Why Is It Important for a Pool Operator to Detect and Reject “Invalid Shares”?

It is crucial to detect and reject invalid shares to maintain the integrity and fairness of the pool's payout system. An invalid share is one that does not meet the minimum proof-of-work required by the pool's target difficulty or contains a cryptographic error.

Accepting invalid shares would unfairly inflate a miner's contribution, leading to overpayment and diluting the legitimate earnings of other miners. Rejection ensures only verified work is rewarded.