No, I meant "I sure hope we hit 10 blocks today!" A guy can dream, right?


Thanks!  Should be a nice boost to the pool's base hash rate, and hopefully those new miners solve a couple blocks for us all!

I wasn't going to either, but I got a pretty good price on the gear, and figured I might as well get as much hash going as I can now while we're still getting 25 coins per block.  Of course, would be nice for us to hit a block or 10 today .

As for the diff dropping back down to garage miner levels... I don't know if that's likely to happen.  The mega-mines are the ones paying absurdly low power costs, not the average hobbyist.

So, unfortunately nobody hit the block before the diff change - though certainly not for lack of trying .

However, I liked the idea of the promo so much that I'm going to run it again.

Everyone who solves a block this diff period gets their name put into a hat.  At the next diff change, I am going to draw one of those names and that person will get 1BTC.

This promotion will be in addition any others that I come up with during this timeframe.

In other news, I've got a bunch more mining hardware being delivered to my hosting provider.  By a bunch, I mean 12 more A6.  This will bring my personal hardware total to 20 A6, 2 S3 and 1 S5 hashing for a combined ~75TH.  Hopefully they'll be there and setup on Friday.

That will probably be my final hardware purchase until the next-gen gear arrives, but as usual, I will be supplementing my own hardware with rentals from time to time.  I probably won't go as nuts as I did this round, though .

If your primary motivation is virgin coins and anonymity, p2pool is your answer.  You always get virgin coins when p2pool finds a block.  You run your own node and can determine things like minimum transaction fees for transactions you'll accept into blocks you create.

Yes, that is exactly how you can state it.

@d57: 100% luck is 0.63 CDF.

Hardware, connectivity, software, etc all do indeed play roles in the overall performance of a pool.  For example, we all know there are some "bad actors" out there, and those actors have taken advantage via block withholding attacks (here, Eligius, BTCGuild).

However, my point wasn't to compare the possibilities of someone gaming the system to influence things, it was simply a statement that past performance has no bearing on future performance.  Previous events (i.e. I solved 5 blocks in a row under 0.5 CDF) do not influence future.  In other words, you cannot state, "We have been unlucky for the past 5 blocks, therefore, we are due for good luck."  Or, to use the euphemism of the previous poster, "yesterday's rain does not guarantee today's sunshine."

If people truly understood how the variance works, they'd know that past rain has no bearing whatsoever on future sunshine.

I also added CDF stats to both the dashboard and the stats->blocks pages...

Current round has CDF of 0.824 right now, meaning you would expect to have solved the block by now 82.4% of the time.  Or, 82.4 times out of 100 we would have already hit.

16 coins into rentals for me so far this round... yowzzers.

You are about 5 years too late to mine BTC via CPU.  No pool is going to work for you.

Just over 100 blocks until the diff change.  Everyone who hits a block between now and then gets the 1BTC and also qualifies for the chance to win another 1BTC.  If you're the only one who hits, you're the guaranteed winner

If you're just looking for raw data, kano.is has plenty of publicly available from which you can see luck stats, etc.  I ran a thread for a year giving results of my experience mining on p2pool.  While I ended that in December (was running my own pool at that point), it does contain a year's worth of actual mining data.  You can find that thread here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=891298.0

You and me both... I'm paying 30... dumped 6 coins into the meter... 4 on WH, 2 on NH.

Edit: EU side is done... About an hour left on US side.

Giving things a little motivational kick in the ass...

Mining calculators work on statistical modeling of expected earnings.  There is no guarantee of actually making the expected earnings.  For example, had a user been mining on my pool since it began, they would have made approximately 25% more than expected values.  Looking at Kano's pool, you can see a lifetime earnings of over 106% of expectations.

Boring promo... but it'll still get you some extra coin

Let's find a block before the diff change! As of now, there are 272 blocks to go.  So, everyone who finds a block before the diff change gets 1BTC.

But wait... there's more!

After the diff changes, I'm going to take everyone's name who found a block and put them into a hat (virtually speaking of course).  I will draw one name from that hat and that person will receive 1BTC bonus.

So... if you are the only one who solves a block?  You're guaranteed 2BTC.

So I got the email this morning along with many of you I presume.

Guy, even though I only purchased a single miner from SP-Tech (an SP10 back in May of 2014), you, Zvisha and the rest of the crew will be missed.

Best of luck in whatever the future holds for you.

@PPOC: you most certainly did give it the old college try .  Let's find that block shortly!

@LASERminer: Thank you for your support, and your generous gesture.  I certainly appreciate the donations, and you are right, those funds are indeed used to help support the promotions I run (as well as server costs).  You are also correct in that I've funded every promotion out of pocket.  LOL... I am definitely not Satoshi, nor do I have millions of coins (or dollars for that matter since I didn't win the PowerBall last night ).  I have, however, been lucky enough to make some coin in the past few years I've been mining, and during this pool's existence.  Because of the pool's luck thus far, I've been fortunate.  Just to give you an idea, since the pool has started I've personally spent well over 75BTC in rentals and close to 10BTC in promotions and contest giveaways.  I have received just over 1.3BTC in fees and donations.  I'm not stating these numbers in an attempt to boast, but rather to show the kind of dedication I have to support the pool and all of the miners who are putting their faith, and their dollars, here.  Besides the coins, I have spent many hours of time ensuring the best mining experience.  That comes in the form of writing code to enhance the mining software, setting up servers in multiple geographies, ensuring redundancies of the coin daemons and database, providing local stratum servers, fighting off DDoS attacks, and more.

So, please, let me say a heartfelt thank you to all of you.  It is because of you that this pool exists and continues to grow.  I look forward to the future and am glad you are all along with me for the ride .

You're going to hit any minute now

Tell you what... sure... I'll extend it the three hours.  Your bonus, should you hit a block, will still be 2.42BTC until midnight PST.  Everyone else, should they hit a block, 1BTC.

EDIT: Damn... over 11P... gotta love those infinite hash orders

I just watched both the soccer and volleyball videos again... yup... still just as damn funny