These are six pool options an Australian home miner may consider in 2026. Pool terms change, so we checked the linked operator pages on 1 August 2026 and removed unverified latency and availability claims.
Current comparison
| Pool | Model | Fee | Account? | Endpoint closest to AU | Aussie-politics angle |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ausolo.ckpool.org | Solo | 2% | No | Hosted in AU | Operator describes it as anonymous, not-for-profit solo mining |
| Parasite Pool (parasite.wtf) | Solo | Check operator | Check operator | Use operator’s current endpoint | Community-focused solo option; verify current terms and TLS certificate |
| OCEAN | TIDES (pooled) | 2%; 1% with DATUM | No | Use operator’s current endpoint | No account; BTC address is the worker name |
| Braiins Pool | FPPS | 2.5% | Yes | Use operator’s current endpoint | Predictable FPPS; Lightning and on-chain payouts |
| Braiins Solo | Solo (CKPool stack) | 0.5% | No | Use operator’s current endpoint | BTC address as username; fee credits CKPool authors |
| Public-Pool | Solo | Check operator | No | Verify a live operator endpoint | Open-source pool software; public-pool.io did not respond during this audit |
This is not an exhaustive endorsement list. Treat any pool as unverified until you have confirmed the operator, Stratum hostname, fee, payout rule and recent service status from primary sources.
ausolo.ckpool.org — the obvious default
ckpool infrastructure hosted in Australia, running the solo variant. This is the default pool for Aussie Bitaxers for two reasons:
- Latency: stratum RTT from Sydney is consistently <10 ms. Melbourne and Brisbane: <20 ms. That’s half the RTT of any international pool.
- Solo payouts: if your miner finds a network-valid block, the operator states that a 2% fee is deducted. There is no pooled payout — hit or miss.
Use ausolo when: you specifically want solo variance and an Australian-hosted endpoint. Calculate odds from current network difficulty rather than relying on an old percentage or bitcoin price.
Don’t use ausolo if: you want steady daily sats. The mathematical expectation is not zero, but the realised payout on almost every day is zero because the variance is extreme.
Parasite Pool — the Aussie-adjacent cult classic
Parasite is a community-focused solo pool with an Australian following. Its public website did not present a valid TLS certificate to our audit client on 1 August 2026, so confirm the current Stratum endpoint and terms through a trusted channel before entering a payout address.
Key differences from ausolo:
- Fee and payout method — verify the current operator terms rather than relying on this article
- Endpoint — copy the current Stratum hostname from a trusted, authenticated source
- Latency — measure from your own connection; do not assume an old regional route is still active
- Cultural cohesion — the parasite.space dashboard, the memes, the block-find celebrations
Use Parasite when: you want solo variance AND the community. Every block found on Parasite is celebrated across Nostr and X — if you hit, you hit publicly.
Ocean — for the ideologues
OCEAN uses a payout model called TIDES (Transparent Index of Distinct Extended Shares). Its operator documentation describes a rolling proof window and auditable proportional payouts.
- Payout model: TIDES — pooled, but with different incentives from traditional FPPS
- Fee: 2%, discounted to 1% for miners constructing their own blocks with DATUM
- No account required — use a bitcoin address as the worker/username
- Current setup endpoint: confirm the hostname and port on OCEAN’s site before configuration
Use OCEAN when: you want the TIDES payout model, auditable pool data and the option to use DATUM. OCEAN also documents Lightning payouts.
Don’t use Ocean if: you just want the simplest setup and the steady payouts FPPS gives you.
Braiins — the pro’s choice
Braiins Pool (formerly Slush Pool, oldest continuously-running pool on bitcoin) is the boring, reliable, FPPS option with 15+ years of uptime. If you came from a Whatsminer or Antminer background, you probably already have an account.
- Fee: 2.5% FPPS (Braiins Academy). Account-holder payouts are net of this.
- Stratum V2 support — Braiins documents its pool implementation, while ESP-Miner added Stratum V2 support in v2.14.0. Check the exact client/pool configuration and authentication requirements before assuming two implementations interoperate securely.
