[1500 TH] p2pool: Decentralized, DoS-resistant, Hop-Proof pool

[yslyung]

I'm 100% on board for getting this done, and managing the bounty if you folks want, but this is not a small task....

We would need to define the criteria for success, i.e. what constitutes "fixing it" first.

Maintaining P2Pool's decentralized and trust-less nature would be one of my top priorities.

Keeping things trust-less and decentralized while increasing pool hash rate, decreasing variance and including regular payouts for small miners is not an easy problem to solve.

I'm open to any ideas, but until one of us bumps our head in the shower and comes up with a theoretically working solution I would not know how to proceed...

i'm in for USD 50 in BTC when the time comes. ready anytime. i know it's not much but at least something to start.

who's next ?

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[jcumins]

 

Oh man the Block gods have not been shining on P2Pool lately.  Getting another long stretch.

[aurel57]

Oh man the Block gods have not been shining on P2Pool lately.  Getting another long stretch.

Yup and my rented hash is going to waste.

[IYFTech]

Well, I've been away from p2pool for a total of 7 days now & find that I have too much spare time on my hands. Mining at centralised pools is boring. It's just point & go - what to do with all this spare time? Even reading poop-dawgs lies spam posts has got boring 

So, I find myself thinking: what to do about p2pool? I miss it, but at the same time I know it's just not worth adding my hash power until it's been "fixed" - for want of a better word.

After mulling over it for some time, I came up with an idea - here's the basic gist of it:

1) Fork it & change the donation option to a new wallet address owned by at least 3 trustworthy legendary community members (0.25%?) Manual donations can also be added to the total at any time by anyone who wishes to do so, but withdrawals can only be done if signed for by all persons holding keys for the bounty.

2) Open a new thread linking to the new github download & headed by a ticker showing the honeypot amount that will be awarded to the dev who can do a) the rewrite & b) solve the variance/scaling issues. The thread should contain the reasons for this being done & describe what issues need to be resolved.

3) If/when the aims are achieved & the rewrite/issues are solved to everyones satisfaction (in either order, 50/50?), the bounty(s) are released by those key holders/multi-signatories

Nothing fancy, keeps it simple, 100% open & transparent, no disruption to mining/sharechain until the final code is approved & a hardfork is necessary, if at all. This way, users will be more inclined to use the standard donate function in the knowledge that funds are actually going towards development instead of nowhere. The higher the bounty gets, the more chance there is of someone stepping up to the mark & taking up the challenge. It also has the benefit of other altcoin address being added by devs who have modded the code (rav3npl - vertoe-drk etc) & are willing to merge it to theirs in an effort to raise the bounty with other coins - as any new development is of benefit to all p2pool users including altcoin miners.

This is just the basics & will of course need plenty of discussion as well as a few good men who are prepared to look after the git page, keep the bounty etc - but hey - it's a start right?

Just don't shout at me........my brain hurts 

[kano]

Well no doubt I wasn't ever going to be the one to undertake such a large project ... but I will say that any project with altcoins in it means I'd avoid it anyway.

[yslyung]

Well no doubt I wasn't ever going to be the one to undertake such a large project ... but I will say that any project with altcoins in it means I'd avoid it anyway.

Kano is out ... i'm sure there will be some others to help the project.

[IYFTech]

Well no doubt I wasn't ever going to be the one to undertake such a large project ... but I will say that any project with altcoins in it means I'd avoid it anyway.

Nothing would change - p2pool would still be BTC only (even though forrestv added altcoin anyway, it can be dropped), it would be up to the altcoin p2pool devs to add it to their versions & voluntarily add their own altcoin bounty to the main p2pool thread 

Kano is in again......

[-ck]

Not going to happen. You're still at step zero: you don't have a mechanism for dealing with the design flaws and until you do, wasting money on a rewrite will not save p2pool.

[yslyung]

Kano pool team is out.

[PatMan]

Not going to happen. You're still at step zero....

I think that the creation of a honeypot by the p2pool community is a step in the right direction. Yes, we're still at zero, but the fact that any potential dev/coder will be able to actually see the bounty might help attract some new ideas about solving p2pools issues - that's how I understand it. Too much time has been wasted waiting for a dev who no longer participates in discussions while gladly accepting donations, at least this way the donations will be visible to all in the knowledge that something is being done to find an answer. Let's face it, 2 years of nothing has finally caught up with p2pool, any effort to change that downward trend has got to be a good thing, and it sure beats donating for nothing.

(even though forrestv added altcoin anyway, it can be dropped)

I remember that well, the community was complaining back then about the lack of development, so what does forrestv do? - add an altcoin of course..... Pointless. Altcoin support should be left to those who are already catering for it in their forks, there's plenty of them.

