What Is F2Pool? The Veteran Multi-Coin Mining Pool, Explained

F2Pool is a cryptocurrency mining pool — a service that pools the computing power of thousands of independent miners so they can find blocks together and split the rewards, rather than each miner gambling alone on rarely finding one. Founded in 2013, it is one of the oldest mining pools still operating, and in 2026 it still produces roughly 13–14% of all Bitcoin blocks.

To settle the most common search query first: F2Pool has no token. There is no F2Pool coin, no ICO, no tokenomics. It is a for-profit business that earns a commission on the Bitcoin (and other coins) its members collectively mine. If someone offers to sell you an "F2Pool token," it's a scam.

Who's behind F2Pool

F2Pool was born in April 2013, launched on May 5, in direct response to the arrival of ASICs — the specialized chips that made CPU and GPU Bitcoin mining obsolete overnight. It was China's first mining pool, co-founded by Chun Wang, who coded the backend, and Mao Shihang, better known by the online handle Discus Fish, who ran operations. For years the pool was colloquially called "Discus Fish" after him.

Within a year F2Pool was the largest Bitcoin pool and the largest Litecoin pool, and by 2016 it had added support for Ethereum and Zcash and briefly led those too. At its peak it commanded close to a third of Bitcoin's total hashrate. Over its lifetime the pool has mined more than 1.3 million BTC, participating in over 9% of every Bitcoin block ever produced. Chun Wang has since become a figure well beyond mining, commanding the private polar-orbit Fram2 spaceflight in April 2025.

F2Pool is not a startup chasing a narrative — it is infrastructure that has survived every Bitcoin cycle, three halvings' worth of margin compression, China's 2021 mining ban, and repeated shifts in where the world's hashrate physically lives.

How a mining pool actually works

To understand F2Pool you have to understand the problem pools solve. Bitcoin mining is a lottery: miners race to guess a number that produces a valid block, and roughly every ten minutes one winner globally collects the entire block reward (currently the subsidy plus transaction fees). A single home miner might wait years — or forever — to win a block solo. The income is real but impossibly lumpy.

A pool fixes this by combining everyone's hashrate under one address. Members send the pool "shares" — proofs that they were doing valid work at a certain difficulty. When anyone in the pool finds a block, the reward is split among all members in proportion to the shares they submitted. Instead of a tiny chance at a huge, rare payout, you get a steady stream of small ones. The pool takes a cut for coordinating this and for absorbing variance on your behalf.

Critically, this means the pool — not you — builds the block template: it decides which transactions go into the blocks your hardware helps mine. That's an enormous amount of soft power concentrated in a pool operator, and it's the root of most of the concerns discussed later in this guide.

Payout schemes: PPS+, FPPS, and PPLNS

F2Pool offers the industry-standard payout models, and the choice is a genuine trade-off between predictability and cost.

• PPS (Pay Per Share) — the pool pays you a fixed amount for every valid share based on the block subsidy, and eats all the luck risk itself. Smoothest possible income; transaction fees are not shared.
• PPS+ (Pay Per Share Plus) — pays the block subsidy on a pure pay-per-share basis (fixed, no variance) and distributes transaction fees separately on a PPLNS basis. You get the stability of PPS on the big part of the reward plus a share of fee income.
• FPPS (Full Pay Per Share) — pays you a fixed rate covering both the block subsidy and the average transaction fees over a window, all per-share. This is usually the most predictable of the lot, which is why it typically carries the highest fee.
• PPLNS (Pay Per Last N Shares) — you're paid only from actual blocks the pool finds, based on your shares in the recent window. Lowest fee, but your income swings with the pool's luck, and it rewards loyal continuous mining.

On fees: for Bitcoin, F2Pool charges roughly 4% for FPPS, 2.5% for PPS+, and around 2% for PPLNS (FPPS is the default), with a default Bitcoin payout threshold around 0.005 BTC that is adjustable in account settings. The pattern is consistent — you pay more for the pool to absorb more variance on your behalf. Rates differ by coin and change over time, so confirm the live rate on F2Pool's own fee page before pointing real hardware at it.

No token — and why that matters

Unlike most crypto projects, F2Pool has no coin, no supply schedule, and no governance story. Its business model is conventional: it sells a service (reliable, low-variance mining) and takes a percentage. Two consequences follow. There is nothing to speculate on — your only exposure is whether the pool pays you correctly and treats your transactions fairly, not whether a token appreciates. And it makes F2Pool a clean example of crypto infrastructure: judge it on uptime, fee honesty, payout reliability, and transaction policy, not on price. For how mining fits into Bitcoin, our what is Bitcoin guide and how Bitcoin mining works cover the fundamentals.

The numbers: hashrate and market position

As of mid-2026, F2Pool accounts for roughly 13% of Bitcoin's total network hashrate. That typically ranks it third among all pools, behind Foundry USA (the US-based leader, around 25% of the network) and AntPool (Bitmain's pool, near 19%), and just ahead of pools like SpiderPool and ViaBTC. Foundry and AntPool together control close to half the network, and the top four control roughly 73% — a concentration that is itself one of Bitcoin's most-discussed structural risks.

