The short answer: treat template control as a real criterion
Block template control should affect your XBT pool choice whenever you care who decides which transactions your hashes commit to. We back miners choosing transactions through their own nodes, so that is our position. It is a judgment, not a documented fact about the chain.
It is also a legitimate practical choice to let a pool build the template. Delegation is simpler to run and carries fewer moving parts. The tradeoff is that you give up a say in transaction selection. This article is about making that trade deliberately instead of by default.
The decision comes down to three paths:
- Template control weighs heavily: look for a pool arrangement where your own node builds the template and the pool coordinates rewards, or run your own node.
- Template control competes with other needs: accept a pool-built template for now, and treat it as a known cost you can revisit.
- You are not ready to commit: wait and prepare. Not running a production miner yet is a reasonable outcome.
The rest of the article explains the three layers behind this choice, compares pool-built and miner-built templates, and ends with questions to put to any pool. For fees, payout methods and published terms, use our pool comparison and the guide on how to choose an XBT mining pool. We do not repeat that material here.
Three layers that get mixed up: hashpower, rewards and templates
Pool marketing and casual mining talk often blur three different questions. Separating them shows why a pool can pay you without you having any say in what your hashes commit to.
| Layer | Plain-English question | Short example |
|---|---|---|
| Hashpower ownership | Whose hardware does the hashing? | You buy and run a BLAKE2b ASIC at home. The hashing work is yours. |
| Pooled rewards | Who pays whom, and by what rules? | You point that ASIC at a pool. The pool pays you according to its published payout rules. |
| Template authority | Who decides which transactions go in the candidate block? | The pool's server or another template provider builds the template and sends your miner work based on it. You hash, but you did not choose the transactions. |
Hashpower ownership is only about the hardware and the work it supplies. Owning the machine tells you nothing about who picked the transactions.
Pooled rewards are payouts made under the pool's rules. Mining pools combine contributions from many miners and distribute rewards by those rules. Being paid is a statement about the payout system. It does not show who built the template.
Template authority is the layer this article is about. A block template is the candidate block a miner works on, and it determines which transactions the miner's work commits to. Either the pool operator builds it, or the miner builds it through their own node.
There is a practical reason the third layer is easy to miss. In standard Stratum, the job sent to your miner does not contain the full list of transactions. It carries the information needed to build a block header. You can be fully paid and fully busy while the transaction list is invisible from where you sit.
The separation works in the other direction too. On Bitcoin's SHA256d chain, DATUM is an example of a design where the pool coordinates reward splits while the user keeps control of template creation. That is a BTC example, not a statement about XBT pool support. It does show that reward sharing and template authority are separable. For the mechanics, see our separate DATUM explainer.
Pool-built templates versus miner-built templates
Both models are workable. They distribute control and responsibility differently.
| Factor | Pool-built (delegated) template | Miner-built template (own node) |
|---|---|---|
| Who selects transactions | The pool operator | You, through your own node |
| Cost | No node to run | You run and maintain a node, with the hardware and bandwidth that implies |
| Operational effort | Usually the simpler path: point the miner at the pool | More to set up, monitor and update |
| Reliability | Depends on the pool's infrastructure | Depends on your node and your connection as well as the pool |
| Failover risk | The pool's own uptime and fallback arrangements matter | You need to know what your miner does if your node or the pool link drops |
| Compatibility | Works with whatever the pool and your firmware support | Needs a pool, firmware or gateway that supports miner-built templates on XBT |
| Independence | You rely on the pool's transaction choices | You decide what your work commits to |
What delegating gives you. Less to run, fewer parts to fail, and often the widest choice of firmware and pool terms. For a miner whose main concern is steady operation, that is a real benefit.
What delegating costs. You hand transaction selection to the operator. That is a judgment call you may be comfortable with. It is still a judgment call, and it is worth making consciously. Bitcoin's security model assumes no single entity controls which transactions are included in blocks. When a handful of pools build the templates, that assumption depends on how those pools behave. We criticize arrangements, on SHA256d and elsewhere, that concentrate template construction in large operators. We are not claiming any named pool misbehaves.
What building your own gives you. Independent transaction selection, and a node you verify with. DATUM Gateway on BTC, for example, talks to a local node over RPC using getblocktemplate, which is the standard way to request the data needed to construct a block.
What it costs. Money, time and attention. You take on node upkeep and a more involved failure picture. A broken node can cost you hashing time, so reliability becomes partly your job.
One caveat sits over the whole comparison. Which template modes, pools and protocols work on XBT is a documentation question, not a theory question. Check the miners page on bitcoin-blake2b.org and the versioned CONVOY documentation. We have not verified Stratum V2 support on XBT in the sources cited here. If a pool or firmware vendor says otherwise, ask them for their source.
How much weight should template control get?
