Two pools now find more than half of XBT blocks
Over the past week, two pools found 52.8% of all XBT blocks: AlphaPool with 31.9% and Lazarus with 20.9%. The next four pools together found 33%. Thirty-four different names showed up in coinbase tags.
Who found the last 1,208 blocks
Share of blocks found in the 7 days to Oct 11, 2026, from coinbase tags. Live on our pools page.
Why the top two matter
A pool that builds the block templates for its miners decides which transactions go in. When two pools together find more than half the blocks, they could in theory work together to censor transactions or reorganize recent blocks. Nobody has done that on XBT, and we're not suggesting anyone will. But the number is worth watching.
Much of the risk depends on who builds the templates. On a pool where miners run their own node with DATUM, each miner picks the transactions in the blocks they find, and the pool only splits the rewards. On a pool that builds templates for its miners, the operator makes that choice for all of its hash rate. That's the gap we wrote about in They can't just switch pools.
AlphaPool is moving its DATUM miners onto their own nodes (our story). Lazarus runs a map of block-submitting nodes, but we haven't found details on how it builds its block templates. If you mine there, we'd like to hear from you.
The long tail is alive
Below the big six, 28 smaller pools and solo miners found about 15% of blocks. Some tags read like messages: "Blake2b is BTC," "btc maxi," "Paranoid Crypto Anarchist," "In the name of God." Solo miners at home are still finding XBT blocks every week.
Other numbers from this week
- 1,208 blocks in 7 days, about 20% more than the 1,008 a 10-minute pace would give.
- Hash rate is around 40 to 48 PH/s on recent days.
- Next difficulty change at block 977,760, around Oct 17. Right now it looks like about +17%. See our difficulty story.
If you mine, spreading hash across smaller pools, or picking one where you build your own blocks, is the simplest way to help. Our guide: how to choose an XBT mining pool.
Compare XBT poolsPool share over time
Data: xbt.live pool tracking from XBT block explorers, Oct 11, 2026. Not financial advice.