Two caveats on any hashrate figure. First, it's a moving snapshot: miners switch pools freely, so shares shift week to week, and different trackers measure over different windows. Second, a pool's hashrate reflects the miners pointing at it, not hardware it owns — F2Pool is a coordination layer, and its share can rise or fall without the pool itself changing anything. The durable fact is the tier: for more than a decade F2Pool has consistently sat among the handful of pools that matter for Bitcoin.

What F2Pool mines beyond Bitcoin

Bitcoin is the flagship, but F2Pool is a multi-coin pool and always has been. Over the years it has been a major venue for Litecoin (via merged mining with Dogecoin), Ethereum Classic, Zcash, Kaspa, Aleo, and dozens of other proof-of-work chains, each with its own stratum endpoints, payout scheme, and fee.

This breadth is a real advantage for miners with hardware that isn't Bitcoin ASICs, or who want to switch coins as profitability shifts. It also means the exact coin menu is a moving target — networks launch, chains merge, and some (like Ethereum in 2022) abandon proof-of-work entirely and disappear from the list. If a specific altcoin is your reason for choosing F2Pool, check its current support page directly rather than trusting an older list.

How to actually connect to F2Pool

The mechanics are the same across most pools. In practice:

1. Create an F2Pool account at the official site and secure it — enable two-factor authentication and set your payout address. Your account name is the identity your earnings accrue to.
2. Find the right stratum URL for your coin and region. For Bitcoin it looks like stratum+tcp://btc.f2pool.com:1314 with backup ports (such as 25 and 3333), and there are regional endpoints — btc-na, btc-euro, btc-asia, and others — so you can pick the one geographically closest to cut latency and rejected shares.
3. Enter the URL, port, and worker into your miner. The worker field is your account name, a dot, then a label — for example youraccount.rig01. Worker labels are short alphanumeric strings; the account name is what ties the hashrate to your earnings, so getting it exactly right matters.
4. Verify it's hashing. Within minutes the worker should appear on your F2Pool dashboard, showing accepted shares and a rising hashrate. Watch the reject rate — a high one usually means a distant server or a bad overclock.

Then it's mostly hands-off: earnings accumulate, and payouts fire automatically once you cross the coin's minimum threshold. Copy stratum URLs from F2Pool's own site, never from a forum post or a message that arrived unsolicited — a swapped URL or address is a classic way to have your hashrate quietly stolen.

Risks and controversies

• You're trusting a custodial operator. F2Pool holds your earnings between payouts and could, in principle, suffer insolvency, a hack, or an account-security failure. Withdraw regularly rather than letting a large balance sit.
• The pool controls your block templates — and has censored transactions. In November 2023, researcher 0xB10C's mining-pool observer detected that F2Pool was filtering transactions from OFAC-sanctioned addresses, and co-founder Chun Wang effectively confirmed it before, hours later, disabling the filter "until the community reaches a more comprehensive consensus." It was a live demonstration that when you mine with a pool, you inherit its transaction-selection policy — a direct tension with Bitcoin's censorship-resistance ethos.
• Hashrate centralization. F2Pool being large is convenient for miners but part of a broader problem: a handful of pools decide what most Bitcoin blocks contain. Stratum V2, which lets individual miners build their own block templates, aims to defuse exactly this; in 2026 pools representing nearly 75% of hashrate — F2Pool included — signaled adoption, though real rollout to miners is what matters.
• Fees and terms change. Payout rates, minimums, and supported coins all move. Anything you read — here included — is a snapshot; the official pages are the source of truth.
• Mining profitability is not guaranteed. The pool takes its cut whether or not your rig is profitable after electricity. That math is on you, and it's brutal at the wrong power price.

Bottom line

F2Pool is durable crypto infrastructure: a 2013-vintage mining pool with no token and a simple business model — take a commission for turning many miners' lottery tickets into steady income. In 2026 it still produces around 13–14% of Bitcoin's blocks, ranks third behind Foundry USA and AntPool, and supports dozens of other proof-of-work coins through standard FPPS, PPS+, and PPLNS payouts.

The trade-off is the one every pool asks of you: convenience and smooth income in exchange for trusting a custodial operator that builds your blocks. F2Pool's 2023 OFAC-filtering episode is the cautionary case study in what that trust can mean. Use it with eyes open — verify fees and URLs on the official site, secure your account, withdraw often, and remember that healthy Bitcoin means hashrate not pooling into too few hands, F2Pool's included.

For related reading: what is Bitcoin, how Bitcoin mining works, and proof of work vs proof of stake.

Related guides

• Braiins
• ViaBTC
• Antpool
• Bitmain
• Bitcoin mining methods

Not financial advice. Mining profitability, pool fees, and supported coins change constantly — always verify current details on F2Pool's official channels before committing hardware or capital.