Bitcoin Forum

I am starting a mining pool and I want to know these thing to run a fair and popular mining pool, and i will be keeping a Running tally for the Votes


#1.   What Kind of Fee % do you think is fair for a Pool Owner to Set?
#2    What do you think should be done with all transaction fees?
#3.   What other Options do you think should be On a Mining Pool

Please Place your answers Like this

#1.  (ANSWER HERE )
#2.  (ANSWER HERE )
#3.  (ANSWER HERE )

Other Suggestions.

1. 0% fee
2. Share out to miners
3. Reliable servers and uptime and professional pool operator with a history of being honest

This combination of things is really only possible for a hopping proxy  ;)

I disagree. The only thing Eligius lacks is distributing transaction fees to miners (which I hope to solve before the 25 BTC subsidy drop)

another way of looking at it is what your pool has that other pools do not. there are already pools that have 0% fees, and transaction fees are so insignificant that no one cares. there are even pools that pay PPS + bonus. so unless your pool has something revolutionary, not much people are going to join your pool.

#1.   between .5% and 3% is acceptable as long as the features are worth it
#2    distributed to miners
#3.   plenty of statistics, gadgets, etc. for miners to utilize

Look at ozco.in. Do everything they're doing.

Starting with identifying yourself publicly.

And where is that done at?

On your pool website. Check out how Graeme of ozcoin does it. He also has it registered as a business, not a bad idea to do that too. Too many people have been stung by small prop pools opening up, taking shares and then closing down. That's less likely if your miners know who you are and you running the pool as a registered business. Also use a photo of you as an avatar.

#1.  0% if possible if not no more than 1%
#2.  Shared with miners (distributed to miners)
#3.  Live stats !

#1.  Fee should reflect level of service, features and performance offered.
#2.  Transaction fees to individual Miner/Block Finder as *BONUS* <---there's your selling feature.
#3.  Proportional Payouts WITH NO CRYING. Everyone is aware of the potential risks as well as potential for rewards. <---there's your 2nd selling feature.

If you do use proportional payouts, I guarantee the pool will be dead inside two months. Bet, anyone?

A higher than average fee (5% or higher) for the pleasure of PROP Mining as well as the 'End of Round' Bonus potential (Block finder gets TX fees) could very well help curb Pool Hopper's appetites ;)

Also, for a new Pool OP, this is the ONLY way to guarantee that he/she will not sink themselves into a financial hole and have to run away in a month or 2 like many others have been forced to do when implementing some of Manny's infamous payment methods by either not having the BTC to cover the miner's pure PPS payouts due to long rounds when first starting out with minimal hashing power, or having the pool rounds so far behind/in the hole from some other PPLNS SMPPS (?) variant, that it can never catch up to actual payouts that are owed.......

**CORRECTED = SMPPS

The advantage of hopping is >5% so unless the fee is 20% it isn't going to deter hoppers. 
TX fees are ~0.1%.  It is immaterial to expected return for both continual miners and parasitic miners.


Nonsense.  PPLNS exposes the operator to no variance risk or racks up no credits owed (like SMPPS).

Sorry, that's what I meant...an SMPPS or variant etc.... I corrected my post above.
I have only ever mined using either pure PPS or PROP, as everything else is just smokescreens & bullshit as far as I am concerned.



As I said above, a PROP Pool with NO CRYING. A place where EVERYONE is aware of the potentials from both ends of the spectrum.
No one will force people to mine there....it will be done by choice and paid for with a larger-than-average fee, so there will be NO MISTAKING one's intentions.

If such a pool does not quality based on morality alone, to be listed in the 'POOL' section, it can be listed in the 'GAMBLING' section of the forum ;)

Only problem is that (unlike on Deepbit) the pool is new - meaning only NEW miners will go there, that at least read these forums. This also means that nobody will really mine prop pools longer than "needed" and the first long block will bring the whole pool to a grinding halt. Pool hoppers also need people who enable them to have short blocks - the "sheeple" that are too lazy/stupid to hop themselves and solve long blocks for the hoppers.

There's a reason why prop pools nearly died out (and why I helped developing pool hopping software) - it's inherently unfair!

ok this is what i am thinking of Doing


Fee of 2% with 1% going to the Block finder
i am still unsure of the reward system i am gonna use

if you guys can give me the pros and cons of the reward systems I do know that I dont want to support Pool hoppers ( i think it is just totally unfair to the ones that actually stick with a pool to have the ones with the super high hashrates come in and submit a ton of shares and then run with the cash out )

I think the most important question to ask yourself is: what can I offer that existing pools dont offer yet?

You will have to come up with something, because unless you have a huge farm yourself, you will not be able to offer low variance (when opting for PPLNS or DMG) or low fees (when using PPS) simply because you will not have 100+GH like most established pools.

Its a chicken and egg problem thats proven difficult to solve, even for pools that have been around for a long time. Have a look at Mt Red, currently offering PPS with no fees (= certain bankruptcy at some point) or Bitminter (PPLNS with no fees). Both are great pools, yet struggle to attract enough miners.

What do you think you will do better?

Make it a gambling game - different payout method each round, and you don't find out what type until the end of the round.

LoL now that is funny but no

Hey! That was a semi serious suggestion! The point is - as P4man mentioned - you seriously need something to give people a reason to swap pools. It's hard to get people to switch even if you'll be able to make them more money:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=77545.0

Maybe go the international route: Offer a clear and simple pool interface in as many languages as possible. Not everyone interested in mining speaks the level of english required to understand a pool frontpage.

+15 000 000 000

Deepbit have all the Russian and Chinese miners on his pool, because his pool is the only big pool that offers those languages. Don't wonder why he's so big.

Check the countries that have a mining potential (like low electricity cost), check their languages, and offer a pool in that language. As an example, province of Quebec in Canada is around 85% French, with 7 cents KwH, winter and with a population of around 8 millions. If you're the only pool offering French language, chances are good that you'll get miners from Québec.

I think that Spain is also a low electricity cost country, so Spanish could be another interesting language. Do your homework ;)

Thanks for the info

We could use another 115% pps pool.. I like those.. ;D