Bitcoin Forum

TL;DR - Comparison of payouts of NastyPoP and NastyP2P.  Here's the current chart showing payouts over time:

https://i.imgur.com/WEfccnR.png

Expected Payouts vs Actuals

https://i.imgur.com/PntUsT9.png

Raw spreadsheet:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vv7r7ejq2pquynl/pop_vs_p2p.xlsx?dl=0

A couple weeks ago I wrote a post comparing p2pool's payouts to those of BAN, clearly showing that p2pool has paid out an average of 112.63% of expectations over the lifetime of the BAN pool.  BAN pays 110% PPS, so p2pool has beaten it by 2.63%.  You can see my post here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=875644.0.

After reading my thread, OgNasty asked if I would do a similar comparison between p2pool and his newly created NastyPoP pool.  For those of you who do not know what that is, let me briefly describe it.  OgNasty has been running his own p2pool node for a long time at nastyfans.org.  During the existence of his pool, he's offered some pretty interesting additions to standard mining, including the ability to purchase "seats", which effectively give the owner of a seat a membership to the nasty fan club.  The seats themselves are special 1 ounce silver coins that are actually pretty cool.  You can check them out here: https://nastyfans.org/mint.

As anyone who has been involved with p2pool is aware, one of the biggest problems with the pool is variance.  Specifically, as the pool grows, individual miners suffer greater and greater variance.  This is precisely the opposite of what happens in a more traditional pool like BTCGuild, where the larger the pool gets, the steadier the payouts become.

OgNasty and Nonnakip decided to do something about it and introduced NastyPoP.  Effectively, this is the first real attempt by anyone to try and tackle the p2pool variance problem.  Bitmain's p2p AntPool is also out there, but it seems to be stuck in limbo, so who knows.  So how does it work?  Well, with a regular p2pool node you connect your miner by providing a bitcoin wallet address as the username and anything as a password.  If and when your miner finds a share with a difficulty greater than the target share chain difficulty, your share gets added to the chain.  When the pool finds a block, you get paid for the shares you have in the current payout list of the chain.

NastyPoP is a bit different.  When you connect, you still provide your bitcoin wallet address, but you append -PoP to the end of it.  This signifies to the nasty pool that you are going to use their proprietary payout system.  Underneath the scenes, OgNasty and Nonnakip have created a sort of "pool on top of a pool".  Everybody who is connected using the -PoP suffix is in reality mining to the node's payout address.  You can try this on your own node.  Simply provide something that isn't a valid wallet address as the user name, and if you find a share, it is the node's default payout address that gets the credit for the share.

Well, here's where the custom code comes into play.  OgNasty and Nonnakip have devised a way to put a PPLNS payout system very similar to a traditional pool in place on top of p2pool's backbone.  They are tracking shares for your miner just like a traditional pool would.  Every miner who has the -PoP suffix shares in the block reward when p2pool finds a block, based upon how many valid shares that miner has contributed during the payout shifts.  I don't have the exact details on how long shifts are, or what the share clip length is, and as I wrote, the code is proprietary and not yet open-sourced.  Payouts from NastyPoP are on Fridays at 19:00 UTC.  They are sent just like any other transfer and require only 6 confirmations.  P2Pool payouts happen as soon as the block is found and require 101 confirmations.

How does this reduce your variance?  Simply put, your miner is paid out in small increments based upon your contributions, rather than being dependent on finding a share to add to the share chain.  That job is left to the node's payout address.  All in all it's quite a clever implementation of reducing p2pool's variance for smaller miners.

One thing that's very important to note here about NastyPoP: you can't take your work with you if you move to a traditional p2pool node.  No other node out there has any clue whatsoever of the work you've been doing on NastyPoP.  In this fashion, NastyPoP behaves much more like a centralized pool the likes of BTCGuild than a p2pool node.  I think it's great that OgNasty and Nonnakip have taken the initiative and are trying to help solve the variance problem.  Unfortunately, the solution they've come up with defeats the very nature of the decentralized p2pool.  Yes, it helps eliminate variance, but at the cost of forcing you to remain tied to the NastyPoP node.

That's all fine and dandy, but how does it compare?  To test this out, I pointed an Antminer S3 at the NastyPoP node, and another S3 at my own standard p2pool node.  Each S3 is configured to run at stock speeds (440GH/s), and I set a static pseudo share difficulty of 500 on both.  Both are powered by an EVGA 1300 G2 and hardwired into an always-on gigabit home network with more than enough up and down bandwidth.

Let's take a look at the ping times from my miner to the pool:

--- nastyfans.org ping statistics ---
57 packets transmitted, 57 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 115.153/144.510/277.534/45.255 ms

An average of 144.51 would stop me from pointing a miner there if it were a standard p2pool node.  Let's see where the server is.  Running a traceroute shows the last hop in Germany.  Well, that explains the ping time - I had to go to Europe :).  Our friends on that side of the pond would probably be better served.

Another thing I noticed was a much higher reject rate from the NastyPoP pool than I do on my own nodes.  This could be due to the latency, but it turned into about 12-14% rejects, whereas I typically see less than 1% on my own nodes.

Alright, so how did the payouts work?  Here are the results:

11/28 - 12/5
NastyPoP - 0.03379787BTC
P2Pool - 0.03589959BTC
Expected - 0.0385BTC

12/5 - 12/12
NastyPoP - 0.03238691BTC
P2Pool - 0.03937531BTC
Expected - 0.0387BTC

12/12 - 12/19
NastyPoP - 0.03382075BTC
p2pool - 0.07363736BTC
Expected - 0.0389BTC

12/19 - 12/26
My p2pool node - 0.05615571BTC
NastyPoP - 0.05015601BTC
Expected - 0.0393BTC

12/26 - 1/2
My p2pool node - 0.03205607BTC
NastyP2P - 0.03861873BTC
NastyPoP - 0.02812263BTC
Expected - 0.0388BTC

1/2 - 1/9
My p2pool node - 0.024337627BTC
NastyP2P - 0.06870469BTC
NastyPoP - 0.04531921BTC
Expected - 0.0381BTC

1/9 - 1/16
My p2pool node - 0.00419189BTC
NastyP2P - 0.01805329BTC
NastyPoP - 0.02152612BTC
Expected - 0.0367BTC
P2Pool 7 day luck - 62.25%

1/16 - 1/23
My p2pool node - test discontinued due to hardware failure
NastyP2P - 0.03989456BTC
NastyPoP - 0.02833329BTC
Expected - 0.0352BTC

1/23 - 1/30
NastyPoP - 0.01963295BTC
NastyP2P - 0.02061486BTC
Expected - 0.0361BTC
Luck - 81.85%

1/30 - 2/6
NastyPoP - 0.05905592BTC
NastyP2P - 0.02003162BTC
Expected - 0.0375BTC
Luck - 93.32%

2/6 - 2/13
NastyPoP - 0.00435959BTC
NastyP2P - 0.00938869BTC
Expected - 0.0361BTC
Luck - 14.3%

2/13 - 2/20
NastyPoP - 0.00698833BTC
NastyP2P - 0.01822003BTC
Expected - 0.0348BTC
Luck - awful :P

2/20 - 2/27
NastyPoP - 0.03798674BTC
NastyP2P - 0.04202049BTC
Expected - 0.0338BTC
Luck - 100.64%

2/27 - 3/6
NastyPoP - 0.02048889BTC
NastyP2P - 0.00942830BTC
Expected - 0.0332BTC
Luck - 51.98%

3/6 - 3/13
NastyPoP - 0.05138458BTC
NastyP2P - 0.05908961BTC
Expected - 0.0328BTC
Luck - 131.5%

3/13 - 3/20
NastyPoP - 0.03402797BTC
NastyP2P - 0.05156673BTC
Expected - 0.0327BTC
Luck - 101.66%

3/20 - 3/27
NastyPoP - 0.02843568BTC
NastyP2P - 0.01970915BTC
Expected - 0.033BTC
Luck - 90.54%

3/27 - 4/3
NastyPoP - 0.03301631BTC
NastyP2P - 0.05550941BTC
Expected - 0.0332BTC
Luck - 97.55%

4/3 - 4/10
NastyPoP - 0.02866930BTC
NastyP2P - 0.03528256BTC
Expected - 0.0318BTC
Luck - 113.4%

4/10 - 4/17
NastyPoP - 0.00028594BTC
NastyP2P - 0BTC
Expected - 0.0313BTC
Luck - 0%

4/17 - 4/24
NastyPoP - 0.05554895BTC
NastyP2P - 0.05281205BTC
Expected - 0.0321BTC
Luck - 165.47%

4/24 - 5/1
NastyPoP - 0.02111442BTC
NastyP2P - 0.02415729BTC
Expected - 0.0325BTC
Luck - 59.99%

5/1 - 5/8
NastyPoP - 0.03294026BTC
NastyP2P - 0.05447989BTC
Expected - 0.0325BTC
Luck - 127.84%

5/8 - 5/15
NastyPoP - 0.03472755BTC
NastyP2P - 0.02216391BTC
Expected - 0.0325BTC
Luck - 84.97%

5/15 - 5/22
NastyPoP - 0.05258228BTC
NastyP2P - 0.03171723BTC
Expected - 0.032BTC
Luck - 182.64%

5/22 - 5/29
NastyPoP - 0.04249927BTC
NastyP2P - 0.03263267BTC
Expected - 0.0307BTC

