How to choose a Monero pool

What you should consider:

1. Fees.

Choose a pool with low fees. The higher the fee, the less Monero you get. If you can, look at the fees as a percentage of earnings AND payout fees.

2. Size of pool (not too big)

It is better for Monero if you choose a pool that is not in the top few pools by hashrate. This is to avoid one single pool having more than half of the total hashrate. If one pool controls more than half the hashrate, it could control which transactions are accepted. This would remove a key part of why people use cryptocurrencies - decentralisation. If one pool can decide to block transactions then Monero would no longer be a decentralised currency. 

In short, avoid picking one of the top 3 pools by hashrate. Particularly, avoid MineXMR (at the time of writing they are by far the biggest pool, yet also have a high fee compared to others).

3. Size of pool (not too small)

Conversely, you likely don't want to pick a pool that's too small (low in hashrate) because it will not find a block often enough and your earnings will be unstable (though it should average out the same if you mine for a long time). 

If you're planning to mine for a long time, i.e. many months, and don't mind unstable earnings, then it should be fine to pick a small pool because the earnings will average out to the same over time.

4. Minimum payment

Some pools set a minimum payment that is quite high, and would take you a few weeks worth of mining (or even longer) to reach it. Personally I would say a minimum payment of over 0.05 XMR is too high. 

If you followed my guide on how to calculate how much you'll earn, then you can do a simple division to see how many days of continuous mining it would take you to reach the minimum payout of the pool, and whether a particular minimum payout is acceptable to you.

5. Algorithm switching

Some pools offer automatic switching to mining different coins, and they convert the earnings into monero to pay you. This can be beneficial on older hardware, or GPUs that wouldn't be profitable on monero. If this interests you then look for a pool with this feature.

6. Pool location

The location of the pool can make a tiny difference, because the ping time will normally be lower if it's closer to you. Ping time is how long it takes for your computer to talk to the pool's servers. 

If you're in the UK then it probably isn't a great idea to pick a pool in Australia, for example. But any in Europe should be fine. And if you really want to mine in a particular pool but it is far away, then this will only make a small difference.

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Step 2

Now you know what you're looking for, go to this website and choose a pool.

(Try to ignore the ads. Don't choose a pool just because they're "recommended" or "most trusted". Don't download a wallet, mining software, or any other software just because you see it in an ad. Think about how they're making enough money to pay for ads - probably by charging you more than others, or it's a scam.)