XCHPool FAQ: Chia pool questions
XCHPool general
What are the benefits of joining XCHPool?
For small Chia farmers it can take months to win a single block reward. By joining XCHPool you combine your farm with the farms of all other members and receive your share of the rewards together.
Our fee is low, everything is transparent and anonymous, and we pay out twice a day.
Do you have statistics?
Yes, right here in the XCHPool Explorer: the pool dashboard shows the recently farmed blocks, the pool's netspace and its members. Blocks and Earnings have all the details.
Do you have a Top 100 farmers list?
Yes, the leaderboard. On My Farm you see your own farm, your rewards, your payouts and more.
How can I join your pool?
Follow our join guide to set up Chia and farm with XCHPool. You can also use XCHPool NanoFarmer, which farms your plots without a full node.
Questions? Join us on Discord.
Can I re-use my current plots for pooling?
No. Plots made for solo farming can't be used for pooling: you need to re-plot them for pooling, with the pool contract address of your plot NFT.
Why does the explorer show less netspace than I actually have?
Your netspace is calculated from the proofs you send to the pool. Sometimes you are lucky, sometimes you are less lucky.
The calculation is also a 24 hour rolling average, so your space looks smaller than it is if you:
- have been down for a while in the last 24 hours,
- just joined the pool,
- are still plotting, so your space grows over time.
Where can I ask my questions?
Join us on Discord.
XCHPool fee & discounts
Does XCHPool take a pool fee?
Yes, we take a pool fee to fund our operations. The basic pool fee is 1% of your pool rewards. Size and loyalty discounts lower it; farms that use NanoFarmer pay 2% (see below).
The fee only applies to the pool rewards. The 1/8 of a block that goes straight to the farmer who found it is never touched.
You see your current fee with your farm on My Farm.
Is there a size discount?
Yes: the larger your farm, the bigger your discount on the pool fee.
- 5% off from 100 TB
- 10% off from 250 TB
- 15% off from 500 TB
- 20% off from 1 PB
Your farm size is measured by your points of the last 24 hours (10,000, 25,000, 50,000 and 100,000 points; see how your netspace is calculated). A 1 PB farm, for example, pays 0.80% instead of 1%.
Is there a discount for loyal members?
Yes, long-term XCHPool members get a loyalty discount on the pool fee:
- 5% off after 6 months
- 10% off after 12 months
- 15% off after 18 months
The months count the days on which you received a payout from the pool (182, 365 and 547 days).
Size and loyalty discounts add up, to at most 25% off: the pool fee never goes below 0.75%. A 500 TB farm (15% off) that has farmed with us for 12 months (10% off), for example, pays 0.75%.
What pool fee do I pay with NanoFarmer?
Farms that farm with XCHPool NanoFarmer pay a pool fee of 2%. NanoFarmer farms without a full node of your own: XCHPool runs the full nodes and the connection for you, and pays for new plot NFTs.
The 2% applies as soon as one of your partials of the last 24 hours came from NanoFarmer, and replaces your normal fee and its discounts. 24 hours after your last NanoFarmer partial, your farm is back on its normal fee, discounts included.
How do payouts work?
Block rewards
Every Chia block pays 1 XCH (since the 2024 halving; it halves again in 2027). 1/8 of it (0.125 XCH, plus the block's transaction fees) goes straight to the farmer who found the block. The other 7/8 (0.875 XCH) goes to the pool and is shared by all members, in proportion to their points.
Points
You earn points by sending proofs (partials) to the pool. Each proof is worth its difficulty. The pool adjusts the difficulty to the size of your farm, so that your farm sends a proof about every 5 minutes on average: a bigger farm gets a higher difficulty and so more points per proof.
Payouts
The pool pays out twice a day, every 12 hours. Each payout shares the pool rewards collected since the previous payout, by each member's points of the last 24 hours, minus the pool fee. A farm that was not online for those whole 24 hours gets fewer points, and so a smaller share.
Are payouts processed with the PPLNS method?
Yes, payouts are processed with the PPLNS method (see what PPLNS is). The pool pays out twice a day, every 12 hours.
It can take a while before a payout shows up in your wallet: its transaction has to be included in a block, and your wallet has to sync.
Can I leave the pool?
By all means, you can leave XCHPool at any time.
Chia network general
Do I need to sign up?
No. You join XCHPool with a smart contract (your plot NFT) on the Chia blockchain; the pool only knows your wallet address.
How is my farmer netspace calculated?
Simple rule: one k32 plot is good for 10 points per day on average.
Your farmer sends proofs to the pool against a certain difficulty, and the difficulty is adjusted for each farmer. With difficulty 15, for example, each proof is worth 15 points. A few examples, all for the last 24 hours:
- 500 proofs of 1 point each (difficulty 1): 500 × 1 = 500 points. Divided by 10, that is about 50 plots.
- 100 proofs of 5 points each (difficulty 5): 100 × 5 = 500 points, again about 50 plots.
- 20 proofs of 25 points each (difficulty 25): 20 × 25 = 500 points, again about 50 plots.
Do I need to create new plots to join the pool?
Yes, you need portable plots (plotted with your plot NFT's pool contract address) to join any pool that follows the official pool protocol, including XCHPool.
Where can I find a list of Chia pools?
The crypto community site miningpoolstats lists the Chia pools.
What is Pay-Per-Last-N-Shares (PPLNS)?
With Pay-Per-Last-N-Shares, farmers are rewarded once the pool has found a block. The pool then looks back in time and counts the valid shares (partials) every farmer sent in that time window. You get paid for the valid shares you sent in that window.
This method works well for farmers who don't hop from pool to pool and have a steady connection. Note that you lose your shares if you disconnect from the pool before a block is found.
What is Proof of Space and Time?
Proof of Space is a technique that proves that unused space on a hard disk is allocated as storage. To be used as a consensus method, Proof of Space is paired with Proof of Time: it keeps the time between blocks consistent and increases the overall security of the blockchain. Learn more about Proof of Space and Chialisp in the chia.net FAQ.
How do Chia pools work?
A Chia pool is a group of farmers who farm to the same pool. When a farmer in the pool wins a block, everybody shares in the reward.
The farmer who wins the block gets 1/8 of the block reward (0.125 XCH since the 2024 halving). The other 7/8 (0.875 XCH) is split among the pool's farmers, minus the pool fee: each farmer gets a cut equal to their farm's share of the pool's netspace.
What is Chia?
Chia is a cryptocurrency that does not use Proof of Work (PoW) to create new coins, as Bitcoin does.
Chia uses Proof of Space and Time (PoST). Instead of powerful computers or the best graphics cards solving calculations, Chia uses empty hard drives to “farm” the cryptocurrency, with minimal resources.
Who is the founder of Chia?
The Chia blockchain was developed by Bram Cohen, one of the founders of BitTorrent and the brains behind the whole Chia farming concept. To understand it better, we recommend the FAQ on chia.net.
I have more questions, where do I find answers?
In Chia's Pooling FAQ, and in our Discord.