5/29 - 6/5
NastyPoP - 0.03711295BTC
NastyP2P - 0.03414086BTC
Expected - 0.0312BTC

6/5 - 6/12
NastyPoP - 0.04351160BTC
NastyP2P - 0.04518917BTC
Expected - 0.03144BTC
Luck - 122.76%

6/12 - 6/19
NastyPoP - 0.01964088BTC
NastyP2P - 0.02788807BTC
Expected - 0.030107BTC
Luck - 65.12%

6/19 - 6/26
NastyPoP - 0.02159208BTC
NastyP2P - 0.0193531BTC
Expected - 0.030107BTC
Luck - 60.76%

6/26 - 7/3
NastyPoP - 0.02828584BTC
NastyP2P - 0.01623161BTC
Expected - 0.030263BTC
Luck - 81.3%

7/3 - 7/10
NastyPoP - 0.02039533BTC
NastyP2P - 0.02521461BTC
Expected - 0.030289BTC
Luck - 71.40%

7/10 - 7/17
NastyPoP - 0.02054230BTC
NastyP2P - 0.02884854BTC
Expected - 0.03493028BTC
Luck - 71.40%

7/17 - 7/24
NastyPoP - 0.04771791BTC
NastyP2P - 0.04040042BTC
Expected - 0.03465856BTC
Luck - 162.79%

7/24 - 7/31
NastyPoP: 0.04298881BTC
NastyP2P: 0.03145364BTC
Expected: 0.03401418BTC
Luck - 134.83%

7/31 - 8/7
NastyPoP: 0.01487946BTC
NastyP2P: 0.01145337BTC
Expected: 0.02962897BTC
Luck - 55.38%

8/7 - 8/14
NastyPoP: 0.03914884BTC
NastyP2P: 0.07990332BTC
Expected: 0.02941349BTC
Luck - 241.06%

8/14 - 8/21
NastyPoP: 0.03640067BTC
NastyP2P: 0.04331323BTC
Expected: 0.02939197BTC
Luck - 138.27%

8/21 - 8/28
NastyPoP: 0.01170063BTC
NastyP2P: 0.02753223BTC
Expected: 0.02857788BTC
Luck - 54.07%

8/28 - 9/4
NastyPoP: 0.0455039BTC
NastyP2P: 0.04888988BTC
Expected: 0.02846873BTC
Luck - 180.68%

9/4 - 9/11
NastyPoP: 0.01466154BTC
NastyP2P: 0.00815205BTC
Expected: 0.02719480BTC
Luck - 63.24%

Running totals
NastyPoP: 1.54926483BTC
NastyPoP from 12/26: 1.39910329BTC
NastyP2P: 1.48230244BTC (test started 12/26)
Expected earnings: 1.69383675BTC
Expected earnings from 12/26: 1.53839914BTC
My P2Pool Node: 0.265653547BTC - discontinued 1/16

NastyPoP vs Expected Earnings from 11/28: 91.46%
NastyPoP vs Expected Earnings from 12/26: 90.95%
NastyP2P vs Expected Earnings from 12/26: 96.35%
My P2Pool Node vs Expected Earnings from 11/28 - 1/16: 98.76% - discontinued

As has been alluded to in the original post and in the discussion between OgNasty and myself throughout this thread, the results of the comparison between NastyPoP and p2pool are pretty anecdotal.

I think the primary focus here should instead be upon what OgNasty and Nonnakip have done to try and solve the problem of variance inherent in p2pool mining, especially for the smaller miner.  For example, I'm using S3s for this test because, well, that's the equipment I own.  As of now, the S3 is still a pretty viable mining device to use by itself on p2pool.  The chances are pretty good that the S3 is going to have a share on the chain every time a block is found.  This means that my equipment really isn't suffering too badly from the variance problem to begin with and hence the payout normalization provided by NastyPoP shouldn't have too much of an effect.

My point here is that over time, the payouts from p2pool and NastyPoP should naturally converge, all things being equal.  There will be times when my S3 mining on the traditional node will not have any shares on the chain when blocks are found.  This will become more evident as share difficulty increases and total pool hash rate increases.  I will see blocks of no payouts, along with blocks of getting them.  With NastyPoP, I'll always see a payout for work that has been contributed, assuming of course that the combined efforts of every miner on NastyPoP have indeed found shares.

That is the primary difference between NastyPoP and traditional p2pool mining, and needs to be stressed.  Miners with lower hash rates won't have the impression that they've wasted their time and not gotten any reward for their mining.  Rather than see 5 blocks with no payouts, then 5 blocks with payouts the miner will see 10 straight blocks of payouts.

I hope anyone who is reading this thread can find some useful information and make some informed decisions on how they want to proceed.  I applaud OgNasty and Nonnakip for taking the time to devise and implement their solution.

I believe you're correct about the latency killing me, but there's not a whole lot I can do unless you decided to open up a server here on the east coast of the US.

I was happy to do the writeup, and am glad to be able to help you out by providing the comparison.  One thing I forgot to mention in the OP is that if your pool finds the block, that 0.5% finder's reward is given out to the miners as well - a very nice touch!

I did pay attention to the stats as well.  NastyPoP records a very accurate hash rate graph - showing my S3 consistently at 440GH/s.  Your graphs are quite nice - showing not only the actual and mean hash rate, but also if a share was found.  Nice job on those.  Here's a screen showing my miner:
https://i.imgur.com/xUS2htv.png

Good write up  :)

Do miners get paid tx fees on Ognasty's p2pool-pop the same as the regular p2pool?

Yes.

Sure, you can check it out.  The address is 1Km6zTdCfZATTTVGcMabJ7BrwcopYvRp5W.  You can see it running on my backup node at 104.131.12.128:9332.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean?  Unless you're looking at expected payouts in the share explorer or on windpath's node... in which case, you'll see it's been a little lucky the past few days.  I can assure you, however, that the wallet address I provided belongs to a single S3 that began its mining life for me on 8/19/2014.  The miner has done pretty well for itself - earning 0.87270703BTC from p2pool since it started.  According to http://retrocalc.net, the expected earnings for that timeframe at 440GH/s is 0.783BTC, so I've made 111.46% of expectations.

P2Pool's hashrate is based upon submitted shares.  As I mentioned, that S3 has been lucky and submitted more shares than it should have, resulting in p2pool thinking it's more powerful than it is.  It's the nature of variance... if you take a look at windpath's node, you can see the payout history of that miner dating back to when I first fired it up on 8/19.  There are plenty of stretches of 0 reward blocks where I didn't have any shares on the chain.  During those times p2pool wouldn't even have known about that miner since there were no valid shares on the chain from it.  As of right now, p2pool thinks a 440GH/s miner should be expecting a payout of about 0.0043BTC, which is about 2 weighted shares on the chain.  My current expected payout is about 0.0092BTC or about 4 shares, so I'm doing better than expectations.

I think it clearly highlights the variance inherent in standard p2pool mining.  The fact that this particular S3 has had a streak of good luck demonstrates the kinds of variance your payout system is designed to defeat.  Just because it's good luck right now means nothing as the luck can turn the other way just as quickly.  If you looked at the payout history you would see plenty of blocks for which I was not rewarded because I had no shares on the chain.

As I wrote in my analysis, the results I've posted this far are far too small a set to infer any real conclusions.  2 weeks isn't very useful, and is why I'm continuing to run this experiment.  Truth be told I'm actually hoping for a bit of bad luck so I can show how even though I found no shares to submit to the chain I am still being rewarded for my work by mining in the NastyPoP system.

Both are remote... Albeit my p2pool node is considerably closer than yours is.  My node is running on a VPS in New York less than 100 miles from the miner.  I fully agree with you that the distance is playing havoc with my rejects on yours... And thus the earnings are also likely impacted a bit because of it.  Do I think that is the only reason why the earnings are less on your node than they are on mine?  No.  Luck is definitely a factor here.  The miner in my node just happens to be having a good streak.  That kind of streak is what your system mitigates.  Like I wrote it can just as easily go the other way.  When it does the miner on my node will suffer with no payouts while the miner on yours will still be rewarded for its contributions.

Week 3 results... (12/12 - 12/19)

NastyPoP: 0.03382075BTC
p2pool: 0.07363736BTC
Expected earnings: 0.0334BTC

So, as in the past couple weeks, the S3 mining on my standard p2pool node paid out more than the one mining on NastyPoP.  Apparently the miner's lucky streak has continued.  NastyPoP paid almost exactly the expected earnings for the S3.

I'll be updating the OP with this week's results.

NastyPoP pays out identical to what you will get on P2Pool over time, right down to the P2Pool luck.  What is being measured here is the benefit to mining on a closer node with lower latency and what it would look like if your miner regularly performed at above it's hashrate only on the Standard P2Pool.  Extremely misleading test/title.  You'd think someone who puts effort into testing something like this wouldn't do so in such a way that drastically alters the results.

Did you not bother to read what I have written?  I have consistently praised the work you and Nonnakip have done and have even stated multiple times through both the first and the second post and throughout our conversation in this thread that the results of my test should not be taken as concrete evidence either way.

