Bitcoin Forum

Are there any pools that divide the earnings evenlly among all participants regardless of amount of computing power contributed?

No, and there will never be. Why would I buy hardware to push 3Ghash/s when I'll still get as much BTC as a guy mining on his CPU? Not to mention that I could set up 40 miners on my CPU for a fraction of the price of a mining rig and earn 40 times as much.

I would expect there would be some sort of measure to try to make sure each person has only one account in the pool

I got 5 VPN connections I can use, how are you supposed to restrict me to one account? By limiting one miner per subnet?

But never mind that, why would I put my 2000$ hardware in a pool where I will get the same BTC per block as someone who hacked their PS3 or phone?

You're dreaming bud, sorry - wish it were possible myself ;)

But you should read up about the freeloader/free rider effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem).

The only thing this pool would accomplish is getting all CPU miners to jump into it. No one with any decent amount of hash power is going to join such a pool. There's no way this would ever be +EV over just joining a normal pool.

Hell, even with a 10% rake a standard pool would probably be higher EV than such a pool.

if there ever is such a thing ill be sure to mine in it with my old Pentium 3 system sitting in my closet :P lol communism.

Dude, you give communism a bad name. Sure, each in that system contributes with his "abilities", then receives what he "needs", but remember that abilities here doesn't mean money, it means mental and physical. Only a disabled, child, woman, or elder wouldn't be able to contribute "as much" in a communist system, but nearly everyone else can give his max. It's not a free-loader system, far far far from it.

The problem with communism is there's no incentive to work. If I make the same working 80 hours a week that I do working 1 hour a week then why the hell would I work 80 hours a week? Its human nature. Bitcoins have value because of the work it takes to create them. If you get the same value no matter how much work you put in then no one will put in work.

Communism gives communism a bad name.

No but you should start one. It would be an interesting experiment. Even under ideal circumstances, where there is only one account per person, I'm willing to bet that it would be the slowest pool relative to the number of participants, thereby demonstrating yet again how communism disincentivizes productivity.

Communism can be real, but only when no one will have to work :)
For example, if nanomachine assemblers or some other cyber-magic can do all the production, mining (not the bitcoin mining :), recycling and so on. Then only research, art and similar activities will be left to humans. Some of them will do this because they like it anyway.

With current conditions it's, of course, impossible.

Even now I think that the non-creative job that needs more than ~10% of someone's time is a job for machine :)

So if i just register an account with this pool, but contribute 0 computing power, i get an even division of the earnings with all the other participants?

AWESOME! sign me up for this pool!

What about a pool that pays proportionally to the time contributed, ignoring computing power?

Communism works if the participants do the work for the community, not for themselves. (think of worker bees in a hive)

What you could try is have mining set up, but instead of sharing the bitcoins under the participants, the bitcoins could go to a common goal (promoting bitcoin/bitcoin market stabilization/charity). Freeriders then don't have any incentives to join.

I (and many other people) would still be submitting pentium 3's to the pool, and continuing to use our REAL power for pools that pay fair shares.

This thread makes me lol though.  I love it when communists/socialists try to make things work in a real economic model.

Yeah, like the current economic model is perfect (US government having to take socialist measures to prevent their economy from collapsing).

A real communist pool would distribute about 20% of the reward evenly and the rest 80% would be transferred to pool owners.

Better than communism.  ;)

Better for Freeriders (read: bankers) ;)

communism is what is left after socialists kill everyone that disagree with them

Ha ha, the bankers certainly are doing very well (http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/01/news/economy/fed_reserve_data_release/index.htm).  The current system is horrible, but I think the Soviet Union showed that it (the current system) is still better than a State-run communist system.  Perhaps not for much longer.  End the Fed.  :) 

People from the Americas always refer to the USSR as THE model for communism, which was horrible in its implementation as a communist system. They also don't consider what happened before the red revolutions that led to the development of communist system. You see the same patterns coming back these days (just like the return of fascism in Europe). History is repeating itself.

Agreed. And, at the risk of being pedantic, Warsaw Pact Communist parties never presided over communist systems, only over socialist systems (Western academics of the period referred to the study of these countries' economies as studies of "real existing socialism). As Marxist parties, they believed in state-socialist economies and "dictatorships of the proletariat" which would - eventually - "wither away" leaving communism behind. Never quite happened. Still, it might yet happen in China, Korea, Vietnam or Cuba. I'm not holding my breath waiting, however!

I'd argue that the only examples of large-scale "real existing communism" are Ukraine in the 1920s (before the Red Army crushed the anarchists and replaced anarchist communism with state-socialism) and Catalonia in the 1930s (before the Soviet Union crushed the anarchists and replaced anarchist communism with state-socialism).

Can you give an example of a State-run communist system that did better?  China was an apalling disaster as well, and only started to grow strong when they allowed some economic reforms in.

Could you point out a successful implementation then?

As a person that lived in such utopic state, I find it rather strange that it could actually appeal to anyone.

Well, I think there are no good examples of state-run communist systems (maybe the ones that LMGTFY mentioned, but I don't know the details about those examples). Some of the socialist states in South-America (Bolivia) are IMHO better examples of communist states then the old communist states ever were.

