Lightning payouts?
Recent public pool miner here. 🙋♂️
Switched over from Braiins. No complaints from me on public pool.
Discussion
Public pool is on-chain only to my knowledge
How many sats do you need to build up before the pool lets you withdraw, or is it lottery mining, where you would get the full block reward IF you find a block, but nothing at all if you don't?
Lottery mining. You either find the block or you get nothing. If you do find the block, there are no fees. The current subsidy goes straight to your receive address.
Do you get to create your own block template, or is that 100% dictated by the pool, thus not really contributing to the decentralization of template construction?
I’m assuming the latter. It’s not something I thought about too hard. I just want to mine a block. Truthfully, I have no idea what you’re talking about but now have something to research. 🧐
Block templates aren't too crazy a concept to wrap your mind around.
All Bitcoin blocks are made up of transactions that were waiting in the mempools to be included in a block, right? When a miner is hashing to try and "find a block," it is using a block template that includes all the transactions that will be included in that block IF they are the one to find it.
Now, where does the miner get that transaction information from? It has to come from a Bitcoin node that has a mempool of transactions that are waiting to be included. Most miners don't connect to their own node to decide which transactions will be included for themselves. They rely on their mining pool to provide them with the block template dictating which transactions will be included.
What is more, many mining pools aren't creating the templates themselves either. They are relying on other pools, particularly Antpool, to create it for them. That means Antpool has an outsized influence over what transactions are permitted to be included in a block.
If you run your own node, you absolutely should be creating your own block templates and not using a pool that requires you to use theirs, especially if you are lottery mining.
Is there any plus of creating own block templates? That is kinda place I didn't explored yet 😅 Thanks
Only if you care about Bitcoin maintaining decentralization for the sake of permissionless transactions.
Creating your own block templates ensures that if you find a block, there won't be transactions left out of it for political or regulatory reasons. It helps Bitcoin stay apolitical and fights against transaction censorship.