What is being measured here is one S3 on a standard p2pool node and another on the NastyPoP enhanced p2pool node.  While distance certainly plays a factor, it is most certainly NOT the only reason the results are what they are.  I could have 100TH/s on my node and 100TH/s on your standard p2pool node and 100TH/s on your NastyPoP node and there is absolutely no guarantee whatsoever that all 3 of those will pay out identically as you are trying to convince everyone.  NastyPoP is not guaranteed to payout exactly the same as a standard node over time.  Why?  Because as is being witnessed in this very test, sometimes a miner beats the odds and sometimes a miner doesn't.  Mining and finding shares is LUCK.  NastyPoP guarantees that the variance in that process is reduced.  That's ALL it guarantees.

You asked me to do a test like I did comparing p2pool to BAN and I obliged.  Neither the test nor the title of this thread is misleading in any way.

That's your (now deleted) response?  Where in any post in this thread have I led you to believe that I have any intention of trolling you?  Where in any of my post history have I given any indication that I engage in trolling activity?

I began this test at your request.  I agreed to do so because I thought you had provided an innovative approach to handling the inherent variance experienced by p2pool miners and because you're a donating and respected member of this community.  I did it as a favor to you at my own expense to hopefully help you promote your idea.

The only thing that can clearly be seen here is that I've engaged you in a discussion in which I've praised your efforts and presented logical and well argued counterpoints to statements you've made with which I don't agree.  I'm terribly sorry that you have somehow translated that into being trolled.

It is (was) indeed a strange response OgNasty. JB has put a lot of effort & time into carrying out this experiment at your request. Calling him out simply because you don't like the results seems a little OTT, especially as JB has made it clear that luck has had a lot to do with the results.

Every p2pool user has praised you for taking the initiative & tackling the p2pool variance problem, so this kind of response is uncalled for I believe. There are many very knowledgable p2pool users who could contribute to your software & help make any improvements needed that could maybe improve the results & help the p2pool network generally - maybe now is the time to open source the code so that the community can help?

Just a thought  ;)

I was calling him out because his test is flawed and not a representation of NastyPoP vs Standard P2Pool. He is testing a payout method yet is using different nodes with drastically different latency and claiming that it's an accurate portrayal of NastyPoP vs Standard P2Pool, which it is not. Someone in another location closer to our node doing his same test and using his same nodes would see the opposite results. That's why this is a joke. OP is aware of the latency issue, but ignores it for some reason even though it could easily be corrected. Why purposely run a flawed test when it's been pointed out that the way you're doing it is flawed and has no transparency is the question you should be asking. Especially when a transparent method with the same latency is available...

Well, I have no intention of falling out with anyone over this, but the fact remains that you asked him to do it. So he did.

I asked him to do a fair test and even told him how it could be done with total transparency. When he gave the information that showed their was no transparency and the numbers weren't matching up to what P2Pool was reporting for his hashrate, he says his miner was lucky. While having incredible luck for months is a possibility, that isn't my issue with this test. Although, standing behind a lack of transparency for no legitimate reason and claiming a lucky streak does leave a bad taste in my mouth. Especially when there's a transparent and fair method to test readily available. I don't care about falling out with anyone. I care about accurate, transparent, and fair results when running a test.

I'm sure JB can answer any questions regarding your transparency concerns when he comes online.

BTW, your software is closed source is it not? Hardly a platform from which to talk about transparency..... ;)

Seriously, I think you're doing a good thing with your idea, and hope it works out well for you.

Peace  :)

I don't have any questions about his lack of transparency.  I fully understand what he is doing.  He can chime in on why he decided to test Standard P2Pool payouts from a lower latency node if he wants to explain why he decided to handicap NastyPoP payouts for this test.  That would be relevant.



The NastyPoP software was developed by nonnakip.  It is not mine.  However, the actual count of hashes is published in the NastyPoP Standings page (https://nastyfans.org/nastypool/nastypop_ticker) and updated every 5 minutes as well as the payouts being public record.  That is pretty transparent.  If you feel we aren't being honest, you can count your hashes and check the public payout records to make sure everything is being reported accurately.  Giving away the code (it's a completely separate program written in C that runs NastyFans.org, most P2Pool users wouldn't know what they were looking at or how to integrate it with their node anyway) does not equal transparency, as there is no guarantee that we would actually be using the same code we gave out anyway.  Publishing the number of hashes so users can confirm and making our overall hashrate and payouts public via P2Pool is more transparent than handing out code that can't be confirmed is identical to what we are using in my opinion.  With all the efforts that are made to be transparent (look at all the automated statistics in my NastyMining thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=86854.0), my free iOS App (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=428019.0), naypalm's 3rd party coin analyzer (http://nastyfans.uberbills.com), and how nonnakip improved upon P2Pool's hashrate estimate and charts (https://nastyfans.org/miners/), not to mention the wealth of statistics available to members at NastyFans.org (https://nastyfans.org)), I am disappointed to be accused of not being transparent.



I know we are doing great things and we will continue to do so for a long time.  Thank you for the kind words.

Nobody, including me, is accusing you of not being transparent. You were accusing JB of this:


I have congratulated & praised you & p2p-pop already, as well as suggested your pool to potential miners:


So there is really no reason to twist my words.

I'm outta here.

OgNasty,

There are 2 reasons why I chose to implement the test the way I did.

1) A miner who chooses to use p2pool is either going to run his own node, or find one as close to his miners as possible from a latency perspective that is performing respectably (low GBT latency, decent efficiency, etc).  If the miner decides to go with NastyPoP, he must accept the added latency as a byproduct of that choice, since he can't build or run his own version of NastyPoP locally or choose to mine on a closer node on which it is installed.
2) I built and own the node on which my miner is pointed and know it is in fact a standard p2pool node with no modifications other than justino's front end and is running the latest version of bitcoind compiled and built on the server.  I don't have control over your node, and I don't know what if any modifications and tuning parameters you've made to your own.

However, since you seem to feel that my test is in some way invalid because I'm not mining on your node, I will gladly rectify this situation.  As of 1900 UTC this coming Friday, I will point one of my S3s to your standard p2pool node, and keep my current miner on the NastyPoP version.

What I have shown thus far in the test is that luck has everything to do with mining and a miner on a standard p2pool node will experience the variance of that luck far more than would a miner who chooses NastyPoP.  In reality, the payouts aren't the real result of the test - the fact that the variance is far less on NastyPoP than it is on a standard node is.  You can even seen this by looking at the results in the OP.  Look how different the numbers are in the standard node vs those on your NastyPoP node.  That evidence clearly shows how NastyPoP reduces variance.

I hope this explanation helps to clarify any misunderstandings you may have.

Another week of testing has passed and here are the results...

Standard p2pool node: 0.05615571BTC
NastyPoP: 0.05015601BTC
Expected: 0.0393BTC

Both the standard p2pool node as well as the NasyPoP system beat expectations this week.  Also, if you take a look at the payout history for my miner on the standard p2pool node, you'll notice that I received no payouts for two of the found blocks because I didn't have any shares on the chain when they were found.  For my miner on NastyPoP, I did indeed receive a payout for those blocks.

This is where NastyPoP shines and truly shows the reduced variance and I was hoping we'd see it during the testing.  Although the miner on the standard node edged out the miner on the NastyPoP node, the difference between the two is pretty insignificant this week.

Standard p2pool node paid 142.89% of expectations this week.  NastyPoP paid 127.62%.

Another note I want to add here... to assuage any concerns that OgNasty has had regarding the execution of the tests I've been running, I have pointed yet another of my S3s away from my own node and to the standard p2pool node at nastyfans.org.  This S3 is like the other two: running at a clock of 218.75 getting 440GH/s.  I started it at approximately 19:10UTC today.  The address is 1JbnAstYXy1pmv7AeLj7w117HWvmDXCFDE.  Starting next week I will include the results from that miner in the report as well.

I've updated the OP with this week's results.

Just because it is high latency where YOU are, does not mean it is that way for everyone.  Hence your flawed results which cannot be attributed to luck.  If you believe that, then I would suggest that you aren't very good at math.




NastyPool is a default P2Pool node.



Cool.  Thank you for deciding to run this test fairly to get legitimate data about NastyPoP vs Standard P2Pool payouts.  I look forward to seeing your numbers show a slight advantage to Standard P2Pool next week as your hashrate ramps down to where both miners are equal, followed by nearly identical numbers the following week.  Perhaps once that happens, you will stop your ludicrous luck argument and restore some legitimacy to these numbers.  Maybe you'll even go as far as removing the inaccurate data.



You aren't seeing higher earnings due to luck with Standard P2Pool.  Your hashrate isn't low enough to see the extreme variance reduction benefits of NastyPoP.  For the test you think you're doing, you'd see much better results mining with 1GH/s.  ;)

Quite frankly I'm amazed by your continued assertions that I'm somehow running a flawed test.  Now you're insinuating that my math skills are lacking.  My results absolutely can be attributed to statistical luck, plain and simple.  The latency from my location to your node is higher than I would choose if I were going to be picking a node on which to mine; however, the latency isn't so different as to be as big a factor as you're claiming it is.

To your node:

--- nastyfans.org ping statistics ---
39 packets transmitted, 39 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 116.675/158.528/388.339/71.604 ms

To my node:

--- 104.131.12.128 ping statistics ---
40 packets transmitted, 40 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 20.111/40.750/143.201/36.491 ms

I also stated that a miner is forced to accept the higher latency if he chooses to mine on NastyPoP because your server is located in the EU.  Yes, there are some miners closer to your server, and there are also some miners who are farther away.  The point remains that everybody who chooses NastyPoP is indeed forced to accept that consequence, whereas if they want to mine a traditional p2pool node, they can run their own on their local home network where ping times are of no consequence.  Or, they can choose to run on a node that is close to them.

