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1. Binance Pool closure: what the exchange announced
Binance announced earlier this week that it will shut down Binance Pool, the bitcoin mining pool it opened in April 2020, with services ending at 7 a.m. UTC on November 10. Computing power directed at the pool has dropped roughly 65% since December, from about 26 exahashes per second (EH/s) to about 9.2 EH/s, which is less than 1% of the Bitcoin network.
The closure covers more than the pool itself. Binance said Pool Savings, Cloud Mining, its transaction accelerator and other related services will stop at the same moment. Miners who still point machines at Binance therefore have roughly four weeks to choose a different provider, and the exchange has laid out a sequence of later deadlines for payouts, identity checks and record keeping.
The decision lands at a time when the number of large, independent pools is shrinking. It also raises a familiar question for Bitcoin observers: what happens to the balance of power among the remaining pool operators when one of them leaves the field.
2. Why is Binance closing its mining pool?
Binance has not given a financial or operational explanation. The company said only that the shutdown follows an ongoing review of its products and services, and it did not link the decision to profitability, regulation or the sharp decline in hashrate that the pool has experienced.
The numbers nonetheless show a service in retreat. According to estimates from the Hashrate Index data tracker, Binance Pool controlled about 26 EH/s in December, or 2.3% of the network. The tracker's latest table now puts it near 9.2 EH/s, under 1% of total hashrate, and ranks it 11th among pools. That is a decline of about two-thirds in under a year.
A pool's share can fall for many reasons. Miners can move machines to providers with different fee structures, payout schedules or reputations, and a pool whose operator is not primarily a mining business may attract less loyalty. Without a statement from Binance, however, the reasons for the departures remain a matter of inference rather than record.
3. How a mining pool works and what EH/s measures
One exahash per second equals a quintillion guesses per second at the cryptographic puzzle that earns the right to add a block to the Bitcoin blockchain. Hashrate is the standard way of describing how much computing power is directed at that task, and a pool's share of the total is a rough proxy for how often it can expect to find blocks.
Mining pools exist because finding a block alone is a matter of luck. A single operator with a modest fleet of machines might wait months or years for a reward, while a pool combines the work of many participants so that rewards arrive in regular, smaller payments. The pool keeps track of each participant's contribution through shares, which are records of the work submitted and which determine each miner's portion of the payout.
Binance used a full pay-per-share model, known as FPPS. Under that arrangement the pool pays miners for the work they submit whether or not the pool actually finds a block, and the pool also covers an estimate of transaction fees. The operator, in other words, absorbs the risk that its blocks come in below expectations, which is one reason the model is attractive to miners seeking predictable income.
4. Deadlines for miners and Pool Savings users
The first date that matters is November 10 at 7 a.m. UTC. After that point Binance stops crediting mining shares, so any machine still pointed at the pool will be producing work that earns nothing. Miners who want uninterrupted income need to repoint their hardware to another provider before the cutoff.
Users of Pool Savings must redeem their positions. Anyone who is still waiting for a final payout has to complete the required identity verification checks by 11:59 p.m. UTC on November 10, a requirement that could trip up small participants who have not logged in for some time.
A second, longer deadline follows. Pool pages will be removed permanently on November 24, which gives customers an additional two weeks to download their records and to check the status of any outstanding payouts. Anyone who needs mining statements for accounting or tax purposes would be well advised to export them within that window.
5. What miners should weigh when choosing a new pool
Switching pools is technically straightforward, since a mining machine only needs a new connection address and a worker name, but the decision involves several trade-offs. Fees, payout method, minimum payout thresholds, the location of servers and the track record of the operator all affect what a miner ultimately earns. A pool that charges a slightly higher fee but pays on a full pay-per-share basis, as Binance did, offers a different risk profile from one that pays only when it finds blocks.
Counterparty risk is another consideration. A pool that holds miners' earnings for any length of time is exposed to the financial health of its operator, and the Poolin bankruptcy is a reminder that frozen funds can follow a failure. Miners who prefer to limit that exposure can choose providers that pay out frequently and withdraw balances regularly instead of leaving them on the platform.
Finally, miners who care about the distribution of block production may weigh how large a share a prospective pool already holds. Joining a smaller pool does not change an individual miner's expected earnings in any large way, but it does keep hashrate spread across more operators, which is the outcome the concentration figures suggest the network may need after Binance leaves.
6. Binance's earlier push to finance miners
The shutdown stands in contrast with the exchange's ambitions of a few years ago. In October 2022 Binance announced a $500 million lending program routed through the pool, offering secured loans with terms of 18 to 24 months at interest rates between 5% and 10%. The aim was to help miners expand during a period when many were short of capital.
The closure notice does not mention that program, and it does not say how much of the lending remains outstanding. That leaves open how any existing loans will be handled once the pool no longer operates, a point that borrowers may want to clarify directly with the exchange.
7. What the closure says about exchanges in mining
Cryptocurrency exchanges moved into mining pools during an earlier phase of the industry, when running a pool looked like a natural extension of a business built on customer relationships, custody and payment rails. A pool could bring in fee revenue, attract miners who might also trade or borrow on the platform, and give the exchange a presence in the infrastructure that secures the network.
The recent closures suggest that the model has become harder to sustain. Pools operate on thin margins, compete largely on price and reliability, and depend on keeping a stable base of miners. When hashrate leaves, fixed costs for operating the service do not fall at the same pace, and a review of products can reasonably conclude that the capital is better used elsewhere. Binance has not said that this was its reasoning, but the sequence of exits by SBI Crypto, OKX and now Binance points in one direction.
8. Fewer pools to choose from
Binance is not the first company with an exchange or financial-services background to withdraw. SBI Crypto closed its pool on July 31 after having held roughly 2% of Bitcoin's computing power, and OKX ended its mining pool services in February 2024. The Hashrate Index described Binance Pool in its December report as the last survivor from the period when exchanges moved into mining.
Other pool operators have fared worse. Poolin was once the largest pool, with nearly a fifth of global hashrate. It filed for bankruptcy in July, owing about $173 million, after problems that included frozen wallet funds and stalled mining sites in Texas. Its share of the network had been close to zero for years before the filing.
Taken together, these departures mean that miners looking for a home have fewer established names to consider, and the ones that remain are concentrated at the top of the rankings.
9. Does the shutdown concentrate Bitcoin block production?
It could. In the Hashrate Index's latest table, Foundry USA, AntPool and F2Pool together hold about 64.2% of the network. In December the top three accounted for 61.4%, and ViaBTC held third place rather than F2Pool.
If every unit of Binance's remaining hashrate moved to those three pools, their combined share would rise to roughly 65%, assuming the rest of the network stayed unchanged. Binance has not said where its remaining miners will go, so that figure is an upper-bound illustration rather than a forecast.
The concentration matters because a pool operator chooses which transactions the machines in its pool work to confirm. A smaller set of large pools therefore means a smaller set of entities with that influence. Miners are not locked in, however. They can redirect their machines to smaller providers at any time, and pool shares do not establish ownership of hardware, so hashrate can shift quickly if participants wish to spread their work more widely.
10. What to watch after November 10
The immediate question is where the roughly 9.2 EH/s currently directed at Binance Pool will land. The share rankings in the weeks following the cutoff will show whether the three largest pools absorb the bulk of it or whether smaller operators capture a meaningful portion.
Readers should also watch for any further detail from Binance on how the review of its products and services will affect other offerings, and for any guidance on the fate of loans issued under the 2022 program. The next hard dates are November 10 for the end of services and November 24 for the removal of pool pages.