Hydrapool

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Why Hydrapool ​

This page is the context. It is not a setup guide.

Three jobs sit in one operator ​

When miners pool hashrate, an operator usually does three jobs:

  • Choose the block template the miners work on.
  • Keep the ledger of which shares count.
  • Pay the miners, often from a wallet the operator holds after the block.

Those jobs are different. Moving one of them does not move the others. A design that lets a miner build the template can still leave the ledger, and the payout, with the pool. Direct payment from the coinbase can leave the operator without later custody of those coins, and still say nothing about whether every eligible share was in the split.

Hydrapool is the 256 Foundation's pool software for that job. You can read it, and you can run it.

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

What "open" changes, and what it does not ​

Open source means you can inspect the published code and you can host it yourself. It does not prove which binary a remote host is running. A public instance is still someone's deployment. You can read Hydrapool. You cannot, from the license alone, know that a given IP is that code.

The 256 Foundation lists Hydrapool as one of its four core projects, next to Ember One, Libre Board, and Mujina. This site does not describe the current state of those other projects. Firmware and hardware are adjacent layers. A claim about them is not a claim about share accounting.

What this project is not claiming ​

Hydrapool does not remove the operator. You are the operator, or you are using someone who is.

Many pools publish formulas and account data. Checking your own accepted work against a published rate is a real check. A proportional split of a found block still depends on everyone else's eligible work. That total is the hard part to authenticate. What a check can show separates these cases.

A published payout formula, and a design that moves template choice to the miner, are different tools from this ledger. This site does not argue with them. Template choice and the ledger are different controls.

Where to go next ​

Two ledgers is the pair: the operator-run pool, and the peer-validated sharechain. Where Hydrapool is today says which of those you can run now.