Binance to Close Its Mining Pool on November 10 as Share Falls Below 1%
October 14, 2026
Binance Pulls the Plug on Six Years of Mining
Binance is leaving the Bitcoin mining business. The world’s largest crypto exchange said on Tuesday it will discontinue Binance Pool and all related services on November 10, ending a product that launched in April 2020 and once ranked among the ten biggest pools on the network. The exchange described the decision as part of “an ongoing review of its products and services” and gave no further reason, Cointelegraph reported. Binance had not responded to the outlet’s request for comment at the time of publication. The closure is small in network terms and large in symbolic ones: Binance Pool was the last survivor of the era when exchanges rushed to add mining to their menus.What Shuts Down on November 10, and What Miners Must Do
The cutoff is 07:00 UTC on November 10. At that moment Binance will disable its Stratum URLs and endpoints, which are the connection points miners plug their machines into. Any hashrate or mining shares submitted after that time “will no longer be accepted, processed, or credited,” the notice says. Four products close together: Binance Pool itself, Pool Savings, Cloud Mining and the Transaction Accelerator. Telegram hashrate alerts, email notifications and the pool’s API switch off at the same time. Miners must point their hardware to another pool before the deadline, and users with Pool Savings positions must redeem or unsubscribe. The pool will process outstanding rewards and refunds afterward, subject to compliance checks. The pool’s pages stay viewable until 07:00 UTC on November 24 for records and payout status, then become permanently inaccessible.A Pool That Had Already Shrunk to 0.85% of the Network
The numbers show a business that was fading well before the announcement. At the end of 2025, Binance Pool ranked ninth worldwide with roughly 26 exahashes per second (EH/s), about 2.3% of Bitcoin’s total hashrate. By this week, it had slipped to eleventh place with 8.8 EH/s, or 0.85% of the network, according to the Hashrate Index pool dashboard. Total network hashrate stood near 1,010 EH/s, so Binance’s departure removed less than 1% of global mining power. The leaders are a different story. Foundry USA controls 25.5% of the network, AntPool 21.4% and F2Pool 17.5%, so three pools account for roughly 64% of all Bitcoin blocks.
How a Mining Pool Actually Works
A mining pool is a cooperative. Bitcoin pays out a block reward roughly every ten minutes, but a single machine might wait years to win one on its own. A pool lets thousands of miners combine their computing power, win blocks more often as a group and split the reward in proportion to the work each one contributed. Miners prove their contribution by submitting “shares,” which are partial solutions that show the machine was genuinely working. The pool counts those shares and pays accordingly. That is why Binance’s notice stresses that shares submitted after the cutoff will not be credited: once the pool stops counting, the work stops earning. For the miner, switching pools is a configuration change, not a hardware change. The machine stays where it is and only the destination of its hashrate moves, which is why a pool’s share can fall quickly when operators lose confidence, as Binance’s did through 2026.The Second Exchange-Era Pool to Close This Year
Binance is following a path others have already taken. In July, SBI Crypto, the mining arm of Japan’s SBI Group, said it would close its Bitcoin pool on July 31 after just over five years. At the time, it ranked twelfth with about 21.46 EH/s, or 2.24% of the network, and it pointed miners toward Braiins, Luxor and NeoPool as alternatives. Hashrate Index called Binance Pool “the last pool still standing from the era when exchanges rushed into mining.” The firm argued its relevance depended on Binance’s exchange and custody business rather than any edge in mining technology. That matches a broader squeeze on the sector. Digitap covered in August how public Bitcoin miners cut hashrate by 13.4% as AI compute contracts pulled capacity away from mining. Pools that are side businesses, rather than core operations, appear to be the first to go.Where Binance Is Putting Its Energy Instead
The exit looks less like a retreat and more like a reallocation. The Block noted that trading volume in Binance’s traditional-finance perpetual futures reached $433.4 billion in August, up from $29.5 billion in January. Last month the exchange announced physically settled options on more than 1,000 US-listed stocks and ETFs through Nest Trading, its broker-dealer regulated in Abu Dhabi Global Market. On Monday it rolled out an AI-powered trading interface to global English-language users after a beta with around 150,000 participants. Each product serves people who want to trade and buy crypto online alongside stocks, not people who run warehouses full of mining rigs. Mining required specialist support and operated on thin margins. The newer lines sit closer to the exchange’s strengths in liquidity and distribution.What the Exit Could Mean for Mining Concentration
In the short term, the roughly 9 EH/s leaving Binance has to land somewhere, and pool trackers and the crypto news today will show where it goes. If most of it flows to the largest pools, the top three could edge past two-thirds of the network, reviving debate about pool concentration and censorship resistance. Smaller operators such as Braiins, OCEAN and Luxor, each holding between 1% and 4% of the network, may compete hard for the departing miners with lower fees or more transparent payouts. For miners, the change should be minor if they act before November 10. Those who miss the identity-verification window at 23:59 UTC that day could face delays in receiving final balances.Mining Is Becoming a Specialists’ Business
The deeper story is about who runs Bitcoin’s infrastructure. Six years ago a mining pool was a natural add-on for any large exchange, a way to attract miner deposits and capture a slice of block rewards. Today the largest pools are run by dedicated firms with their own hosting, financing and power contracts. Binance’s departure, following SBI’s in July, suggests that the exchange era of mining is over. Hashrate is consolidating with operators for whom mining is the whole business, not a feature. That could make the industry more efficient and more professional. It could also leave fewer, larger hands controlling block production, which is a trade-off the network will keep debating.
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Madiha Riaz
Madiha is a seasoned researcher in cryptocurrency, blockchain, and emerging Web3 technologies. With a background in organic chemistry and a sharp analytical mindset, she brings scientific depth to decentralized innovation. Since discovering crypto in 2017 and investing in 2018, she’s been uncovering and sharing deep insights into how blockchain is redefining the digital asset landscape.
