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If, according to Luke Dashjr, mining pools aren’t really viable until they reach ~1% of total hash, does that mean that the maximum number of pools we can ever expect is ~100? (In practice it would be fewer.)

The issue he explains is bad luck streaks, where the pool may not find a block for ~3 weeks, but miners have to pay their electricity bill every day or week.

Do any other changes to mining fix this to allow for more pools? Is 100 enough?

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a289ef66... 1y ago

100 is enough.

But you can still be a viable pool with <1%. You just have to have enough runway to outlast a bad luck streak.

If I have 0.5% of hash rate but a trillion cuckbucks to pay my electricity bill, my pool is viable as long as the expected value of finding blocks is greater than my average cost to find a block.