I think there are good points all round.
It does help the coin to have a higher hash rate - less possibility of a 51% attack.
It also helps the coin to have more solo miners - wider distribution, less centralization.
It also helps the coin when solo mining is competitive - easier to onboard new and novice users as miners.
I think the balance has swung a bit too far towards pool mining now - however it won't be as pronounced as before, as miners are required to HODL for 1 year so only miners who believe in the coin and are making an invesment will mine for now.
To redress the balance, I do think we need to integrate optiminer's enhancements into the wallet miner, to make solo-mining competitive again. If we don't do this, I think we'll see most of the hashing power on a single pool soon, and this give us a central point of failure - not good for anyone.
The central point of failure is certainly a valid concern. It would certainly be good to have more than one mining pool. I hope once the coin gains in value other mining pools will (re-)open for the coin. I will not publish the source of my pool as I might want to reuse the code for other things. I will think about setting up a second instance of my pool, though, which will be completely independent from the first. Integrating the optimized mining code into the wallet is something I can look into when I have spare time.
I am more concerned about the single platform that HODL is still traded on than the centralization of mining. Especially as c-cex is threatening to also de-list it. I hope we can avert this. I opened a ticket at yobit to request that they update the hodl wallet and reenable withdrawals and deposits. I suggest everyone with an account there does the same to put on some pressure.
Happy HOdling!
