A Bitmain company has launched the Bitcoin network’s newest mining pool to the public. Developed and operated by Bitmaintech Israel, which is Bitmain’s first R&D center outside of China, ConnectBTC pool is aimed at providing a way for miners to avoid the risk they encounter in the mining process, says its manager, Gadi Glikberg.
Glikberg states in a chat with Cointelegraph:
“We see that pools have begun to offer creative new ways of payments that roll the risk back to the miners. We believe that with the recent fluctuations in the tx fees, miners deserve to have the pool, bear the risk and offer a fixed payment that takes into account the tx fees.”
The new pool’s launch is coming at a time when Bitmain and its pools have been actively involved in Bitcoin’s controversial scaling issue. Bitmain owns AntPool which is currently the largest mining pool on the Bitcoin network - controlling about 15 percent of all hash power - while BTC.com represents an additional three percent. With regards to Bitcoin scaling, Bitmain’s preference tilts towards Bitcoin Unlimited over Bitcoin Core’s SegWit.
Subsidy
One may have expected ConnectBTC to identify in that direction too. However, Glikberg says his pool is yet to decide on which solution he prefers for the Bitcoin scalability issue.
“At the moment, the pool is not signaling either way. If we decide to cast a vote we will do that by talking to our customers and understanding where their interests are,” he says, adding that they are rather working to benefit their users for now.
“In addition to the six percent subsidy we offer, we’re launching with a new UI that makes it easier than ever to keep an eye on the real-time status of miners making it easier than ever to manage several mining units.”
The pool, which has been already up and running in closed beta for a few months, provides highly detailed real-time information and analytics to miners, and gives mining operators a better understanding of their performance, without having to develop custom internal monitoring tools.
It requires no configuration or setup to use. Rather, it automatically sets up workers and frees mining operators from having to maintain two sets of configuration both locally and at the pool.
“High subsidies on regular PPS plans allow miners to benefit from the increase in transaction fees while avoiding any risks,” he says. Glikberg adds that ConnectBTC aims to be the new home for miners, hence it’s operating under a robust infrastructure and employing the latest cutting-edge technologies to ensure members can maximize their profit and minimize the work required of them.