Antpool is cleaning up.

Chances are this Pool is somehow too slow in reporting the found blocks. Yet another Orphaned Block, that makes 5 for the day. It isn't anything but the Pool itself being slow in reporting the found block, something on the back end has changed. We lost a lot of money today folks. 9 blocks of Dash is = 16.2 Dash at a minimum X $1185 = 19,000 dollars divided between all of us. This has got to be FIXED and fix it soon or I will have to leave. Unacceptable. 

I asked a question from somebody who has been running a Bitcoin Mining Pool, a pretty substantial one, since late 2013. I mine BTC there. Here is the answer he gave me.

"An orphan occurs when the pool is slow to send out the blocks it finds or another pool found a block at the same time.

The Fibre Relay is the biggest help in reducing orphans.
Though for some unknown reason, no pools pay for it except me, according to the person who runs it
(and I pay about half what he expects since we are clearly a lot smaller than the large pools that use it)

However, there's 2 classifications for 'orphans' due to the 2 reasons why they can occur:

1) Normal Orphan - when 2 pools find a block at the same time and neither pool sees the other pool's block before their own.
 The internet isn't perfect so data can take time to get around it.

2) Stale - when we get a block late, 'after' another pool gets a block.
 This is due to a miner sending a block late to the pool, after the pool has switched to new work on a new block height.
 When
this happens, most pools don't tell you about them, or to be correct,
you will probably find that no pool tells you about them other than
pools using my database code.
 They represent a block that should not
exist - but since the pool code will (now) switch to it, we try to
confirm it ourselves, so if we get lucky and get a double block, then we
will keep the stale and switch the network over to it instead.

Stales don't count as orphans since they shouldn't exist - but there's still the (small) chance we might confirm it anyway "

Every one of them was stolen by Antpool

We lost 5 blocks today due to the blocks being Orphaned. That is Bullshite. Unacceptable. Somebody is gaming our pool and we deserve to have those blocks returned to us.

What if I would rather have control of when I make a withdrawal? I want to minimize any fees associated so only wnat it done on a monthly basis. Can I do that?

It appears that the same "issues" of not finding blocks has hit the Dash Pool. Please check and see if the pool is operating properly. Thanks.

Thanks, I appreciate the quick response. It is a sign of a well managed Pool.

Variance is variance. It was sent work that solved the block. No difference between that D3 and any other. Pure Luck.

2 times difficulty. Meaning when you point your miner to the pool, it doesn't get full payout until 2 times the difficulty is reached thru contributed shares to the pool. It is a method to keep the pool fair and stops "pool hoppers" from jumping in when it looks like the pool has been working on a block for a long time. KANO Pool for Bitcoin mining has a 5ND, meaning you don't get full payout until 5 times difficulty are submitted in shares to the pool. It is the fairest way to Pool mine and be fair to those who are faithful to the pool. I wish this pool was 5ND but it is sadly only 2ND.