How Does a Mining Pool Divide the Work of Finding a Valid Nonce?
A mining pool divides the work by assigning each miner a specific, non-overlapping range of nonces to search within. The pool's software also allows miners to search for 'shares,' which are hashes that meet a lower difficulty target than the actual network difficulty.
When a miner finds a share, they submit it for credit. When a valid block is found, the reward is distributed based on the number of shares contributed.
Glossar
Lower Difficulty Target
Threshold ⎊ The Lower Difficulty Target represents the cryptographic threshold that a candidate block header's hash must numerically fall beneath to be considered a valid Proof-of-Work solution.
Mining Pool
Consensus ⎊ Mining pools represent a collaborative effort among network participants to aggregate computational resources, increasing the probability of successfully mining blocks and earning associated rewards within a Proof-of-Work cryptocurrency system.
Valid Block
Confirmation ⎊ A valid block, within a blockchain context, represents a data package cryptographically appended to the chain following consensus protocol stipulations, signifying transaction finality and state updates.