I didn't mean to insinuate that you are running some non-standard version of the p2pool code.  All I meant here was that you could have tuned your node to change things like max block size, etc.  I don't control the node, so I don't know what you've done.  That's all.  You've cleared it up, and I take your word for it.

I decided to point yet another of my miners to your standard node.  There's not going to be any ramping down and equalizing.  I have 9 S3s.  When I started the test, I used the one pointed to my backup node and pointed one of them to your NastyPoP node.  Now I'm pointing a third to your standard node.  If anything, statistically speaking, the miner using NastyPoP should payout higher this week.  Why?  Because as of now, p2pool expects to find a block every 15 hours or so, yet my S3 only expects to find a share every 36 hours or so.  Therefore, my NastyPoP miner expects to get paid for 2 blocks before my regular Nasty miner even expects to find a share and get paid.  If I'm lucky, I'll find more shares than expected.  If I'm unlucky, I won't.

So much for my lack of math skills.

I really can't believe that you truly think the fact that my S3 happened to have submitted more shares than expected has everything to do with latency and nothing to do with luck.  I'm seeing higher earnings because my S3 had more shares on the chain than expectations, which is easily seen - and strangely enough verified by you - by looking at the hash rate p2pool thinks it has.  Twice in this thread you've provided the hash rate p2pool thinks that miner has, and both times p2pool thought that rate was higher than it actually is.  If you really think that's solely because of latency, you're just plain wrong.

In any case, the test continues and I look forward to seeing how the three miners compare to each other: a close p2pool node, a faraway p2pool node and a faraway node running NastyPoP.

What new address are you using to mine?

I posted it earlier... I created the address yesterday and configured my S3 to use it on the standard Nasty p2pool.  Here it is:

1JbnAstYXy1pmv7AeLj7w117HWvmDXCFDE

CHILLLLLL we here to run tests & a FAIR comparison ! not to .... each other.

Very nice of JB to do the tests & also very nice of nasty who have made a unique p2pool.

I wouldn't normally update this post unless directly asked a question or to respond to some discussion point.  Having written that, I wanted to post this.  On Friday, just after 19:00 UTC, I created a new BTC address and configured one of my S3s to mine on the nastyfans.org traditional p2pool.  I now have 3 S3s on this test: one of them is mining on my backup node, one is mining on nastyfans.org using NastyPoP and the third is mining on nastyfans.org using traditional p2pool payout.

Since I brought this S3 to the nastyfans.org pool, it has found far more shares than it should have: 4 in the past 48 hours.

First, here's the configuration screen of that miner:
https://i.imgur.com/oKWlDrc.png

Now, here's the graph from nastyfans.org:
https://i.imgur.com/NGKeF43.png

Statistically, an S3 should take between a day and a half and 2 days to find a share.  Clearly this miner is beating expectations - and as with the miner on my backup node has shown thus far in the test - variance plays a far larger role on the traditional p2pool node than it will with NastyPoP.  As of this post, the miner on my backup node has 0 shares on the chain.

We'll see how this all plays out come Friday...

I just came across this thread…..I got these results based in Las Vegas. I don’t know where OGs server is hosted but it is close to me. I am surrounded by 2 or 3 dcs. I can piss on one of dc wall from the roof.  I have pulled my hardware to try a new pool.  You guys need some test results now or can you wait until I get new hardware in a few days? I don’t want to take anything down from the pools I am mining at sorry.  The s3s that where here have been sold. 

Quick update... I've had to power down my miner on the standard p2pool payout for a few hours today... it's in the basement and my water heater just blew up, so I'm busy getting rid of the excess water and cleaning things up.  Once the new water heater has been installed, I'll fire it back up.  That's why you're going to see the drop in hash rate on the graphs (if you're looking).  The miner on the NastyPoP payout is upstairs on a different circuit, so it's still up and running.

772 rejects with 6214 accepted .12% for 6 hrs now. 

Sorry to hear that.

Starting next week NastyPoP payouts will start seeing a bonus from 250 NastyFans seats.

That's a pretty cool way to distribute those funds.  Nicely done!

I just got everything all set back up and fired up the miner again.  Thanks for the well wishes on the water heater.  At least I caught it early and was home when it happened... boy that would have been an absolutely awful mess had I been away!

Another week in the books.  Let's take a look at the results.  Also note that this week there's a third miner in the tests.  I pointed one of my S3s to mine on nastyfans.org's standard p2pool payout.

My standard p2pool node - 0.03205607BTC
OgNasty's standard p2pool node - 0.03861873BTC
NastyPoP p2pool - 0.02812263BTC
Expected - 0.0388BTC

Surprisingly, the miner I have pointed to OgNasty's p2pool payouts fared the best this week.  I fully expected it to do worse than the other two because of the fact that the BTC address was completely new to p2pool, so ramping up some shares should have played a part.  Instead, it performed much higher than expectations.  I posted screenshots on 12/28 that showed the miner had found a higher than expected number of shares, which in turn translated into higher than expected payouts when blocks were found.

In general p2pool's luck was pretty awful this past week (coincidence.com shows 7 day luck of 73.17%), so it's not surprising every miner missed the expected payout mark for 440GH/s over 7 days.  The one that came closest was the new miner I added last Friday.

The OP is updated with the results.

As maintainer of NastyPool and implementer of NastyPoP I want to clear up some misconceptions here.

I start by saying thank you to jonnybravo0311. You are doing excellent work testing.

The NastyPoP payout method is very simple. PatMan mentions closed source. Here is the source:

• every Friday at 19:00 UTC count up the hashes generated by each NastyPoP miner since previous Friday at 19:00 UTC
• count 6-confirmation-BTC held by NastyPoP Bitcoin mining address
• distribute that BTC amount to NastyPoP miners based on proportion hashes

For long term mining this will yield the same payout as P2Pool.

Unless NastyPoP gets significant "marketshare", in the short term large miners will typically yield less payout and small miners will yield more payout as P2Pool.

So why would anyone mine on NastyPoP?

If you are a miner that does not receive regular P2Pool payouts it can be nice to mine P2Pool via NastyPoP and receive regular payouts. As SP20 and S5 miners flood the market this point should not be undervalued.

If you are a large miner NastyPoP can provide some extra safety. For example your water heater blows up and you must shut down your miner for a few days. With P2Pool that could be extra bad if P2Pool luck was very big during those few days. With NastyPoP the spurious P2Pool luck waves do not play such a role.

NastyPoP and NastyPool also offer other bonuses but I do not want this to be NastyPoP advertisement. I only want to clarify misconceptions.

Some reasons why a different P2Pool node shows different reject rates is because of merged mining. Until recently NastyPool merged mined Namecoin and Huntercoin. Particularly Huntercoin caused many extra work restarts for miners. And work restarts is the primary reason for rejects. Last week NastyPool stopped merged mining with Huntercoin so this should help that situation. Namecoin is still merged mined. This is how NastyPool funds itself.

I welcome this and any other NastyPoP tests. I think it would be particularly interesting to read a test from a miner that was using non-P2Pool and switched to NastyPoP for 2 weeks. Especially for a smaller miner that was using non-P2Pool previously.

The main goal of NastyPoP is not to convert P2Pool-miners to NastyPoP-miners. It is to convert non-P2Pool miners to P2Pool miners (via NastyPoP).

Great thread, jonnybravo0311! Thanks for all the work you've done, and the statistics. Very interesting.

Might switch 5 undervolted S1s I have contributing heat my mother's house over to nastyPOP. Seems like they would be perfect candidates! Only thing that bugs me a bit is the highish 108ms average ping from her place. Too bad there isn't an east coast NA server.

A US server is something that is currently being worked on.  We have the hosting and equipment but nonnakip has some development work to do before that is a reality.  This thread actually inspired a much more thorough look at the NastyPool node to see why we saw such shortcomings compared with jonnybravo's node.  While some of it can be written off as latency, there are certainly other factors at play here that have been identified and are being resolved.  Positive changes are on the horizon that will help both the Standard & NastyPoP payouts made by NastyPool.  I think the disconnect evidenced by jonnybravo's results is going to have a positive impact, and I am thankful to him for that.

Another week down, and this week we see for the first time NastyPoP's variance reduction payouts winning out over standard p2pool for one of my miners.  The miner on my node had just plain awful luck at the beginning of the week.  It had no shares on the chain and missed payments for 5 of the blocks p2pool found.  My miner on the NastyPoP node was paid for every found block.  I'm very happy we've now seen this, and the payout results reflect the fact that my miner missed those 5 blocks.  So... here are the results for my miners for the week:

My standard p2pool node - 0.024337627BTC
OgNasty's standard p2pool node - 0.06870469BTC
NastyPoP p2pool - 0.04531921BTC
Expected - 0.0381BTC
P2Pool 7 day luck - 152.23%

Look very closely at the difference in the payouts between my two miners on standard p2pool payouts.  They are both S3s.  They are both clocked at 218.75 to get 440GH/s.  They're both running on the same EVGA 1300 G2.  Yet, the S3 on my node only made 0.024337627, while my S3 on nastyfans.org made 0.06870469.  That's the variance that p2pool miners see, and what the NastyPoP system normalizes.

