Hydrapool

Appearance

Two Ledgers ​

Hydrapool and P2Pool V2 share code and a problem. They are not the same system, and running one does not give you the other.

Hydrapool aims to let you inspect and run the bookkeeper. P2Pool V2 aims to remove the single authoritative bookkeeper.

Operator-run pooling ​

Hydrapool is the operator-run one. An operator deploys it, points it at a Bitcoin node, and accepts miners over Stratum. The documented modes are solo and PPLNS. The v2.6.0 example config sets mode = "hydrapool" and says that mode uses PPLNS based on shares. It does not wait for a sharechain (wait_for_chain_sync = false).

The operator's server stores the shares. Miners can be paid from the block coinbase, so the operator need not take custody of those outputs later. The operator still chooses the template, the accounting, and the outputs that go into that coinbase, unless something else checks those choices.

You can read the code because it is AGPL-3.0. You can host it because the project ships Docker files, a Linux build, and a config example. That is the sense in which the bookkeeper is inspectable and runnable.

Peer-validated sharechain ​

P2Pool V2 is the other design. Its own site describes a sharechain that peers replicate, a PPLNS window they recompute, and coinbase outputs they can check. The same page says the chain, the accounting, and the coinbase payouts run on testnet4 today, and that the market is what the project is building now.

That market is not finished. The site's "being built" list includes share trading, with swap designs that mention Lightning and Ark. None of that is a Hydrapool product. This site does not offer Lightning or Ark payouts.

A sharechain still has people running gateways and nodes. It does not mean there is no operator at all.

P2Pool V2 is maintained independently by Jungly (Kulpreet Singh). Localhost Research has published a commitment to support that work, alongside Jungly, including sharechain design and transferable shares. P2Pool V2 is not a 256 Foundation core project. The Foundation does not own it. The code lives at p2poolv2/p2poolv2.

The Foundation's projects page names Jungly as Hydrapool's architect and lead maintainer. He also maintains P2Pool V2. Those are related roles. They are not one project under the Foundation.

Shared code is real, and limited ​

Hydrapool 2.6.0 on main (f7674e4) depends on p2poolv2_lib v0.12.0 from that repository, commit 8eca024, with the feature hydrapool-pplns-accounting enabled. The same tag supplies p2poolv2_api, p2poolv2_cli, and bitcoindrpc.

Sharing a library is not the same as shipping the same binary, the same default mode, or the same deployed program. Hydrapool's example config selects hydrapool mode. P2Pool V2's node is a separate program, on its own release line, with its own public status: testnet4, and a marketplace still being built.

Using Hydrapool today is not running a decentralized sharechain.

How to talk about the pair ​

Say which ledger you mean.

  • "I operate Hydrapool" means you run the operator-run software.
  • "P2Pool V2" means the peer-validated sharechain, as far as that project has actually shipped it. Today that public evidence is testnet4, not a finished mainnet pool with a market.

Where Hydrapool is today is the status page. What a check can show says what source, an export, and a coinbase each prove.