SBI Crypto Pulls the Plug on Bitcoin Pool as 20,412 PH/s Hunts for a New Home

The company launched the pool in March 2021 as part of SBI Holdings’ push into digital assets. Today it sits between the 10th and 11th largest Bitcoin mining pool by hashrate, controlling 20,412.11 PH/s. That figure represents just over 2% of the global hashrate aggregate, according to mempool.space and cloverpool.com data.

SBI Crypto’s 2% hashrate share reflects how much mining power customers have chosen to point at its pool for payout purposes, not a stake in Bitcoin’s underlying security or supply. SBI disclosed that it started the mining operation in 2017 and managed to start the pool in 2021 with 1,100 petahash.

CEO Hiroaki Morita signed the closure notice sent to customers this week. The letter set a hard cutoff: the pool stops accepting mining shares at 07:00 JST on July 31, which lands at 22:00 UTC on July 30. Shares submitted after that point will not count toward final payouts.

Until then, SBI Crypto says operations continue as normal. Miners keep submitting shares and receiving payouts on the usual schedule.

What Miners Need to Do Now

SBI Crypto is urging customers to keep directing hashrate to the pool through the cutoff date. Doing so ensures every eligible share gets included in the final payout calculation. Miners who stop early risk leaving rewards on the table.

The company has also lined up reference options for the transition. Three pools appear in the notice, listed alphabetically:

• Braiins, reachable through its sales contact page
• Luxor Pool, which operates mining infrastructure and financial products for miners
• Neopool, a newer entrant in the pool market

SBI Crypto said some of these operators may offer special terms for customers moving over from its pool. The company is not endorsing any of them. It framed the list as a courtesy based on prior business and technical conversations, and it told customers to evaluate each option on their own.

Details Still Coming

SBI Crypto has not yet released a full transition schedule. The company explained it will share more on the final payout timeline, API access, and web portal availability as those details firm up.

Furthermore, the notice does not explain why SBI Crypto is closing the pool. The company thanked customers for their support since 2021 and said it remains available to help with the transition. During its tenure, SBI Crypto also mined other SHA256-compatible crypto assets.

What This Means for the Network

A pool controlling roughly 2% of global hashrate closing its doors does not threaten Bitcoin’s security model. Miners on SBI Crypto’s pool have time to redirect their equipment, and the alternatives named in the notice already operate at a meaningful scale.

The bigger story sits with SBI Holdings itself. The mining pool closure comes as the Japanese financial group expands its footprint elsewhere in crypto, including stablecoin initiatives and exchange infrastructure. Winding down a five-year-old mining business while building out other digital asset lines points to a company reallocating resources rather than retreating from crypto altogether.

Miners connected to SBI Crypto have four weeks to make a decision. Waiting until the final days narrows the options.