How Pool Payouts Work
A plain-English guide to how you earn SOQ in the mining pool, why your wallet balance doesn't match the full block reward, and how to verify every payment yourself.
This guide covers the Soqucoin Stagenet Genesis Miner pool, operated by the Soqucoin Foundation as reference infrastructure during pre-mainnet development.
The Key Idea: You Split the Reward
Every 60 seconds, the Soqucoin network creates a new block worth 500,000 SOQ (current reward — this halves every 100,000 blocks; see Technology). When you mine in a pool, that reward is split among all miners based on how much work each one contributed.
You do not receive 500,000 SOQ per block. You receive your slice of each block — proportional to your share of the pool's total hashrate.
🍕 Think of it Like Splitting a Pizza
The block reward is a pizza. The pool is a group of friends who ordered it together. Each person gets slices proportional to how much they paid (hashrate). If you contributed 5% of the pool's hashpower, you get 5% of every pizza (block).
Solo mining = ordering the whole pizza yourself. You either get the whole thing or nothing. Pool mining = sharing every pizza, but getting a slice of every single one the group orders.
A Real Example (Stagenet Numbers)
Say the pool's total hashrate is 20 GH/s and your miner runs at 1 GH/s:
1 GH/s ÷ 20 GH/s × 500,000 SOQ = 25,000 SOQ per block
With ~60 blocks per hour, that's roughly 1,500,000 SOQ per hour — steady, every payout cycle. You won't see 500,000 SOQ appear at once, but you'll see 25,000 SOQ trickle in with each block the pool finds.
Why Use a Pool Instead of Solo?
| Pool Mining | Solo Mining | |
|---|---|---|
| Per-block reward | Your proportional slice (e.g. 25K SOQ) | Full 500,000 SOQ |
| Frequency | Every block the pool finds (~1/min) | Only when you find a block |
| Variance | Low — steady income stream | High — could be hours or days between blocks |
| Best for | Miners with <50% of network hashrate | Miners with ≥10% of network hashrate |
| Risk | Very low — you earn proportionally every cycle | High — you could mine for hours and find nothing |
Bottom line: Over a long enough period, pool mining and solo mining earn the same total SOQ. The difference is consistency. Pools give you a steady stream; solo gives you occasional jackpots.
How the Soqucoin Pool Works
Payout Model: PPLNS
The Soqucoin stagenet pool uses Pay Per Last N Shares (PPLNS) — the industry-standard model used by Litecoinpool, HeroMiners, and ProHashing. When the pool finds a block, the reward is split among miners based on the shares they submitted in a recent window. This rewards consistent miners and discourages pool-hopping.
Pool Details
| Algorithm | Scrypt (same as Litecoin/Dogecoin) |
| Block reward | 500,000 SOQ (current — halves every 100K blocks) |
| Block time | ~60 seconds |
| Pool fee | 0% — Genesis Miner period |
| Payout cycle | Every ~10 minutes |
| Minimum payout | 1,000 SOQ |
| Payout model | PPLNS (Pay Per Last N Shares) |
Why 0% fee? During the stagenet Genesis Miner period, we want miners to keep 100% of what they earn. Every SOQ the pool finds goes directly to miners. The Foundation miners are on a separate wallet and are tracked separately on the SOQ-TEC dashboard.
How Other Major Pools Compare
Every major pool uses one of these payout models. They all split the block reward — the only difference is how they split it and who takes the risk of bad luck.
| Model | Used By | How It Works | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| PPLNS | Soqucoin Pool, Litecoinpool, HeroMiners | Reward based on your shares in a recent window. Fair to consistent miners. | 0% |
| PROP | ProHashing, smaller pools | Block reward split by hashrate share at time of block find. Simple but vulnerable to pool-hopping. | 0–2% |
| PPS | ViaBTC | Fixed payment per share submitted, whether or not pool finds a block. Pool takes the risk. | 2–4% |
| FPPS | F2Pool, AntPool, Poolin | Like PPS but includes estimated transaction fees. Most predictable income. | 2–4% |
| PPS+ | KuPool, DXPool | Base reward via PPS, transaction fees via PPLNS. Hybrid approach. | 1–3% |
Key takeaway: No pool gives you the full block reward unless you're the only miner in it. The block reward is always split. The model only determines how the split is calculated.
