Which mining pool and why?

[MaxLAMF]

Can´t really decide which one to choose...
First tried Eclipse. Now I can´t log in anymore because of this damn Google Authenticator and try now mtred because of merged mining. But it seems that it takes years till 1 NMC is achieved...

[wtfvanity]

Slush and BTC Guild offer merged mining. Pick your poison. BTC is PPS and the pool takes the risks for long blocks. Slush is round based score based to prevent pool hoping, lower fees, and they share the block fees with miners.

Both have been around forever and both use stratum protocols once you get your miner online.

[Evan]

Slush and BTC Guild offer merged mining. Pick your poison. BTC is PPS and the pool takes the risks for long blocks. Slush is round based score based to prevent pool hoping, lower fees, and they share the block fees with miners.

Both have been around forever and both use stratum protocols once you get your miner online.

[MaxLAMF]

Slush and BTC Guild offer merged mining. Pick your poison. BTC is PPS and the pool takes the risks for long blocks. Slush is round based score based to prevent pool hoping, lower fees, and they share the block fees with miners.

Both have been around forever and both use stratum protocols once you get your miner online.

I don´t get what you want with your quote? Being the same opinion? Marking Slush, because that´s your preference?

[wtfvanity]

But it seems that it takes years till 1 NMC is achieved...

I think he is saying Slush but he can clarify that.

The other thing about NMC... is since it is merged mine you earn the same amount of BTC and the NMC are free... so why not?

You'll earn about 3x as many NMC as BTC and NMC are currently worth about 700 times less than BTC. Will merged mining make you rich? Nope. But why not contribute to a cool project at the same time and get a little bit of value from them. Or use them and register a couple of Namecoin addresses?

[rob1313]

But it seems that it takes years till 1 NMC is achieved...

I think he is saying Slush but he can clarify that.

The other thing about NMC... is since it is merged mine you earn the same amount of BTC and the NMC are free... so why not?

You'll earn about 3x as many NMC as BTC and NMC are currently worth about 700 times less than BTC. Will merged mining make you rich? Nope. But why not contribute to a cool project at the same time and get a little bit of value from them. Or use them and register a couple of Namecoin addresses?

yes merged mining is the way to go. ever little bit help out.

[organofcorti]

Slush and BTC Guild offer merged mining. Pick your poison. BTC is PPS and the pool takes the risks for long blocks. Slush is round based score based to prevent pool hoping, lower fees, and they share the block fees with miners.

Both have been around forever and both use stratum protocols once you get your miner online.

Do keep in mind Slush's pool is still being hopped and lately that would mean you'd lose about one to two percent. So including the pool fee, you'll end up earning 96 to 97 % of fee free PPS.

[jerye]

Slush and BTC Guild offer merged mining. Pick your poison. BTC is PPS and the pool takes the risks for long blocks. Slush is round based score based to prevent pool hoping, lower fees, and they share the block fees with miners.

Both have been around forever and both use stratum protocols once you get your miner online.

Do keep in mind Slush's pool is still being hopped and lately that would mean you'd lose about one to two percent. So including the pool fee, you'll end up earning 96 to 97 % of fee free PPS.

Sorry, what does hopped mean?

[Evan]

Slush and BTC Guild offer merged mining. Pick your poison. BTC is PPS and the pool takes the risks for long blocks. Slush is round based score based to prevent pool hoping, lower fees, and they share the block fees with miners.

Both have been around forever and both use stratum protocols once you get your miner online.

I highlighted the only name you need to know Slush is a great pool, and so far I've never had a problem with it, and it comes out on average 3-7% higher daily BTC than my other accounts.

[Oktoberfest]

No one advocating Deepbit? I admit I haven't done much research for choosing pool, but why not Deepbit?

[jerye]

Just wondering, besides all the other factors (such as payout types), would it not be more advisable to join the pool with the largest collective hash rate?

[Beyondo]

No one advocating Deepbit? I admit I haven't done much research for choosing pool, but why not Deepbit?

Pool operator takes fees. DDoS vulnerable. Miners don't get paid for transaction fees in the blocks the pool finds.

Do not all pools get the DDOS attacks?

[SolarSilver]

Do not all pools get the DDOS attacks?

The big ones attract more attention.

There was a correlation between school holidays starting and increased attacks. Those script kiddies get pissed off when they try to activate a botnet and get their Deepbit account automagicly got suspended once it gets over 150 different IP's (which indicates suspicious activity). Slush is a bit more forgiving on that part.

As for choosing a pool, it's frustrating to be on a small team (like Eligius.st) as it takes a few days to see result (and get a possible payout). You do get the same payout, averaged over time, but once a while the pool hits an orphan or an invalid block, and that means you've been crunching away for days and don't get paid. Deepbit does pay for those.

I have deepbit setup to pay once a day, which means I have a steadier stream of income to spend.

[Gabi]

No one advocating Deepbit? I admit I haven't done much research for choosing pool, but why not Deepbit?

Because it has high fees. Avoid deepbit.

Just wondering, besides all the other factors (such as payout types), would it not be more advisable to join the pool with the largest collective hash rate?

No. Why?

[Evan]

No one advocating Deepbit? I admit I haven't done much research for choosing pool, but why not Deepbit?

Those fees are WAY HIGH....

[Oktoberfest]

Alright, so a "best" alternative to Deepbit would be Slush's pool?

[Gabi]

Pretty much every other pool is better, since deepbit fees are so high.

This said, yes, slush is a good pool. But there are other ones good too. And then there is p2pool, a bit hard to setup but it is the best one

[KIDC]

Ozcoin.

I've used EclipseMC, Deepbit, and BTCGuild, and I've found Ozcoin to be the best combination of stability and features. Graet and his team are very helpful and are always there to help on IRC. You don't lose payout from hoppers and there's lots of options on their web interface control panel. Their stratum server for Bitcoin mining is tops and I run my BFL Singles on it 24/7. It's my pool of choice - I use DGM (1% fee) and I donate 2% on top of that.

[Ukyo]

+1 Ozcoin

I have been mining @ Oz for over a year now.