What pools does Simple Mining Partner with
We partner with Ocean, SpiderPool, Luxor, and NiceHash. Clients pick different pools for different reasons, and fees are one of the main deciding factors, but they aren't the whole story (more on that below).
Pools are third-party providers and their terms can change. Always confirm current details on the pool's own site.
Pool comparison
| Pool | Fee | Payout model | Account / KYC | Payout threshold |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ocean DATUM | 1% | TIDES (PPLNS-style, non-custodial) | No account, no KYC (and no option to KYC) | 0.01 BTC (cannot be changed) |
| Luxor | 1.25% | FPPS | Account required, KYC optional | Set in account |
| NiceHash | 0.5% | RTPPS (real-time PPS) | Account required, KYC required | 0.00001 BTC |
| SpiderPool | 0.45% | FPPS (PPLNS also available) | Account required, KYC optional | 0.005 BTC |
Connection endpoints
- Ocean DATUM:
datum.simplemining.io:23334 - Luxor:
btc.global.luxor.tech:700 - NiceHash:
sha256asicboost.auto.nicehash.com:9200 - SpiderPool:
us.spiderpool.com:2309
Pool-specific notes
- Ocean: accrued BTC pays out to the address you mine with and cannot be redirected to a new wallet, since payouts are non-custodial.
- SpiderPool: when creating a sub-account, the name must start with "simple".
Why fees don't paint the whole picture
The headline fee is only one input into what a client actually keeps. The bigger driver is the payout model and how each pool treats transaction fees.
FPPS (Luxor, SpiderPool) pays a fixed rate per share based on the expected block reward plus an averaged share of transaction fees, calculated on a rolling lookback, whether or not the pool finds a block. Luxor uses a 144-block lookback to account for transaction fees, and pools using FPPS take on the variance risk so miners receive stable daily payouts. That predictability is exactly why the FPPS fee is higher than PPLNS, because the operator takes on both block-finding risk and transaction fee estimation risk. Luxor
Simple MiningTIDES (Ocean) works differently. It tracks work in a rolling window equivalent to the last 8 blocks, and payouts are often paid directly in the coinbase transaction straight to the client's wallet. The tradeoff is some short-term variance, but the upside is real: because TIDES distributes actual transaction fees rather than estimates, effective earnings can be higher than FPPS pools during high-fee periods. Over weeks and months TIDES trends toward the maximum possible payout because it distributes actual block rewards rather than estimates. The lower 1% fee partly reflects that Ocean isn't fronting variance risk. Simple Mining + 2
RTPPS (NiceHash) is a different model entirely. NiceHash uses Real-Time Pay-Per-Share, which pays miners by the spot hashrate price in real time, so a client is effectively selling hashpower into a marketplace and getting paid continuously rather than mining to a block-finding pool. NiceHash
Net: two clients paying nearly identical fees can take home different amounts depending on the payout model, whether transaction fees are paid as actual or estimated, whether payouts are custodial, and how much short-term variance they can stomach. A 0.45% fee is not automatically "cheaper" in realized BTC than a 1% fee on a different model. The right pool comes down to what the client prioritizes: predictability (FPPS), fee upside and decentralization (Ocean TIDES), or payout speed and flexibility (NiceHash).