Parasite Mining Pool Strikes Again with Second Bitcoin Block
A novel bitcoin mining pool, Parasite Pool, has demonstrated the effectiveness of its unique design by mining its second block. This pool, launched in April 2025, operates on a hybrid model that combines elements of the industrial pay-per-share and pure lottery approaches. On Friday, the pool mined block 945,601, which contained 7,398 transactions and 0.002 BTC in fees, with bitcoin trading at $76,213 at the time. The winning miner received 1 BTC, while the remaining 2.125 BTC plus fees were distributed proportionally among all pool participants based on their shares submitted since the previous block. Notably, participation in this pool comes with no fees, and payouts are made through the Lightning Network. The pool's founder, ZK Shark, aims to support home miners, and its design seeks to address the variance in block rewards by smoothing the distribution of proceeds among participants. With a current hashrate of 52 petahashes per second, Parasite Pool has shown promise, and its second block carries significant weight in validating its hybrid model. The pool's ability to retain hashrate through the 48-day gap between payouts and its proportional distribution mechanics have now been validated twice, making a strong case for its approach. As the mining landscape continues to evolve, Parasite Pool's success could pave the way for a new generation of mining pools that cater to home miners and provide a more equitable distribution of rewards.