Mining Pool. Efficiency assessment
A mining pool is a way to combine computational resources (GPUs) and manage them as a single large “participant” in the network. But “big pool” ≠ “effective pool.” Efficiency should be evaluated by several
🖥️ 1) Hardware and configuration
What to look at:
🧩 GPU type (H100 / A100 / 4090 etc.), VRAM, number of GPUs on the server.
In this example we see that the server has installed: - one node with 8 * NVIDIA H200, each with 140 GB VRAM - the LLM model Qwen 3 - 32B (32 billion parameters) is running
⚠️ Important: the network does not verify the “actual hardware” on-chain, but uses the participant's final weight; hardware descriptions are often informational and can be edited by the host. That means this information may be unreliable.
Where to look? 🔗Option 1: https://gonkascan.com/
🔗Option 2: https://gonka.gg/ (sometimes glitches)
⚖️ 2) Weight (PoC Weight)
In Gonka rewards and influence are tied to PoC Weight (weight) obtained from the calculations. This is the key metric for influence and future rewards
What to check about pool weight:
📌 Current pool weight
🕒 For reference: Epoch in Gonka — the network's main cycle, ~24 hours (17,280 blocks).
Where to look? 🔗Option 1: https://gonkascan.com/
🔗Option 2: https://gonka.gg/ (sometimes glitches)
💰 3) Rewards
Whether they were received, how many and how regularly. Were there missed payouts?
An effective pool is not the one with “promises”, but the one that has:
✅ a history of payouts,
📊 visible regularity,
🧾 a clear distribution formula.
General principle (simplified): rewards are distributed proportionally to a participant's weight relative to the network's weight.
What to ask/check with the pool:
🏦 Which address receives the rewards (pool wallet / your wallet / smart share mechanism).
🎯 What fee the pool charges and how it is deducted.
🔁 How often participants are paid: daily / by epochs / manually.
Example:
🧮 4) Pool economics: “cost per unit of weight”
A very practical metric for comparing pools is the cost of one weight.
Formula:
🧾 Cost of 1 weight (for a period) =
Investment Cost / Weight
Example:
💵 Server: 12,000 USD per month
⚖️ Average weight: 4000
✅ Cost of 1 weight = 12,000 / 4000 = 3 USD per 1 weight per month = 0.1 USD per day
Why this is needed:
🔄 If two pools provide the same weight, but one obtains it “more expensively” (worse optimization, worse hardware/configuration) — it potentially has lower margins.
📉 This is directly related to how competitive the pool can be in terms of ROI.
Practical example:
Server 1:
Server 2:
Conclusion: Assuming the same hardware is installed on the servers, mining efficiency Server 2 is significantly higherthan Server 1.
This example assumes investments in both servers are the same. If investments differ, you must calculate using the formula above.
🪙 5) Pool economics. Cost of GNK over a period
Another very clear metric is how much 1 GNK costs youmined over the selected period.
Formula:
🧾 Cost of 1 GNK =
All expenses for the period / Number of GNK mined in the period
Example:
Expenses for 7 days: 430 USD
Mined in 7 days: 200 GNK
✅ Cost of 1 GNK = 430 / 200 = 2.15 USD per 1 GNK
Why this is needed:
📊 convenient for comparing different pools and periods
🔄 shows how profitable the strategy is
⚠️ helps you understand whether you are “in the black” without guessing
💡 Important: calculate this metric correctly dynamically (preferably every epoch, because rewards and weight can change significantly).
💡 Important: calculate the real cost, i.e. including all pool fees (deposit, withdrawal, maintenance, insurance...)
🛡️ 6) Stability and risks (what kills ROI)
Even top hardware won't save you if:
💥 nodes “drop out” at the end of an epoch,
🧊 frequent downtimes,
🔧 problems with updates/configuration,
🙈 the pool hides statistics or addresses.
🚩 Red flags:
no public statistics for the pool address;
“guaranteed returns” without data;
rapidly changing participation rules and opaque fees;
Practical example of a bad pool:
This pool missed three rewards out of five.
How to find a link to the pool?
If you are mining to someone else's wallet, you can view this analytics by the wallet number.
If you're in a collective pool and mining goes to the pool's wallet, miners often publish this in dashboards or publicly.
Examples:
✅ Mini-checklist: how to compare pools in 5 minutes
🔍 Find the pool address/participant in the explorer
⚖️ Write down: the pool's weight
📊 Look at the payout/history (if available)
🧾 Clarify: fee, payout scheme, where rewards are mined to
🧮 Evaluate the economics: $ / weight
🛡️ Check risks: uptime, dropouts, transparency, reputation
📩 Consultation
Option 1: free
Ask your questions in the community:
Telegram Russian: https://t.me/GonkaAI_ru
Telegram English: https://t.me/GonkaAI_en
Discord / English and Russian: https://discord.com/invite/RADwCT2U6R
Option 2: paid
If you are afraid of making a mistake when choosing a pool or want to analyze more deeply a pool you've already invested in, you can ask for a paid consultation:
🔗 Useful links
https://gonkascan.com/ - tracker 1
https://gonka.gg/ - tracker 2
Good luck!
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