P2Pool, in general this week beat expected earnings.  My miners on nastyfans (both the regular and the NastyPoP) followed that trend and beat out expected earnings.

OP has been updated with this week's results.

Another week in the books, and it's a win across the board for the NastyPoP payouts.  The miners on the standard p2pool payout suffered some pretty bad luck finding shares and missed a number of payouts because of it.  The miner on NastyPoP was paid out for every single block.  P2Pool itself did abysmally this past week with a 7 day luck value of only 62.25%.  That, combined with my miners finding fewer than expected shares led to the following results:

My standard p2pool node - 0.00419189BTC
OgNasty's standard p2pool node - 0.01805329BTC
NastyPoP p2pool - 0.02152612BTC
Expected - 0.0367BTC
P2Pool 7 day luck - 62.25%

There we have it folks - the first time in this test that the NastyPoP method resilience to variance wins the day.  OP has been updated with this week's results.

Quick update... I noticed the S3 I had pointed at my own p2pool node has gone down.  Unfortunately, I'm away from home this week traveling for work and I do not have remote access to my miners.  I really should set that up :).

Anyway, I will not be including numbers for that miner in this upcoming Friday's results.  I will have only 2 on the test: the miner on NastyPoP (which, I switched over to the new protocol on Sunday) and the miner on the standard p2pool payout.

Speaking of the new protocol (ckpool on port 3334 using p2pool as a backend), I've noticed very inconsistent hash rate, with a number of times connectivity has been lost altogether.  I'm guessing it's growing pains as nonnakip just brought this online recently.  Hopefully things settle down shortly.  We'll see what impact, if any, this has come Friday.

Here is a screenshot of the hash rate graphs from nastyfans.org showing my two miners:

https://i.imgur.com/fqR2EYb.png

Here's another miner using the NastyPoP method:

https://i.imgur.com/NeLcn1T.png

As you can see, the miners using NastyPoP show some pretty erratic hash rates and loss of connectivity, whereas my miner on the standard p2pool payout is straight across the board.

As you can see there were some issues with the ckpool frontend.  nonnakip has been slapping bandages on it while the issues get worked out and ckolivas is aware and actively addressing the issue with the ckpool software, but it is probably a good idea for miners to have the regular p2pool port set as a failover in the meantime.  I guess it's important to remember that NastyPool is still in beta with many features still being actively developed.

Not a problem.  I figured it was some growing pains putting Con's pool on a p2pool backbone.  I have faith they'll sort it out.  I just wanted to mention and display the connection issues when I saw them as they may have an effect on this week's test results... Not to mention bring it to your attention :)

As you can see, I have not provided results for the week 1/16 - 1/23.  There were some pretty significant connection issues with Nonnakip's new implementation of ckpool on top of the p2pool framework.  Unfortunately, those issues are still persisting as you can see from this screenshot:

https://i.imgur.com/llgrQt6.png

Combine this with the fact that no payouts were received for last week and I am unable to provide any kind of meaningful test results.  Please note, you can see that a payout was attempted by looking here: https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/tx/c46bd16596240f6b41a10ceb968389c3921214cbff27d6cbe6d987f51bab9c99

Unfortunately, with the changeover to the new NastyPoP system, payouts seem to have gotten confused.  Looking at the payout distribution charts at https://nastyfans.org/nastypool/nastypop_ticker I can see my miner's address listed twice.  The attempted payout matches one of those values (0.02006569 BTC) but there is no mention of the other value.  If we go solely on the attempted value, we'll find that it is significantly lower than what I made on the standard nasty p2pool payout (0.03989456BTC).  The expected payouts for this past week were 0.0352BTC.  P2Pool itself was pretty lucky during these 7 days, so I'm shocked to see such a huge disparity (nearly twice as much) between what I made on the standard payout vs what is reported for the NastyPoP method.

It's quite apparent that something went pretty wrong last week, both with the conversion to the new front end and with the payouts themselves.  The issues still persist today.  I hope Nonnakip is able to get this sorted.

The payouts went out, but aren't being confirmed by the network for some reason.  This isn't related to the frontend, but some other mystery.  Here's the transaction that is waiting to confirm: https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/tx/c46bd16596240f6b41a10ceb968389c3921214cbff27d6cbe6d987f51bab9c99

The conversion to the new frontend went fine as well.  The issue is that ckpool is currently extremely buggy.  I'm beginning to question if ckpool is ready for primetime yet though.  Using the 9332 port will eliminate any issues relating to ckpool until a stable version can be released (even port 3334 is now standard p2pool until ckpool can stabilize), and if last week's distribution isn't confirmed by this week, the coins will be double spent to ensure they are added to this week's distribution.

I linked the payout transaction in my post.  You're absolutely right that it's a mystery.  I also read your post in the pool thread stating that Nonnakip would be sending out the payments again this coming Friday if they hadn't confirmed by then, so no worries about that.

My primary concern is the discrepancy between what the charts on the site state vs what the payout transaction has.  The charts show miner addresses more than once, each with a value of expected BTC payout.  The payout transaction, however, only has one of those values.  Could you explain that, please?  The reason I'm asking is that during the past week p2pool was over 100% luck, finding more blocks that it should have.  My standard p2pool payouts reflect that; however, my payments in the NastyPoP payout transaction are far below expectations.  As I mentioned, I made nearly double with standard p2pool payouts as I did with NastyPoP.

When you wrote, "using the 9332 port will eliminate..." are you suggesting that people should go back to using stratum+tcp://nastyfans.org:9332 -u WALLETADDRESS-PoP -p x for the NastyPoP payouts?

Thanks for any clarifications.

Probably because you're trying to pay dust payments as well.

Port 3334 was switched to default p2pool so there is no need to do anything now, but you should probably use port 9332 as a failover just as a good mining practice.

The charts show addresses more than once because the ckpool and p2pool hashes are counted separately.  That means as miners switched ports, their username would then be duplicated.  If you checked while it was happening, you could see that one of the usernames had a "ckp" in front of it, showing that it was mining on the ckpool frontend.  I suspect the reason for your shortpay, without being able to look at the logs (nonnakip would have to help with that) is that ckpool was crashing frequently.  A lot of the miners that were on port 3334 without setting a failover of port 9332 were negatively effected by that.  As I said, I don't have access to see exactly how much downtime you saw as a result of the instability, but it was a major factor last week.  I would definitely recommend that a failover pool always be set for any miner, but it is especially important now while NastyPool works to overcome scalability and stabilization issues.  

I'm not trying to say bad things about ckpool either.  I think it works as a great frontend and am really happy with it while it's operating.



Maybe.  We're part of a crazy bunch that think people should be able to spend dust, or else it shouldn't exist.  I think the core developers haven't paid enough attention to that issue yet.  In any event, it will get resolved.  I just wanted people to know there is no loss and nothing went wrong with the sending of the payment.

That may be, but with the default bitcoind rules that transaction will probably not go through any pool unless you push it to a service that accepts non-standard transactions.

Unless I'm mistaken, it is an 8kb transaction with a 0.0008 BTC transaction fee.  That is the recommended fee, right?  It does appear to me that a combination of young inputs and small outputs are causing the delay.  It will be interesting to see if it gets processed before having to be double spent on Friday.

I begin with many thanks to jonnybravo0311. Your work here is excellent. The transparency of the fanclub and pool allows people to have a critical eye. This is to our benefit. Because we are human and we make mistakes.


The issues do not exist now because I go back to direct P2Pool. But you are very correct that the past days were very wrong.

• the new CKPool frontend introduced unexpected performance issues (despite very successful testing)
• the payout distribution software mistakingly counted all CKPool-based mining as nastyfans donations
• the distribution transaction was classified low priority and may never be processed

I think the failed transaction processing is a blessing because the transaction contents are wrong. So instead of me adjusting the next payouts and documenting all this errors to compensate for this mishap I will double-spend the correct amounts.


You need to be aware that we try running CKPool in a mode (proxy mode) that is not used by other (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=763510.0) great (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=789369.0) CKPool-based pools. I do not know if any other pools use this mode. And particularly as a P2Pool frontend. This means NastyPool may trigger problems that exist only for us.

I am grateful to ckolivas for his support during our (unfotunately unsuccessful) integration. I am convinced that CKPool is the correct choice as a pool frontend for NastyPool.


Your concern is legitimate. And it is obvious I must improve how data is displayed. As OgNasty already mention the P2Pool-based and CKPool-based mining is shown separate. This was not technically mandatory. But I wanted this so everyone could keep eyes on statistics. The payout transaction did not include your CKPool-based hashes. This was a error.

I now fixed the distribution payout software and re-run for last distribution. For last mining window 1CVFuGmhMfQJ5hTyYe8fWtKPKNWVpNe8dE will receive 0.02833329 BTC. I plan to double-spend the Bitcoin soon.


I will.

Just a quick update... it looks like Nonnakip double-spent the coins and as a result I received the payout from last week's mining on NastyPoP.  Thanks!  I wasn't expecting the payout until tomorrow, so it was a nice surprise :).

Anyway, now that the payout has been received, here are the results for the week of 1/16 - 1/23:

NastyPoP - 0.02833329BTC
NastyP2P - 0.03989456BTC
Expected - 0.0352BTC

I didn't capture the 7 day luck last Friday, so I don't have it to report unfortunately.  There have definitely been some growing pains with the adoption of ckpool as the front end for NastyPoP, and the payout reflects it.  Downtime, restarts, etc contributed, and the lower payout is the result.  Things have gotten a tad more stable this week, so we'll see how it stacks up tomorrow.

