PPLNS
PPLNS (Pay Per Last N Shares) is a mining pool payout method that distributes block rewards based on the shares each miner contributed within a recent window of N shares leading up to when a block is found. It rewards miners who remain consistently connected to the pool.
Understanding PPLNS
Section titled “Understanding PPLNS”Unlike PPS, which pays a fixed amount per share regardless of blocks found, PPLNS only pays out when the pool actually finds a block. When a block is found, the pool looks at the last N shares that were submitted (where N is a configurable window) and distributes the full block reward (subsidy + transaction fees) among the miners who contributed those shares.
Think of PPLNS like a fishing boat crew. You only get paid when the boat catches fish, and your share depends on how much work you did during the trip. If the boat catches nothing today, nobody gets paid. But when there is a big catch, the full value (including the premium fish — transaction fees) gets split among the crew.
This model has higher variance than PPS — sometimes the pool finds blocks frequently (lucky) and miners earn more than expected, and sometimes blocks are sparse (unlucky) and earnings dip. Over long periods, PPLNS and FPPS tend to converge, but short-term swings can be significant.
Practical Example
Section titled “Practical Example”A pool uses PPLNS with a window of 1 billion shares. When the pool finds block #840,005, it examines the last 1 billion shares submitted. Miner A contributed 10 million of those shares (1%), so Miner A receives 1% of the full block reward (subsidy + fees). Miner B, who just connected 5 minutes ago, may only have 100,000 shares in the window (0.01%) and receives a much smaller payout.
If the pool gets lucky and finds the next block just 2 minutes later, the same process repeats with the new window. Pool fees for PPLNS tend to be lower than PPS/FPPS because the pool carries no variance risk.