On May 17, 2023, ViaBTC, a veteran mining pool in the cryptocurrency space, marked its seventh anniversary. Founded in 2016 by early Bitcoin developer Haipo Yang, the pool has weathered multiple industry cycles and remains a top player in terms of hashrate. To commemorate the milestone, ViaBTC revisited the evolution of crypto mining from its inception to the present day.
From CPU to ASIC: The Hardware Revolution
The story begins on January 3, 2009, when Satoshi Nakamoto mined the Genesis Block on a small server in Helsinki, Finland, receiving 50 bitcoins as a reward. Initially, Bitcoin mining could be done using CPUs in ordinary PCs. In 2010, Bitcoin enthusiast Laszlo Hanyecz argued that GPUs could perform more computations per second and successfully used them for mining. After sharing his GPU mining code with the community, Bitcoin's hashrate surged from 6 MH/s in January 2010 to 120 GH/s in December 2010 — a 20,000-fold increase. Interestingly, Hanyecz is also known for initiating Bitcoin Pizza Day by buying two pizzas with 10,000 BTC, giving the digital currency real-world value for the first time.
The rise of GPU mining and skyrocketing BTC price sparked a mining arms race. In 2011, FPGA mining machine code appeared on GitHub, ushering in an era of specialized rigs. That year, Bitcoin's hashrate rose from 116 GH/s to nearly 30 TH/s — a nearly 300-fold growth. In 2012, ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) miners emerged, far outperforming all previous hardware. Bitcoin's hashrate exploded from 20 TH/s to 12 PH/s, a 600-fold increase. Since then, ASIC machines have replaced CPUs, GPUs, and FPGAs as the mainstream Bitcoin mining equipment.
From Solo Mining to Mining Pools
As hashrate grew rapidly, solo mining became increasingly unpredictable. In 2010, Czech programmer Marek Palatinus created Slushpool, the world's first mining pool, allowing miners to pool resources and share rewards. This model transformed the mining landscape and gradually became the norm. However, competition among pools was fierce. In 2013, GHash.IO attracted many miners with zero fees and by 2014 its hashrate exceeded 51% of the network, raising concerns about centralization. But the pool suffered repeated large-scale DoS attacks and eventually shut down in 2016.
The technical demands of running a mining pool were higher than many anticipated. Recognizing this, Haipo Yang decided to build a more stable and efficient pool. He independently coded ViaBTC Pool in just two months, and it officially launched on June 5, 2016.
ViaBTC's Seven-Year Voyage
ViaBTC quickly gained traction through stable technology, innovative products, and excellent user experience. It pioneered the PPS+ payment method, combining the advantages of traditional PPS and PPLNS to guarantee stable mining rewards while sharing transaction fees. This allowed ViaBTC miners to earn more than peers in other pools. Soon, mainstream pools adopted PPS+, catalyzing industry-wide change.
Technologically, ViaBTC optimized the Bitcoin network's broadcasting and transmission processes through its self-developed Bitcoin client. Its globally distributed high-speed block updating network helps miners discover and broadcast new blocks faster, reducing the orphan rate. To date, ViaBTC remains one of the mining pools with the lowest orphan rate. The company has also introduced a range of tools, including Transaction Accelerator, Auto Conversion, Smart Mining, Hedging Service, Crypto Loans, Hashrate Fluctuation Notification, Revenue Sharing, and Referral Commission.
Looking back over seven years, ViaBTC has witnessed the rise and fall of many pools — some felled by network attacks, others by disrupted cash flows or unstable block output abandoned by miners. But ViaBTC stayed committed to products and technology, always user-focused. Today, it serves over one million users across more than 130 countries and regions, covering 10+ cryptocurrencies including BTC and LTC. It ranks among the top pools in terms of mining hashrate for BTC and LTC, with cumulative mining output valued in the billions of dollars.
Going forward, ViaBTC will continue to provide professional, efficient, secure, and stable crypto mining services while developing comprehensive, reliable, and satisfying crypto products. It aims to drive the mining industry forward and witness the new blockchain future together with its users.