I think it's great that you raised the question, and I think it might lead to change in the system.  However, like I said before, I think wk made the right move in not announcing the situation.  I feel that a lot of people in BTC are in it to make a quick buck, and if they have the opportunity to get a significant amount of extra BTC for free I think most of them will take it.

Obviously, we shouldn't inherently trust all pool operators, but that's why there are multiple pools.  We all look for a pool we like and we hope we can trust them, it's not a perfect system.

You posted this reply while I was posting my last one, but I think I kind of hit on what I think happened.  To make it more clear for others, though, this has less to do with shelved shares and more to do with the payment queue.

0.  Block #277343 is found.
1.  First payment goes out.
2.  System crashes before payment queue gets updated.  (the system probably waits from a confirmation or two before updating the queue to ensure payment happened).
3.  wk goes to the data center and fixes the problem.
4.  Block #277361 is found.
5.  wk initiates a manual payment according to the (now out of date) payment queue.

This means that the people 25 BTC down in the queue from the first payment didn't receive their BTC when expected.  They didn't lose any BTC, but they had to wait an additional block before they received their payment.

I believe that the section of code that he posted yesterday is intended to prevent this type of mistake in the future, because it won't let payments be made from fail-safe mode.  This will allow the queue to get updated accordingly before a payment is sent.

He didn't pay out of pocket, he accidentally used the reward from the block that was found while he was fixing the system.  As a result, people who received a double payment had a negative balance set (it read as 0.00000000 BTC on stats).  This balance was "worked off" by the miners continuing to use the pool.  So, if you got a double payment, and you didn't do anything to your miners… they likely already payed off your double payment.

@seriouscoin

hahahahaha I must be tired, I see that you're asking how the shelving system was circumvented.  I don't believe it was, since the double payment that went out was merely a manual payment of what the system already had in the queue.  Since the system was in fail-safe mode and wk didn't check to see if a payment was made, his manual payment simply payed off what had been in the queue.

I see how having knowledge of how many shares you had in each block could be beneficial to miners, but I don't think it would have fixed this problem.  

A mistake was made, and I think that wks way of solving it was probably the best way to go about fixing it.  If he had made an announcement, it's likely that the pool would be at a -25 BTC deficit, because most of the people who got a double payment would have switched pools or changed their payout address to get around "working off" the double payment they received.

Ok, we'll try it like this…

25 BTC came from block #277361
25 BTC came from block #277343

That's where the BTC for the double payment came from.

If you read wk's post from last night he clearly explains that the BTC for the double-payment came from block #277361 that was found just as he was taking the system out of fail-safe.  The original payment was meant to come out of the BTC mined from block #277343, which was found just before the system went into fail-safe mode.

Hope this clears it up for you, if not, please re-read the entirety of wk's post from last night where he explains the situation.

Fuse, Any update on your invoice?

Thanks for the quick reply!  I'll point my miners back at Eligius.  I know my .2 BTC that I'm working off is hardly what you're worried about, but every little bit helps. 

Yeah, I checked everything (WHOIS) out, but for such a trivial amount of BTC I wasn't terribly worried.  I'm still going to give them time before I go calling anyone a scammer or anything like that. 

Guess I'll move my miners over to Bitminter until this is sorted out.  Hope I didn't lose 1/4 of a day here.  

Check out /r/Litecoin They are having a contest right now to win a free Litecoin neon sign.  Looks like you need to design a LTC bill/coin and give a brief story as to how you came to your design and what the design means.

http://t.co/CryC5PFjrW

I have two payments that are basically the same with-in two hours of each other.  My "Estimated Change" has been the same for at least 8 hours.



P.S.  Ignore the drop in my hash rate, I just rebooted some of my miners.  

Same here.  It looks like I got a double payment though (I was in the queue when the pool died last night).  So I'm guessing that maybe the system is "catching up" to get me back in line where I should be?

That's a fair question.  They might not have ever been, but it says they are "Sold Out!" on the website.  

$325 seems like a bit much for a nightlight. 

Any idea when the LTC signs might be in stock again?

If I had to guess, it's because he's using Amazon.com, which won't ship to Europe. 

Excellent work, Cryptocables!

I only wish I had a store or man cave to put this in!!

Unless you count DOTT, which is probably one of my all-time favorites.

So, now my backup pool is down.  Kinda crazy.

Where'd everyone go?

Any word on that?  Thanks!