Score-A-Mining-Pool: Rate Any Pool on Decentralization (Interactive)

Quick answer

How decentralized — and how suitable — is a given mining pool? Answer six durable questions about it (who holds the reward, who builds the block templates, the fee bracket, transparency, Stratum V2 / Lightning support, and whether it’s a single-entity pool) and this tool scores it 1–5 using D-Central’s own published rubric. You supply today’s numbers — nothing about any specific pool is hardcoded here, so the score never goes stale.

This scores decentralization characteristics, not whether a pool pays you. A low score flags concentration risk for Bitcoin, not a scam. Verify every input against the pool’s own dashboard and the public sources listed below before you route hashrate.

1. Who holds your reward?

2. Who builds the block templates (chooses the transactions)?

3. Pool fee bracket (check the pool’s current figure)

4. Reporting transparency

5. Modern payout / protocol support

6. Is it a single-entity or private/closed pool?

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Answer the six questions to score your pool.

The rubric (D-Central’s published pool-decentralization scale):

5=non-custodial+miner-templates+<2%+min-fee; 4=<5%+SV2-or-Lightning+transparent; 3=<10%+custodial+transparent; 2=5-25%+custodial+opaque; 1=>20%-single-entity-or-private-pool.

A score of 1 does not mean a pool is bad — it measures decentralization characteristics only (concentration risk for the network), not payout reliability or honesty.

Verify each number yourself

Fee & minimum payout: the pool’s own dashboard / fee page.
Template control / Stratum V2: SV2 deployment & maturity tracker (does Job Declaration actually work there yet?).
Network hashrate share: pool-centralization tracker (live mempool.space block attribution).
Connection / latency: mining-pool connection matrix · payout schemes explained in the payout-scheme reference.
Want the max-sovereignty option? Self-host solo mining scores a 5 by construction — your node, your templates, your reward.

This tool asserts no pool’s current numbers and ranks no one — you enter today’s values, it applies D-Central’s published rubric. Full comparison methodology: how to choose a Bitcoin mining pool. Credit to the open dashboards (mempool.space), ckpool and the SRI project whose work makes this measurable.

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Last reviewed July 21, 2026.