Instead of asking whether template control matters in the abstract, ask what else you need from the setup and how firmly you hold this preference.
When control should weigh heavily
Let it lead your pool choice if any of these describe you:
- You want your hashes to commit only to transactions your own node selected.
- You already run, or plan to run, a node you verify independently.
- You mine partly to support transaction inclusion that does not depend on a pool operator's policy.
- You are comfortable owning node upkeep and a more involved failover picture.
In that case, filter pools first by whether they document support for miner-built templates on XBT. Compare fees and payouts only among those that pass.
When control competes with other needs
Most real setups have tradeoffs, and these are valid reasons to accept a pool-built template for now:
- Your hardware or firmware only works with the pool-built path.
- You need simple, low-maintenance operation and cannot babysit a node.
- Payout predictability matters to you. PPS is generally described as offering predictable payouts at usually higher fees, while PPLNS can have lower fees but more fluctuating payouts. That is a separate axis from template authority.
- If the only pool that documents the terms you want also builds the template for you, treat that as a tradeoff.
Here, treat template control as a tiebreaker or a cost to revisit, not something to ignore. Write down what you gave up, so you can change course when a better option exists.
When waiting is reasonable
Waiting makes sense if the documentation does not yet answer your questions, if pool terms are unclear or conflict, or if you cannot yet judge net received revenue over time. That last measure is a useful one for evaluating any pool, and it is hard to assess before you have real data. We deliberately do not offer earnings projections or assume proportional payouts, because the inputs for them are not in the evidence we can cite.
Price, hardware cost and electricity decide whether mining makes sense at all. Template control does not fix a setup that does not pay for itself.
The option of not running a production miner yet
You do not have to pick a pool today. Not running a production miner yet is a legitimate outcome, especially if the template question is unresolved for you.
Waiting is not idleness. Preparation you can do without hashing includes:
- Read the primary sources. Review the miners page on bitcoin-blake2b.org and the versioned CONVOY documentation. Note which template and pool modes are actually documented, and for which version.
- Note the gaps. Anything undocumented is unverified. Turn it into a question for a pool or firmware vendor instead of assuming.
- Check wallet and address rules. Do not use an exchange BTC address unless that service explicitly supports this network. Confirm payout address instructions against current documentation.
- Decide your node plan. Work out whether you would run a node for your own templates, and what you would do if it went offline.
- Watch published pool terms. Our pool comparison lists published terms, and the network dashboard shows current observations. Terms and conditions change, so revisit them before committing.
- Plan a small first step. If you start, begin with a limited setup you can undo.
We also want to be open about what we could not find. Community evidence is thin: we found no XBT miners discussing template authority, DATUM or Stratum V2 on XBT, so we are not claiming a consensus. Our dashboard measures network conditions. It does not measure template ownership, and it cannot tell you a pool is decentralized.
Questions to ask a pool before you choose
Use these with any pool you are considering. A clear, documented answer is a good sign. A vague one is information too.
Template authority
- Who builds the block template for my miner: the pool, or my own node?
- If miner-built templates are supported on XBT, where is that documented, and for which software versions?
- Can I verify what my miner is committing to? Standard Stratum jobs do not carry the full transaction list, so ask what a miner or outside observer can actually check.
- On BTC, projects such as miningpool-observer compare pool templates against Bitcoin Core nodes to show transaction-selection differences. Ask whether anything comparable exists for this pool on XBT.
Published terms
- What are the payout rules, and where are they published?
- Which payout method is used, and what does it mean for variance? PPS and PPLNS trade predictability against fees differently.
- What does the pool say about outages and fallback behavior?
Compatibility
- Which firmware and gateway software work with the pool, and is that stated in the CONVOY documentation or the miners page on bitcoin-blake2b.org?
- Does the pool claim Stratum V2 support on XBT? If so, ask for the source, because we have not verified Stratum V2 support on XBT in the sources cited here.
- Which payout address formats are accepted?
For fee and payout comparison, continue with the guide on how to choose an XBT mining pool.
Where to go from here
Hashpower ownership, pooled rewards and template authority are three separate things. A pool can pay you reliably while you have no say in what your hashes commit to. If you care about independent transaction selection, that is a good reason to weigh template control heavily and to favor arrangements where the pool coordinates rewards while you keep the template.
If other needs win for now, a pool-built template is a defensible choice. Make it knowingly. If the documentation or your readiness is not there yet, waiting is a reasonable decision.
Next steps:
- Check the miners page on bitcoin-blake2b.org and the versioned CONVOY documentation for what is actually documented.
- Compare current published terms on our pools page.
- Put the checklist above to any pool you are considering.
- Read our separate guides on DATUM, on verifying that your miner builds its own templates, and on whether BLAKE2b decentralizes mining, for the deeper material we left out here.