No single mining pool has found more bitcoin blocks than unidentified miners. That's the takeaway from new data released this week by Cloverpool, the mining pool and platform formerly known as btc.com. An entity simply labeled 'unknown' has mined 230,770 blocks — 24.03% of all Bitcoin blocks since the network launched.
The unknown leader
The 'unknown' category isn't a pool in the traditional sense. It represents blocks mined by entities that either haven't publicly identified themselves or that the data provider couldn't attribute to a known pool. That's a big chunk of the network's history — nearly a quarter of all blocks ever mined.
For context, the next largest known pools each hold far smaller shares. The data shows that three mining pools have captured nearly 30% of Bitcoin blocks since launch, but none individually tops the unknown group. That means the largest single miner of bitcoin is, effectively, a ghost.
What the top three tell us
Cloverpool's numbers put the three largest known pools at a combined 29.8% of all blocks. That's a significant concentration, but it's still less than the unknown share alone. The data doesn't name those pools, but it's a reminder that Bitcoin's mining landscape has always had a sizable anonymous component — especially in the early years when solo mining was common and pool tracking was less precise.
The timing of the report is notable. Bitcoin's mining industry has become more professionalized over the years, with large pools like Antpool, F2Pool, and others dominating headlines. But the Cloverpool data suggests that a substantial portion of the network's history remains opaque. That could complicate efforts to assess true decentralization — if a quarter of all blocks come from unknown sources, any analysis of mining concentration is incomplete.
It also raises questions about how much of that unknown share is old, pre-pool-era mining versus recent anonymous activity. The data doesn't break it down by time period, so we're left with a single, striking number.
About the data
Cloverpool published the figures as part of a broader look at Bitcoin mining statistics. The platform, which rebranded from btc.com earlier this year, maintains a block explorer and mining pool services. Its dataset covers the entire Bitcoin blockchain from the genesis block in January 2009 through late July 2026.
The report doesn't speculate on who the unknown miners might be. But it does make one thing clear: the biggest miner in Bitcoin's history has no name.
