Solo pools for old hardware -

[pattim]

Some of the stratum pools also feature solo mining, like kano and antminer, but it's hard to find any decent discussion about the solo aspects of these pools.  I've heard horror stories about small, dishonest solo pools.  With the doubt cast by bitcoinwiki on antminer and F2, is kano the only one left?  I'm not sure how much I trust Nicehash or antminer's solo pools, given that when you're doing the "lottery" system (solo; for small folks) - you basically only have one shot at a payout.  You totally rely on the honesty of the pool operator(s) to make this one shot count.  

There are lots of discussions about the pros and cons of solo mining, but here I want to focus on the pools themselves.  

I'm new, so thanks in advance for any good discussions,
P.

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[jacobmayes94]

CKs solo pool definitely pays out, there is a long thread on it.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=763510.0

Jacob

[pattim]

Thanks, Jacob - I've been doing linux for a long time and have come to trust code developers (like kano).  I'll check out the thread.  I'm also trying to understand the inns and outs of going solo.  You depend on someone else to feed your ASIC work and blocks - I guess there's no simple way to filter blocks before they're sent to your ASIC - but the code level action of this is confusing to me.  I guess I just don't understand how the "block hit" process happens since I don't think a single ASIC can do a whole block calculation (can it?).

I guess ck gives you a direct connection to the stratum.  So it's like you're running your own Btc node.  But if so, how can ck siphon off his 0.5% upon success?  So I know there's some aspect I'm not understanding here.  (If I understood C I guess I could read the kano code.)  For instance, who handles block difficulty if you're "directly connected to stratum" as ck says?  I thought difficulty was the number of zeros at the beginning of the hash, and was set by Btc current difficulty.  (see? noob.)

Read that thread, patti!  :-)

CKs solo pool definitely pays out, there is a long thread on it.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=763510.0

Jacob

[philipma1957]

It all proxies to  ck s single address.

When it hits a block a tiny bit goes to ck s address the rest goes to the btc address you used.

But I can not remember if I am correct.

Let go back and find one of the ones I hit on his pool.

[windpath]

You could always fire up a p2pool node, we are still chugging along....

Instead of a lottery ticket you get a bunch of smaller payouts, but over the long term, unless you hit the jackpot, will pay out more, and still contributes to decentralization...

[Rabinovitch]

You could always fire up a p2pool node, we are still chugging along....

Instead of a lottery ticket you get a bunch of smaller payouts, but over the long term, unless you hit the jackpot, will pay out more, and still contributes to decentralization...

You will never mine 25BTC at the pool. And some mining hardware (like Bitmain...) can't work with p2pool correctly without some kind of additional shamanistic dances.

[Biffa]

Thanks, Jacob - I've been doing linux for a long time and have come to trust code developers (like kano).  

Just in case you missed it kano pool is based on ckpool code, both he and -ck work on different parts of the kano pool software, -ck does the pool code and kano writes the web and database AFAIK:

CKPool software developed and supported by ckolivas and myself (Kano)

[jonnybravo0311]

You depend on someone else to feed your ASIC work and blocks

Yes, pools feed your miners work.

I guess there's no simple way to filter blocks before they're sent to your ASIC - but the code level action of this is confusing to me.

What do you mean by "filter blocks"?  You don't send blocks to your ASIC.  In fact, your miners have no concept of a block whatsoever.

I guess I just don't understand how the "block hit" process happens since I don't think a single ASIC can do a whole block calculation (can it?).

The "block hit" process happens if your miner provides a solution to the SHA256d hash which satisfies the network difficulty.  There is no such thing as "whole block calculation".  There is only SHA256d hashing.

I guess ck gives you a direct connection to the stratum.  So it's like you're running your own Btc node.  But if so, how can ck siphon off his 0.5% upon success?  

Because he's creating the block (just like on my pool, I create the block).  As such, I can define what transactions are in the block, including the coinbase transaction (the one that defines how/where the 25BTC block reward is distributed).  On his pool, he defines the coinbase transaction as "99% of the reward + transaction fees goes to address XXXXX and 1% of the reward + transaction fees goes to address YYYY".

So I know there's some aspect I'm not understanding here.  (If I understood C I guess I could read the kano code.)  For instance, who handles block difficulty if you're "directly connected to stratum" as ck says?  I thought difficulty was the number of zeros at the beginning of the hash, and was set by Btc current difficulty.  (see? noob.)

The network handles block difficulty.  All difficulty means is, "the solution you provide must meet or beat this value in order to accept your block on the chain".