OP updated with the results.

Edit: you'll notice that I am not including numbers for a miner on my own node any longer.  Last week when I was traveling for work I noticed that the miner had gone down.  When I returned home, I found the miner had hashed its last hash.  Oh well... it was an early batch S3 that's long since paid for itself.  Moving forward, I'll be running the test only showing the results of standard p2pool payouts vs NastyPoP with both S3s pointing to nastyfans.org.

Some info that potentially effects this test:


EDIT:

Thanks for the update.  I'll adjust the test numbers when the corrections are sent.

R.I.P.  :P

Week of 1/23 - 1/30 was very close between standard p2pool payouts and NastyPoP for my S3s.  P2Pool itself was down on luck for the week, so neither standard p2pool nor NastyPoP hit expected earnings.  Numbers:

NastyPoP - 0.01963295BTC
NastyP2P - 0.02061486BTC
Expected - 0.0361BTC
Luck - 81.85%

OP updated with the week's numbers.

Week of 1/30 to 2/6 saw my S3 on the standard p2pool suffer.  It hadn't found a share for nearly 5 days, which caused it to miss quite a few block payouts.  Also, as promised, nonnakip compensated for the mistake in share counting from the previous 2 weeks.  As a result, NastyPoP payouts crushed standard p2pool payouts for my miners this week.  Here are the numbers:

NastyPoP - 0.05905592BTC
NastyP2P - 0.02003162BTC
Expected - 0.0375BTC
Luck - 93.32%

As usual, OP updated with this week's numbers.

I almost don't even want to bother posting results this week since p2pool found exactly 1 block.  7 days.  1 block.  Ouch, this past week has been some absolutely horrific luck, and of course this past week was the week I thought I'd rent out some significant hashing power.  Yeah, I gambled and lost... and lost big.  If you had asked me last week at this time if I thought p2pool would only find a single block all week I would have said not likely at all.  But here we are, and it did indeed happen.  Am I disgruntled?  A bit :).

NastyPoP - 0.00435959BTC
NastyP2P - 0.00938869BTC
Expected - 0.0361BTC
Luck - 14.3%

OP updated as well.

And..... another week gone by with p2pool only finding a single block.  Ouch!  My S3 on the standard p2pool payout was a bit lucky and found more shares than it should have, so at least there was a small bit of consolation.

2/13 - 2/20
NastyPoP - 0.00698833BTC
NastyP2P - 0.01822003BTC
Expected - 0.0348BTC

I used a p2pool with 200ms latency for at least half a year.  

Bitcoin should have less interrupts than DOGE, but since DOGE is the one I remember.... DOGE had one minute block time avg.  I don't remember for sure, but I think it also had 15s share time in p2pool.  So on average, you'd get 5 interrupts a minute.  At 200ms latency, that means at worst you'd be sent some new work, 0.00001ms later there would be a new share/block, requiring the server to send you some new work.  So then you have the 200ms to receive the work, then 200 + a few more ms before you start sending this work back, just call it 400ms.  Five interrupts a minute = 2000ms = 2 out of 60 seconds = 3.33% DOA.  Bitcoin has less interrupts.  Two shares per minute, right?  Then the block that's supposed to be every 15m but on increasing difficulty is a bit faster.   So you're talking less than 1.5% DOA there.

anyway, lower orphan rate of having the pool in Europe more than made up for that for me....  though if I was in Europe, I probably wouldn't be too keen on using a p2pool in the US or Asia, since most the (good) p2pools are hosted in datacenters in germany, france, or the netherlands.

Yet another week has passed.  P2Pool started off strong, but has stalled for the past 3.5 days.  Luck shows just over 100% for the past 7 days.  Here are this week's results:

2/20 - 2/27
NastyPoP - 0.03798674BTC
NastyP2P - 0.04202049BTC
Expected - 0.0338BTC
Luck - 100.64%

Updated the OP

Another lousy luck week for p2pool in general - 7 day luck shows 51.98%.  2 blocks found.  My S3 running with p2pool payouts was all over the board during the week at one point expecting to get nearly 0.02BTC if a block were found... to 0.003BTC per block.  Unfortunately, when the blocks were found, it had fewer than expected shares on the chain and the results suffer for it.  My S3 running with NastyPoP actually made more than I thought it would.  Here are the week's results:

2/27 - 3/6
NastyPoP - 0.02048889BTC
NastyP2P - 0.00942830BTC
Expected - 0.0332BTC
Luck - 51.98%

OP updated.

Well, p2pool had a good week, and payouts from both NastyPoP and NastyP2P reflected that, each beating expectations.  NastyP2P managed to edge out NastyPoP, but the difference between the two is only 0.00770503BTC.

3/6 - 3/13
NastyPoP - 0.05138458BTC
NastyP2P - 0.05908961BTC
Expected - 0.0328BTC
Luck - 131.5%

OP updated.

Another week has passed.  P2Pool had just over 100% luck for the seven days, and you can see the NastyPoP payout was very close to the 101.66% of expectations.  The S3 running on the standard node did a bit better, as it had a nice lucky streak right before the block was found yesterday.

In other news, TheAnalogKid has opened up a US node for OgNasty that runs both the standard NastyP2P as well as the NastyPoP payouts.  It'll be interesting to see how, if at all, the data is shared between the US and EU nodes for the NastyPoP payouts.  Does it transfer, or would it be ramping up just like starting over on any other PPLNS pool?

3/13 - 3/20
NastyPoP - 0.03402797BTC
NastyP2P - 0.05156673BTC
Expected - 0.0327BTC
Luck - 101.66%

OP is updated.

All NastyPool nodes work together. If you switch to a different node you will see your stats appear on a separate graph and listed separately on the NastyPoP tables. But when it is time for a distribution all hashes are combined on all nodes.

In the future the charts and tables will show what node the miner is using. This will clarify things. There are also a few other display issues to work out. But the real data is correctly tracked and that is the important thing.

Be free to switch back and forth between nodes as you wish. Your hashes will be counted correctly. Some miners set up the USA node as a backup.

I'll confirm (for what it's worth ;) )that during testing things worked across nodes as expected.  I had miners pointed to both nodes with the same registered address, and my hashrate and share count reflected as it should, even after failovers or manual switches between nodes.

I've re-pointed all my miners now to the US node with the original EU node as failover, works well.

nonnakip and TheAnalogKid, that's great news!  Not losing your share count when moving from the US to EU and back is a big win.

EDIT:

Just some info about the US node hosted by TheAnalogKid... ping:


EU ping:


I'm going to move my miners to be primary at the US node and backup on the EU and continue the tests.  By the way, are the graphs/stats still hosted on the main site (nastyfans.org) or would miners pointed to the US node look there to see graphs and stats?

Never mind, I see that the stats show up separately on the nastyfans.org site. :)

Av 24ms vs Av 112ms

Lets see what those number actually mean :)

0.024s out of an average of 30s per share-change means that you'd expect about 0.08% rejects
0.112s out of an average of 30s per share-change means that you'd expect about 0.4% rejects

So 4.7 times a small amount ... seems to also be a small amount in this case.

What share-chain rejects do you actually get in p2pool? Around 7% 10% 13% ?
So clearly in this case the affect of that latency change shouldn't really make too much difference on finding share-chain shares :)

So the main problem would appear to be from the p2pool nodes to the other p2pool nodes ..........

We know on the blockchain the sort of network round time for blocks and thus expected orphan rates.
We know that pools with crappy connections and crappy software get more orphans than those without.
But on a normal pool that doesn't affect the shares (and is also happens 1/20th less often ... 600s vs 30s)

On p2pool it's the fact that ALL your share-chain shares are dependent upon that "network round time" that is also full of all sorts of quality hardware/network setups from good/maybe even good pool quality? down to crap performance/network connection quality.

Hmm, this should probably be in the p2pool thread, but it's a reply to your numbers :)

Sorry for the few day delay on the updates, but before I get to the numbers, I'd like to take a moment to thank you, kano, for the analysis.  You've certainly addressed one of the issues of the decentralized nature of p2pool: reliance upon who-knows-what kind of hardware and connections and bandwidth across the network.  Because there are no real minimum requirements to setup a p2pool node, pretty much anybody who wants to do so, can.

This week I switched over to TheAnalogKid's node, located right up the road from me.  The switchover was completely seamless as the work I'd done on the NastyPoP was tracked and kept right on going.  From my perspective, the only way a miner would even know if he'd moved from the US to EU or back is that on the nastyfans miner status page, a new graph appears.

Speaking of those graphs, it sure would be nice to see the share lines colored differently for dead and orphaned shares.  Currently a miner cannot tell if a submitted share-chain share was accepted.  For example, the first 3 or 4 share-chain shares I submitted on the US node were likely either dead or orphaned.  Of course, it could have been that previous shares were dropping off the chain right as the new ones were being found.  I couldn't tell, and that's why I'd like to see a visual representation... say red for orphans and purple for dead.

Alright, onto the numbers... my NastyP2P miner suffered some dead/orphaned shares (I think) at the beginning of the week, and the payouts reflect it.

