Definition
Public Pool is an open-source, self-hostable Bitcoin solo mining pool that lets you point your hashrate at your own server (or a community-run instance) and collect 100% of any block you find. It is best known as the friendly default for hobby Bitaxe miners who want to try solo mining without trusting a third party with their rewards.
Also known as: public-pool.io, self-hosted solo pool.
What Public Pool actually is
Public Pool is a software project, not a single company. It is written in TypeScript on the NestJS framework, released under the permissive MIT license, and maintained openly by Benjamin Wilson and contributors. Because the code is public, anyone can read it, audit it, fork it, or run their own copy beside a Bitcoin full node. That last point is the whole idea: instead of sending your shares to a faceless operator, you can host the pool yourself and keep custody of the coinbase transaction end to end.
The project also runs a hosted instance at public-pool.io that charges zero pool fee, which makes it a popular on-ramp for people who don’t yet want to spin up their own node. In either form, it speaks the standard Stratum protocol over TCP, so almost any ASIC or open-source miner can connect to it.
Why it grew up alongside the Bitaxe
Public Pool became the de-facto reference endpoint for the open-source hardware scene. The firmware and architecture work behind devices like the Bitaxe was tested directly against public-pool.io as a known-good Stratum V1 server, sitting next to battle-tested options like Con Kolivas’s CKPool and the newer Rust-based pools. That heritage matters: when a tiny ESP32-driven board running AxeOS needs somewhere reliable to send work, Public Pool is one of the endpoints the ecosystem trusts to behave correctly.
It fits the decentralization story cleanly. Every hobbyist who self-hosts a pool is one more layer removed from the handful of large operators that construct most blocks today. Public Pool, CKPool, and the modern alternatives each represent a slightly different trade-off in language, fees, and features, and together they keep solo mining genuinely permissionless rather than a single vendor’s product.
Why a home ASIC miner cares
If you are running an ASIC at home, the pool you choose decides who holds your reward and who can see your traffic. Plain CKPool connections are unencrypted, so an ISP can observe the Bitcoin address you mine to; Public Pool is one of the implementations that can be configured behind TLS, which is part of why privacy-minded plebs reach for it. And because you can run it on the same box as your node, the network never has to leave your home at all.
Practically, pointing a miner at Public Pool looks the same as any other pool: enter the host, the port, and your own Bitcoin address as the username. Each accepted share is a proof-of-work sample proving your machine is hashing valid block templates; if one of those hashes ever clears the network target, the full block reward is paid straight to your address. On a single small unit the odds of that are tiny — this is closer to a lottery than a paycheck — but the appeal is sovereignty, not steady income. To compare hardware and firmware options for a self-hosted setup, the Bitaxe hub and the open-source gear overview are good starting points.
How it compares to other pools
Public Pool is squarely a solo-style pool: when you win, you take the whole reward, and when you don’t, you earn nothing in the meantime. That distinguishes it from shared PPS or PPLNS pools that smooth payouts across many miners and take a pool fee in exchange. Where CKPool prizes raw C performance and a decade-long track record, Public Pool leans into approachable code and easy self-hosting for the home and open-hardware crowd. None of these is universally “better” — they are different layers of the same decentralized stack, and the right pick depends on your hashrate, your privacy needs, and how much of the plumbing you want to own.
Related terms: Solo Mining, Mining Pool, Lottery Mining, Stratum Protocol, Bitaxe, Coinbase Transaction
In Simple Terms
A no-fee, no-registration solo mining pool popular with Bitaxe users. Full block reward goes to the finder.
Public Pool is an open-source, self-hostable Bitcoin solo mining pool that lets you point your hashrate at your own server (or a community-run instance) and collect 100% of any block you find. It is best known as the friendly default for hobby Bitaxe miners who want to try solo mining without trusting a third party with their rewards.
Also known as: public-pool.io, self-hosted solo pool.
What Public Pool actually is
Public Pool is a software project, not a single company. It is written in TypeScript on the NestJS framework, released under the permissive MIT license, and maintained openly by Benjamin Wilson and contributors. Because the code is public, anyone can read it, audit it, fork it, or run their own copy beside a Bitcoin full node. That last point is the whole idea: instead of sending your shares to a faceless operator, you can host the pool yourself and keep custody of the coinbase transaction end to end.
The project also runs a hosted instance at public-pool.io that charges zero pool fee, which makes it a popular on-ramp for people who don't yet want to spin up their own node. In either form, it speaks the standard Stratum protocol over TCP, so almost any ASIC or open-source miner can connect to it.
Why it grew up alongside the Bitaxe
Public Pool became the de-facto reference endpoint for the open-source hardware scene. The firmware and architecture work behind devices like the Bitaxe was tested directly against public-pool.io as a known-good Stratum V1 server, sitting next to battle-tested options like Con Kolivas's CKPool and the newer Rust-based pools. That heritage matters: when a tiny ESP32-driven board running AxeOS needs somewhere reliable to send work, Public Pool is one of the endpoints the ecosystem trusts to behave correctly.
It fits the decentralization story cleanly. Every hobbyist who self-hosts a pool is one more layer removed from the handful of large operators that construct most blocks today. Public Pool, CKPool, and the modern alternatives each represent a slightly different trade-off in language, fees, and features, and together they keep solo mining genuinely permissionless rather than a single vendor's product.
Why a home ASIC miner cares
If you are running an ASIC at home, the pool you choose decides who holds your reward and who can see your traffic. Plain CKPool connections are unencrypted, so an ISP can observe the Bitcoin address you mine to; Public Pool is one of the implementations that can be configured behind TLS, which is part of why privacy-minded plebs reach for it. And because you can run it on the same box as your node, the network never has to leave your home at all.
Practically, pointing a miner at Public Pool looks the same as any other pool: enter the host, the port, and your own Bitcoin address as the username. Each accepted share is a proof-of-work sample proving your machine is hashing valid block templates; if one of those hashes ever clears the network target, the full block reward is paid straight to your address. On a single small unit the odds of that are tiny — this is closer to a lottery than a paycheck — but the appeal is sovereignty, not steady income. To compare hardware and firmware options for a self-hosted setup, the Bitaxe hub and the open-source gear overview are good starting points.
How it compares to other pools
Public Pool is squarely a solo-style pool: when you win, you take the whole reward, and when you don't, you earn nothing in the meantime. That distinguishes it from shared PPS or PPLNS pools that smooth payouts across many miners and take a pool fee in exchange. Where CKPool prizes raw C performance and a decade-long track record, Public Pool leans into approachable code and easy self-hosting for the home and open-hardware crowd. None of these is universally "better" — they are different layers of the same decentralized stack, and the right pick depends on your hashrate, your privacy needs, and how much of the plumbing you want to own.
Related terms: Solo Mining, Mining Pool, Lottery Mining, Stratum Protocol, Bitaxe, Coinbase Transaction