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

[mdude77]

So.....with my puny 12 Gh/s rig I might as well forget P2Pool right?  Expect share is somewhere around 4 days right now and payout per block is BTC0.00143.  So that's something like BTC0.00143 every 4 days?  Am I reading this right?

I would not put that little hashrate on p2pool.  You'll variance will be wildly extreme.

"Wildly extreme" meaning your current estimated $2/day earnings will end up being $0 on a lot of days (and well above $2 on some other days)? How does that even matter to anyone?

The satisfaction of seeing a reward, even small, is what makes mining worth while.  With a share difficulty now at 888k, your odds of getting a share with 12gh/s is very very low.

If you want steady, although small income, point it to a large pool like BTCGuild.

M

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[int03h]

my 4GH/s miners get an accept on my local node just as often as my 60Gh/s miners do. BFL's in this case. The point is your chances of getting a share are equal proportionally.. AS FAR AS I CAN TELL .. YMMV.

[smooth]

The satisfaction of seeing a reward, even small, is what makes mining worth while.  With a share difficulty now at 888k, your odds of getting a share with 12gh/s is very very low.

If you want steady, although small income, point it to a large pool like BTCGuild.

There is no reason to assume that the satisfaction of seeing a $2/day reward is greater than the satisfaction of seeing a reward of $5 or $10 every few days. This is hardly solo mining where you are trying to get very lucky and score $20K but most will never get anything (although I'd add that many very small miners might well enjoy that too -- after all lots and lots of people play the lottery and unlike mining the vig on that is atrocious). Every miner with say 12 GH on p2pool will get fairly consistent rewards every week at least, just not every day.

I will say this though, the cost of running a full bitcoin node and p2pool node in terms of bandwidth and effort are significant. If you are only pulling own a few dollars per day it probably isn't worth it.

[mdude77]

The satisfaction of seeing a reward, even small, is what makes mining worth while.  With a share difficulty now at 888k, your odds of getting a share with 12gh/s is very very low.

If you want steady, although small income, point it to a large pool like BTCGuild.

There is no reason to assume that the satisfaction of seeing a $2/day reward is greater than the satisfaction of seeing a reward of $5 or $10 every few days. This is hardly solo mining where you are trying to get very lucky and score $20K but most will never get anything (although I'd add that many very small miners might well enjoy that too -- after all lots and lots of people play the lottery and unlike mining the vig on that is atrocious). Every miner with say 12 GH on p2pool will get fairly consistent rewards every week at least, just not every day.

I will say this though, the cost of running a full bitcoin node and p2pool node in terms of bandwidth and effort are significant. If you are only pulling own a few dollars per day it probably isn't worth it.

On average it'll take you about 3 days to find a share at current sharechain difficulty (770k).  That means there will be dry periods much longer, and probably some days it's shorter.  Another factor regularly overlooked with p2pool is the high reject rate.  I know I was extremely disappointed when those 3 or 4 days would go by and I'd finally get that cherished share ... only to have it rejected.

I tend to think you won't be getting $5 or $10 every few days with 12gh/s. 

M

[TierNolan]

P2pool pays out over 3 blocks on average.  The pool is finding around 2 blocks per day.  This means if you find a share, you will get 3 payouts spaced every 12 hours (on average).

If you find a share once every 3 days, it remains active for 1.5 days, so you have an active share for 50% of the time.

[HellDiverUK]

So, just ran my 120GH on p2pool for 24 hours.  Payout stands at 0.004BTC.  That's shit.  Barely pays for the power used running a PC all day.

Back to a real pool.

[TierNolan]

So, just ran my 120GH on p2pool for 24 hours.  Payout stands at 0.004BTC.  That's shit.  Barely pays for the power used running a PC all day.

Back to a real pool.

Payout is over 3 blocks, so takes 1.5 days to payout. 

[ksenter]

So, just ran my 120GH on p2pool for 24 hours.  Payout stands at 0.004BTC.  That's shit.  Barely pays for the power used running a PC all day.

Back to a real pool.

Payout is over 3 blocks, so takes 1.5 days to payout. 