3/20 - 3/27
NastyPoP - 0.02843568BTC
NastyP2P - 0.01970915BTC
Expected - 0.033BTC
Luck - 90.54%

OP updated

Another week in the books.  P2Pool itself was close to 100% luck, and the NastyPoP payouts were almost exactly expected earnings.  My NastyP2P miner had a lucky streak and made more than expectations.  Here are the numbers:

3/27 - 4/3
NastyPoP - 0.03301631BTC
NastyP2P - 0.05550941BTC
Expected - 0.0332BTC
Luck - 97.55%

OP updated

The graphs do not show dead shares. They do show orphaned shares. This does not help you. I add this feature to my list of "to do".

Thanks nonnakip, that would be a nice visual addition to the graphs to see.  Hopefully you'll be able to get to it :)

Made it through another week and here are the numbers:

4/3 - 4/10
NastyPoP - 0.02866930BTC
NastyP2P - 0.03528256BTC
Expected - 0.0318BTC
Luck - 113.4%

OP updated

8 days and 7 hours.  That's how long it's been since p2pool found a block.  In other words, this week's numbers are a big fat goose egg.  On the bright side, it's the very first week of the test that both NastyP2P and NastyPoP paid exactly the same :P.

4/10 - 4/17
NastyPoP - 0.00028594BTC
NastyP2P - 0BTC
Expected - 0.0313BTC
Luck - 0%

OP updated

EDIT: As OgNasty pointed out, I did in fact receive a payout from NastyPoP.  Even though no blocks were found, because NastyPoP payouts include the donations from 300 seats, I got some BTC.

Actually you did earn 0.00028594 BTC mining on NastyPoP last week. NastyPoP miners split the earnings of 300 NastyFans seats as a bonus in addition to mined coins. That amount is currently not terribly exciting, but this does highlight the fact that NastyPoP miners will earn BTC even if p2pool doesn't find any blocks.

You're absolutely right about the earnings.  When I saw the transaction notification I thought it might have been some faucet payout and didn't even think it would be from NastyPoP seat donations.  I'll amend the numbers to reflect the payout.

jonnybravo0311, just wanted to say thanks for maintaining this long running comparison. Great job.  ;D

+1

I think this thread has done as much to bring awareness to NastyPool as anything.  He also highlighted a few shortcomings with NastyPool that have been and are continuing to be addressed.  I thank jonnybravo0311 for these things as well.

trendax and OgNasty, it's my pleasure.  I'm a big proponent of p2pool mining.  I've been running my own node for over a year, and have spent many hours helping others in the p2pool threads.  OgNasty and nonnakip are the only ones who have actually stepped up and done something to address the shortcomings experienced in your typical p2pool setup.  Small miners now have a chance to contribute to the decentralized nature of p2pool without suffering the terrible variance mining on a standard node provides.

And with that, let's take a look at the numbers from this past week:

4/17 - 4/24
NastyPoP - 0.05554895BTC
NastyP2P - 0.05281205BTC
Expected - 0.0321BTC
Luck - 165.47%

P2Pool was considerably luckier this week than it was the week prior and both my S3s performed better than expected.  The edge went to NastyPoP this week, but just barely.  Again, you can see the inherent variance in standard p2pool mining as my block payouts ranged from 0.01BTC down to 0.001BTC, since my S3 decided to go on a share finding strike :).

OP updated

That's what I like to see!

Another week and p2pool's luck was not so good at just under 60%.  Only 3 blocks were found and as a result both NastyPoP and NastyP2P were below expected values.  Here are the numbers:

4/24 - 5/1
NastyPoP - 0.02111442BTC
NastyP2P - 0.02415729BTC
Expected - 0.0325BTC
Luck - 59.99%

OP updated

Well, p2pool did much better this week with seven day luck of 127.84%.  Also, in the closest race since I've been doing this, p2pool found a block at almost exactly 19:00 UTC.  Looks like it will be included in next week's payout run as it just missed the cutoff by a few seconds.  Because I didn't get to this post until after that block was found, it's influence in the luck is already there... so this week's and next week's luck values might be a bit off because of it.  Like I wrote... it was seconds after the 19:00 cutoff that the block was found.  Both miners beat expected earnings.  NastyPoP was only 101.35%, whereas NastyP2P was 167.63%.

At any rate, here are this week's numbers:

5/1 - 5/8
NastyPoP - 0.03294026BTC
NastyP2P - 0.05447989BTC
Expected - 0.0325BTC
Luck - 127.84%

OP updated

Last week p2pool found a block seconds after the payout from NastyPoP and I stated then that it would impact this week's luck numbers because I didn't catch the value before that block was found.  This week, the 7 day luck looks to be 84.97%, so if we average out the two numbers, we get 106.41%.

In terms of the miners, my S3 on the standard NastyP2P payout went on strike apparently, finding very few shares, and hence the payouts were lower than expected.  As usual, the miner on NastyPoP was much less variant.  Here are the numbers for the week:

5/8 - 5/15
NastyPoP - 0.03472755BTC
NastyP2P - 0.02216391BTC
Expected - 0.0325BTC
Luck - 84.97%

OP updated

Well, it appears the forums are finally back up after the ordeal of the past few days.  Thankfully I recorded the numbers on Friday :).  In other news, my S3 on NastyPoP began misbehaving this weekend.  After nearly a year of operation at a rock steady 440GH/s, it now shows a couple chips with either "x" or "-", resulting in a hash rate of no higher than 400GH/s sustained.  I'm not too happy about it, but since it has long since paid for itself, it is what it is.  It is a batch 1 S3, and as we all know electronics don't last forever.

In an attempt to salvage things, I'm going to down clock both S3s from the standard 218.75 step by step until I find something stable.

So... how about the numbers from the week?  Well, p2pool had the luckiest week we've had since the test started at 182.64% of expectations.  We also see here the drastic effect variance can have on the standard p2pool miner.  With my S3 on the NastyP2P payout, I saw an unfortunately high number of orphaned shares, which resulted in abysmal earnings.  Orphans happen - it's a fact of life mining on p2pool.  This is where mining in the collective NastyPoP benefits you.  Your orphaned share has a far smaller impact on the whole than it does if you're on your own.  The numbers clearly show this, insofar as even with the great pool luck, my S3 mining on NastyP2P didn't even meet expected numbers for the week.

Here are the results:

5/15 - 5/22
NastyPoP - 0.05258228BTC
NastyP2P - 0.03171723BTC
Expected - 0.032BTC
Luck - 182.64%

OP updated

Been a good couple of weeks for P2Pool/NastyPoP miners.  ;D

I've just gotten back from a much needed vacation where I had virtually zero access to anything online.  Unfortunately, I didn't capture the luck values, but here are the numbers for the past two weeks:

5/22 - 5/29
NastyPoP - 0.04249927BTC
NastyP2P - 0.03263267BTC
Expected - 0.0307BTC

5/29 - 6/5
NastyPoP - 0.03711295BTC
NastyP2P - 0.03414086BTC
Expected - 0.0312BTC

Both NastyPoP and NastyP2P beat expectations over the past two weeks, and the NastyPoP payout method has now beaten the standard p2pool payouts for the past four weeks.

OP updated.

Another week gone by.  P2Pool had another good week, and both of the S3s beat expectations.  NastyPoP couldn't pull off a fifth week in a row beating standard payouts, but it was close.  Here are the numbers:

NastyPoP - 0.04351160BTC
NastyP2P - 0.04518917BTC
Expected - 0.03144BTC
Luck - 122.76%

OP updated

Just another weekly update... p2pool's good luck streak came crashing to a halt these past 7 days.  Oh, and retrocalc.net needs some loving... the calculations are nowhere near correct (noticed it last week, and it's still going on).  The standard p2pool payout beat NastyPoP, but neither of them met the expected earnings:

NastyPoP - 0.01964088BTC
NastyP2P - 0.02788807BTC
Expected - 0.030107BTC
Luck - 65.12%

OP updated

Oops... I guess I forgot to update the thread last week.  I captured the numbers, but never posted.  So, this week I'll give the numbers from both last week and this.  P2Pool had a run of bad luck these past few weeks, which offset the previous few weeks of good luck.  As such, the numbers reflect the luck.

On another side note: if you haven't already done so, and you run your own p2pool node, update it to the latest version.  See the posts in the official p2pool thread upgrade announcement (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=18313.msg11723989#msg11723989).

So, here are the numbers for the past couple weeks:

6/19 - 6/26
NastyPoP - 0.02159208BTC
NastyP2P - 0.0193531BTC
Expected - 0.030107BTC
Luck - 60.76%

6/26 - 7/3
NastyPoP - 0.02828584BTC
NastyP2P - 0.01623161BTC
Expected - 0.030263BTC
Luck - 81.3%

OP updated

And another week of poor luck has passed us by.  A lot of things happened recently... adoption of BIP66, p2pool upgrade to 14.x, "stress tests", and so on.  I'm not trying to insinuate these things caused the bad luck, but we've certainly had a number of things thrown at us all at once.  At least the blocks that p2pool did mine this week contained transactions, unlike our friends over in China who have the vast majority of the BTC network's hash rate.  Tens of thousands of transactions waiting to confirm, and they're sill pumping out empty blocks.

Here are the numbers:

7/3 - 7/10
NastyPoP - 0.02039533BTC
NastyP2P - 0.02521461BTC
Expected - 0.030289BTC
Luck - 71.40%

OP updated.

