Of course it doesn't.  Just geometrically. 

Only an idiot would think 10,000 BTC will buy the entire planet in 2018. 

It likely will only buy this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qD3GMwg4qZo#!

If that were the case there wouldn't be much reason for a pool would there.

The point of a pool is so that you get paid when you don't find a block (but someone else in the pool does).

Why would the developers of the "another game" want that?

Still Bitcoin is equally good as a game currency and has the advantage of not being a dead currency.

Good explanation I would also add that the rise of FPGA, sASIC and ASICS will mean more hashing power per watt and lower the electrical consumption per tx.  So hypothetically someday the network could have an electrical consumption 1/10th compared to today despite higher hashing power.  If tx volume was also 100x higher then combined effect (less consumption and more tx) would put the electrical cost per tx below 1 cent.

3 phase is likely of no use for you.  The reason for 3 phase is to reduce wiring in datacenters.  Datacenters are "big" so they gots lots of long wiring runs.  So they run 1 3phase circuit to a rack an then split it out as 3x 1 phase 208V circuits.  They can power more gear from a single wiring run.    The issue is the gear to split out 3phase into 3 separate single phase circuits tends to be expensive and you don't really have to make any massive wiring runs for the gear will cost way more than you will save in wiring.  There are other advantages but they aren't really applicable.

Simple version is 3phase or not it will need to be converted to single phase before you plug it into your power supply.

The good news is that is a premises is wired for 3 phase in the US it almost certainly have a subpanel (and likely outlets) wired for 208V single phase (they take one leg of the 3 phase circuit and create a 208V circuit).  In the US if the premises isn't wired for 3phase then it is 120V/240V split phase (same as any residence or office).

So either way you will have power available @ 208V Single Phase and/or 240V "Single" Phase (technically it is split phase but nobody calls it by its correct name).

The main reason for using higher voltage (208V or 240V) is:
a) reduce the # of circuits needed
b) power more devices for the same amperage.
c) reduce power losses in wiring due to heat (power loss is based on current not voltage which is why transmission lines are thousands of volts)
d) improve efficiency of power supplies (ATX power supplies run ~2% to 4% more efficient at 240V)

Using a couple of high amperage 208V/240V outlets you can greatly simplify your wiring.

For example using a PDU like this you can power ~5 KW worth of rigs from a single (NEMA L6-30R) outlet.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/APC-Basic-Rack-Mount-PDU-1U-AP9571-208VAC-30A-IEC-320-12-C13-NEMA-L6-30P-/110850452157?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19cf33aabd#ht_2994wt_1185

It has 12 outlets so you won't be running out as you will hit 5KW capacity limit first.



30A, derated to 24A (code compliance).
24A @ 240V = 5.76 KW
24A @ 208V =4.992 KW
APC made something like half a quadrillion of these over the years so finding them on ebay is easy.

Your entire farm could be powered by 5 outlets and 5 PDUs.  

I did a little research before rewiring my garage (did it myself, it isn't that hard if you can handle electrical work) and nothing IMHO beats these AP9571s.  30A circuit is going to power 50% more rigs than a 20A circuit so these PDU are more economical than 20A ones.  You may think well lets just go 50A.  I like your style but 50A connectors, plugs, receptables, cables, breakers, wiring, etc tend to be very expensive.  208V/240V @ 30A is the best bang for the buck.

I can't help you on the cooling though.

What 42%?
http://blockchain.info/pools?timespan=4days

No it isn't.  The point is nobody could buy all the gold or all the corn or all the bitcoins.  They would all be equally stupid attempts.

You can't acquire "all" of any commodity not without forced gobal "sales" using military force and the threat of physical violence/death.  Even if I were to liquidate 99.99% of my bitcoins I would still hang on to a few so the buyer wouldn't get all of them.

What is someone bought all the gold? or oil? or electricity? or corn?

I don't need write access but a summary of # of units & SH/s for shipped (same as you have for ordered) would be useful.
Also since we can't change the sort without edit access having the default sort to date ordered would be the best.

Interesting. Or possibly just a signed fee manifest at the URI.   Client detects new block, checks coinbase for tx fee data and uses uri to grab fee manifest.  Client updates its database.

Alternatively if blocks are signed (which is useful in other applications) with pubkeyhash a miner could simply transmit an updated fee manifest (via a new message type) to the network as needed.  each node would check to validate manifest and relay only if valid.  some sort of spam rule would be needed to avoid a DOS.    Still the combination of node being able to sign the block (proof of hashing power) and publish a fee manifest gives clients the ability to compute time vs fee effectively.

Anyways this is why it is useful to start the discussion.

In theory yes and someday that may be true.  Today essentially all miners include 100% of tx in the next block (as long as they are not unpaid spam) even with no fee.  So fee (beyond any anti-spam fee required) doesn't really increase speed.

Over time (as block subsidies decline) bitcoin will move to more of a pay per performance kind of model.  I have started requiring fees for tx I process and hope other miners do the same.  

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=73941.0

Realistically though since he amount of fee is irrelevant for 99% of hashing power it likely will be a while before fees (or lack of fees) have any meaningful effect on confirmation times.

I do think something like that will be needed in time so the client can make informed decisions on confirmation time vs cost.

It might be a little early adding that to the protocol but given fees can be dynamic that information will need to be shared and the network already has the infrastructure for relaying information in a p2p fashion.  The one thing I am not sure about is that for the info to be useful you would want proof of hashing power.  It doesn't matter what % of nodes say they require a fee of 0.0025 what matters is what % of the hashing power does. 

My first thought is that the protocol could be modified so that the fee data is added to block (coinbase?).  That way the client can look at the last x blocks and get an estimate of  the fees the network is requiring.  That combined with the number of pending tx and their included fees would allow the client to make educated guesses on confirmation times.

