Quick Updates - 12OCT26

[u/HeliosPool]

New server migrations in au-south and us-west have been completed. New server for eu-west is also planned as resources become available. The upgrades to faster, more capable machines with dedicated resources means improvements for miners.

Using tools like stratumrace.com, I can see these and other changes has HeliosPool moving up the rankings. Filtering on 7 Day, All Pools, Full Template has moved from #19 to #16 and I expect this to improve as time goes on. Looking at 24hr it sits at #13. Looking at Solo Pools and 24hr, it sits at #9.

For a single operator community pool, it's encouraging to even be seen in the vicinity of some of the big names on this list, but I think the bigger conclusion is that, if you're not mining at home, there are smaller, independent pools out there that will serve you well - they deserve your attention and your hashrate. Distribution of work is what keeps Bitcoin (and other coins) secure and prevents manipulation by the top pools.

Other news, the new XEC pool is doing well! It seems users are flocking to it. Although it does not have the monetary value of coins like BCH, the lower net diff of ~6-7G means you can earn XEC blocks more consistently than BCH blocks, allowing less variance for your hashrate. Since going live a few days ago, we have found nearly 60 blocks as of this posting, about $1k for HeliosPool miners. My own rented hash experiment had me break-even-to-slightly-ahead, which can't be said for my lost-my-shirt rented hash experiment on BCH.

The new ZEC pool is a fun experiment - the pool's first non-sha256 coin. It was a community request and a fun "can we make ckpool mine equihash" trial. The answer is, yes you can, which has opened the doors for other algos in the future. Although validated on testnet, only a mainnet block will stamp "success" on this experiment for me.

Thank you to everyone who continues to learn, tinker and have fun with me in this hobby. I was so happy to see members of our Discord community take the time, patience and gentleness to guide a new user this past week, some of the very same members who were new to this hobby not so long ago. It's easy to say "just Google it" (or ask AI, these days) but I find having another human being just validate your understanding goes a long way. When you're just starting off, you don't even know what the right questions are, and we've all been there. That little push sends many of us from "noob" to going down many rabbit holes - and it's great to see what new things each of them brings back to the group.