for those who do not understand what he means Mining pools work by combining the CPU power of many miners together and splitting rewards proportionally. The problem they solve: Solo mining EQM is like buying one lottery ticket per round. You might win big, or go days without a reward - it's inconsistent. A miner with a slow CPU could run for weeks and earn nothing even if they're doing valid work. How a pool changes that: Instead of each miner submitting solutions independently to the blockchain, they all connect to a pool server. The pool coordinates the work - giving each miner a slightly easier target to hit - and when anyone in the pool wins a block, the 25 EQM reward gets split among all contributors based on how much work they each did. Example: - 100 miners each contribute 1% of the pool's total hashrate - Pool wins a block → each miner gets ~0.25 EQM - Instead of waiting days for a solo win, everyone earns small consistent amounts every hour What it means for the roadmap: Building a pool requires: 1. A pool server - coordinates work distribution, tracks each miner's contributions, and handles payouts 2. A stratum protocol - the communication standard between miners and the pool server 3. Changes to the CLI miner - it would need a --pool flag to point at the pool server instead of submitting directly to Solana The tradeoff: Pools charge a small fee (typically 1–2%) in exchange for smooth, predictable earnings. Solo miners keep 100% of rewards but face variance - long dry spells broken by occasional full 25 EQM wins. For casual miners on modest hardware, pools make the difference between earning something and earning nothing. Makes sense as a post-launch priority.