Stratum

Stratum lets a pool distribute work templates to thousands of machines and collect their shares efficiently. Version 1, dating to 2012, remains the universal default — it's the stratum+tcp://pool:port line in every miner setup.

Stratum V2 modernises the protocol with encryption (preventing hashrate hijacking by ISPs or attackers) and optionally lets individual miners choose their own transaction sets — a meaningful decentralisation upgrade adopted by Braiins and a growing minority of pools.