Maybe time to slant towards Bitfury because of the lower power draw.

Got a rough estimate on how much more BTC you'll accept based on the amount of hardware you'll host?

Think of the difficulty as the number of difficulty 1 shares you are submitting at the same time, if that helps. If someone submits 10 shares of difficulty 2, and someone else submits a single share of difficulty 20, they have the same score. They have both submitted 20 difficulty 1 shares worth of work.

The reason for increasing the difficulty on the miner's side is to reduce the bandwidth being used by reporting shares and server load on the pool. It won't hurt your income at all. A large enough ASIC could submit thousands of difficulty 1 shares per minute which is a huge waste of resources.

Well done mueslo. You have more patience than I do.

Bitcoin adjusts difficulty level based on historical data only, no predictions. It compares the time it took to get the last X blocks to what it "should" have taken, and then adjusts the difficulty accordingly to try and be closer to the target speed next time. Which would be very accurate if hash rate was constant.

Ah yes, if you are using a proportional payment system which is based solely on the current block, then blocks with no shares you'd get zero and blocks with a share you'd get paid. One could argue that over time it wouldn't matter, if your hash rate is .5 shares per block then the blocks with a share you get paid "double" your average contribution and blocks with no shares you get paid 0. So it averages out to .5 shares/block worth of pay. But only getting paid on blocks where you personally submitted shares kinda violates the spirit of pooled mining, in my opinion.

'Block at a time' proportional payout for a very fast coin where slow miners might not submit shares seems silly. Proportional is a bad payment model anyway, and is hoppable. Best to use DGM or PPLNS if implemented the way Meni Rosefeld says to. Not all pools do PPLNS correctly. Follow this post:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=39832

To do it right.

DGM is what I use on my pool and I really like it. (I do not use a negative f value, so there's no risk to the pool at all. PPS is also bad since it virtually guarantees pool bankruptcy if ran long enough.)

Miners aren't paid based on some sort of weighted system where it's the # of shares per block you submit. It's the total number of shares you submit vs the total number of shares all miners have submitted.

Say the slow miner's average hash rate is about 1 share every 2 blocks and the fast miner is 9 shares every 2 blocks. Look at the slow miner over a period of 4 blocks. Maybe he submits 0 shares in blocks 1-3, and 2 shares in block 4. Or 2 shares in block 1 and no shares in block 2-4. Or one share in block 1 and one share in block 4, with no shares in blocks 2-3. The end result is after four blocks he's submitted 2 shares.

The fast miner, on the other hand, would average about 18 shares over these 4 blocks. In total after 4 blocks, on average, we'd see 20 total shares. 2 from the slow miner, 18 from the fast miner. And 2/20 of the coins being generated by the pool would be getting paid to the slow miner. Which specific blocks the slow miner submitted the shares on doesn't matter.

If it's more clear, raise the slow miner's average speed to 1 share per block. Whether he gets 1 share each in blocks 1-4, or 4 shares in block 1 and 0 in blocks 2-4, he still submitted 4 shares and is paid 4/total_shares_in_pool. How the shares were spread between the blocks doesn't change this payout.

(I'm assuming something like proportional or PPLNS payout of course. DGM doesn't use a proportional ratio although steady miners over time end up with the exactly fair proportional income based on their relative speeds.)

There is no "partial work" on blocks. Each random hash is either a valid share or not. When you get notified there is a new block, you keep trying hashes to see if they meet the new block instead of the old block. The only time a new block has any effect is if you report a share moment too late and it is 'stale'. But that's true for anyone.

The probability of finding a share is independent of your miner's speed or how many blocks you've looked at previously. A new block notification has no effect on this (unless the difficulty for the new block has changed).


If the fast miner is 9x the speed of the slow miner, they should be reporting shares 9x as often as the slow miner. If it takes about 5 shares to find a block, then for every 2 blocks found on average that is 10 total shares, 1 share from the slow miner and 9 shares from the fast miner. So every other block the slow miner didn't report a share during that block. But that doesn't matter. The slow miner is reporting 1/10 of the total shares and will earn 1/10 of the total payout.


Untrue.

How is that a problem? The slow miner hasn't found a share yet. Whenever he does find one, he'll report it to the pool and get credited.

Funny how clicking that link shows me a 84.8% profit.

If we do 100% deposit now, with BTC, it'll be based on current exchange rate so regardless if BTC/USD drops before you ship we don't need to pay additional funds to make up the short fall in BTC's lower value? Basically Xcrowd is absorbing the risk of the currency conversion rate changing in the next 4-5 months.

Just wanted to be sure. I was intending to deposit 100% with fiat but I'd rather use John K than escrow.com.

John K only does BTC escrow, so for USD escrow it'd need to be escrow.com, correct?

Thanks.

The shopping cart software might not allow orders on things out of stock?

Roger that. I'll email in to cancel the PSU part of my order.

Does shipping from China mean including a power supply puts the device at risk for customs delays? Avalon ran into that so started offering to ship without power supply. Perhaps I should remove the power supply from my order for this concern, and also to make it a little lighter to ship?

My understanding is you can pay in fiat. I don't recall even seeing it discussed on the web site that paying in BTC was an option, although I assume so. My plan was to pay the escrow agent in Fiat. Xcrowd can confirm this is allowed, hopefully. (Would escrow.com even allow escrow payments in BTC?)

Ahhh okay, didn't realize the power supply wasn't in the base price. I did include one. For 350W I'm sure whatever one you choose will be fine. US<>UK doesn't have customs issues with power supplies like China does, I assume?

Speaking of which I assume the power supply will be 120V USA-compatible for those ordering from the States?

Speaking of which for some reason my 100% deposit $999 Elysium cost $1,049.00 for my order. Not sure why, since there was no shipping added.

The refund policy, use of escrow, and price drop if diff too high by ship date talked me into an Elysium. Small by most buyers standards it seems, but I just can't bring myself to lay out more than that for bitcoin hardware. Even if xCrowd delivers on time and everything is perfect, BTC/USB could hit $10 by the time I get one. Ug. Lets not think about that.

Interesting thing about Xcrowd is 1- refund policy, 2- funds held by John K, 3- price drop if diff too high by ship date.