More miners are considering ViaBTC’s referral program because it connects referral payments to actual pool activity rather than account sign-ups. General referrers receive 10% of the platform fee revenue generated by qualifying referred miners for 12 months, while approved Ambassadors receive 20% with permanent validity while status requirements are maintained. Rewards are settled daily, and there is no stated cap on referral rewards. ViaBTC also carries referral relationships from a main account to eligible sub-accounts. For miners who already operate communities, hosting businesses, hardware channels, or networks, those terms can add recurring income without purchasing additional ASIC capacity or power.
Mining economics explain why that structure gets attention. After Bitcoin’s April 2024 halving reduced the block subsidy from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, every recurring operating expense became more visible on a miner’s income statement. Electricity, cooling, hosting, hardware depreciation, pool charges, repair costs, and downtime all consume part of gross mining income. A referral payment does not remove those costs, but it gives miners with an existing audience another source of income tied to mining activity rather than additional machine purchases.
That distinction matters because adding hashrate normally requires more capital. A new ASIC adds purchase cost, power use, rack space, ventilation demand, networking, maintenance, and possibly hosting fees. A referral relationship requires no extra terahash capacity from the referrer. Under ViaBTC’s general program, a qualifying user can receive 10% of the pool’s fee revenue generated by a referred miner for 12 months, creating a different cost profile from expanding a mining farm.
A referral is only productive when the referred account actually mines. ViaBTC states that a new user must register through the referral relationship, connect hashrate, and generate mining income before a referral payment can be produced.
The payment basis is also worth separating from the miner’s gross output. ViaBTC does not state that general referrers receive 10% of a referred miner’s total mining proceeds. The 10% is calculated from the platform fee revenue associated with the referred user. For an Ambassador, the stated rate rises to 20%. That difference prevents a common misunderstanding when miners estimate what a referral may produce over a 12-month period.
Pool charges therefore have to be examined beside the referral percentage. ViaBTC’s current pricing page lists PPS+ block-reward settlement at a 4% fee and transaction-fee settlement under PPLNS at 2%. Its standalone PPLNS mode lists a 2% fee for block rewards plus transaction fees. Miners comparing referral economics with operating costs can review the published ViaBTC Pool Fees before making assumptions about the amount generated from a particular hashrate level.
| Item | Published ViaBTC terms |
|---|---|
| General referral rate | 10% of applicable platform fee revenue |
| General reward period | 12 months |
| Ambassador referral rate | 20% |
| Ambassador reward validity | Permanent while applicable status conditions are met |
| Reward settlement | Once per day |
| Ambassador review period | Up to 7 business days |
| Referral reward cap | No stated maximum |
Those figures also show why referrer quality matters more than raw sign-up volume. Ten people who create accounts but never connect miners generate no mining-based referral payment. A smaller group operating several hundred terahashes or multiple production machines can produce much more fee activity. ViaBTC’s Ambassador requirements follow the same operating logic by assessing referred users and connected hashrate rather than treating every registration as equal.
As of 2026, ViaBTC says an Ambassador applicant must have at least 5 valid referred users in the previous month, with valid users defined as main-account users that have connected hashrate. The published examples for referred hashrate include BTC at 300 TH/s or more, LTC at 5 GH/s or more, or KAS at 10 TH/s or more. ViaBTC notes that those hashrate thresholds may be adjusted, so they should not be treated as permanent specifications.
The higher rate comes with continued participation requirements. ViaBTC currently requires Ambassadors to maintain at least 10 valid referred users each month. If that minimum is missed for 3 consecutive months, Ambassador status can be removed and the account can return to general referral terms. That condition separates the 20% rate from a one-time promotional upgrade and makes active referred miners more important than historical referral counts.
Existing relationships are not necessarily lost when a referrer moves to Ambassador status. ViaBTC states that existing general referral links and codes are automatically upgraded after approval. A person who spent 12 months building a mining community therefore does not have to ask every previously referred participant to register again. For established hardware reviewers, farm operators, hosting providers, or mining educators, preserving existing referral relationships can reduce administrative work during an upgrade.
Sub-accounts add another operational detail. Mining companies often separate workers by customer, facility, hardware type, accounting unit, or electricity contract. A farm running 500 ASICs may not want every machine reported under a single accounting view. ViaBTC’s referral rules allow eligible sub-accounts to inherit the referral relationship established through the main account, so one referred operator can represent more than one operating account.
