Glossary · Mining Pools
Stale share
Also: stale, rejected share
A stale share is a share submitted after the pool has already moved on to a new block, usually because of network latency, and it earns nothing because it no longer contributes to a block the pool can still find.
Related terms
- Share
- A share is a hash a miner submits to a pool that meets the pool's own easier target rather than the network's, serving as verifiable proof of the work the miner has done so the pool can measure each miner's contribution.
- Orphan block
- An orphan block, more precisely a stale block, is a valid block that loses out to a competing block found at nearly the same time, so its reward is never spendable and a pool that mined it earns nothing for that round.
- Stratum
- Stratum is the protocol miners use to receive work from a pool and submit shares back, with Stratum V2 adding encryption and an optional mode in which miners rather than the pool choose which transactions go into a block.
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