P2Pool, what the heck is merged mining?

[hoquet]

I'm sure many of you interested have seen this guide: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=62842.0
to get you started in the right direction. And you have worked to get merged mining working with multiple coins.

However, what the heck is merged mining?

If you setup a coin daemon let's say litecoin, then run p2pool with litecoin, things are fine, and your mining happily. You get all the stats, log files, details of your mining activity, and life is good.

Now if you decide you also want to mine dogecoin, you can install the dogecoind (daemon) then run another instance of p2pool. It would get setup on another port, you get stats, logs, details of mining activity, life would still be good.

Now with P2pool, merged mining can be done with anycoins, like bitcoins, namecoins, devcoins, etc..

Why would you want to setup merged mining? Does that allow you to mine both coins under a single instance of run_p2pool.py? Is there any other benefits to it? Where does the logfiles, stats go for each coin? What are we really accomplishing by merged mining and what problem does it really solve?

[roy7]

Why would you want to setup merged mining? Does that allow you to mine both coins under a single instance of run_p2pool.py? Is there any other benefits to it? Where does the logfiles, stats go for each coin? What are we really accomplishing by merged mining and what problem does it really solve?

You can't get stats/etc through p2pool for the merge mined coins, any coins found go into the wallet for that coin on the computer you are having it connect to for the RPC commands/etc. (It's on the command line to p2pool when you give it the merge mine server/login/pw info.)

It lets you mine extra coins for free. You can only mine coins that are designed to support merge mining (like namecoin, ixcoin, etc). The only merge-minable coin with any reasonable USD conversion value is Namecoin. It can give you an extra 1%-1.5% profit than mining bitcoin alone.

[HellDiverUK]

Apparently, mining these other coins allow you to use the search function.  You should definitely try it.