Bitcoin Forum

Can a miner contributing to a pool know when they solve the block?

If so, could a mean miner not contribute any blocks they solve, getting coins from the pool whilst never contributing anything useful back?

I know this wouldn't help the mean miner, but it would hurt the pool operator and all other users of the pool.

Yes.

Could they take it further and just use the solved block themselves?

Collect the generation reward for themselves whilst still being paid by the pool for the efforts that they are never truly contributing with.

No.

Why not?  If I can tell I solved a block, and I can fail to relinquish said solved block, why couldn't I just claim it as my own?

Nevermind...  I think I figured out why.  The pool would have already dictated the address that the reward would go to.

That is the one reason.  The other is that the miner doesn't have the whole block, it only has the header.

These two reasons are sorta related, in that the miner could figure out most of the block by looking at permutations of combinations of pending transactions on the network, but it can't make a coinbase that would let the whole thing hash to meet the solved header unless it already knows the private key the pool used.  And if it already knows that, it might as well just wait 100 blocks and race to spend the reward before the pool does.