Binance Pool Closes Nov 10: How Bitcoin Mining Pools Work

01What did Binance announce?

In a notice dated 13 October 2026, Binance said it will close Binance Pool together with Pool Savings, Cloud Mining, the Transaction Accelerator and related features such as Telegram hashrate alerts, email notifications and mining pool API services. The key times, all in UTC, are:

• 10 November 2026, 07:00: pool services end. Mining connections are disconnected, and hashrate submissions and shares sent after this time are not accepted or credited.
• 10 November 2026, 23:59: deadline for any required identity verification, so that eligible rewards, refunds or settlements can be processed.
• 24 November 2026, 07:00: Binance Pool pages stop being accessible, after 14 days of read-only access to historical data and payout status.

The notice does not give a reason for the closure, and this explainer does not speculate on one.

02What does a bitcoin mining pool do?

Finding a bitcoin block is a lottery weighted by computing power. A single miner with a small share of the network's hashrate might wait months or years between blocks. A pool combines many miners so that the group finds blocks regularly and shares the reward.

The Bitcoin developer guide explains the mechanism. The pool gives miners an easier target than the network's. Their machines return many results that meet the pool's target but not the network's; each one is a share, proof that the miner did a measured amount of work. Now and then a share also meets the network target, and the pool submits that block. The block reward and fees go to the pool, which pays miners according to the shares they submitted.

The arithmetic shows why. The network produces about 144 blocks a day. A miner with 0.001% of the network's hashrate would expect one block in every 100,000 on average, or one block roughly every 694 days, and could easily wait much longer. Inside a pool, the same machine earns a small, regular slice of many blocks instead.

Miners connect to a pool through a protocol such as Stratum, which sends them just enough information to build block headers. Switching pools is mostly a matter of changing the Stratum address and credentials in the mining software.

03How is a miner's share of a block worked out?

The developer guide gives the core ratio: if a pool's target is 100 times easier than the network's, miners need to produce about 100 shares on average for each block the pool finds. A miner's payout is then tied to the share of the work they contributed, under whatever payout method the pool uses, minus the pool's fee.

• Hypothetical example: a pool finds a block worth 3.125 BTC of subsidy plus 0.05 BTC of fees, 3.175 BTC in total.
• A miner who supplied 0.2% of the counted shares would be credited 3.175 × 0.002 = 0.00635 BTC before fees.
• With a 2% pool fee, that becomes about 0.00622 BTC. Pools differ in how they count shares and fees, so the same hashrate can earn slightly different amounts at different pools.

This is also why a closing date matters: only shares that reach the pool before the cutoff can be counted in the final reward calculation.

04What should miners on a closing pool check?

• Point machines to a new pool before the cutoff. Shares sent after 07:00 UTC on 10 November are not credited.
• Complete any identity checks before 23:59 UTC the same day if payouts depend on them.
• Export payout history and hashrate records before 24 November, when the pages close.
• Redeem or unsubscribe from Pool Savings positions; Binance notes that redemptions are subject to limits and processing times.
• Compare the new pool's payout method and fees. Pools differ in how they turn shares into payments and in what they charge.

05Does a pool closing affect the bitcoin network?

A pool is a coordinator, not part of the protocol. When one closes, the machines behind it do not disappear; they connect elsewhere. If some stay offline during the switch, blocks arrive a little more slowly until hashrate returns or the network adjusts.

That adjustment is automatic. Every 2,016 blocks, the network compares how long those blocks took with the two-week target of 1,209,600 seconds and raises or lowers difficulty to bring block times back towards ten minutes. A temporary dip in hashrate therefore changes block timing for a while, not the rules or the supply schedule.

Pool concentration is the more interesting long-term question. When fewer pools coordinate more of the hashrate, a few operators decide which transactions go into blocks. Miners moving from a closing pool choose where that hashrate goes next.

06How does this connect to the halving?

Pools matter more as rewards shrink. The block subsidy fell to 3.125 BTC at block 840,000 and is scheduled to fall to 1.5625 BTC at block 1,050,000. Each halving makes income per unit of hashrate smaller and steadier payouts more valuable to small miners, which is the service a pool sells. Our guide to the bitcoin halving explains the subsidy schedule and what it changes for miners.

07What does it mean for traders?

Very little directly. A pool closing does not change bitcoin's supply schedule, and the network adjusts to hashrate moving around. Headlines about mining can still move sentiment for a day, and that is a reason to keep the usual discipline rather than to trade the headline.

Mining news also tends to arrive in clusters: a pool closure, a difficulty change and miner selling headlines can all land in the same week. None of them changes the issuance schedule set by the protocol.

If you do trade around news like this, the same process applies: a written trade plan, a stop that fits current volatility (see ATR stop placement) and a size set from that stop. Reading volume with price helps judge whether a move on the news has any participation behind it.

08Sources and further reading

• Binance: Notice on the Closure of Binance Pool Services (13 Oct 2026)
• Bitcoin developer guide: mining, pooled mining and Stratum
• Bitcoin developer guide: block chain, proof of work and difficulty
• Satoshi Nakamoto: Bitcoin, A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (whitepaper)