Largest Mining Pools: How They Control Bitcoin and Ethereum Networks

When you think of Bitcoin mining, you might picture a lone miner with a rig in their garage. But the truth? largest mining pools, centralized groups of miners who combine computing power to increase their chances of earning block rewards. Also known as mining pools, they handle over 80% of Bitcoin’s total hash rate. Without them, solo miners would rarely win a block—and that’s by design. These pools aren’t just convenient—they’re essential for keeping the network running smoothly. But they also create a quiet power shift: a handful of pools now control the majority of validation power on both Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Bitcoin mining, the process of validating transactions and adding them to the blockchain using proof-of-work. Also known as BTC mining, it relies on specialized hardware called ASICs. The biggest pools—like Foundry USA, F2Pool, and AntPool—run massive data centers with thousands of these machines. They split rewards among participants based on how much computing power each miner contributes. This is how a person with one ASIC can still earn Bitcoin daily, even if they’ll never solve a block alone. The same logic applies to Ethereum mining, the now-defunct proof-of-work system that used GPUs instead of ASICs before Ethereum switched to proof-of-stake in 2022. Even though Ethereum doesn’t mine anymore, the legacy of mining pools still matters—because Bitcoin still does, and its pool structure is the model everyone watches.

Why does this concentration matter? Because if one pool controls too much hash power, it could theoretically halt transactions or reverse them—a risk called a 51% attack. So far, no single pool has crossed that line, but the top three have come close. That’s why many crypto purists push for smaller, decentralized pools. But in reality, most miners choose the biggest pools because they pay more consistently. It’s a trade-off: reliability over decentralization. The result? A system that’s technically decentralized but practically controlled by a few corporate-backed operations.

What you’ll find in the posts below are real cases of how mining pools shape the market, how regulations are starting to target them, and why some countries like Georgia and Russia have become hotspots for large-scale operations. You’ll also see how mining pool dominance affects everything from transaction fees to network security. This isn’t theory—it’s happening right now, and the next big shift could come from a single pool’s decision to change its rules.