If you look at your miner's log or the Gokby dashboard, you might see a term like "Vardiff" or notice that the difficulty of the shares you are submitting changes constantly.
This is not the network difficulty (which changes every 2 weeks), but the share difficulty.
What is Vardiff?
Vardiff stands for Variable Difficulty. It is a technology used by mining pools to optimize communication with your miner.
The Problem:
- Too Easy: If the pool gives your powerful ASIC an easy puzzle, your miner will solve it 100 times per second. This floods the pool's server with thousands of tiny messages (spam), slowing everything down.
- Too Hard: If the pool gives a weak USB miner a super-hard puzzle, the miner might not find a solution for an hour. The pool will think the miner is dead or offline.
The Solution (Vardiff):
The pool server monitors how fast your miner submits shares.
- If you submit too fast: The pool says, "Whoa, you are strong! Here is a harder puzzle." (Difficulty increases).
- If you submit too slow: The pool says, "You are struggling. Here is an easier puzzle." (Difficulty decreases).
Why is this good for you?
- Bandwidth: It reduces the internet traffic between you and the pool.
- Stability: It ensures your miner stays connected and doesn't time out.
- Accuracy: It ensures the pool measures your hashrate correctly, whether you have one S9 or a farm of S21s.
Conclusion:
Vardiff is an automated background process. You don't need to configure it. If you see the difficulty jumping up and down in your logs, don't worry—it's just the pool and your miner finding the perfect rhythm to dance together.