......wasting money on a rewrite will not save p2pool.

You're right of course ck, it wont save p2pool - but it will open the door to a much larger audience of C devs who might be able to find an answer to p2pools problems. You said yourself a while back - p2pool has outgrown python, & C/++ is the obvious way forward if it is to grow. Also, good C devs are easier to find than good python devs, and the chances of finding a C dev who understands the p2pool system are much greater.

It all boils down to this: P2pool users & the community have a choice - they can continue to sit back & do nothing like they have been doing for the last 2 years & watch it slowly die, or they can do something to help find a solution. IYFTech has done the latter & until I see a better idea, I'll go with his suggestion.

Discussion on 

Peace 

[yslyung]

Not going to happen. You're still at step zero....

I think that the creation of a honeypot by the p2pool community is a step in the right direction. Yes, we're still at zero, but the fact that any potential dev/coder will be able to actually see the bounty might help attract some new ideas about solving p2pools issues - that's how I understand it. Too much time has been wasted waiting for a dev who no longer participates in discussions while gladly accepting donations, at least this way the donations will be visible to all in the knowledge that something is being done to find an answer. Let's face it, 2 years of nothing has finally caught up with p2pool, any effort to change that downward trend has got to be a good thing, and it sure beats donating for nothing.

(even though forrestv added altcoin anyway, it can be dropped)

I remember that well, the community was complaining back then about the lack of development, so what does forrestv do? - add an altcoin of course..... Pointless. Altcoin support should be left to those who are already catering for it in their forks, there's plenty of them.

......wasting money on a rewrite will not save p2pool.

You're right of course ck, it wont save p2pool - but it will open the door to a much larger audience of C devs who might be able to find an answer to p2pools problems. You said yourself a while back - p2pool has outgrown python, & C/++ is the obvious way forward if it is to grow. Also, good C devs are easier to find than good python devs, and the chances of finding a C dev who understands the p2pool system are much greater.

It all boils down to this: P2pool users & the community have a choice - they can continue to sit back & do nothing like they have been doing for the last 2 years & watch it slowly die, or they can do something to help find a solution. IYFTech has done the latter & until I see a better idea, I'll go with his suggestion.

Discussion on 

Peace 

well said patman +1 !!! i totally agree & i'm sure there's something that can be done.

i'm in for whatever help that i can put in.

i don't mean to be rude to certain individuals, but please be polite with your words with a sharp tongue especially with your cockyness & don't go around town criticizing other pools such as this pool & others. Be a little more humble & don't be too cocky or prolly feeling a threat with other pools development or moving forward ?

This statement is not helping much : "Help keep Bitcoin secure by mining on pools with Stratum, the best protocol to mine Bitcoins with ASIC hardware"

I think it should be : "Help Bitcoin Secure by Decentralized Mining, the best way to mine Bitcoins with any hardware"

[rav3n_pl]

Reducing GBT latency would be possible, if Core would return less data to P2Pool. We only need to change/push coinbase transaction, rest can be handled by daemon itself.
At the moment, sending core->pool and parsing block template data in Python is thing that kill performance.
I`m almost sure, I pointed that somewhere over year ago...

[-ck]

i don't mean to be rude to certain individuals, but please be polite with your words with a sharp tongue especially with your cockyness & don't go around town criticizing other pools such as this pool & others. Be a little more humble & don't be too cocky or prolly feeling a threat with other pools development or moving forward ?

You misunderstand. The only reason I speak out is because I'd be happy to be the one to do the rewrite if there was a valid solution to the design flaws and a bounty was raised to fund the rewrite.

[kano]

...
This statement is not helping much : "Help keep Bitcoin secure by mining on pools with Stratum, the best protocol to mine Bitcoins with ASIC hardware"

I think it should be : "Help Bitcoin Secure by Decentralized Mining, the best way to mine Bitcoins with any hardware"

GBT is a piece of shit designed by morons who don't give a fuck about mining.

Stratum was designed (faults and all ) by people who ran mining pools and had many thousands of miners pointing at their pools.

Go figure which one everyone uses and works best for client mining ... even on p2pool ...

[PatMan]

i don't mean to be rude to certain individuals, but please be polite with your words with a sharp tongue especially with your cockyness & don't go around town criticizing other pools such as this pool & others. Be a little more humble & don't be too cocky or prolly feeling a threat with other pools development or moving forward ?

The only reason I speak out is because I'd be happy to be the one to do the rewrite if there was a valid solution to the design flaws and a bounty was raised to fund the rewrite.