That arrangement matters more for business users than for a hobby miner with 1 or 2 machines. A hosting provider may bring in a customer who begins with 20 ASICs, later expands to 80, and separates equipment into several sub-accounts. Provided the accounts remain eligible under ViaBTC’s terms, referral activity can grow with the referred operation rather than requiring a new referral every time the miner reorganizes account management.
Daily settlement also makes the program easier to monitor alongside ordinary pool records. ViaBTC says Ambassador referral payments are settled once per day and are normally distributed at around 08:30 UTC+8, although actual crediting can be delayed. A daily schedule gives users more frequent data than a monthly affiliate statement and allows referral records to be compared with hashrate changes over shorter periods.
A referrer with 5 active mining companies can be economically more relevant than one with 500 inactive registrations. The program is based on fee-generating mining activity, not traffic alone.
That structure fits the way mining information is already shared outside a pool. A North American hosting company may advise customers on pool setup. A European ASIC repair business may regularly speak with miners replacing failed units. An English-language YouTube channel may publish setup guides for 2025 or 2026 hardware. A Discord operator may answer configuration questions every week. Referral links give those existing recommendations a measurable payment mechanism when users later connect hashrate.
The income profile can also differ from ordinary mining income. Suppose a miner wants to raise personally operated hashrate by 20%. Doing so generally requires 20% more machine capacity before considering differences in efficiency, infrastructure limits, or hardware pricing. Referral growth does not follow that same equipment relationship. A community operator can increase referred hashrate without increasing the number of ASICs owned personally, although the result still depends on whether referred users keep mining.
Settlement method affects how those miners experience the pool after joining. ViaBTC currently supports PPS+ and PPLNS on its pricing page. Under PPS+, valid shares receive theoretical block-reward payments, while transaction-fee revenue is distributed through PPLNS. The published fee is 4% on the PPS block-reward portion and 2% on the transaction-fee portion. Under PPLNS, the listed fee is 2%, with payments linked to blocks found by the pool.
The difference matters because referred miners will judge the service on their own results, not on the referrer’s commission rate. A miner choosing PPS+ may prefer more regular share-based block payments even with the listed 4% fee. Another operator may accept the greater short-term variation of PPLNS in exchange for the listed 2% fee. Referral retention becomes easier when the payment method fits the miner’s operating preferences.
ViaBTC also states that PPLNS distributions use each miner’s share of pool hashrate over the previous 5 difficulty rounds after a block receives 6 confirmations. The same pricing page notes that displayed average daily figures can be estimated from the previous 7 days and may differ from actual results. Those details are useful when someone comparing pools sees a short period of unusually high or low displayed income.
Referral scale should therefore be evaluated with hashrate and duration rather than referral count alone. A referred miner operating 300 TH/s continuously for 12 months provides a very different activity base from an account that connects 30 TH/s for several days. Likewise, a 20% Ambassador rate does not guarantee a fixed dollar amount because pool fee revenue changes with mining activity, payment method, coin economics, and the referred user’s operating time.
Fraud controls place another limit on simple volume tactics. ViaBTC states that suspicious activity, abusive referrals, or cases where the referrer and referred user are identified as the same person can invalidate payments. Newly registered users who never connect hashrate also produce no referral payment. In 2026, those rules make mass account creation far less relevant than bringing legitimate miners who continue operating.
For a miner with no audience, no hosting customers, and no industry contacts, the 10% rate may remain a small side payment. For someone speaking to 50, 100, or 500 active miners through a hosting business, hardware channel, mining newsletter, repair service, or technical community, the same percentage applies across a much larger operating base. The difference comes from referred mining activity, not from promotional language.
ViaBTC’s Ambassador program has also existed since January 19, 2022, giving miners several years of operating history to examine rather than presenting the 20% rate as a new 2026 campaign. ViaBTC’s current Ambassador page continues to publish the 20% rate, daily settlement, qualification examples, monthly activity requirement, and 7-business-day review period.
For miners comparing referral programs, the useful numbers are therefore straightforward to audit: 10% for general referrals, a 12-month general reward period, 20% for approved Ambassadors, at least 5 valid recent referrals for application, at least 10 valid referred users per month for continued Ambassador activity, and published hashrate examples including 300 TH/s for BTC. Checking those figures against current pool fees gives a more realistic picture than estimating income from referral count alone.