XBT (BTCB2) mining pools compared: which pool fits rented Blake2b hashrate

By the TideHash team · 22 October 2026 · 7 min read

Rented hashrate is only as useful as the pool it lands on. XBT pools (some list the coin as BTCB2) differ in how you connect, what they charge for each connection type, how they pay and how big they let themselves get. This guide compares the main pools as of 22 October 2026 and shows which ones you can point a rental at directly.

The first question: public stratum or your own gateway?

Every XBT pool offers one or both of two doors:

• A public stratum port. You enter the pool's host:port, your payout address as the username, and you are done. The pool builds the block template.
• DATUM. You run your own Bitcoin Knots node and a DATUM gateway. Your node builds the block template, your miners (or your rental) point at the gateway, and the pool only coordinates the reward split. datumgateway.org describes it as "run your own node, build your own blocks, and still pool your rewards".

For a rental this matters more than the fee. A public stratum port connects straight from the TideHash order form, but check the pool supports it for XBT; a DATUM gateway is the safer choice. A DATUM-only pool needs a gateway with a stratum port the rented hashrate can reach over the internet.

The pools at a glance

Fees and connection options as each source published them. Pools on this chain change terms often, so check the pool's own page before you order.

Notes on the table:

• B2Pool has servers in Frankfurt, Helsinki, Chicago, Los Angeles, Kyiv and Hong Kong, all feeding one pool. Its homepage now shows 1% on every path, including DATUM; older listings such as BlakeStack (checked 8 October) show 0% for DATUM. Ask the pool if the difference matters to you.
• Omega Pool figures come from BlakeStack (8 October). Minepoolis figures come from xbt.live's pool guide (fees checked 7 October).
• AlphaPool closed its stratum pool and now runs as a DATUM pool, per Cryptolexicon's 6 October update.

Pointing a rental at each type of pool

Pools with a public stratum port

This is the quickest setup. In the order form, enter the pool's host and port and use your payout address as the user, with a worker name after a dot:

Pool URL:  de.b2pool.io:3333
Pool user: bc1q...yourxbtaddress.rig01
Password:  x

B2Pool says the password is not checked, but you can put a starting difficulty there, such as d=8192, so a large rental does not begin at the port's low default. Pick the region with the lowest ping to where the hashrate comes from. B2Pool's own figures show why: about 60 ms from Beijing to its Hong Kong server against about 180 ms to Frankfurt.

DATUM-only pools

Here the rental points at your gateway, and the gateway points at the pool. The pool address goes in the gateway config, never in the order form:

# TideHash order form
Pool URL:  your-gateway-ip:23334
Pool user: youraccount::rig01
Password:  x

# datum_gateway config (gateway to pool), RIPTIDE example
"pool_host": "riptide.maveth.ca",
"pool_port": 29120

Make sure the gateway's stratum port is open to the internet, not only to your local network. Lazarus also notes that its pool cannot lower the gateway's starting difficulty, and asks you to keep stratum.vardiff_min at 4096 rather than the stock 16384. Our pool settings guide covers ports, worker names and testing in more detail.

Use the backup pool field

A good pattern is your own gateway as the main pool and a public stratum port as backup. Xor Pool recommends exactly this for its 2% stratum ("set it as pool 2 in your rigs, behind your own gateway"). On TideHash, if your main pool can't be reached, the order keeps running on the backup and still counts as delivered, then switches back once the main pool works again.

Solo ports: renting hashrate for a block lottery

A few pools run solo ports, where the miner who finds a block keeps the whole block reward (minus the pool fee) and everyone else gets nothing. B2Pool runs one on port 3334 and Minepoolis on port 4482 (per xbt.live, checked 24 Oct 2026). With rented hashrate this is a lottery: most short solo rentals find no block, so only rent what you can afford to lose. Use the calculator to see your odds per TH/s.

Payout rules that affect a short rental

• TIDES windows. Most XBT pools pay each block across a rolling window of recent work. B2Pool's is eight times the network difficulty, which it says reached back about sixteen hours at its hashrate. A short rental keeps counting in the window after it ends, but it also starts near zero.
• Minimums. A small rental on a pool with a high threshold can leave a balance waiting for a long time. Compare CONVOY's 1,048,576 sat or Minepoolis's 0.1 XBT with B2Pool's 10,000 sat.
• Coinbase maturity. RIPTIDE and CONVOY both note that newly mined coins currently wait 6,480 blocks (about 45 days) before they can be spent. RIPTIDE's FAQ says this applies from block 973,440 through 979,919. The mempool.kilombino.com explorer showed height 978,422 on 22 October 2026, and a longer wait has been discussed, so check before you plan around it.

Don't send everything to the biggest pool

On 22 October 2026 mempool.kilombino.com estimated the network at about 44.4 PH/s. A large rental is a real slice of that: 1 PH/s is over 2% of all XBT mining. xbt.live reported that the largest pool found about a third of blocks in the week to 10 October, and Lazarus caps its own public stratum at 15% of network hashrate, relaying new connections to other pools past that. If two pools have similar terms, the smaller one is the better choice for the network, and a self-capping pool may not take all of a big rental anyway.

A quick checklist before you order

1. Decide: public stratum port or your own DATUM gateway.
2. Read the pool's own page for the current fee on that path.
3. Use a payout address from a wallet set up for the XBT chain, not one holding coins on the SHA-256 chain. B2Pool asks for this explicitly.
4. Check the payout minimum against the size of your rental.
5. Add a backup pool.
6. After payment, look for your worker on the pool's dashboard and judge delivery by accepted shares.

On TideHash you set speed in TH/s, hours and a price per TH/s per day. Bids are served in strict price order: the highest bid gets hashrate first, and lower bids wait at 0 TH/s until the higher ones are full. If you are outbid, your order keeps every hour you paid for and finishes later. Email on the order form is optional, but it gets you the private order link and status updates. New here? Start with How to rent Blake2b hashrate, or read What is XBT? first. Comparing a rental with your own machine? See Blake2b miners for XBT.

Sources

• B2Pool: regions, ports, 1% fee, starting difficulty, TIDES window, 10,000 sat carry-over, latency figures
• Xor Pool: 1% / 2% fees, endpoints, backup advice, gateway warning
• Lazarus Pool: DATUM 0%, public stratum terms, 15% cap, vardiff note
• RIPTIDE: DATUM ports, TIDES window, coinbase maturity heights
• CONVOY: 1% / 2% fees, payout threshold, 6,480-block maturity
• BlakeStack pool table: Omega Pool terms, B2Pool DATUM listing (checked 8 Oct 2026)
• xbt.live pool guide: Minepoolis terms, largest-pool share (10 Oct 2026)
• Cryptolexicon: Knots 29.4.2 plans, AlphaPool status
• datumgateway.org: what DATUM does
• mempool.kilombino.com: network hashrate and height (22 Oct 2026)

Ready to try it? Rent Blake2b hashrate from 1 TH/s, or check the Blake2b hashrate price today. Questions? Ask in our Discord.