There are no good examples of state-run ANYTHING

The ones I mentioned weren't state-run. ;-) I'm less and less convinced that state-run anything can be good...

You are correct Sir!

This went way off-topic.

Depends on your definition of good. A state run postal service might deliver mail to places where there isn't any profit to be made. Too far, too few people who live there etc. That would be "good" for those living there, but not "good" in an economical sense.
Private companies generally don't bother going where there isn't any market, or where there's no market to be created.

It did! Back on topic, Slush's pool is advertised as (well, it's forum thread advertises it as...) "cooperative mining". I realise that there are different models of cooperative enterprise, but pools seem to be fairly good examples of "workers and consumers cooperatives": profits are shared between members and employees. That seems fairly close to the original ideals of communism (and fairly distant from the Marxist-Leninist reality...) to me.

Except that it is more in line with the corporate model: the amount of shares (hash power) you have determine your profit.  A communist pool would reward you according to your need, not your ability, right?  :)

I don't need any bitcoins :-) And isn't "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" specifically Marxist, not necessarily communist per se. This is the trap I'm trying to highlight: "we" identify communism with Karl Marx's ideas and with Marxist-Leninist states, states which claimed to be only socialist, and claimed to want - one day in a happy future (!) - to be communist.

Ha, ha, ha, I probably don't know what I'm talking about then.  I thought Marx was the dude who invented communism?  So what is the main tenet of communism? It seems like you can't have communism without the state because someone has to distribute the resources to the appropriate people and make sure the greedy capitalist pigs aren't owning property.   :-\

Edit:  You also don't need a computer, or more than one or two pairs of clothes, or more than 1400 calories a day.  :)  The difference between needs and wants can be rather arbitrary; at least when it comes to specific amounts.  We need food, but how much?

And you think I know what I'm talking about?! I'm basing this on a decade-and-a-half ago study of pol. sci, and I'm arguing for things I don't believe in :-)

Communism certainly pre-dated Marx, and as I understand it doesn't always assume the necessity of a state - the earliest split amongst communists was between a pro-Marx faction (authoritarian, pro-state) and a pro-Proudhon faction (libertarian, anti-state). Proudhon believed not in the state but in small-scale communities. However, I've seen good arguments on this forum for even small communities like this being, effectively, state-surrogates. So don't take Proudhon as necessarily a good example of a non-statist.

I've also seen good arguments here that we need nothing, even food. I'm not sure I'm convinced by these arguments, but definitely food (sorry!) for thought.

It always seems people, indeed, relate communism with Marx. I really think communism as a principle is simply to contribute with what you can to the community, selflessly. In other words, the community's benefit, and well-being is number one. In my opinion, IF this was to be applied as i've just defined it, that community would be better economically, and socially, than any other community based on whatever political system.

Greed is what prevents communism (not necessarily Marx's) from working. Apply it purely, and it'll work perfectly; then again, who would do so?

In short, people who argued here for communism, brought-up good examples, and good points. People who argued against it, just don't know what it's all about, and actually just see USSR and its EPIC fail, and China's hypocrisy.

So if i register an account, connect the miner program and receive work, but submit no shares or submit bad shares, i've contributed a lot of time, but performed no useful work. I still get paid proportionally for the time contributed?

AWESOME! Sign me up!!!

communism doesn't work, that's why there aren't any  :)

Most corporations don't pay you a percentage of their profits according to what you produce for them (minus a fee); they pay you a flat salary, with a fraction of profitsharing (if you're lucky). They make much more money from you than you make yourself.

Still beats out the communist model thus far :)

Hey, though: you could open a donation pool, where people contribute spare mining effort (or coins directly), and a board of trustees donates the results to worthy projects. Write up a mission statement! It won't make you rich, but you might get some donated CPU cycles or a few spare coins from the members of the community...

That's not a communist pool. That's an association. A coop. A few guys with an agenda. A backup plan. Homebase. A place to rest before starting out again. Jesus, what kinda mindjob are you trying to pull here? You think communists thought of those ideas first? It doesn't need to be labelled as anything philosophical or political. It's a way to give people a boost. Also that's what you call a family by the way. Equal distribution in a family is a great way to firewall the insane dynamics of the outside world, you know for survival.

Protip: You don't need to go on a crusade in order to accomplish something intelligent.

A-MEN brotha.

The problem with posting philosophy on the Internet is that...

I DON'T NEED AN INCENTIVE TO WORK.

I have plenty of things I'll pay to be allowed to do.

Ok then, it's settled.

I'll start a communistic pool with a pentium 3.
You join with all your video cards.

We split 50/50.

Sound good?  :D

No communist state ever existed is a good example of that. There were never good examples and there are not even today (and I can assure you everything beyond that is a matter of propaganda, much more vigilant than you can imagine). Communism is flawed beyond redesign. Well, I guess all the leftist guys that never ever lived through that deserve to do so and see for themselves how this works (bad thing is that even if you reconsider your position, they usually shoot at you at the border if you try to escape that utopia).

This does not necessarily mean that the communist system does not have advantages - oh yes, it DOES have many, like e.g. the better education system (I really mean that). Or like that risk elimination which can be in fact much better for people that don't like taking initiatives.

