I've totally been there, no worries.

It's very difficult and rare to hit a block on an individual basis, especially on more established coins. That's the reason for a pool though, everyone works together to get block rewards and split the reward evenly based on work done. So to answer your question, if you hit a block personally via a pool, no you don't get a bonus. You'd have to solo mine for that, which if you are pretty small is not advisable.

Read about PPS vs PPLNS, that's a great place to start. Just google them and read opinions on them. I like both, but I think PPLNS is more fun.

Here's the thing, if you're at a smaller pool that hits blocks less often then it may feel like you're getting paid less but that's not really the case. The smaller pool has less people to share the rewards with so you get more per hit with a smaller pool. With a bigger pool that hits every 10 mins you get much much less of the reward because you have to share it with many more people. In the end, as long as your pool hits about once a day everything should work itself out over about a 30 day period to be almost the same amount of coin with either pool based on your hashrate.

No matter which pool or reward type you choose, just be sure to stick with them for a long period of time and you should make the amount of coins your hashrate says you should make (check 'whattomine' calculators or similar).

Oh just to clarify, when I say "hit a block" I'm mean solve a block and get the reward for it. The pool is confirming transactions and getting paid for making that confirmation.

Luck is everything. It will all even out in the end, this is PPLNS (google that and read up on it). Go to the coin you're mining on MPH and click on 'blocks'. Then look at 'last 20 blocks found'. On the far right you will see 'percentage' which is 'luck. If it is red it took longer than average if it is green it took shorter than average to hit a block and get paid. There will be strings of bad luck but those will be offset by strings of good luck where you get paid more than normal. Over a month it all evens out, as long as you don't get frustrated and hop to another pool because block hits take too long.

Right now on litecoin (the main coin I mine) luck has been pretty insane with a hit pretty often (about every 12 to 18 hours it seems like) but that will be offset by blocks that take 2 days to hit. That means 2 days without getting paid, but I'll keep chugging away for the high luck periods.

Be patient, the coins will come. If you don't have the nerve for PPLNS look for a PPS pool.

How many miners does it take to change a lightbulb?
A million - One to do it and 999,999 to verify that he did.

Baaahahaha ... did I make you laugh? I laughed at that one.

Depending on the coin a certain amount of coin is rewarded to the pool for finding the block, then those coins are split up and given to all the miners depending on how many shares they submitted compared to everyone else.

MPH takes 0.09% of the coins to run the pool.

Est. Shares is an estimate of how many shares of work need to be done before a block is hit by the pool. The Done: percentage is how many shares have been completed by the pool in percentage. So in your example the pool has completed 21,016,814 shares saying that about 55 million shares are needed before a block is hit ... based on the average number of shares it has taken to complete previous blocks.

Your Valid is the number of shares you've submitted towards the pool shares. The 'done' percentage will climb until a block is hit. It can climb to 100% and beyond depending on 'luck'. Go to the 'blocks' page to see all previous blocks and how many shares it took to complete them, then you'll see a number to the far right which is the percentage of shares it took to hit that block. If they are red the 'luck' is bad if it is green the 'luck' is good. Since the pool pays PPLNS you only get paid when a block is hit rather than per share (which is PPS, pay per share).

Does that make sense?

-NeoenY152

Is there a minimum balance for Litecoin to auto exchange to another coin? I've had about .4 ltc sitting on the "Auto Exchange Wallet" for a couple days now but has not moved to "on exchange".

Thoughts?

I have auto exchange set to on for ltc and have the coin I'd like to exchange to set. Let me know if more info is needed.

-NeoenY152