Network Consensus

A pool server in Bitcoin mining is a server that manages communication between miners and mining pools. It distributes mining tasks to connected miners, collects the results (shares) submitted by miners, and communicates the pool’s mining work. The pool server also handles reward distribution, ensuring that miners receive their share of the pool’s earnings once a block is successfully mined.

CAPEX (Capital Expenditure) refers to the funds spent by a Bitcoin miner or mining operation on acquiring, upgrading, or maintaining physical assets such as mining hardware (ASICs or GPUs), infrastructure, and other long-term investments. These expenditures are typically one-time costs incurred to set up a mining operation and are considered as investments to improve the miner's capacity to generate revenue over time.

A mining farm is a large-scale Bitcoin mining operation where numerous mining rigs, such as ASIC miners or GPUs, are housed in a dedicated facility designed for efficient mining. Mining farms typically have a high concentration of mining hardware, significant power requirements, and optimized cooling systems to ensure the continuous operation of mining rigs.

The maintenance fee in Bitcoin mining refers to the cost associated with maintaining mining hardware and ensuring its continuous operation. This fee is typically charged by cloud mining providers or mining pools to cover the costs of electricity, hardware upkeep, cooling systems, and other operational expenses. The maintenance fee is usually a percentage of the mined cryptocurrency, which is deducted before payouts are made to miners.

An orphan block is a block that is valid but is not accepted into the main blockchain because another block at the same height has already been accepted. Orphan blocks occur when two miners find a block at roughly the same time, but only one can be added to the blockchain.