A Mining Party starts with a simple idea: bring miners together for a set period of time and point their combined hashrate towards the same goal. At OwnBlock, we want to make it easier for the community to organise Mining Parties for Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Monero (XMR). If you contact us beforehand, we can also provide private infrastructure specifically for your Mining Party with a 0% OwnBlock pool fee.
We do not want to turn this into a complicated product or charge the community for every initiative. We would rather make our infrastructure and experience available to miners who want to organise something together.
Do you need permission to organise a Mining Party?
No. If several people decide to coordinate their equipment and point their combined hashrate at any of our compatible public pools, they are free to do so. From the pool's perspective, this is still conventional mining traffic. You therefore do not need permission from OwnBlock to organise a Mining Party using our public pools.
There is, however, another option. If you contact us beforehand and tell us what you are planning, we can review your request and prepare an instance specifically for your Mining Party.
Private infrastructure for your Mining Party
When we approve a Mining Party request, we deploy the required infrastructure so that it can operate privately for the agreed period. This means your Mining Party does not share mining resources with any of our public pools. The instance operates independently for the requested period and is dedicated exclusively to the participants of that Mining Party. Once the agreed period is over, we can take the infrastructure down.
The idea is to give the community a clearly separated environment for its Mining Party rather than mixing the event with the normal operation of our public pools.
0% OwnBlock fee
Mining Parties supported through this community programme will operate with a 0% fee from OwnBlock, subject to prior request and approval.
Why do we not charge for it? Because OwnBlock was not created to make mining pool fees our primary source of revenue. The company behind OwnBlock is a software development company. Our core business is technology and software development, not maximising revenue from fees paid by miners.
That gives us the freedom to approach OwnBlock differently. We see it as a service we can provide to the mining community and an opportunity to operate open infrastructure, experiment, learn and contribute to the ecosystem. If our experience and infrastructure can help a group of miners organise something interesting, we would rather support it.
Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash or Monero: you choose
We can currently consider Mining Party requests for:
The infrastructure and technical requirements are not identical across all three networks, so we need some information before setting up a private instance. In particular, we will want to know the approximate hashrate you expect to bring together and how long you want the Mining Party to run.
How much hashrate does your Mining Party need?
This is probably one of the first questions you should ask before organising one. There is no amount of hashrate that guarantees you will find a block. Mining is probabilistic. What you can do is use your expected hashrate to estimate the statistical probability of finding a block within a given period.
For example: what is our probability of finding at least one block if we bring this much hashrate together for 24 hours? Or: how long would we need to maintain this hashrate to reach a particular statistical probability of finding a block?
You can use the OwnBlock mining calculator to estimate your block projection based on your hashrate and current network conditions. It is a mathematical estimate, not a promise that a block will be found, but it can help you decide whether the size and duration of your Mining Party make sense before organising it.
What if you do not request private infrastructure?
You can still organise your Mining Party without it. Participants can coordinate their miners and use one of our available public pools for BTC, BCH or XMR. We do not consider a temporary concentration of hashrate to be prohibited or abnormal activity. For OwnBlock, it remains conventional mining activity.
The difference comes when you contact us beforehand. We can then review the initiative, coordinate the technical details with you and, if the request is approved, deploy private infrastructure for your Mining Party with a 0% OwnBlock fee.
Organise your own Mining Party
If you have a community, a group of friends, several ASICs, Monero mining rigs, or simply want to bring hashrate together for a few hours or a few days and try to find a block, you can propose a Mining Party to us. Tell us:
- which coin you want to mine: BTC, BCH or XMR
- your estimated combined hashrate
- the expected number of participants
- when you want to run it
- and how long you want it to remain active
We will review the request and see how we can help. You can reach us directly through our contact page.
The infrastructure is ours. The hashrate belongs to the community. And for approved Mining Parties, OwnBlock's fee is 0%.