Just FYI, Stratum wasn't developed with any collaboration.  It was just a coincidence that while Slush was making stratum, BTC Guild (with the help of ArtForz) was also working on ASIC-capable mining protocol changes.  The solution to fixing getwork's inefficiencies was very obvious, and in the end the two different protocols were virtually identical in function, just slightly different in syntax.  The BTC Guild protocol was marginally more efficient (10-30% depending on block size) due to lack of markup, but Slush's was more in-line with other Bitcoin API and protocols by using JSON.  It was wasteful, but it means new implementations of the protocol could use a JSON parsing library instead of writing their own parsers.

BTC Guild ended up supporting Stratum the same night since it only took a few hours to rewrite our new pool code (using the new protocol we had designed) to use Stratum, and Slush had a working stratum<->getwork proxy available already.  It would've taken me longer to write a [unnamed-protocol]<->getwork proxy than it did to just modify my input parser to use the stratum syntax.  Giving up some efficiency wasn't a huge tradeoff, considering both protocols used so little bandwidth that a 14.4k dial-up connection could keep up with it.


EDIT:  Actually, I do recall both of us were aware that the other was working on a solution to mining protocols.  IIRC, slush had been in contact with the poclbm developer, while I had been in contact with conman/ckolivas, the cgminer developer.

There is a 45 day period before the regulations would go into effect, and that doesn't begin until after they are finalized (which is after a 45+ day comment period and then a revision period).  If they come into effect and still have wording which is absolutely applicable to pools, then the pool will begin shutting down and cease to exist at the end of that 45 day grace period.


At this point, I don't believe what exists currently will pass, but that doesn't mean what does come out won't still be applicable to pools in some way which makes it too risky to continue operating.  The reason for that post is that under those circumstances, the 3-month closure period identified in the 2nd post of this thread and in the FAQ on the website will be reduced from 90 days to 45 days in order to cease operations prior to the regulation going into effect.

Your last 2 questions are directly answered in the first post (Stratum, variable difficulty).

The problem is it isn't worth the risk to be operating in the grey area of how it's interpreted.  Prosecutors will always have the upper hand on that one, especially when they have could throw enough prosecutors/lawyers with a combined annual salary higher than the gross income received from the pool in its lifetime.

I may be mistaken, but I'm fairly certain you can't simply take the average of CDFs to result in average luck.  If you want a number that is easier to compare with other pools (which report luck as earnings compared to expectation):  Average Difficulty / Shares Submitted.  That gives you the percentage expressed as a decimal (1.00 = 100%, 1.1 = 110%, 0.9 = 90%), and is how much was earned vs how much was expected in that period.  You should be including orphan+stale blocks in this figure.  Higher is better.

I don't recall stating it is closed at any time, but even if so, the exact same plan with modifications to fit the changes to the pool (like PPS no longer being a part of it at all) would be put into effect if it ever happened.  That's unlikely though, given the only way you're going to get 51% anymore is if your pool also houses it's own massive private mining farm.

I don't like that it currently implies New York (state) will be able to fine and prosecute businesses with no physical nexus in New York, if somebody from New York accesses them.  Since there is no way to guarantee that doesn't happen, it means it is unsafe to run anything Bitcoin related in the United States (other than as a merchant who accepts it), or possibly even in countries which are too friendly to the United States.

If that regulation passes, every pool with an owner/operator in the US will be forced to shut its doors.  Given the framing of these regulations, there is no way a pool can generate the revenue needed to comply with the requirements.  Better hope GHash isn't full of shit about their 40% promise, since about 18% of the network is probably going to be moving there in the next 90-120 days.

Nevada currently, but this regulation would affect the pool if it has users in New York.  And I doubt a "I agree I'm not a resident of New York" checkbox would be enough.  Luckily this has 45 days of commenting, then review, and then there are 45 days after it's put into effect before it is enforced.  Quite frankly, if something even remotely close to what is currently open for comment goes into effect, the pool will probably be forced to close.

Living in the US makes trying to sidestep/ignore this a non-option.  I doubt they'd chase international pool owners, but depending on what country they're in, I wouldn't exactly assume they're safe (US doesn't have a history of respecting international borders when it comes to internet businesses).

Just to point out how poorly written the regulations are:

The bitcoin tip-bot on Reddit would fall under this regulation if it allowed users to tip people that reside in New York (or if the operator itself was in New York).

And so it begins.  New York regulators are now proposing things which would make it essentially illegal for anybody to use Bitcoin in that state without being registered. It is so over-reaching that it would even catch things like the Bitcoin tipbot on reddit, which would be an illegally operating entity if it allows you to tip a New York resident.

http://www.dfs.ny.gov/about/press2014/pr1407171-vc.pdf

I've been noticing a big surge in emails attempting to distribute a virus, using Bitcoin related subject lines.  Emails pretending to be from various manufacturers with "invoices" attached (virus in a .jar), others pretending to be from cex.io and ghash.io as well.  While I know at least some of these are likely targeting me specifically (I've had some pretending to be from pool users), some of them look much more generic.

