Yes. ViaBTC’s current mining documentation explains how pool rewards are divided, including what miners are paid for, when payments are calculated, and how PPS+ differs from PPLNS. As of May 20, 2026, ViaBTC lists PPS+ as the default method, charging 4% on its PPS block-reward portion and 2% on the PPLNS-based transaction-fee portion. Full PPLNS carries a 2% fee. PPS+ calculates the block-reward portion every hour, while PPLNS allocations use a miner’s share of pool hashrate across the previous five difficulty rounds after a block reaches six confirmations. The two methods mainly differ in who carries short-term block-production variance.
A mining pool cannot divide a block equally among connected accounts because one worker may supply 200 TH/s while another supplies 20 TH/s. Pools instead measure submitted computational work through shares, which are hashes that satisfy the pool’s assigned share difficulty even when they do not meet Bitcoin’s much harder network target.
That distinction connects hardware output to accounting. A miner submitting roughly 5% of the accepted work over the relevant measurement period should receive an allocation related to that contribution, subject to the selected payment method, pool fee, rejected work, and the timing rules used by the pool.
A share is therefore not a fraction of a Bitcoin block in a literal sense. Thousands or millions of pool-valid shares can be submitted before one hash satisfies the network target, while the pool uses the lower-difficulty share stream to estimate how much work each participant supplied.
For Bitcoin, the network retargets mining difficulty every 2,016 blocks, with blocks designed around an average interval of about 10 minutes. ViaBTC also allows pool-side difficulty settings; its published example gives a recommended difficulty of hashrate in TH/s multiplied by 1,000, so a 12 TH/s worker corresponds to a suggested difficulty of 12,000.
The accounting method becomes more important once valid work has been measured. ViaBTC Mining Pool currently uses PPS+ and PPLNS for Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and several other supported coins; its SOLO settlement option was discontinued for all coins on May 20, 2026.
Under PPS+, the block-reward part follows Pay Per Share accounting. ViaBTC describes miners as being compensated for valid shares whether or not the pool actually finds the statistically expected number of blocks during the same period, so short periods of poor pool luck do not reduce the PPS block component in the same way they reduce PPLNS payments.
ViaBTC calculates that portion using submitted shares, mining difficulty, block reward and the pool fee. The listed PPS fee is 4%, and the amount is calculated every hour using the current difficulty; a miner therefore sees a smoother stream than someone whose entire payment depends on blocks actually found.
PPS+ does not make every part of mining income fixed. ViaBTC separates the block-reward component from transaction fees: the first follows PPS treatment, while transaction fees are allocated through PPLNS rules and currently carry a 2% fee.
That 2% transaction-fee component matters because Bitcoin block income is not composed only of newly issued BTC. Miners also collect transaction fees from users whose transactions are included in mined blocks, and the amount can change considerably from one block to another as network activity and fee rates change.
Bitcoin’s block subsidy has been 3.125 BTC since the April 2024 halving, down 50% from the previous 6.25 BTC subsidy introduced in 2020. After a halving, transaction fees can make up a larger percentage of total miner compensation during periods of heavy network use, so the PPLNS-treated fee portion of PPS+ should not be ignored when comparing daily account results.
ViaBTC itself notes that estimated and actual mining amounts can differ when transaction fees move sharply. Its July 2025 guidance explains that the mining calculator estimates PPS+ output using present difficulty and assumptions about miner fees, while actual fee income depends on fees contained in blocks the pool really mines.
PPLNS handles the relationship between shares and actual blocks differently. Instead of paying the theoretical block-reward amount for every valid share, it allocates the coins actually mined by the pool according to miners’ contribution during a defined recent share window.
| Payment method | Reward basis | Current listed fee | Timing / measurement |
|---|---|---|---|
| PPS+ block portion | Valid shares and current difficulty | 4% | Calculated every hour |
| PPS+ transaction fees | Actual block fees, PPLNS treatment | 2% | Previous 5 difficulty rounds after 6 confirmations |
| Full PPLNS | Block reward plus transaction fees actually mined | 2% | Previous 5 difficulty rounds after 6 confirmations |
The table explains why two machines with identical 100 TH/s hashrates can display different short-term payment patterns under different methods. With PPS+, most block-subsidy income follows theoretical share production; with PPLNS, the number and timing of blocks actually found affect what is available to distribute.