Still we likely are years away from needing such a protocol enhancement but it is good to start thinking about it.

ragnard there are lite clients and there are ways to prune the blockchain of dead end transactions.  Still saying don't worry about the size of the block worry about the blockchain is kinda silly.  The blockchain is the sum of all the blocks.  Larger blocks = larger blockchain.  On a large enough timeline most users won't use the blockchain.  Miners, merchants, banks, wallet services will form the blockchain network with a variety of light and indirect clients/wallets.

The length of time can be customized.  I have never had a failed rig not power cycle when holding down power button although I guess it can happen.

Not sure what you are asking about solid state relays.  They tend to be even more expensive but aren't necessary for this application.

For direct power switching the additional cost comes from the requires of switching 15A @ 120V/240V vs <1A @ 5V.
a) receptacles & housing
b) higher gauge wire
c) higher current relays

So we are looking at more like $200 per unit.  Seems like a lot more cost and complexity for not much gain.

Yeah on second thought I agree with Giga & Epoch.  It seemed "cool" (plug in ethernet and power and it just starts hashing) but having an independent host means if host dies you don't need to RMA you $15K investment.  You also have more control over the OS, monitoring, miner software, etc.

Still I would imagine on a long enough timeline hashing will become essentially an commodity appliance that you never open, upgrade, or modify.   In time it will just be a rackmount box which you connect power and ethernet and then login to a webpage to set a couple configs and it just hashes away until it dies or becomes uneconomical.

I got a PM asking about a smaller board.  Really smaller boards don't save much cost but if there is enough interest I could do a 4 port version for <=$75 (exact price will depend on bulk purchasing).

Nothing as long as you are running on 240V and all your rigs combined used less than 2.4KW.
There is also nothing wrong with the PDU that giga linked to.  Switched PDUs rock.  I was so glad in my last job when our company stopped being cheap and upgraded to switched PDUs.  Click-click reboot crashed server.  Their only downside is the cost per watt is pretty high as they tend to be designed for dense racks, so they have more ports and less wattage than we need.

If I could find a switched PDU that had:
* 30A input (24A usable) @ 240V
* NEMA L6-30P plug
* At least 6 C14 plugs
* <$200
I wouldn't have even started this thread. I would have bought it last year.  The only problem is .... it doesn't exist.


I guess one way to look at it would be a new spec:  "$ per KW switched".

The PDU giga linked to:  20@ at 240V = 4.8KW.  $450 / 4.8KW = $93.75 per KW
The PDU you linked to:  10@ @ 240V = 2.4KW. $130 / 2.4KW = $54.15 per KW
The best used PDU I have found on ebay:  30@ 240V = 7.2KW.  $600 / 7.2 KW = $83.33 per KW

USB board efficiency would depend on how many rigs and how much wattage:
USB relay board powering 6 1000W rigs.  6*1000 = 6.0KW.  $100 / 6.0KW = $16.67 per KW
USB relay board powering 8 1200W rigs.  8*1200 = 9.6KW.  $100 / 9.6KW =  $10.41 per KW
Mini USB relay board powering 4 1000W rigs.  4*1000 = 4.0KW.  $75 / 4.0KW = $18.75 per KW

Did you record a before and after wattage?

I agree that is some extreme underclocking and undervolting.

No.  The blockchain is the transaction log.

A way to think of it is you don't have any coins.  The coins are in the blockchain.  Every single coin ever mined and every coin that will be mined is in the blockchain.  The block chain is a consensus on where the coins are currently located.

It is like a digital version of the giant rai stones.


The stones were used for currency but they were never moved.  The consensus of villagers determined who owned it.  When one entered a transaction involving the stone everyone was notified and the consensus was updated.  Bitcoin works the same way.

You use private keys to move coins.
Private key = proof of ownership
Private key = ability to sign a tx and move a coin to a new address (spending coins is just moving coins from buyer to seller)
No private key = no move, coins lost "forever".

There are methods of regenerating private keys.  The term is a "deterministic wallet".  With the secret seed you can recreate the entire wallet because the keys and their sequence is always the same from the same "seed".  No need to backup anything but the secret and backup could mean recording it offline like on a sheet of paper.  The default client (also called the satoshi client) is not determistic.  You will need to routinely backup your wallet as it contains your private keys.  The wallet.dat contains other "stuff" which improves efficiency of the client but the private keys are what is important.  Everything else can be regenerated if you have the private keys and access to the blockchain.

Thanks for the binaries.

I had a problem when copying existing blockchain & wallet (which is empty) from RC2 version.  Yeah stupidly I didn't write down the error.  I cleared the data directory and bitcoind worked fine from a coldstart (created new wallet and downloaded entire blockcahin).

The modified bitcoind has been powering my p2pool instance for 10 hours now and p2pool hasn't reported any errors and I see no change in sharechain deads, rejects, or orphans. 

I adjusted fee to 0.01 BTC, to zero, and to 1 satoshi.  For all values getmininginfo showed set minfee properly and getmemorypool returned the correct transactions (decoding them to verify was "fun" ).  

For anyone interested I will post some screenshots this evening and provide an update.  Given I only have 15GH/s it likely will take a while before I see a block from the custom memorypool but p2pool doesn't have a problem with the memorypool returned.

Thanks for your help Luke.  I have some ideas to build upon this in the future that may alleviate some of the (unecessary IMHO) concern.

One related question.  Is it possible to have bitcoind create a tx but not broadcast it?  If so is it then part of the memorypool?  If not could bitcoind be modified to make it part of the memorypool?  Essentially I want the ability to include a tx in a block that hasn't been broadcasted (coin melting).