Verify Your Payouts
You don't have to trust the pool. Here's how to independently check that you're being paid correctly.
-
Check your hashrate share
Go to the SOQ-TEC MINE tab. Find your miner in the leaderboard. Note your hashrate and the pool's total hashrate (shown at the top). -
Calculate your expected earnings
Your SOQ/hour ≈ (Your HR ÷ Pool HR) × 500,000 × 60. Example: 1 GH/s ÷ 20 GH/s × 500K × 60 = 1,500,000 SOQ/hr. -
Check your wallet balance
If you're running a local node, usesoqucoin-cli getbalanceto see your total received SOQ. Usesoqucoin-cli listtransactions "*" 20to see your most recent payouts from the pool. Each payout transaction is recorded on-chain permanently. -
Verify individual transactions on the explorer
Copy any transaction ID (txid) fromlisttransactionsand search it on the block explorer. You'll see the exact inputs, outputs, and your payout amount confirmed on-chain. -
Compare dashboard vs. wallet
The "SOQ" column on the SOQ-TEC leaderboard shows your cumulative pool earnings. This should closely match your on-chain wallet balance (minus any SOQ you've sent elsewhere).
Why the Calculator Doesn't Match
Most mining calculators assume solo mining — they calculate how often you alone would find a block at your hashrate vs. the full network difficulty. In a pool, you find blocks as a team at a much higher combined hashrate, then split the reward. The total SOQ earned over time is the same — it's just delivered in smaller, more frequent payments instead of rare large ones.
If the calculator says "you'll find 2 blocks per day solo" — in a pool with 20× your hashrate, you'd instead earn 1/20th of every block the pool finds (~1440 blocks/day), which comes out to the same total: 2 blocks worth of SOQ per day.
Solo Mining Options
If you'd rather keep the full 500,000 SOQ per block and accept the variance, here are your options for mining independently.
How Mining Architecture Works
Like Dogecoin and Litecoin (which Soqucoin is derived from), the full node (soqucoind) does not include a built-in Stratum server. This is standard for all Bitcoin-derived chains — no coin's full node natively speaks the Stratum protocol that ASIC miners require.
🔧 Why Can't I Just Point My ASIC at My Node?
ASICs speak Stratum (a raw TCP mining protocol). Full nodes speak JSON-RPC (an HTTP API called getblocktemplate). These are two different languages. You need a translator between them — that's what pool software does.
This is identical to Dogecoin and Litecoin. Nobody solo mines DOGE by pointing an L7 directly at dogecoind — they all use pool software or a stratum proxy as the bridge.
Option 1: CPU Mining via RPC (Works Now)
The simplest way to mine directly with your node — no extra software needed. Best for testing and low-difficulty environments.
CPU Solo Mining
# 1. Install and run a full node
curl -sSL https://soqu.org/install.sh | bash
soqucoind -daemon
# 2. Wait for sync (check progress)
soqucoin-cli getblockchaininfo
# Look for "verificationprogress": 1 (fully synced)
# 3. Generate a mining address
soqucoin-cli getnewaddress "mining"
# 4. Mine a block (CPU — for testing)
soqucoin-cli generatetoaddress 1 YOUR_SOQ_ADDRESSNote: CPU mining uses your node's processor to find blocks. At current stagenet difficulty, this may take a while. It's ideal for testing your node setup and verifying everything works before connecting ASIC hardware.
Option 2: ASIC Mining via Foundation Pool (Works Now)
The fastest way to start mining with ASIC hardware. Point your miner at the Foundation's stagenet pool — you'll earn proportional rewards via PPLNS with 0% fee.