I think most of us realised that ck  

Your thoughts & input are always appreciated of course, what you & kano have done & continue to do for the Bitcoin community is legendary, as is your knowledge of C & p2pool. As you know, I've been mildly pestering you for months to take it on, nobody comes close to your understanding of what's required & involved - I can think of nobody more capable than you. If you were to decide to do the re-write, I'm sure that every p2pool user/node would not hesitate in donating to a honeypot using the suggestion mentioned above, the whole community would be 100% behind you for sure, and you never know - maybe while doing the re-write you'll have one of your flashes of genius that will fix the other issues.......?

If every node advertised the fact that they were donating to a honeypot for ckolivas & kano to work on the p2pool code, I'm sure there will be a princely sum awaiting the both of you, not to mention every p2pool users eternal gratitude as well as the Bitcoin community as a whole for helping to decentralise the entire network  

GBT is a piece of shit....

Agreed.

[yslyung]

i don't mean to be rude to certain individuals, but please be polite with your words with a sharp tongue especially with your cockyness & don't go around town criticizing other pools such as this pool & others. Be a little more humble & don't be too cocky or prolly feeling a threat with other pools development or moving forward ?

You misunderstand. The only reason I speak out is because I'd be happy to be the one to do the rewrite if there was a valid solution to the design flaws and a bounty was raised to fund the rewrite.

not you mate. you're a nice guy & help whenever you can if you could recalled that i pm'ed you before & you replied nicely & more importantly humble. maybe it's just me being sensitive or getting the wrong msg via someone's postings.

[jonnybravo0311]

Just translating p2pool as it exists into C, C++, C#, Objective C, Swift, Java, Perl, Lisp, whatever, is not going to suddenly bring the mining masses here.  I know a number of us have listed out the problems previously, and a number of us have had discussions on potential solutions to those problems; however, nobody has been able to successfully crack the nut.  Maybe the problem is that we're all trying to solve p2pool's problems while keeping ourselves in the context of the existing structure.  Let's try another approach.  Forget p2pool even exists.

We as a community want a new pool to be created.  Here is a list of high-level bullet points we would want to have in our new pool:

• Decentralized
• Easy to use
• Performant
• Scalable
• Inclusive

Please feel free to add to these points and/or provide more details/solutions.

[PatMan]

Just translating p2pool as it exists into C, C++, C#, Objective C, Swift, Java, Perl, Lisp, whatever, is not going to suddenly bring the mining masses here.  I know a number of us have listed out the problems previously, and a number of us have had discussions on potential solutions to those problems; however, nobody has been able to successfully crack the nut.  Maybe the problem is that we're all trying to solve p2pool's problems while keeping ourselves in the context of the existing structure.  Let's try another approach.  Forget p2pool even exists.

We as a community want a new pool to be created.  Here is a list of high-level bullet points we would want to have in our new pool:

• Decentralized
• Easy to use
• Performant
• Scalable
• Inclusive

Please feel free to add to these points and/or provide more details/solutions.

This is exactly what I'm suggesting JB - a complete re-write. But in order to achieve this I think we should do the donation bounty option from within the current p2pool structure, as it's (I think) an excellent way of raising awareness in the community as well as raising funds, while the amount of work involved in making the changes are minimal & simple.

[jcumins]

Count me in.  I am a network guy not a programmer.  I will be glad to assist with test servers and access to my private data center of needed.

And yes I will be glad to donate anything I can.

 

[jonnybravo0311]

Just translating p2pool as it exists into C, C++, C#, Objective C, Swift, Java, Perl, Lisp, whatever, is not going to suddenly bring the mining masses here.  I know a number of us have listed out the problems previously, and a number of us have had discussions on potential solutions to those problems; however, nobody has been able to successfully crack the nut.  Maybe the problem is that we're all trying to solve p2pool's problems while keeping ourselves in the context of the existing structure.  Let's try another approach.  Forget p2pool even exists.

We as a community want a new pool to be created.  Here is a list of high-level bullet points we would want to have in our new pool:

• Decentralized
• Easy to use
• Performant
• Scalable
• Inclusive

Please feel free to add to these points and/or provide more details/solutions.

This is exactly what I'm suggesting JB - a complete re-write. But in order to achieve this I think we should do the donation bounty option from within the current p2pool structure, as it's (I think) an excellent way of raising awareness in the community as well as raising funds, while the amount of work involved in making the changes are minimal & simple.

To accomplish that, we'll need somebody to fork the p2pool code and change the donation function to point to a community agreed upon address.  Then we'll need everyone to download and use that new fork, in addition to every node starting up with donations set - assuming we keep it the same and make the donation optional.

So...

1) Who wants to fork the code and write?
2) Who do we make the keepers of the honey pot?