PPS
PPS (Pay Per Share) is a mining pool payout method that pays miners a fixed, predetermined amount for each valid share they submit. The payment is guaranteed regardless of whether the pool actually finds any blocks.
Understanding PPS
Section titled “Understanding PPS”Under the PPS model, every valid share has a calculable economic value. The pool determines this value based on the current network difficulty, the block subsidy, and the share difficulty. Each time a miner submits a valid share, they are credited with this fixed amount.
Think of PPS as a salaried job. You get paid the same amount for each hour of work, regardless of whether your company had a good revenue day or a bad one. The employer (pool) absorbs the variance — sometimes the pool finds more blocks than expected and profits, sometimes fewer and takes a loss.
The per-share value is calculated as: share_value = block_subsidy x (share_difficulty / network_difficulty). This formula ensures that the expected payout over time equals the block subsidy portion of the reward proportional to the miner’s hashrate contribution.
Practical Example
Section titled “Practical Example”The network difficulty is 80 trillion and the block subsidy is 3.125 BTC. A pool sets share difficulty at 1 million. Under PPS, each share is worth: 3.125 x (1,000,000 / 80,000,000,000,000) = 0.0000000390625 BTC. If a miner submits 10,000 shares in an hour, they earn 0.000390625 BTC for that hour, regardless of pool luck. This predictability makes budgeting and financial planning straightforward for mining operations.