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@ Dikaios1517
2025-05-12 07:17:53
Very close. Miners must be connected to a node in some way; either the miner's own node or via a pool that runs a node, or via a pool that gets block templates from another pool that runs a node.
The reason for this is because each node has a mempool, which is just a list of transactions that are waiting to be included in a block. From this pool of waiting transactions a block template is constructed that includes the transactions the mining pool or the individual miner using their own node would like to include in the block, if they find a valid hash that will allow them to broadcast their block for inclusion on the chain to all nodes in the network.
Technically, solo-mining is when you as a miner use your own node's mempool to create the block templates for your ASICs to hash. If you are getting your block templates from a mining pool, even a "solo" pool, you aren't really solo-mining. Rather, you are lottery-mining.
Even if you aren't a miner, your node's mempool settings can have an effect on the transactions that get mined, because your node helps to relay transactions to other nodes on the network, including the nodes that mining pools are using for creating transactions. If enough nodes on the network aren't relaying transactions with arbitrary data in them, it will be less likely that those transactions will make it into the mempools used for block construction by mining pools or individual miners who construct their own blocks. The more difficult this is for those who want to put non-monetary transactions onto the chain, the more they will have to pay in fees to incentivise miners to include their transactions, which disincentivises such transactions.
Given the current state of the mempools, an argument could be made that such transactions have already been disincentivised, for now.