Five mining pools to consider before November 10, and why the decision involves more than finding a new Stratum address.
Changing a mining pool can take minutes. Choosing the right one can take considerably longer. When the machines are running around the clock, it is not simply a matter of sending hashrate to a new server. Someone has to account for the work, distribute the rewards, make the payments and help operators spot trouble before it becomes expensive.
That choice is now pressing for Binance Pool users. In its October 13 announcement, Binance said it would shut down its mining pool on November 10, 2026, at 07:00 UTC. After that time, its mining endpoints will be disabled and newly submitted shares will no longer be credited. Pool Savings, Cloud Mining, transaction acceleration, mining alerts and the pool API are also being discontinued.
The deadline gives miners a few weeks to find another home for their hashrate. A small operation may need to reconfigure only a handful of ASICs. A larger farm has workers, payout settings, monitoring systems and staff responsibilities to consider. In either case, a rushed decision based entirely on the advertised fee can miss much of what makes a pool workable day to day.
With that in mind, here are five pools worth looking at. They serve different types of miners, and the order below is not a ranking by profitability.
EMCD: a mining pool with a wider approach to the transition
For miners facing an unexpected move, EMCD makes a persuasive case by looking beyond the mining connection itself. The pool has operated since 2017, and the company says miners have produced more than thirty thousand BTC through it over that period.
One useful detail is easy to overlook: EMCD’s minimum balance for a free BTC payout to an external wallet is 0.0001 BTC. That matters to miners who would rather receive smaller accumulated balances than wait until a higher withdrawal threshold is reached.
The more distinctive part of EMCD’s proposition is what happens around the ASICs. Its EMCD Monitoring platform brings device status, hashrate, temperature, power consumption and fault alerts into one interface. Operators can identify machines that have gone offline, compare device and pool-side figures, and perform certain actions remotely, including reboots and pool configuration changes. The tool is designed to monitor equipment across different pools, not just machines connected to EMCD.
That is especially relevant now. Binance is not merely retiring a Stratum endpoint; it is also taking down mining-related notifications and API services. A farm that relied on those tools will need to rebuild parts of its daily oversight. EMCD can address mining and equipment monitoring within the same wider setup, although Monitoring requires a local Miner Agent and should be tested against the farm’s existing systems.
There is also a practical incentive to try the move. According to EMCD’s transition offer for Binance Pool miners, eligible new users who enter promo code welcome2 during registration receive 14 days of mining without pool fees and one month of EMCD Monitoring at no charge.
Taken together, those details explain why EMCD deserves a place near the top of a shortlist. It offers a workable BTC reward model, access to smaller external payouts, direct support and a monitoring product that addresses a second problem created by Binance Pool’s closure.
ViaBTC: room to choose how rewards are calculated
ViaBTC takes a different approach, giving Bitcoin miners a choice between PPS+ and PPLNS. The difference deserves attention because a lower displayed pool fee does not always mean the same thing under two payment models.
Under its PPS+ structure, ViaBTC charges 4% on the block-subsidy portion of rewards and 2% on the transaction-fee component. PPLNS carries a 2% fee and ties payouts more closely to blocks found by the pool and the miner’s share of recent work. For miners comfortable with that variability, the choice can be useful. Others may prefer to judge their earnings against a more predictable calculation.
ViaBTC also offers free automatic withdrawals to external wallets once the relevant balance reaches the minimum. For BTC, that amount is 0.001 BTC. Miners can compare the expected time between withdrawals with their operating expenses and preferred cash-flow schedule.
F2Pool: familiar mining tools and configurable payout levels
F2Pool is another established destination for Bitcoin hashrate. Its account structure supports separate mining accounts, worker statistics and payout records, which can help operators keep sites or groups of machines organized.
For Bitcoin, F2Pool lists FPPS with a 4% commission and PPLNS with a 2% commission. Its published BTC payout options begin at 0.005 BTC, with higher thresholds available. The pool covers blockchain network fees on its payouts, and miners can adjust their threshold from account settings.
That arrangement is straightforward to evaluate once the farm’s expected production is known. The main question is how frequently the operation will meet its chosen payout threshold, rather than whether the headline pool rate looks attractive in isolation.
Braiins Pool: a choice between on-chain and Lightning payouts
Braiins Pool offers another interesting route, particularly for miners who care about how their bitcoin reaches them. Its standard FPPS fee is 2.5%, and it supports both conventional on-chain payouts and the Lightning Network.
The distinction is important. Under Braiins’ published rules, on-chain payouts below 0.005 BTC carry a fee of 0.0001 BTC, with a minimum on-chain payout of 0.0002 BTC. On-chain payouts at or above 0.005 BTC are free. Lightning payouts are free from the pool’s side and can start from one satoshi, within the published limits.
For a miner who already uses Lightning, this creates a convenient way to receive small amounts. Someone who prefers standard on-chain transfers can choose a larger threshold instead. Braiins is a reminder that payout preferences belong in the same conversation as pool fees.
ANTPOOL: an option for operators managing multiple accounts
ANTPOOL brings another set of considerations to the table. Its mining services include account and subaccount management, worker-group organization, hashrate alerts and interfaces that can be integrated into a farm’s own reporting tools.
Those capabilities are particularly relevant when several teams, sites or clients share operational infrastructure. As with any pool, the important step is to match the available account permissions, reporting tools, reward model and payout arrangements to the way the farm actually operates.
For miners already using custom monitoring software, ANTPOOL’s account features and published API documentation make it a reasonable candidate for a closer technical assessment before switching equipment.
Making the switch before November 10: a short checklist
Redirecting a machine to a new pool takes a few minutes. The problems appear around it. Six checks cover most of them.
- Check the onboarding terms before creating the account. An introductory offer changes the first weeks, not the years after it, so the number to compare is the fee that applies once the offer ends. EMCD, for example, gives new accounts registered with promo code welcome2 14 days without pool fees and a month of EMCD Monitoring; after that, the standard 4% BTC fee applies unless individual terms have been agreed.
- Test with a few machines first. Point a small group of ASICs at the new pool, confirm that shares are accepted, and compare the hashrate the pool reports with the readings on the devices. Investigate any gap before moving the rest of the farm.
- Make sure failures are visible. Take one worker offline on purpose and confirm that an alert is generated and reaches the person responsible for the site. Binance is retiring its mining alerts and API together with the endpoints, so a farm that relied on them needs a replacement in place before the switch.
- Review payout settings. Confirm the wallet address, set a payout threshold that matches the farm’s cash flow, and allow for the security hold that some pools apply after a payout address is changed.
- Update the backup pools. After November 10 the Binance endpoint no longer works as a fallback, so every backup slot in the miners’ configuration needs a live pool.
- Close out the Binance account early. Binance asks users to complete the required account steps, including identity verification where applicable, by November 10 at 23:59 UTC to receive any remaining settlements they are eligible for. Historical pool pages stay available until November 24 at 07:00 UTC; download payout history and worker reports before then.
November 10 is a fixed date. The choice of pool does not have to be made in the same hurry: compare the five pools above on fee, reward model, payout rules and the tooling the farm depends on, test the shortlist on a handful of machines, and move the rest of the farm once the pool’s figures match the readings on the machines.
Featured image via Shutterstock.
