Bitcoin Forum

I had an idea to point a few Antminer S3's to different pools and keep track of the daily payouts, to help people determine which pool has the best payouts (I know there are a bunch of statistics and what not, but this will consist of actual payouts based on an S3 being pointed at each pool.  I have had them going for about 2 days now to 3 different pools, and will do my best to update this thread daily for the most accurate assessment.


https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fmCAYWcmkYmgzA4HFt2Pm8u3zb-oOvNF7qTZLYcRKcc/edit?usp=sharing (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fmCAYWcmkYmgzA4HFt2Pm8u3zb-oOvNF7qTZLYcRKcc/edit?usp=sharing)

Please note, all S3's are at stock rate and mine at 450 GH/s so there are no inconsistencies.  I will get on each day (hopefully) and update with the previous day's payout.  Each pool is set to payout daily, so there should be an update everyday.  I will do my best to keep this list going for as long as I can.

Please let me know if there are any improvements or suggestions to my methods of going about this.  Any and all feedback is welcomed and encouraged.

The main reason I started this thread was because it is so hard to pick a pool and know which ones are the best.  There are pages upon pages of people claiming to be cheated by Ghash, or have higher payouts from A or B pool, but I haven't really noticed a difference from what I thought I should be making at Ghash and what they were paying out to me, so I decided to undertake this venture with actual numbers and miners, not just theory, to determine which top pools currently pay the best.

I would also eventually like to expand if this gets enough interest in the future and possibly add comparisons such as other top pools and places like Westhash, to see if they actually end up making more by using that service, but I wanted to see if this would gain traction first.

Thanks Everyone,

DebitMe

Cool, thanks for doing this. I'll definitely be keeping on eye on your results!

Be aware that the comparison is meaningless without either or both of:
1) Removing expected variance on PPLNS
2) Using a large sample of blocks - not time - for each PPLNS pool (a few hundred at least)

Otherwise your results are quite literally similar to saying:
I rolled a dice 4 times and got 2 sixes!
Yes I should get sixes half the time.

I agree with the sentiment, the records will only be recording random variance rather than anything controllable or useful from the pools. I'm unsure of what additional information could be added over the pool comparison thread but maybe there is some.

You should try bitaffnet.

Yes, I think while proofreading that first post I meant to put something about variance, and how that can play largely with the numbers, but forgot to eventually add it in there.  Anyway, yes, variance will greatly skew the numbers currently.  As time goes on, they will become more and more accurate in relation to which pool is actually paying more.

Please note though, I am an accountant and not a statistician, so please forgive me if some of the concepts around stats escapes me.  I just thought it would be a nice idea to put out raw numbers about the pools that I have used/currently use and see where things lie in the future.

EDIT:  Given enough time, it should paint a pretty accurate picture of the different pools payouts, and highlight any discrepancies.

Because we're only talking about a handful of blocks per day on some pools and with integer data (ie a pool expected to find 1.7 blocks a day), its going to take a long long time to reduce the variance such that there are meaningful outcomes from the data. Like, a long long time.

NastyPoP (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=306611.0)?

I agree and am not arguing at all.  It will be neat to see some actual numbers over a month though (again, I know there is high variance even in that time, but it may reveal start to reveal some discrepancies between pools), who knows?


I would be happy to point a miner there.  I currently have 3 S3's at my place, 2 at my parents, and 4 at a buddies.  I am going to bring one of the miners back to my place from my parents, but need the switches I have on order to come in first.  Maybe I can have my brother log in and point one there tonight, I will have to see, but will notify you when it is added.

I will try to add other pools that i like if requested, but no promises.  Limited resources for units and going to different places to configure and maintain gets to be a hassle if it gets to be too many pools.

Updated for 3/3/15, changed Ghash auto payout threshold to lower to hopefully smooth out their payouts.  Was set at .01, cut that in half now.

Nice status. Would love to turn my miners on but ratio to energy used to btc generated is now in the minus figures so  not worth my time in mining. Maybe if some nice sha coin comes along and dominates across being better pay than BTC then id turn on but right now shame I cant mine due to  costs. Would be nice to add to your documents on Google and compare with other pools mining on too

Yea. electricity is a bitch.  Whats your rate?  I am in KS and pay around 9 cents a kilowatt hour, so still profitable for a bit.

The big problem now is, I wasn't expecting it to be this nice now, looks like winter is finally breaking and my apartment is up to 80 degrees, having to open the back door and windows to cool it down a bit.  If it warms up to much I am going to have to figure something else out, since I mainly used these to heat my place, and I am already sweating.