There’s many subtleties in solo mining nomenclature that often confuse people.

I think there are two axis here:

  1. Who builds the block template?
  2. Are block rewards shared between miners?
Block Template Builder Reward Shared? Mining Type
Miners No Solo
Pool operator No Solo Pool
Miners Yes SV2/DATUM
Pool operator Yes PPLNS/Tides/FPPS, etc

If we consider who builds the coinbase then we get a different view

Block Template Builder Coinbase builder / Mining Type Example
  validator    
Miners Miners Solo Local CKPool solo / Local Public Pool
Pool operator Pool operator Traditional pool Antpool, Ocean, CKPool solo, Public Pool
Miners Pool operator SV2/DATUM Ocean, Demand
Pool operator Miner – –

So where does P2Pool fit in here? We need to look at the three axis together.

Block Template Builder Reward shared? Coinbase built/validated by pool? Example
Miner Yes Yes SV2/DATUM
Miner No Yes –
Miner Yes No P2Pool
Miner No No Local ckpool solo
Pool operator Yes Yes Trad Pool
Pool operator No Yes ckpool solo
Pool operator Yes No –
Pool operator No No –

Hope this helps. Here’s a twitter discussion around this: https://x.com/jungly/status/1912395953883009044