When you start mining Malairte you have to point your miner at something. That something is either your own Malairte node (solo mining) or a mining pool that aggregates work from many miners and splits the rewards. Both are valid; they suit different setups.
How solo mining works
In solo mining your miner connects to a Malairte node (often running on the same PC) and races the entire network to find a block. If you find one, you get the full block reward. If you do not, you earn nothing. For a single home PC the odds of finding a block in any given day are small, so payouts are lumpy: long stretches of nothing, then occasionally a full reward.
How pool mining works
A pool combines the hashrate of hundreds or thousands of miners. The pool finds blocks far more frequently and pays each miner a share proportional to the work they contributed. Payouts are smaller but steady. Most pools take a small fee (typically 1-2%).
Which should you pick?
- Pool mining is usually the right choice for a single home PC or laptop. You get predictable, smaller payouts and you learn the workflow without waiting weeks for a result.
- Solo mining makes sense if you have a lot of hashrate (multiple GPUs), if you want to support the network by running your own node, or if you simply prefer the lottery-style payouts.
Switching between them
You are not locked in. Most miners can be reconfigured in a single line of the config file or one command-line argument. Many home miners start in a pool to confirm everything works, then experiment with solo mining once their node is fully synced.
What does not change either way
Your hardware, your wallet, and your electricity cost are the same. The only thing that changes is where the work goes and how the reward arrives. Both approaches earn MLRT; both contribute to a healthy decentralised network.