BITCOIN MINING POOLS
Who mines Bitcoin's blocks?
Which pools win Bitcoin's blocks today, how the leaderboard changed each era, and how much of history carries no name at all.
Who wins the blocks right now?
Foundry USA leads this eraIn the current era, 2024 to today, Foundry USA has won 30% of all blocks. Across all of Bitcoin's history the leader is AntPool, which is the point of splitting the count by era: the winner keeps changing.
A pool is thousands of mining machines pooling their chances and splitting the rewards. Every count on this page comes off our own copy of the chain.
How does the rest of this era stack up?
30%Foundry USALargest share of blocks this era.20%AntPoolShare of this era's blocks.12%ViaBTCShare of this era's blocks.3.2%no pool nameBlocks this era whose maker left no recognisable tag.Was it always this identifiable?
Mining used to be anonymousAcross all of history, 30% of blocks carry no pool name, mostly from the early years when people mined alone at home. This era that slice is 3.2%. Mining went from a hobby nobody signed to an industry that signs almost every block.
Who has won the most blocks ever?
11%AntPoolMost blocks won across all of Bitcoin's history.8.2%F2PoolShare of all blocks ever mined.7.6%Foundry USAShare of all blocks ever mined.30%no pool nameAll-time share with no recognisable tag, mostly early solo miners.What should you keep in mind reading this?
Shares compare, raw counts do notThe current era is only 58% mined, so its block counts are still growing and only the percentages are comparable to finished eras. And a name on a block says who most likely mined it, nothing more. It does not tell us who owns the reward today, and we never attribute anyone's coins from it.
Understanding Bitcoin Mining Pools
What a mining pool is. Winning a Bitcoin block takes an enormous amount of guessing power, and a single machine could wait years for a win. So miners team up. A pool combines thousands of machines, wins blocks regularly, and splits the reward by contributed work. When a pool wins a block, it usually writes its own name into that block, which is what lets anyone count who mined what.
How we count, and what the no-tag slice means. We read every block from our own copy of the chain and count the names pools wrote into them. Blocks with no recognisable name are counted honestly as their own slice rather than guessed at. Most of that slice is early Bitcoin, when people mined alone at home and had no pool name to write. That is why the early years look anonymous and the recent years do not.
Why the eras matter. Bitcoin cuts its block reward in half every 210,000 blocks, roughly every four years, and everyone calls those halvings. They split Bitcoin's history into natural chapters, so that is how this page groups the count. Comparing chapters shows something a single total hides: the leader changes. A pool that dominated one era can be a footnote in the next, and the pool leading today did not exist for most of Bitcoin's life.
What a name on a block does and does not tell you. The name says who most likely mined the block, because pools sign their wins voluntarily and have little reason to lie. It does not say who owns the reward now, and it does not tell us which wallets belong to that pool. We count blocks, not coins, and we do not attribute anyone's money based on a signature in a block. Also worth knowing: the current era is still being mined, so its counts grow every day and are only comparable to finished eras as percentages, never as raw totals.