I wanted to get this entry into All about Pools out quickly, to act as a stark contrast to the behaviour we have seen from EcoChia, and the resulting coming disruption to their farmers from the Chia license revocation. ChiaHub.io was vocal in discord when the EcoChia story broke that they are an even smaller pool and do not feel the need to lie to their userbase in order to grow it quicker. And I agree.
I have never endorsed a pool before, and I am not quite doing it here, but there are definitely some small pools that are honest and you will get your equal payout over time from. It might not be every day, but it will be bigger chunks less frequently if it isn’t. ChiaHub, SpaceFarmers, TruePool, LetsFarm are all example of pools smaller than EcoChia who from what I can tell would not lie to you. Trust is something I have been consistent on when discussing pools, and reasons like this are why.
So about ChiaHub. They are a 4 person team of experience IT professionals interested in Chia who saw an opportunity. They are a fully legal Austrian / EU business and have spent considerable time and effort making sure they stay that way. They specifically chose Austria in the EU because of the legal options available to them there and the current climate around cryptocurrency companies.
As regular readers will know, I am big on identity when it comes to choosing a pool. I don’t think anonymity is the correct or honest way to run a business involving people’s money. I don’t think the news from the last few days suggests I am mistaken.
Because they have spent the effort to establish a legal business they have also spent some time, effort and money making sure their pool infrastructure and payment systems are robust and redundant. They have built their infrastructure in such a way that they have no concerns about scaling up as they and the ecosystem grow. They established a licensing agreement with Chia Network early on and have been careful to abide by the terms, and run their business ethically. I don’t necessarily agree that everyone (or anyone) should sign this agreement, but I do think anyone who does should stand by their word and abide by it to the best of their ability. It sounds to me like they are in it for the long haul, and I hope I’m correct on that. They haven’t been bothering anyone and Chia Network hasn’t bothered them.
All in all, I really enjoyed my conversation with Ben from ChiaHub. He seemed passionate about being honest with his farmers and building a community. I would bet money against him or his team lying to their team. And that is true about the other small pools I have spoken to. Would they gain some growth advantage by lying? Maybe, in the very short term. But that’s not how to build a long term relationship with farmers. And I think the pools making an effort to do so should be looked at very closely.