ASIC Pool Mining Setup
# In your ASIC web interface (L7, L9, etc.):
URL: stratum+tcp://64.23.197.144:3333
Worker: YOUR_SOQ_ADDRESS.rig1
Password: xOption 3: True Solo ASIC Mining (Coming Soon)
🚧 In Development
We're building a lightweight solo mining tool that will let you run your own stratum server alongside your node — so you can point your ASIC at your own machine and keep 100% of every block you find. No pool, no splits, no fees.
The tool will be a single binary you download alongside soqucoind — no database, no complex setup. It translates between your ASIC's Stratum protocol and your node's getblocktemplate RPC. Follow our GitHub for updates.
When does solo mining make sense? If your hashrate is ≥10% of the total network hashrate, you'll find blocks often enough that the variance is manageable. Check the current network hashrate on the SOQ-TEC dashboard. During early stagenet with low total hashrate, even a single L7 or L9 can realistically find blocks solo.
| Your Hashrate vs Network | Expected Time Between Blocks | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| ≥50% | ~2 minutes | Solo — you'll find most blocks |
| 10–50% | 2–10 minutes | Solo is viable, pool is smoother |
| 1–10% | 10 min – 1.5 hours | Pool recommended |
| <1% | 1.5+ hours | Pool strongly recommended |
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: I see 500,000 SOQ per block on the explorer but only got 25,000. Am I being shortchanged?
No. The 500,000 SOQ goes to the pool's coinbase address, which then distributes your share to your wallet based on the PPLNS window. If your shares represent 5% of the pool's recent work, you receive ~25,000 SOQ from that block. This is exactly how all PPLNS pools work — Litecoinpool, F2Pool, AntPool, and every other major Scrypt pool.
Q: The block count on the dashboard doesn't match my expectations. Why?
The "blocks" stat in the SOQ-TEC leaderboard shows total pool blocks found while you were connected, not blocks you found personally. In a pool, the entire team finds blocks together. Your personal contribution is reflected in the "SOQ" column (your proportional earnings).
Q: A mining calculator says I should earn X SOQ/day, but the dashboard shows less. What gives?
Most calculators assume solo mining — they estimate how often you'd find a block alone. In a pool, you earn the same total over time, but receive it as many small payments rather than a few large jackpots. The daily total should converge to the calculator's estimate over multiple days. Short-term variance is normal.
Q: Is the Foundation getting a larger share?
No. Foundation miners (FoundationL2, FoundationL3) are on a separate wallet and earn based on their share submissions just like everyone else — no special treatment. They're labeled "INFRA" on the leaderboard for transparency. During early stagenet, the Foundation provides the majority of network hashrate to ensure chain stability and security. As community miners join, the Foundation's share naturally decreases. The Foundation pays for its own electricity and hardware — it doesn't take from community miners' share. See the Transparency page for full details.
Q: What's the minimum payout?
1,000 SOQ. Payouts are processed every ~10 minutes. If your accumulated earnings are below 1,000 SOQ, they carry over to the next cycle.
Q: Can I switch between pool and solo?
Yes. For CPU solo mining, you can start anytime — just run generatetoaddress on your synced node. For ASIC mining, you can switch between pools at any time by changing the stratum URL in your miner's web interface. Once our solo mining tool launches, you'll be able to point your ASIC at your own machine instead of a pool. There's no lockup, no penalty, no waiting period.
Q: Who operates this pool?
The stagenet pool is operated by the Soqucoin Foundation as reference infrastructure during pre-mainnet development. The pool software is the open-source Braiins merged-mining-pool (Go, MIT license) with Soqucoin-specific patches for Dilithium address support. We encourage third-party pool operators to launch independent pools using the same open-source stack.
Q: Will the block reward always be 500,000 SOQ?
No. The block reward halves every 100,000 blocks (~69 days at 1 block/minute). The schedule is: 500K → 250K → 125K → 62.5K → 31.25K → 15.625K SOQ/block. After block 600,000, the reward settles to 10,000 SOQ/block permanently. All earnings examples on this page use the current 500,000 SOQ reward — adjust your calculations after each halving.