The mining glossary: every dashboard word, defined
Hashrate vs power, difficulty vs share difficulty, pending vs paid — one table of the terms that appear on miner and pool dashboards, each attached to the question it answers.
2026-10-19·updated 2026-10-19·5 min·pow.family research#reference#beginner
01
Network & work
| Term | Meaning | Answers |
|---|---|---|
| Hashrate | Hash attempts per second (H/s → PH/s, ×1,000 steps) | How fast is the guessing? |
| Power (W) | Instantaneous electricity draw | How much do I pull right now? |
| Energy (kWh) | Power over time — the billed quantity | What does it cost per month? |
| Efficiency (J/TH) | Power per unit of hashrate | Who survives difficulty growth? |
| Difficulty | Target's challenge level for a valid BLOCK | How hard is the network bar? |
| Share difficulty | Pool's easier accounting target per worker | How does the pool count my work? |
| Vardiff | Pool auto-tuning of share difficulty | Why did my share rate change? |
| Block | Batch of transactions + proof of work + reward | What are we all racing to build? |
| Orphan / uncle | Mined block that lost the race, usually unpaid | Why do block counts differ? |
02
Pools & payouts
| Term | Meaning | Answers |
|---|---|---|
| Share | Proof of work clearing the pool's bar | How is my contribution measured? |
| Stale share | Share for an expired job — late or raced | Where do rejects come from? |
| PPS | Pay-per-share: fixed rate per share, pool wears the luck | Why is my income smooth? |
| PPLNS | Pay-per-last-N-shares: pays when blocks are found | Why does my rate wobble? |
| PROP | Proportional: each round pays by share share | What am I actually signed up for? |
| Worker | Your rig's identity on the pool | Which machine earned this? |
| Pending balance | Earned but not yet paid out | Where is my money? |
| Payout threshold | Minimum balance before the pool sends coins | When will I see a tx? |
| Confirmations | Blocks stacked on a transaction | When is a payout spendable? |
03
Money & site
| Term | Meaning | Answers |
|---|---|---|
| Subsidy | Newly issued coins in the block reward | What does the protocol print? |
| Halving | Scheduled subsidy cut (Bitcoin: every 210,000 blocks) | When does income shrink? |
| Tail emission | Small perpetual reward after decay (SOQ, BNT) | Does issuance ever stop? |
| Uptime / availability | Producing-time ÷ window (state the window!) | How much did downtime cost? |
| Demand charge | $/kW billed on measured peak, separate from kWh | What's on the bill besides energy? |
| ToU tariff | Price varies by scheduled time windows | When is power cheap? |
| Effective rate | Total bill ÷ total kWh | What is power really costing me? |
| Marginal rate | Price of the NEXT kWh (pure energy line) | What does one more hour add? |
| Break-even price | Coin price where revenue = electricity cost | When do I pull the plug? |