So if I am solo mining and I have 2 machines then they are fighting against each other really. They are both doing their own thing completely ignorant of each other.
I guess I am not understanding how a pool actually works then. Is this where the 'shares' come into play? Are all of our individual machines sending our best shares to some overlord node server or is something using all of our hash power combined? Ie some communication is there to use all the hash power for the combined good of the pool?
Heh I missed seeing you post
No, it's PoW that matters (Proof of Work)
A valid share is Proof of Work.
A miner of X THs has 1/1000 of the chance of a miner of X PHs of finding a block.
So the X THs miner will expect to be rewarded 1/1000th of the X PHs miner.
The reward expectation is linear, with random variance, vs hashing power.
Everyone is simply trying to find a block.
The pool checks each share you submit to make sure it's a valid PoW and then the share is worth whatever the difficulty the work sent was assigned.
If your hash rate is expected to find 1 block a week, then you'd expect (on average) to be rewarded (here) a little more than the equivalent of one block a week.
You'd also expect to average finding 1 block a week while you mine here ... if the difficulty never changed
When you solo mine you are going to hit massive variance if your hash rate isn't in the 1PHs or greater range.
In the 10PH to 50PH range the variance is noticeable, like the pool here being ~22PHs but not unbearable for most.
Pooled mining has 3 main reasons:
1) Reduce variance by being part of a large pool of miners sharing the blocks found based on PoW
2) Reduce your risk of losing blocks if the pool has good block distribution, we do of course have awesome block distribution
3) Reduce mining cost (for a fee) by not having to setup and maintain servers to do that block distribution ... I do all that
Fees here are lower than all the larger pools and even lower than solo ... and I don't expect a tip either
Ahh that's starting to make more sense now. So the power of the pool is that we are all sharing the proof of works also with the combined hash power. I thought there was more to it then just the hash power.
Wow the luck of the last 5 blocks is over 300%! Great to see. I would love to get my hash rate over 100 T/H.
Gotta make those hard decisions on how much mined btc to re-invest and how much to hold for long term gains.
Fingers crossed for continued good luck
BTC