4 min read · Updated 2026-10-25

Mining pools and Stratum

A single miner might wait years to find a block. Pools combine many miners so rewards arrive steadily.

Shares

Miners submit shares, which are hashes that meet an easier target than a full block. Shares prove work was done. The pool counts them to split rewards fairly. A share can be accepted, rejected or stale when it arrives too late.

Payout schemes

Pools use different methods to pay out:

  • [+]PPS: a fixed payment per share, with the pool carrying the variance
  • [+]FPPS: like PPS and including a share of fees
  • [+]PPLNS: paid per share found recently, only when the pool finds a block

Stratum

Stratum is the protocol miners use to receive work from the pool and send shares back. Messages such as mining.notify and set_difficulty appear in the logs of every mining console, including the one in your OnlineCryptoMining dashboard.

Frequently asked questions

Why do some shares get rejected?

Usually because they arrived after a new block, or from unstable hardware or network.

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Sources and further reading: Bitcoin whitepaper · mempool.space · Bitcoin Wiki: Mining. General information only, not financial advice. Rewards from mining are variable and not guaranteed. See our risk notice.