<blockquote>
  <p>What do the mining workers do differently then if they would be mining
  solo?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>A miner that is mining within a third-party pool doesn't need the entire block chain. In fact it doesn't need to be connected to any peers of the Bitcoin network. These miners work entirely outside of the network and could technically just need to communicate to the administrator of the pool in order to mine. </p>

<p>The admin of the pool, on the other hand, needs to be exposed to the Bitcoin network and needs to listen for new blocks and validate transactions. The admin of a pool is a full Bitcoin node as described in Satoshi's paper.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>How does it work under the hood? What does the mining pool server do
  in terms of computation?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>What happens behind the hood is that the pool admin uses the combination of the miners computation, within her pool, as sort of an extension to her computational power. To do this there's specific software installed on the admin's server that takes care of making sure each miner is doing the work requested. </p>

<p>During a 10 minute block cycle, since most miners within a pool won't actually solve the block (only 1 miner on average will), the admin needs to make sure that miners are actually working on the problem.</p>

<p>To do this the miners solve a reduced difficulty hash, but one that could have also solved the actual hash, so it proves to the administrator they're actually working on the problem.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-07-30T14:39:46.023Z
i dont understand one thing - when it is just one person that solves the block becouse he is the fastest, why the hell are then others needed to do the job? I may sound stupit but why should the admin of the mining pool even give the other members money when it is just one or two persons that are fast enough to overspeed the others and earn coins?
Burak Kilinc
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-07-30T15:52:29.733Z
Do not use answers to ask a question. But I will answer your question. Bitcoin is a decentralized platform, meaning ownership is distributed throughout all the users. There is no admin, government, or higher power in the bitcoin network. Multiple miners exist because of the reward for mining a block. Anyone can be a miner, so people are trying to earn money through it. Also, if the leader of the mining pool doesn't let anyone else join, the other pools (there are a ton) will just mine faster than that one person because they have more computational power.
James P.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-08-29T17:06:13.980Z
@BurakKilinc Because miners are obviously not hashing the same inputs and on average, each miner earn a proportional share of coins to its computational power.
arteymix
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-09-22T18:52:21.260Z
I don't exactly grasp "miners solve a reduced difficulty hash" - is there a good example on this maybe?
jayarjo
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-25T19:54:33.873Z
@BurakKilinc Because those slower miners can also find a block. They are paid for the work they have done for TRYING to find a block.
kuchi
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-06T13:24:30.387Z
this answer is great but needs clarification as to what exactly the reduced difficulty hash does
ycomp
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-05-06T02:54:00.400Z
@ycomp I think the solving the reduced difficulty hash is only a way to demonstrate that a worker node in the mining pool is contributing, so that when a new block is mined, the manager node of the mining pool understands how much computing power each worker node has contributed and how much reward each worker should get. The work node is essential working on the original difficulty hash.
Qi Zhang
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-12-27T20:21:40.127Z
@jayarjo here is a good open source implementation of a mining pool https://github.com/oliverw/miningcore
mikestaub
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-07T14:11:58.040Z
2014-02-07T14:11:58.040Z
Luca Matteis
<p>Mining Pools are close to SoloMining under the hood. Most computers and hardware would take years to generate a block because they come in groups of 25 Bitcoins.</p>

<p>However with a mining pool the bitcoin share goes to the server its self and then it calculates the ammount of work that your hardware personally did. They will then send you that ammount of bitcoins.</p>

<p>All that the pooled mining servers do is record your amount of work. The mining server is basically Solo Mining.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-07T13:44:33.927Z
2014-02-07T13:44:33.927Z
SimplePi
<blockquote>
  <p>The mining pool coordinates the workers. Think of it like a lottery. If you and your friends all buy tickets in the lottery the group has a better chance of winning. To be fair in the lottery example everyone should be rewarded proportional to the amount of money spent on tickets. So if there are 20 tickets for the pool one person purchased 10 and two people purchased 5 each - if one of the 20 tickets win the person who purchased 10 gets 50% and the other two get 25% each.</p>
  
  <p>What a mining pool does is function as a coordinator for all the pool participants doing:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Taking the pool members hashes</li>
  <li>Looking for block rewards</li>
  <li>Recording how much work all the participants are doing</li>
  <li>Assigning block rewards proportionally to participants</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Miners mine differently by running pool software instead of the bitcoin client and just performing hashes for the pool.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Source: <a href="https://captainaltcoin.com/what-is-pool-mining/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://captainaltcoin.com/what-is-pool-mining/</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-11-07T09:39:49.753Z
Not clear. How they taking hashes? They should validate them, right? But validation means rehash, in other words - do the same work as miner. How is this possible?
turbanoff
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-13T00:54:23.080Z
2018-01-06T00:32:35.773Z
2018-01-06T00:32:35.773Z
David Silva Smith
<p>I understand the following</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Pooled mining is a mining approach where multiple generating clients
  contribute to the generation of a block, and then split the block
  reward according the contributed processing power. Pooled mining
  effectively reduces the granularity of the block generation reward,
  spreading it out more smoothly over time.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>How does it work under the hood? What does the mining pool server do in terms of computation? </p>

<p>What do the mining workers do differently then if they would be mining solo?</p>

<mining-pools><solo-mining><mining-pool-shares><pool-payout-methods><mining-technical-details>
How do mining pools work?
user2789433
# How do mining pools work?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-02-07)

I understand the following

> Pooled mining is a mining approach where multiple generating clients
> contribute to the generation of a block, and then split the block
> reward according the contributed processing power. Pooled mining
> effectively reduces the granularity of the block generation reward,
> spreading it out more smoothly over time.

