AntPool remains the largest Bitcoin Mining Pool in terms of its Bitcoin Network hash-rate. AntPool holds roughly 15% of the total hash-rate of all Bitcoin mining pools. AntPool mined its first block in March 2014, meaning that it emerged roughly four years after the first mining pool; Slushpool. AntPool is run by Bitmain Technologies Ltd., the world’s largest Bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer, and a large portion of their pool is run on Bitmain’s own mining rigs. AntPool supports both P2Pool and stratum mining modes, with nodes that are spread all over the world to ensure stability (US, Germany, China etc.). Also, AntPool’s user interface is surprisingly slick, considering that the underlying company thrives mostly off of hardware sales.
