. Not that there is anything wrong with that per se, but it is something to take note of.
The Youtube video – which is linked below – was designed to point out some interesting things. Pool latency is a serious issue that needs to be addressed, as it costs pools money due to higher orphan rates. Considering how all of these three pools are quite big, orphan blocks should be avoided at all costs.
One interesting point is how the video seems to indicate Antpool was deliberately delaying larger network blocks. Although a period of 20 minutes or longer is referred to, these statistics may need to be taken with a grain of salt. This is quite a difference from the average five-second delay when processing blocks.
Other Reddit comments seem to indicate Antpool has fixed this delay in the meantime, though. Blocks are now being relayed in a more reasonable amount of time. While this delay could be perceived as a network attack, that was never the intention of either mining pool.
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