Apparently I've been slacking :)... 3 weeks behind.  Sheesh.  Overall, p2pool is on the upward side of a good luck swing.  The week ending 7/17 was a bad week at only 72% luck, but the last 2 weeks p2pool made up for it.  This week shows p2pool at over 130% luck and the past 30 days, p2pool is over 105%.  In the past couple of weeks, with the good luck, NastyPoP has beaten standard p2pool payouts.  Even with luck over 130% this week, standard payouts didn't even meet expected earnings.  Here are the numbers for the past three weeks:

7/10 - 7/17
NastyPoP - 0.02054230BTC
NastyP2P - 0.02884854BTC
Expected - 0.03493028BTC
Luck - 71.40%

7/17 - 7/24
NastyPoP - 0.04771791BTC
NastyP2P - 0.04040042BTC
Expected - 0.03465856BTC
Luck - 162.79%

7/24 - 7/31
NastyPoP: 0.04298881BTC
NastyP2P: 0.03145364BTC
Expected: 0.03401418BTC
Luck - 134.83%

OP updated.

It is cool to see the updates.  Thanks for keeping this going so long!  Any chance for a pretty chart to look at?  Have you thought about expanding this to include some other pools as well?

I suppose I could make some pretty charts/graphs/whatever... or I could just supply the data and let those who are far more inclined at such tasks take it and run.  As for including other pools, I had considered it.  However, I've not decided which pools I'd compare.  There was a thread on here last year where somebody was comparing p2pool to Eligius and GHash.io (I think), but that thread ran its course and I'm not sure if the author is even still mining - all of his data was based on S1s on those pools.  There's another guy who's doing his own comparison of different pools here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1059040.0.  I'd love to give him my data points so he could include the results of NastyPoP and standard p2pool in his comparisons, but he hasn't really seemed too interested in it.

Are there any pools in particular you'd like to see added?  I'd prefer to stay away from the big ones (AntPool, Discus Fish) because I don't believe in adding any more hashing power (albeit rather minuscule in comparison to their totals) to the two largest pools - both of which use software that has caused a forked chain when BIP66 went into effect and mine empty blocks, even with thousands of transactions waiting to be confirmed.

I don't have any particular pools in mind.  I thought you have been doing this so long, a chart and some other pools might take it to the next level.  I'm great at giving other people suggestions with stuff to do.  :)

So... here's the chart of the current data set (from 12/26 - 7/31):

https://i.imgur.com/OKh3D5P.png

I've updated the OP to include it as well.  Also, I have some errors in my data on the OP... math errors mostly because I'm an idiot and did everything by hand previously, but have now dumped it all into an Excel spreadsheet :).  I'll fix the OP eventually, but as of now, here's the correct data:

https://i.imgur.com/uJWfdTk.png

Here's the spreadsheet if anyone wants it:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vv7r7ejq2pquynl/pop_vs_p2p.xlsx?dl=0

That is awesome.  Thanks for doing that!

If I were to make a suggestion...  You could have the data listed as a running total on the graph so that you can see the end result over time.

Something akin to this?

https://i.imgur.com/HyuQI0o.png

Exactly like that.   ;D

Well... a lousy week for p2pool - only finding 2 blocks and having 55.38% luck overall.  Neither of my miners made anywhere near expected payouts as a result.  NastyPoP did manage to do better than standard p2pool, though.  Here are the numbers:

7/31 - 8/7
NastyPoP: 0.01487946BTC
NastyP2P: 0.01145337BTC
Expected: 0.02962897BTC
Luck - 55.38%

OP updated.

P2Pool's luck certainly turned around this past week.  Both NastyPoP and NastyP2P beat expectations by quite a bit.  NastyPoP would have done better, but it appeared that the nodes were down last weekend.  My miner failed over to a backup pool.  I'm not sure why the pool was down (both OgNasty's and TheAnalogKid's NastyPoP nodes were offline), but the result is that the payout was less than it should have been given the number of blocks p2pool found.

8/7 - 8/14
NastyPoP: 0.03914884BTC
NastyP2P: 0.07990332BTC
Expected: 0.02941349BTC
Luck - 241.06%

OP updated.

DNS issues with the domain provider took the nodes offline.

It only affected the NastyPoP nodes for the vast majority of the few days.  The NastyP2P nodes were only down for a few hours.

Another good week for p2pool, and as a result, p2pool standard payouts have exceeded expectations over the length of the test.  This week's results put my standard p2pool earnings at 101.08% of expected from 12/26 until 8/21.  NastyPoP isn't too far behind, but it is behind nonetheless.  It's overall results show I have received 94.81% of expected earnings.

Here are the numbers:

8/14 - 8/21
NastyPoP: 0.03640067BTC
NastyP2P: 0.04331323BTC
Expected: 0.02939197BTC
Luck - 138.27%

OP updated.

any insights or particular reason why the regular p2p is more than pop & both of them are p2p ?

NastyPoP is a ckpool front end running on top of the core P2Pool.  It proxies all PoP miners as one address to P2Pool, and then it keeps track of shares and pays out weekly.   It aims to be a more even distribution method to smooth out the variance spikes as well as make sure smaller miners receive proper payouts when they may otherwise not land a share in the current block payout. 

Over a long term the numbers should converge and in reality the expectation is that PoP should come out ahead in the long run.

When the normal P2Pool has a good week it ends up higher, when its luck is down PoP ends up higher.  The long term numbers from Johnny however, I don't know why it's still a little off.

It's been a few weeks since I've updated this post.  Unfortunately work has kept me too busy to keep up here.  P2Pool had a couple unlucky weeks and a lucky week.  Network difficulty has continued to increase, and new hardware has been introduced, making my S3s that much closer to being obsolete.  Quite honestly, I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to keep them plugged in and mining.  The new S7 certainly looks to be an interesting piece of hardware, bringing levels of efficiency never seen before in a 28nm process ASIC.  However, its price point is a bitter pill to swallow.

Anyway, let's take a look at the numbers for the past few weeks:

8/21 - 8/28
NastyPoP: 0.01170063BTC
NastyP2P: 0.02753223BTC
Expected: 0.02857788BTC
Luck - 54.07%

8/28 - 9/4
NastyPoP: 0.0455039BTC
NastyP2P: 0.04888988BTC
Expected: 0.02846873BTC
Luck - 180.68%

9/4 - 9/11
NastyPoP: 0.01466154BTC
NastyP2P: 0.00815205BTC
Expected: 0.02719480BTC
Luck - 63.24%

OP Updated

Yeah, I'm behind.  The real world has kept me busy and this is really the first time I've sat down to do the data.  The data is below; however, unlike in previous updates I'm not going to update the OP with the details.  I'll just leave it up to the graphs and raw data from the spreadsheet to provide the updates in the OP.  Eventually I'm not going to be able to add any more text to the first post anyway, so I might as well just start condensing it now.

In the past 6 weeks, things have been up and down for p2pool.  The luck stats would seem to indicate that as well.  Weeks of 9/18, 9/25, and 10/9 were below average expected luck, while the weeks of 10/2, 10/16 and 10/23 were above average.  As for my miners, they've tended to mirror that trend as well.  However, of note is that my miner on the NastyPoP payout has pretty much consistently (only 1 week in 6 that it didn't) beaten the standard p2pool payout.

9/11 - 9/18
NastyPoP: 0.01749809BTC
NastyP2P: 0.01594801BTC
Expected: 0.02704454BTC
Luck - 64.05%

9/18 - 9/25
NastyPoP: 0.02153287BTC
NastyP2P: 0.0122369BTC
Expected: 0.02610505BTC
Luck - 97%

9/25 - 10/2
NastyPoP: 0.04509658BTC
NastyP2P: 0.04937384BTC
Expected: 0.02598755BTC
Luck - 197.69%

10/2 - 10/9
NastyPoP: 0.01134903BTC
NastyP2P: 0.00951317BTC
Expected: 0.02547065BTC
Luck - 57.71%

10/9 - 10/16
NastyPoP: 0.02790957BTC
NastyP2P: 0.02483293BTC
Expected: 0.02546511BTC
Luck - 133.15%

10/16 - 10/23
NastyPoP: 0.03667461BTC
NastyP2P: 0.02703798BTC
Expected: 0.02544111BTC
Luck - 185.08%

OP updated with latest numbers

2 weeks worth of data this time because last week wasn't worth the effort to post as p2pool found no blocks whatsoever.  However, even though there were no blocks found last week, I still received a payout from NastyPoP because of the seat donations that are incorporated into the weekly payouts.  Numbers are below:

10/23 - 10/30
NastyPoP: 0.00647901BTC
NastyP2P: 0BTC
Expected: 0.02531252BTC
Luck - 0%

10/30 - 11/6
NastyPoP: 0.02516974BTC
NastyP2P: 0.02863589BTC
Expected: 0.02488117BTC
Luck - 99.8%

OP updated

I've re-pointed all my miners now to the US node with the original EU node as failover, works well.
I start by saying thank you to jonnybravo0311. You are doing excellent work testing.

Well... I've been running this test for over a year.  Friday (Yep, Christmas) will mark the full year for both miners on OgNasty's nodes.  Looking back through the data, one can clearly see some pretty wild swings in the variance.  Overall?  Not too bad, even with some pretty awful luck streaks.  Unless there's a Christmas miracle this week, standard p2pool payouts will have proven the most profitable by a slim margin.  The OP is updated with the totals and the raw data has been uploaded as well.