Shares can be bought and sold quickly, making them an attractive opportunity for both beginner and experienced investors.
When you invest in shares you do so with the intention of earning more money for the future, right?
But can shares go wrong? Is it possible to lose your investment? How do shares translate into a crypto environment?
Our complete guide to stale shares explains what happens when a share goes stale and how to prevent them from going stale in the first place.
In order to fully understand what stale shares are, we need to understand the process of buying shares first.
When you buy a share, you’re basically buying a percentage of a company or asset. So, how do you make money in shares?
There are two ways that you can make money from your shares. Firstly, if the shares you hold increase in value you will then make a profit on your original investment when you sell them. Secondly, if your shares pay dividends you will receive money when the company makes a profit. This can either be paid on a regular basis or on a one-off basis.
It’s important to note that shares can also decrease in value, affecting your initial investment.
Cryptocurrency and many other crypto-related projects and assets operate through something called a blockchain. This is a register or ledger that exists in multiple locations across the works. In many ways, this makes it one of the most advanced, and secure, methods for record-keeping that we have. It also makes it entirely decentralized, as these records can’t be manipulated by any one entity.
What is Crypto Mining?
There are three main ways for you to come to own some cryptocurrency:
- Earn: Cryptocurrency is a type of tender (though not legal tender in all countries). This means that, if you wanted, you could choose to be paid for goods, services, or anything else in cryptocurrency. Once the owner transfers your chosen cryptocurrency to your crypto wallet, your ownership of these assets would then be recorded on the indelible blockchain ledger.
- Buy: There are many platforms and exchanges online which allow you to buy any type of cryptocurrency using your native legal tender. for example, you could go to Binance or Coinbase and purchase Bitcoin or Ethereum using USD.
- Mine: The first two should have been fairly easy for anyone to understand. After all, buying and selling is something we are all very familiar with. Mining, however, is something unique to cryptocurrency, so may need further explanation. Cryptocurrency mining is the only way to add new money to the Blockchain. as you may know, when more currency is added to the overall circulation, the individual value of that currency decreases. For this reason, most cryptocurrencies will only allow a certain amount to be mined each year. Also, to avoid any confusion as to who owns a particular unit o cryptocurrency, there have to be safeguards in place. First of all, it’s worth outlining the mining process. In very simple terms, mining crypto requires a complex process of problem-solving. If you are the first to solve a particular mathematical problem linked to a particular unit of crypto, you will then need to submit your proof of work. If this checks out, you will then be the owner of that unit.
Stale shares happen when a miner submits a share to the pool but the pool has already moved on to mining another block.
If you’re not familiar with the term “miner” and “mining pool”, these mean a pool of online resources that work together to strengthen the chance to find a successful block to invest in.
If you want to join a mining pool, here are the basic steps.
1. Select a pool to join
2. Add the pool address to the mining software that you intend to use
3. Link your bank details to your online wallet so you can send and receive cash
4. The final step is to configure your machines to your mining pool.
If your software supports long polling and new units are required, these will be done at about the same time as the long polling notification.
Stale shares are most commonly caused by latency in your network connection. Miner to pool latency means the time passed between data being transferred from the miner to a mining pool. This process normally takes milliseconds but when a pool finds a block it will send new shares out to miners, making the latency slow down. The long polling and subsequent share request process require a few network operations to perform well.
Other reasons why shares get rejected include:
Share above target – this happens when your mining software needs to be inspected or configured. It could also indicate that the mining software that you’re using is not compatible.
Duplicated share – usually, a duplicated share means that a bug has been found in your mining software or is incompatible with NiceHash, a mining software that connects your mining rig to a marketplace.
If a mining pool issues work to more than one miner such as an issue with the work unit tracking process, the first one to submit it will get the credit. A stale share report is then made to record this information and prevent the same share from being submitted more than once. The opportunity to generate stale shares increases with a mining pool that is slow to release a new work unit.
Has your miner produced stale shares?
The most effective way to fix stale shares is to improve your network connection between your miner and the mining pool. This is achieved by making sure you have a reliable internet connection. It’s more important for the connection to be reliable than fast. Your mining pool should also be close to your miners to improve performance. Experienced miners often use ethernet over wifi to improve stability.
Stale shares should only happen in approximately 2 out of 1,000 shares. What is considered normal will ultimately depend on what you’re mining for. For example, if you’re using slower hardware then you are likely to get more stale shares.
Miscalculated shares that have been submitted to the mining pool are referred to as rejected shares, invalid shares,s or incorrect shares. These types of shares will not earn you any money.
Shares do not have an expiration date, however, shares can be removed from the New York Stock Exchange or delisted. This will mean that you can no longer sell your shares publicly. Instead, you will need to find a private buyer.
If a company that you have shares in declares itself bankrupt, you will only receive some money if there is any money left after the creditors have been paid.
What is a good ping speed?
Less than 100ms is considered a good result. Your ping will affect your mining ability because this is how fast your miner gets access to your share.
RAM also improves your mining performance, so the higher your RAM is the better.
Mining actually only uses a very small amount of data, which is the reason why a faster internet connection doesn’t necessarily make mining any quicker. A reliable internet connection is a much better way to get you the mining results that you want.
Stale shares are part of most investment opportunities. Now you know what is considered normal and how to fix them.
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