Overall though it's wicked, it's anti-human and not natural and no wonder why it has collapsed. BTW I don't understand why you claim that the USSR implementation was bad - it was good in a sense that it was self-sustaining for a long period of time. The Latin American experiments would definitely not last that much.

What percentage of the would be miners out there have access to only low end GPUs or even CPUs?

Make it dynamic. You handle leaflets, I'll create the software. Only all I got is a shitty laptop. But cool for starters.

Lol, let's do it.

I'll make it as happy-sounding as possible.

"Join the communist bitpool TODAY!"
"Get YOUR FAIR SHARE of everything that is mined!"
"Help your neighbor when he's down, and he'll help you when you're down!"
"Donate a gigahash or three, and help people who don't have access to the kind of hardware you do!"

Etc, etc.  :P

Heck, I'd pay a few bitcoins for well-designed Soviet-style posters with these slogans on them :)

I'll see what I can do.

EDIT:  Will this do?  :P  (NOTE:  I didn't create it, don't pay me bitcoins)

http://api.ning.com/files/iRiha-GbSZQYorZpY8LaXhfn94jjkXMaulp4SYHoVOuoIiHVcukubcsjTA0cr463/motivaional_communism.jpg?width=400&height=320

Just out of curiosity, is there anyone here who would actually donate mining power to a collectivized pool just for the sake of being generous?

The problem is, even if there are enough people willing to act so altruistically, there are also plenty of people who aren't. So a mining "commune" would need some way to exclude people who don't contribute. Which will inevitably end up looking like "to each according to his contribution, from each according to his willingness to compensate". In other words, a meritocratic market arrangement. And that's what happens to successful* communes, just about every time. They adopt market exchange, and then are no longer communes.

*This is not counting the examples of short-lived successful communes, which burned like bonfires for a while, and then disappeared - such as the early Christians, the German Anabaptists, and a few other religious communities that existed in Colonial America.

If you're going to create a commune, then you HAVE to allow the freeloaders.  There's no other way to work it.

LOL. Half seriously though, without the hypocritical Harrison Bergeron fantasies commies and fascists have, I'd be interested in a mass donations system.

Awesome! Print that at 11x17 and you got yourself a deal :)

Saying communism would work if people weren't so greedy is like saying painting everything the color of baby shit would work if everyone were blind or that a boat with a hole in it would work if water was thicker. Develop a system that compliments human nature or you didn't really develop a system.

Use the Eligius pool with all the same address for who/what you want to donate to.

First, yes I would. Mass donation system coming.

Second, deadline. Return unused coin in percentage donated * who came up with the best ideas.

The problem with communism is that the hegelian mindfuck they pull comes before usage. I say we put it in the refund portion see how they like.

Actually, there're enough decent people in the world to make communism work, but shame they're not hypocritical enough to make it to a political seat.

The only political system that works is the one that exists as a conference and all power vanishes after the conference is over. Limit 30 days a year. The power goes back to the people to exercise the laws and means themselves.

no . . because capitalists will exploit it always and forever.

It's not properly exploitation if the rules say you can take without contributing.

But generally the rules also say that you must contribute your best effort. If you only put a P3 into the pool and keep all your GPUs for other pools, then you aren't contributing what you can, and hence exploitiong the system.

Then you run in to another problem...

If I was to contribute everything I had, then what incentive would I have to make myself more capable of contributing?  In other words, why would I buy a bunch of GPU's to mine with if it wouldn't make any difference in the end result?

The whole pool would suffer from this sort of thinking, as no one would want to bother to buy new cards to contribute more to the pool.  It would effectively stagnate the whole thing to P3 levels.

But who's to say what one's ability is? Why not devote ALL your processing power to mining? Why not spend ALL of your money (except for what you require for the barest of necessities) to build more mining rigs? In other words, contribution never comes by one's "ability". People contribute what they are willing to contribute, every time. Not just in mining pools, but in all things.

It makes more sense, then, that the rules be "contribute what you are willing to contribute, and be compensated according to what others are willing to pay". Which is market exchange.

Seeing the amount of cycles spend on distributed computing (foldingathome and alike) I think people would mine without payout if the bitcoins were used in a trusted way that would strengthen the community.

Lets say that the bitcoins were kept in one spot and the contributors of the pool were allowed to submit ideas and vote for the ideas.
Ideas would of course be how the bitcoins would be spend (with some minor restrictions). >50% (or even >66%) of the votes would execute the idea. Less would invalidate the idea.

If you would accept only one idea per contributor per year, they most likely won't send a bogus idea, but only something that has been well thought of.

I would join such pool.

I was just commenting on the "it's not really exploitation". It probably is if you don't contribute what you can. I don't adress any of the other issues with this sort of pool.
But if you have 3 GPU and 1 P3 (all idle), and you contribute the P3, you're not contributing what you can. If the GPUs are used for folding@home, then you only have the P3 to contribute, and hence not exploiting.
IMHO.

I'm a market liberal kind of guy myself, so I don't think this kind of pool would work either unless it's a very tight group doing it. Like a family or similar.