Rejected Share
A rejected share is a share that a miner submits that does not meet the pool’s criteria for a valid partial solution. Rejected shares are discarded and do not count towards the miner's total contribution, meaning the miner will not receive a reward for them.
Rejected Share Explained in Simple Terms
In a mining pool, miners submit shares to prove that they are contributing to solving the block puzzle. A rejected share is a share that doesn’t meet the pool's validation rules. While the share may be a valid cryptographic solution, it doesn't meet the necessary conditions set by the pool, so it’s rejected.
Shares are typically rejected for reasons like:
Invalid submission: The share may have been incorrectly formatted or have a calculation error.
Incorrect nonce: The nonce value may not match the criteria for a valid share.
Connection issues: Network problems or timeouts during the share submission can cause shares to be rejected.
Outdated shares: Shares may be submitted after the pool has already found a valid block, but this is more commonly called a stale share.
Rejected shares do not contribute to the pool’s mining efforts, and miners are not compensated for them. Mining pools track rejected shares and may provide feedback to miners so they can adjust their settings or configurations.
How Rejected Share Works
When a miner finds a partial solution to the mining puzzle, they submit a share to the mining pool. The pool then checks the submitted share against its validation rules.
If the share doesn't meet the pool’s criteria, it is rejected. This can happen for a variety of reasons:
The share may not have the correct hash value that matches the pool’s required target.
The submitted share may be improperly formatted or include a calculation error.
Network issues may cause the share to be lost or corrupted before it is processed.
Once rejected, the share is discarded, and the miner must try again by adjusting their nonce or configuration. The miner is not rewarded for rejected shares, which means they lose out on potential earnings.
Miners who frequently experience rejected shares may need to check their miner settings, update their hardware, or troubleshoot network connections to reduce the occurrence of rejected shares.
Example of Rejected Share in Practice
Imagine a miner is working on solving a Bitcoin block in a mining pool. They find a partial solution and submit it as a share. However, when the pool checks the share, it doesn’t meet the required criteria - for example, the hash value is too high and doesn't meet the pool's target.
As a result, the pool rejects the share, and the miner does not receive any reward for it. The miner then adjusts their configuration or increases their computational effort to try again.