PPLNS

PPLNS, or Pay Per Last N Shares, is a payout scheme used in cryptocurrency mining pools. In this system, a miner's reward is determined by the number of shares they contributed to the pool over a specific, recent period of time. The "N" in PPLNS refers to a fixed number of the most recent shares submitted by all miners in the pool.

When a block is successfully mined by the pool, the block reward is distributed among the miners. The calculation for each miner's portion is based on their share of the last N valid shares submitted. This contrasts with some other schemes that might consider all shares submitted since the last block, or only those submitted within a specific time window.

The advantage of PPLNS is that it aims to provide a more stable and predictable income for miners, as it smooths out the luck factor associated with finding blocks. Miners are rewarded for their consistent effort rather than being overly reliant on the random chance of their shares being part of a winning round. This can reduce the variance in daily earnings compared to schemes like PPS (Pay Per Share), where rewards are fixed per share regardless of when it was submitted. However, it can also mean that miners who join the pool mid-round might not receive rewards for shares submitted before they joined but within the N window, until the N window slides forward.