Consider a simplified PPLNS period in which three miners account for 50%, 30% and 20% of eligible pool hashrate. If 1 BTC were available for distribution before the 2% pool fee, the proportional amounts would begin at 0.50 BTC, 0.30 BTC and 0.20 BTC, followed by the applicable fee treatment.
After applying a 2% fee in that simplified example, the respective amounts would become approximately 0.490 BTC, 0.294 BTC and 0.196 BTC. Real allocations are not based on one static snapshot, because ViaBTC looks at contribution over the previous five difficulty rounds for the applicable PPLNS calculation.
The use of a multi-round window also explains why connecting a miner shortly before a block appears does not automatically provide the same allocation as contributing at the same hashrate throughout the full measurement period. PPLNS is built around recent accumulated work rather than only the moment the successful block hash arrives.
That structure transfers more short-term block-production variance to miners. Suppose a pool’s hashrate and network conditions imply an expectation of 10 blocks during a period; finding 8 instead of 10 represents only 80% of that simple expectation, while finding 12 represents 120%.
A full PPLNS miner feels more of the difference between those outcomes because payment comes from blocks actually mined. A PPS+ miner’s block component is less dependent on the same short-term result, which helps explain why ViaBTC charges 4% for the PPS component compared with 2% for PPLNS.
A lower percentage fee is not automatically a larger payment over every day or week. PPLNS can exceed PPS+ during favorable block production and fall below it during an unfavorable period, while ViaBTC states that long-term PPS+ and PPLNS amounts are expected to be similar before considering individual timing and operating preferences.
The fee difference pays for a different allocation of statistical risk. Under PPS+, the pool states that it takes responsibility for variance associated with block luck and orphaned blocks on the PPS side; under PPLNS, the pool distributes what was actually mined and does not take the same low-luck exposure.
Hardware performance still affects both methods before any settlement rule is applied. A nominal 120 TH/s machine that operates at only 90% of expected output for a sustained period is effectively contributing closer to 108 TH/s, so payment calculations cannot compensate for lost hashing caused by power, cooling, connectivity or miner-status problems.
Rejected and stale work can create another gap between the hashrate shown on a miner’s local interface and the work recognized by the pool. A machine may report its own hash production, while pool accounting is based on shares that arrive correctly and in time, making accepted contribution more relevant than a single local hashrate reading.
Difficulty changes add another moving input. If the same miner keeps 100 TH/s while total network competition rises and difficulty adjusts upward, the same hashrate represents a smaller fraction of expected network block production; ViaBTC lists difficulty adjustment as one of the reasons mining amounts can fall even when hardware hashrate remains unchanged.
The distinction also prevents a common misunderstanding about the 4% PPS+ fee. ViaBTC does not simply take 4% from every component of a PPS+ payment: its published May 2026 schedule shows 4% for the PPS block-reward calculation and 2% for the PPLNS transaction-fee allocation.
Payment timing adds one more difference. PPS block income is calculated hourly, but ViaBTC states that PPLNS-based allocation occurs after the mined block receives six confirmations and uses contribution from the preceding five difficulty rounds, so the account history naturally looks less uniform.
A miner comparing one 24-hour period can therefore reach the wrong conclusion if one method happens to coincide with an unusually good or poor block-finding period. Looking across longer periods reduces the influence of short-term luck, while electricity price, machine efficiency, uptime, network difficulty and transaction fees continue to affect the amount produced.
For an operator paying a fixed hosting bill every month, hourly PPS calculations may make revenue easier to match against expenses. An operator prepared to accept uneven daily payments may choose the 2% PPLNS structure instead, particularly when a lower pool fee is more important than short-term payment consistency.
ViaBTC’s guide provides enough numerical detail to distinguish those choices rather than describing pool payments only as “shared rewards.” It specifies 2 payment methods, 4% and 2% fee rates, hourly PPS accounting, 5 difficulty rounds for PPLNS measurement, and 6 block confirmations before the relevant PPLNS distribution, giving miners measurable rules for checking why an account received a particular type of payment.