So this is just going out there as a reminder that you shouldn't click links in email or download attachments you were not expecting.  There is absolutely no reason for a Bitcoin company to send you an invoice as an attachment.  Summer time has always seen a big surge in phishing attempts, and another surge in account compromises from users who got tricked by them.  Luckily there hasn't been any noticeable surge in "my account as hacked" type emails over the last few months.

It was first seen (on blockchain.info) relayed from stratum.btcguild.com.  That means nothing as it relates to the source, which is why blockchain.info doesn't attribute the block to BTC Guild (because it wasn't one of ours).  The block was found by KNCMiner's private farm.  1H1sq6Msgt9HjRrBuz8ieZdThzWXS6oPVA is KNC Miner's mining farm address.

Not a bad idea but I say the higher fees for these accounts would be the best deterrent.

Say anything over 1 BTC incurs a 5-10% extra daily "maintenance" fee which is deducted from the accounts balance.
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That is essentially theft in my mind.  The same with suspending accounts for inactivity.  Every coin earned should be capable of being withdrawn, up until the site is no longer operational.  Even then, the stated policy is *at least* a 3 month window for inactive users to come back and get their coins out.

I don't do forced withdraws because there is always a chance that somebody has a wallet on their account that is no longer valid (lost keys, online wallet, defunct exchange, etc).  And if the wallet is locked, there is a chance in the case of old+inactive accounts that the wallet points to something like MtGox or one of the many online wallet scams, meaning sending the payout would just give the coins to a thief.



The post is mostly targeted at users who have balances in excess of 1 BTC.  Some even have balances in excess of 100 BTC, which are the ones that really scare me due to the fact that if multiple users like that withdraw at once the hot wallet will be empty and cause withdrawal delays for the entire pool.

If you already receive payouts at least once a week, there is no need to tweak your withdrawal settings, unless 1 week of mining is 25+ BTC, in which case you should probably target daily withdrawals.

Yes, so far the US has been very focused on simply regulating the point where virtual currencies are converted into fiat currency.  However, depending on how widely accepted Bitcoin becomes, that may end up being changed.

But still, the warning is mostly just to try to get people to keep their balances lower.  It's a big headache/liability to have to constantly play this balancing act between the hot and cold wallet.  There shouldn't be single users that have balances in excess of 10-20% of the hot wallet balance.

A small bug was stopping wallet addresses from being verified as valid, so it was rejecting attempts to change BTC addresses.  This has been fixed.  The EU stratum server also had a very brief interruption, and should be working in very shortly.


EDIT for clarification:  The EU stratum *mining* was not interrupted, only the initial connection server which is used to filter botnet/DDoS traffic before it reaches any mining servers.  Most users should not have seen any interruption!  It only affected new connections attempting to be established.

JustDice was one of the largest bitcoin "dice" gambling sites.  It had a provably fair system similar to SatoshiDice, but it didn't rely on all bets being placed on the blockchain, which meant significantly faster playing.  It also allowed users to pick their odds (payout scaling obviously).  What made it unique was the house edge was only 1%, and users could BE the house by investing in JustDice.  It had realtime stats and every time somebody lost a roll, it proportionally split the earnings among investors, and the same if somebody lost.  It was run by dooglus, a fairly well respected member of the forums.

Recently some Canadian legislation passed which is very vague.  It's clear the intention was targetting exchanges between CAD and BTC, but the wording did not specify that, causing dooglus to proactively shut the site down.


This is one of the ways BTC Guild *could* be forced to shut down as well.  Just like dooglus, I would not keep the site running in the face of new legislation that was too vague as to who it is aimed at.  The problem with JustDice and mining pools is that there is no reason for a user to comply with any type of KYC rules.  There are plenty of other sites they can go to hosted in other countries which wouldn't require it, so the moment a US law comes in that threatens the need for KYC it would immediately kill any US-based pool.  There's simply nobody that would volunteer that information when there is absolutely nothing preventing them from moving to ghash.io/slush/bitminter, which are all run by people not in the United States.

Just posting this again.  After seeing Just-Dice's closure recently due to Canadian law changes, I want to know that if something happened in the US which forces BTC Guild to do the same it's not going to result in funds that can't be paid out without starting a massive KYC process before allowing withdrawals.  Just-Dice had a few weeks warning.  That same luxury may not be available if it happens in the US!  The pool's official policy (as stated in the FAQ and 2nd post in this thread) has always been that in the event of a closure there will be a 3 month window where the pool is no longer running but withdrawals are open, but there is also the caveat that this policy may be superseded if it is no longer legal for BTC Guild to operate in the same way.


It makes no sense to allow weeks/months worth of coins to build up on your BTC Guild account.  You cannot make specific withdrawals to people to use it as a limited wallet, only full balance or 0.01 intervals, neither of which are useful for conducting Bitcoin transactions (and that's on purpose!).

You must've been seeing things.  It doesn't move more than 100-200 TH/s between shifts normally.

Hash rate has gone down, not up.