For Bitcoin miners, three questions have always defined the business: how much can I mine, how much will I actually take home, and how stable will that income be? A decade ago, the answers were far from satisfying. Most pool payout schemes forced miners to choose between predictable payouts and a share of transaction fees. In 2016, ViaBTC, then a newly launched mining pool, introduced PPS+ to combine the two within a single payout model.

A Miner's Dilemma in 2016

Mining pools aggregate the computing power of many miners and split the rewards they earn, giving participants steadier income than solo mining can offer. By 2016, Bitcoin mining had become fiercely competitive, with roughly 18 pools vying for hashrate on the network. For miners, choosing a pool was in practice choosing a payout method, and only two mainstream options existed:

PPS (Pay Per Share): Miners receive a fixed payment for every valid share they submit, whether or not the pool finds a block. Shares are the units of proof-of-work miners hand to a pool to document their contribution. Income is predictable because the pool absorbs the risk of finding fewer blocks than expected. Traditional PPS, however, typically does not pass transaction fees on to miners.

PPLNS (Pay Per Last N Shares): Once the pool finds a block, both the block subsidy and transaction fees are distributed according to each miner's recent hashrate contribution. Pool fees tend to be lower, but miners bear the payout fluctuations caused by the pool's luck in finding blocks.

Had transaction fees been a negligible share of block rewards, the choice would have been easy. But in July 2016, Bitcoin underwent its second halving—part of Bitcoin's programmed issuance schedule, which cuts the block subsidy roughly every four years—reducing the subsidy from 25 BTC to 12.5 BTC. With the subsidy halved, transaction fees represented a larger portion of mining revenue, making it increasingly important for miners to receive a slice of them. Choosing PPS meant giving up this growing income stream; choosing PPLNS meant exposing the entire payout to swings tied to the pool's block-finding luck.

How PPS+ Works

ViaBTC's answer was PPS+: the block subsidy is paid on a PPS basis, while transaction fees are distributed using PPLNS, based on miners' recent hashrate contribution.

Because the subsidy is set by the protocol, a pool can calculate a miner's expected earnings from it using the current mining difficulty and the valid shares submitted. The pool then assumes the risk of any gap between expected and actual block production, giving miners more predictable income. Transaction fees, by contrast, fluctuate with network congestion and are difficult to estimate precisely in advance, so miners receive a share based on their actual contribution.

The design also puts the pool's technical capabilities to the test. Since fees are distributed based on blocks actually mined, every orphaned block—one discarded by the network—reduces the fees miners receive. Through optimized block propagation and a global node network, ViaBTC has long maintained the lowest orphan rate in the industry. For miners earning a share of transaction fees, minimizing these losses helps preserve that income.

The Market Responds

Miners are quick to notice changes in earnings and to move their hashrate accordingly. After PPS+ launched, they voted with their hashrate: just four months after going live, ViaBTC had climbed into the top five Bitcoin pools worldwide by hashrate.

Many major pools went on to adopt PPS+, and the model ViaBTC pioneered has become one of the most widely used payout methods in the industry—a sign of how payout design had become a competitive lever in attracting hashrate.

Payout methods have continued to evolve. Today, many large pools use FPPS (Full Pay Per Share), which calculates the fee component from network-wide averages. FPPS and PPS+ involve different trade-offs. FPPS folds fees into the per-share payment as well, further smoothing out payout fluctuations caused by the pool's block-finding luck. PPS+ lets miners share in the fees the pool actually earns, so when the pool mines a high-fee block, miners benefit more directly.

PPS+ in Action

The value of PPS+ came into sharp focus in April 2024. On April 20, 2024, Bitcoin underwent its fourth halving. Block 840,000, which triggered the halving, was mined by ViaBTC. Amid the frenzy surrounding the simultaneous launch of the Runes protocol—a Bitcoin-native token standard whose debut that day set off a surge in minting activity—the block carried roughly 37.6 BTC in transaction fees, worth about $2.4 million at the time and more than ten times the new 3.125 BTC block subsidy. That day, fees accounted for over 60% of miners' total revenue. ViaBTC miners using PPS+ received a share of those fees.

Beyond the Payout

The right payout method still depends on how each miner balances cash-flow needs against a tolerance for volatility. ViaBTC continues to offer both PPS+ and PPLNS, letting miners choose the approach that suits them.

ViaBTC has also extended PPS+ to other cryptocurrencies. As interest in networks such as Kaspa and Zcash grew, ViaBTC became the first to offer PPS+ for KAS and ZEC, while other pools still supported only PPLNS. This gave miners more predictable income. The pool's willingness to take on the risk of fluctuations in block production reflected its confidence in the reliability of its infrastructure and its ability to sustain the service over the long term.

Payouts, however, are only one part of running a mining business. Once miners receive their coins, they must decide when to withdraw them, whether to convert them, and how to manage funds for day-to-day operations. To meet these needs, ViaBTC offers internal transfers, auto-withdrawal, auto-exchange, and crypto-backed lending. Miners can choose tools suited to the way they work, helping them respond more flexibly to market changes.

When ViaBTC launched PPS+ in 2016, transaction fees played only a supporting role in miners' income. As the mining landscape has evolved, how those fees are distributed has become an increasingly important consideration when choosing a payout method. Under Bitcoin's fixed issuance schedule, the block subsidy will fall again at the next halving, expected around 2028, while transaction fees will continue to fluctuate with network congestion. From payouts to managing the funds afterward, miners' concerns remain practical: how much they earn, how much volatility they face, and whether those earnings can cover their day-to-day operating needs.