Bitcoin mining pool handles 2.3% of network shutdown once hashrate drops 65%.

Hashrate directed through Binance Pool has fallen from 26 EH/s in December to about 9 EH/s. Remaining miners must choose another provider before the November 10 cutoff.

Crypto exchange Binance is shutting down the Bitcoin mining pool it launched in April 2020, and the computing power directed to the service has fallen by almost two-thirds compared to the end of last year.

Binance Pool had 26 exahes per second in December, or 2.3% of the Bitcoin network, according to Hashret Index. Its latest table puts the pool at around 9.2 EH/s, below 1% and 11th. which is reduced by approximately 65%.

An exahash per second is one quintillion guesses per second in the puzzle that yields one bitcoin block. A mining pool combines the work of many machines so that their owners receive regular payouts instead of waiting to find a block on their own.

Binance used a payment model called full payment per share, or FPPS, which paid miners for their work and accepted the risk that the pool would find fewer blocks than expected.

The exchange announced earlier this week that Binance Pool, Money Savings, Cloud Mining, Transaction Accelerator and related services will be shut down at 7am UTC on November 10, citing ongoing reviews of its products and services. It did not provide any financial explanation for the decision.

Miners have about four weeks to move their machines. After disconnection, Binance will stop mining credit, work records used to calculate payouts. Pool Savings users must redeem their positions, while anyone awaiting final payout must complete the necessary identity checks by 11:59 p.m. UTC that day

Pool pages will disappear for good on November 24, giving customers another two weeks to download records and check payment status.

Four years ago, Binance offered funding for the development of miners. In October 2022, it announced a $500 million lending program through the pool, offering guaranteed loans for 18 to 24 months at interest rates of 5 to 10 percent. The notice of closure does not address that application or disclose any outstanding loan balances.

Binance follows SBI Crypto, which shut down its pool on July 31 after capturing about 2 percent of Bitcoin's computing power. Crypto exchange OKX ended its mining pool service in February 2024.

Hashrat Index's December report described Binance Money as the last remaining pool from the era when exchanges turned to mining.

Polin, once the largest pool with nearly a fifth of the global hashrate, filed for bankruptcy in July with about $173 million. Its problems included frozen wallet funds and stalled mining sites in Texas, and its pool share was close to zero for years.

The largest pools now account for a larger share of block production. Foundry USA, AntPool and F2Pool together showed about 64.2% in the latest Hashrate Index table. December's top three companies accounted for 61.4%, with ViaBTC taking third place over F2Pool.

Traditional pool operators choose which transactions their participating devices approve. Therefore, the closing of the pools limits the choice of miners for providers in a trade, which affects the payouts of bitcoins in blocks. Miners can, however, direct their machines to smaller providers and pool shares do not create ownership of the hardware.

If all of Binance's remaining computing power were transferred to the three largest pools, assuming the rest of the network remained unchanged, their combined share would be approximately 65%. Binance has not specified where its remaining miners will go.

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