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arXiv · 2309.02297

Smoothening block rewards: How much should miners pay for mining pools?

Axel Cortes-Cubero·Juan P. Madrigal-Cianci·Kiran Karra·Zixuan Zhang
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Abstract

The rewards a blockchain miner earns vary with time. Most of the time is spent mining without receiving any rewards, and only occasionally the miner wins a block and earns a reward. Mining pools smoothen the stochastic flow of rewards, and in the ideal case, provide a steady flow of rewards over time. Smooth block rewards allow miners to choose an optimal mining power growth strategy that will result in a higher reward yield for a given investment. We quantify the economic advantage for a given miner of having smooth rewards, and use this to define a maximum percentage of rewards that a miner should be willing to pay for the mining pool services.

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Axel Cortes-Cubero, Juan P. Madrigal-Cianci, Kiran Karra, Zixuan Zhang. 2023-09-05. Smoothening block rewards: How much should miners pay for mining pools?. https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.02297

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