- Endpoints — use the current setup address in Braiins’ documentation and measure the route from your own ISP
- Requires account, payout threshold configurable
Also: Braiins Solo. Braiins runs a separate solo endpoint on the CKPool software stack. Its solo-mining documentation states a 0.5% fee to credit the CKPool authors and uses your BTC address as the username.
Use Braiins FPPS when: you want steady FPPS payouts, a mature dashboard, and don’t care about the political angle. This is the least interesting choice and the most likely to just work.
Why FPPS exists at all
FPPS pays a fixed reward per share regardless of the pool’s actual luck, which eliminates pool hopping — the practice of jumping between PPLNS pools to harvest high-luck streaks. PPLNS and TIDES are hop-resistant by design; FPPS is hop-proof because there’s nothing to hop toward. Worth knowing because some marketing copy implies FPPS is inferior to PPLNS; the tradeoff is actually variance vs hop-proofing, not yield.
Public-Pool — the chaos option
Public-Pool is open-source pool software. The public-pool.io service did not respond to our audit client on 1 August 2026, so do not configure it until you have independently confirmed a live operator endpoint and payout terms.
- Fee: verify the current service terms
- Solo software — payout construction and any operator fee must be confirmed for the deployment you use
- Account and username format: verify with the live operator
Use Public-Pool when: only after you have identified a live deployment and verified its operator, code version, payout construction and fee.
The one-screen decision tree
I want steady daily payouts, the least hassle, and I don’t care about politics.
Braiins Pool. Use the endpoint shown in the current setup documentation.
I want steady daily payouts AND I care about censorship resistance / open templates.
OCEAN. Confirm the current endpoint and use your BTC address as the worker name; no account is required.
I want a lottery ticket with the lowest latency possible.
ausolo.ckpool.org. Aussie-hosted. Use your wallet address as the username.
I want a lottery ticket and I want it to be fun.
Parasite Pool, after verifying the current endpoint and terms through a trusted operator channel.
I want the minimalist open-source solo option that isn’t ckpool.
Review the Public-Pool source, then independently verify a live deployment before configuring a miner.
Latency: test, don’t guess
The previous version of this comparison published precise Sydney RTT and stale-share estimates without a reproducible test record. We have removed them. DNS routing, pool infrastructure, ISP peering and the selected Stratum host can all change the result.
Test each operator’s current hostname from the network where the miner will run. Then compare observed reconnects, rejected/stale shares and pool-side hashrate over several days. Latency is one input; fee, payout model, custody, minimum payout and reliability usually matter more.
Why “Aussie” actually matters
You’ll read US blogs recommending pools based on the US retail context. An Aussie miner’s decision is shaped by three facts those blogs miss:
- ausolo.ckpool.org exists and is run out of Australia. That’s a home-ground advantage no overseas pool can match on latency.
- Parasite has strong Aussie community representation — disproportionately so given the pool is European. Block-finds by Aussie miners get celebrated in AU bitcoin group chats within minutes.
- Solo variance is more palatable in a high-solar household because your marginal mining cost is 5 c/kWh feed-in opportunity cost. Solo mining on free sunlight is a genuinely different proposition from solo mining on US$0.30/kWh peak retail.
If you’re mining at home in Australia in 2026, the default is: ausolo for the solo lottery, Ocean or Braiins for the steady pooled sats. Parasite if you want the community. Everything else is a curiosity.
Pool landscape changes. Endpoints, fees and payout rules move. Primary sources checked 1 August 2026: AU Solo CKPool, OCEAN, Braiins rewards and fees, and Braiins Solo.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the lowest-latency pool for an Australian Bitaxe?
An Australia-hosted endpoint will usually have the lowest round-trip time, but routing varies by ISP and location. Test the actual Stratum hosts from your network rather than relying on a published ping table.
Does pool latency actually matter for a Bitaxe?
Not much. A Bitaxe shares every few seconds; even 300 ms RTT only costs fractions of a percent in stale shares. Choose on fees, payout model, and politics, not ping time.
Is solo mining 'better' than pooled?
Solo and pooled mining start with the same gross expected block value for the same valid work, but fees, payout rules and variance change what you actually receive. Solo is extremely high variance; FPPS is designed to provide predictable rewards.