How does it work under the hood? What does the mining pool server do in terms of computation?

What do the mining workers do differently then if they would be mining solo?

**Tags:** mining-pools, solo-mining, mining-pool-shares, pool-payout-methods, mining-technical-details


---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_11 on 2014-02-13. Score: 4 | Accepted answer

> The mining pool coordinates the workers. Think of it like a lottery. If you and your friends all buy tickets in the lottery the group has a better chance of winning. To be fair in the lottery example everyone should be rewarded proportional to the amount of money spent on tickets. So if there are 20 tickets for the pool one person purchased 10 and two people purchased 5 each - if one of the 20 tickets win the person who purchased 10 gets 50% and the other two get 25% each.
>
> What a mining pool does is function as a coordinator for all the pool participants doing:
>
> 1. Taking the pool members hashes
> 2. Looking for block rewards
> 3. Recording how much work all the participants are doing
> 4. Assigning block rewards proportionally to participants
>
> Miners mine differently by running pool software instead of the bitcoin client and just performing hashes for the pool.

Source: <https://captainaltcoin.com/what-is-pool-mining/>

> **Comments:**
> **username_12**: Not clear. How they taking hashes? They should validate them, right? But validation means rehash, in other words - do the same work as miner. How is this possible?  

---

### Answer by username_1 on 2014-02-07. Score: 13

> What do the mining workers do differently then if they would be mining
> solo?

A miner that is mining within a third-party pool doesn't need the entire block chain. In fact it doesn't need to be connected to any peers of the Bitcoin network. These miners work entirely outside of the network and could technically just need to communicate to the administrator of the pool in order to mine.

The admin of the pool, on the other hand, needs to be exposed to the Bitcoin network and needs to listen for new blocks and validate transactions. The admin of a pool is a full Bitcoin node as described in Satoshi's paper.

> How does it work under the hood? What does the mining pool server do
> in terms of computation?

What happens behind the hood is that the pool admin uses the combination of the miners computation, within her pool, as sort of an extension to her computational power. To do this there's specific software installed on the admin's server that takes care of making sure each miner is doing the work requested.

During a 10 minute block cycle, since most miners within a pool won't actually solve the block (only 1 miner on average will), the admin needs to make sure that miners are actually working on the problem.

To do this the miners solve a reduced difficulty hash, but one that could have also solved the actual hash, so it proves to the administrator they're actually working on the problem.

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: i dont understand one thing - when it is just one person that solves the block becouse he is the fastest, why the hell are then others needed to do the job? I may sound stupit but why should the admin of the mining pool even give the other members money when it is just one or two persons that are fast enough to overspeed the others and earn coins?  
> **username_3**: Do not use answers to ask a question. But I will answer your question. Bitcoin is a decentralized platform, meaning ownership is distributed throughout all the users. There is no admin, government, or higher power in the bitcoin network. Multiple miners exist because of the reward for mining a block. Anyone can be a miner, so people are trying to earn money through it. Also, if the leader of the mining pool doesn't let anyone else join, the other pools (there are a ton) will just mine faster than that one person because they have more computational power.  
> **username_4**: @username_2 Because miners are obviously not hashing the same inputs and on average, each miner earn a proportional share of coins to its computational power.  
> **username_5**: I don't exactly grasp "miners solve a reduced difficulty hash" - is there a good example on this maybe?  
> **username_6**: @username_2 Because those slower miners can also find a block. They are paid for the work they have done for TRYING to find a block.  
> **username_7**: this answer is great but needs clarification as to what exactly the reduced difficulty hash does  
> **username_8**: @username_7 I think the solving the reduced difficulty hash is only a way to demonstrate that a worker node in the mining pool is contributing, so that when a new block is mined, the manager node of the mining pool understands how much computing power each worker node has contributed and how much reward each worker should get. The work node is essential working on the original difficulty hash.  
> **username_9**: @username_5 here is a good open source implementation of a mining pool https://github.com/oliverw/miningcore  

---

### Answer by username_10 on 2014-02-07. Score: 0

Mining Pools are close to SoloMining under the hood. Most computers and hardware would take years to generate a block because they come in groups of 25 Bitcoins.

However with a mining pool the bitcoin share goes to the server its self and then it calculates the ammount of work that your hardware personally did. They will then send you that ammount of bitcoins.

All that the pooled mining servers do is record your amount of work. The mining server is basically Solo Mining.


---

