Bitcoin Forum

I'm currently looking for a pool to mine on (currently I'm using the EU-pool from eligius). My hash rate is ~300M.

So I was wondering if it makes any difference, whether I mine on a large pool (discovery of new blocks every 2-5 hours) or if I mine on a small pool.

From what I understand: if mining on a large pool, I will receive (or at least promised to receive) BTC more frequently.

Are there any other differences/advantages/disadvantages of mining on a small or large pool?

You will receive smaller payments more frequently in a large pool.

You will receive larger payments less frequently in a small pool.

There is slightly less variance in a large pool.

In the long run it should all be the same though.

Honestly, theoretically, size of the pool has no bearing on what you get in the long run, it should even out.  Pools with more people/power will find BTC more often, but have to split it amongst more people whereas smaller pools won't find BTC as often, but they payout when you do find them is larger.

Say, say for example you joined a pool with your 300 MH/sec that was 3 GH/sec with 10 people all putting in 300 MH/sec (yes, I know it's simplistic, but it's easier to explain it that way.)  When the pool finds a block, all 10 of you split it and you'll get 5 BTC.

Now say you join a pool that has 20 people at 300 MH/sec, so you're processing at 6 GH/sec total.  You'll likely find coins with your pool twice as fast as the original pool, but you'll get half as many coins each go around.

So, simply put, in the long run, it should even out regardless of the size of the pool.  So the key is to check out all the pools and see which ones you like based on fees and 'services' they offer (things like Longpolling, etc), rather than on the size/power of the pool.

Size of the pool certainly has an effect on your mining.

In a very large pool, deepbit for example. every time you receive an LP notification, you run the risk on submitting a share that same second. I've seen multiple times, my miners submitting shares the same second (or 1 sec before or after) as an LP announce. That results in a rejected share and a higher stale rate.

A good medium sized pool reduces the chance of this (500-1000Gh/s).

These are just my personal findings, please do flame me if I'm wrong :)

Hmm, I hadn't thought of that, that is certainly a valid point.

You get a notification every someone in the total Bitcoin network solves a block, so you'll get the same number of notifications no matter what the size of the pool is.

OK I get the theory. But consider this (and correct me if I'm wrong).

- A lot of different independet people (or pools) are trying to generate blocks
- blocks are chained together
- the longest block chain is the valid one

consider the scenario:

I'm on my own. I generate a block. Now another block is created by someone else. Doesn't that make my block usesless as I have to add my block to the just generated block?

If so: the longer it takes to create a block (i.e. the smaller the pool is), the more likely it is that I do a lot of useless work I do an the lesser profit I get.

I most certainly missing something, but in my head this example makes sense.

Not quite. Each block relies on inputs from the previous block.

That way you can't 'work ahead', so to speak. As soon as someone else finds a block, the whole network learns, and starts over on a brand new block.

On the off chance two blocks are found simultaneously, two block chains are started. Next block will make one block chain longer, and thus winning.

OK so regarding this example, wouldn't working on a larger pool make more sense as the chances are higher that another block is discovered during the calculations?

What he said.


It all comes down to luck and personal preference.

But it doesn't really matter, because as soon as they do find another block, everyone learns about it.

You will get paid more often in a larger pool, because they should find blocks faster. But each payout will be less because you will be contributing less to their effort.

Make sense?

Deepbit may actually have a slight advantage if a block is solved by both Deepbit and a small pool at almost the same time. There is a fairly large chance that Deepbit will solve the next block as well, and if it does it will probably include the block solved by itself and not the one from the small pool in the chain, because that is the one it knew of first. The fact that Deepbit hardly ever gets invalid blocks may be evidence of this.

Solo mining beats all pools in long run. Period.

If you have enough to compete with the difficulty.