Poolin finds partner as it eyes North America expansion

Hong Kong-based block reward mining pool Poolin has acquired the hashrate of rival NovaBlock to expand into North America and increase its hash power dominance. 

According to an announcement on its website outlining the hash migration, NovaBlock completed the transfer to Poolin on February 8. The takeover netted Poolin an additional 1,681.83 petahashes per second (PH/s) in mining capacity on top of its existing 21,909.37 PH/s. Following this shift, Poolin will have over 23 EH/s of hashrate.

NovaBlock, launched in Aug 2019, is headquartered in NA with offices in San Jose, California, and Calgary, Canada. In its announcement, NovaBlock noted that “Poolin is looking to expand their reach into growing regions like North America.”

NovaBlock assured its partners that all pool fees would remain unchanged throughout this acquisition, nor will the switch to Poolin influence rewards. Post-migration, in order to spur their clients to join in Poolin, all NovaBlock clients get one month of zero pool fees in Poolin. 

The acquisition will help solidify Poolin’s second-place rank in BTC mining, taking its total 7-day moving average hashrate share to 13.35%. In comparison, the current leading BTC mining pool, China-based F2Pool, has a 7-day moving average hashrate share of 15.82%, per BTC.com.

Alejandro De La Torre, VP at Poolin, was quoted by The Block saying that NovaBlock will continue to operate independently. The other aspects of its business will also continue unaffected.  

De La Torre added that Poolin “strives to be an international pool,” and this hashrate transfer “furthers this endeavor we have set out for ourselves,” according to the report. 

As the block reward mining industry in North America continues to grow, it’s possible that more major Chinese pools will follow Poolin’s lead and gain mining members based in the U.S. and Canada. The region offers more accountability and stability than some Asian jurisdictions offer.

With BTC reaching new all-time price highs, interest in block reward mining has increased. There is bound to be significant hash rate growth in North America. Asian pool operators will want to position themselves to have exposure to it. 

See also: TAAL’s Jerry Chan presentation at CoinGeek Live, The Shift from Bitcoin “Miners” to “Transaction Processors”