Proportional (PROP)

What is Proportional Payout?

Proportional (PROP) is one of the earliest and simplest mining pool payout methods. When a block is found, the reward is divided among all miners based on the proportion of shares each contributed during that round. A "round" is the period between two consecutive blocks found by the pool.

How PROP Works

1. A new round begins after the pool finds a block
2. Miners submit shares throughout the round
3. When the next block is found, the round ends
4. Each miner receives: (their shares / total shares in round) x block reward

For example, if a round produced 10,000 total shares and you submitted 500, you would receive 5% of the block reward.

Why PROP Fell Out of Favor

PROP has a significant vulnerability: pool hopping. Since each share submitted early in a round is statistically more valuable than shares submitted later (because shorter rounds are more profitable per share), miners could maximize earnings by mining at the start of each round and leaving before the expected round length.

This exploit was well-documented in early Bitcoin mining and led most pools to switch to PPLNS, which uses a sliding window instead of discrete rounds. PPLNS eliminates the pool hopping advantage because the payout window is continuous rather than round-based.

PROP vs PPLNS

Aspect	PROP	PPLNS
Round structure	Discrete (between blocks)	Sliding window
Pool hopping	Vulnerable	Resistant
Fairness	Favors hoppers	Favors loyal miners
Complexity	Very simple	Slightly more complex

Current Usage

Very few modern pools use pure PROP payouts due to the pool hopping vulnerability. Most have migrated to PPLNS, PPS+, or FPPS. If you encounter a pool using PROP, it may indicate an older or less sophisticated operation. However, the concept of proportional reward distribution remains fundamental to understanding how all payout methods work.