AntPool Rises to Leadership Among Bitcoin Mining Pools: How Did This Happen?

• Bitcoin (BTC) mining is a live “winner takes all” race involving mining companies and pools competing against each other to discover the next valid block.
• AntPool has recently surged in hashrate power, surpassing Foundry USA in block discovery, making it the new leading pool in the Bitcoin mining race.
• AntPool is owned by the leading ASIC manufacturer, BitMain, and both are located in China. ASICs are specialized machines used for efficient Bitcoin mining.

According to recent data, AntPool has surpassed Digital Currency Group (DCG) subsidiary Foundry USA to become the leader among Bitcoin mining pools.

AntPool Takes the Lead in Bitcoin Mining Pool

Bitcoin mining is a live “winner takes all” race involving mining companies and pools competing against each other to discover the next valid block. Recent changes in hashrate dynamics towards AntPool could further impact the centralization of the Bitcoin network.

Notably, Digital Currency Group (DCG) subsidiary and American mining pool Foundry USA had dominated this race over the past three years. Foundry held a 17.78% block discovery dominance over the last three years, having discovered 28,331 Bitcoin blocks, according to data collected from mempool.space on October 6, 2023.

However, AntPool has recently surged in hashrate power, surpassing Foundry USA in block discovery, making it the new leading pool in the Bitcoin mining race. AntPool closely followed the leader with a 16.59% block discovery over the past three years and a total of 26,436 blocks discovered.

Interestingly, the new dominant pool is owned by BitMain, a leading ASIC manufacturer, and both are located in China. ASICs are specialized machines used for efficient Bitcoin mining, and as long as a miner has more efficient ASICs connected to the network, their chances of finding a valid block and collecting the reward are higher.

AntPool: Discovered Approximately One out of Every Three Blocks in a Day

As of now, the mining pool owned by BitMain has discovered 46 blocks (approximately 30.07%) in the last 24 hours. Excluding transaction fees paid, this amount has led to AntPool earning a total of 287.5 BTC as part of mining rewards, which is close to $8 million at the current BTC price of approximately $27,700.

These recent results have also impacted the Bitcoin mining pool industry over the past three days as AntPool managed to surpass Foundry USA by just two blocks. The Chinese mining pool accounted for a total of 121 blocks (27.75%), while Foundry was responsible for 119 blocks (27.29%) in the three-day pool rankings.

Therefore, AntPool has collected over $2 billion so far by awarding substantial block rewards to Bitcoin miners, allocating resources by redirecting the hashrate of its competitors to other pools.

Like Foundry USA, AntPool also requires proper Know Your Customer (KYC) identification from all Bitcoin miners plugging their machines into the mining cooperative. In this context, more registered mining companies may opt to move their hashrate to BitMain’s pool to increase their chances of block discovery.