You should probably stop feeding the troll.  He'll never use p2pool long enough or with any objectivity.  He just knows he doesn't like it without having a valid reason.
Btw, over the past 3 days I've gotten 0.085+ bitcoins with only 30Ghs.  The 4 days prior to that I got 0 however.  So yeah, variance...  The good news is that over time I've always come out better than other pools.  You just have to be patient.  I completely understand though that people with low hashrates might prefer a different pool.  But really everyone with hundreds of GHs should consider trying p2pool for a couple of weeks.

[K1773R]

So, just ran my 120GH on p2pool for 24 hours.  Payout stands at 0.004BTC.  That's shit.  Barely pays for the power used running a PC all day.

Back to a real pool.

Payout is over 3 blocks, so takes 1.5 days to payout.  

You should probably stop feeding the troll.  He'll never use p2pool long enough or with any objectivity.  He just knows he doesn't like it without having a valid reason.
Btw, over the past 3 days I've gotten 0.085+ bitcoins with only 30Ghs.  The 4 days prior to that I got 0 however.  So yeah, variance...  The good news is that over time I've always come out better than other pools.  You just have to be patient.  I completely understand though that people with low hashrates might prefer a different pool.  But really everyone with hundreds of GHs should consider trying p2pool for a couple of weeks.

it was allways the same with him/it and it will always be stupidity meets ignorance 

[smooth]

On average it'll take you about 3 days to find a share at current sharechain difficulty (770k).  That means there will be dry periods much longer, and probably some days it's shorter.

How about you drop the obvious bias? "Will" be dry periods, and "probably" some days its shorter?  Seriously?

There WILL be longer dry periods and there WILL be shorter dry periods. That is the nature of variance. But when your total hash rate translates to $2/day the absolute variance will not be much. You will NEVER underperform by more than $2/day.

 Another factor regularly overlooked with p2pool is the high reject rate.  I know I was extremely disappointed when those 3 or 4 days would go by and I'd finally get that cherished share ... only to have it rejected.

If you have a "high" reject rate then something is malfunctioning or misconfigured.  A few percent or so rejects is normal and anything up to about 10% probably does not hurt your earnings relative to another pool.

I tend to think you won't be getting $5 or $10 every few days with 12gh/s.

Then you would be wrong. If your expected earnings are $2/day and you have multiple days of getting $0 then you WILL also have days of getting $6 or more. Mathematical certainty.

Over periods of weeks you will very likely earn more than regular pools even with 12 GH. If you want to earn less, go right ahead, but stop spreading biased misinformation.

[smooth]

Single blade antminer S1, Works fantastically on P2Pool:

Are you using any nonstandard configuration or settings?

I'm planning to give p2pool another shot on my AntMiners next week. The hardware for the node is on order right now.

[Ceballos]

Good Pool 

[mdude77]

On average it'll take you about 3 days to find a share at current sharechain difficulty (770k).  That means there will be dry periods much longer, and probably some days it's shorter.

How about you drop the obvious bias? "Will" be dry periods, and "probably" some days its shorter?  Seriously?

There WILL be longer dry periods and there WILL be shorter dry periods. That is the nature of variance. But when your total hash rate translates to $2/day the absolute variance will not be much. You will NEVER underperform by more than $2/day.

 Another factor regularly overlooked with p2pool is the high reject rate.  I know I was extremely disappointed when those 3 or 4 days would go by and I'd finally get that cherished share ... only to have it rejected.

If you have a "high" reject rate then something is malfunctioning or misconfigured.  A few percent or so rejects is normal and anything up to about 10% probably does not hurt your earnings relative to another pool.

I tend to think you won't be getting $5 or $10 every few days with 12gh/s.

Then you would be wrong. If your expected earnings are $2/day and you have multiple days of getting $0 then you WILL also have days of getting $6 or more. Mathematical certainty.

Over periods of weeks you will very likely earn more than regular pools even with 12 GH. If you want to earn less, go right ahead, but stop spreading biased misinformation.

[edited more than once]

You're right, I think there was some bias in there.  I'm not new to p2pool, nor new to mining.  I've always been a small miner in p2pool, and the huge variance I experience hurts.  And the 16% stale rate, on average, doesn't help matters.

I thought a bit about why I stay away from p2pool and why I suggest other "small" miners do the same.

It's the variance and the continued massive increases in difficulty.

Over the roughly 2 week period between BTC difficulty increases, if you average a share every 3 days, that means there will be times when it's longer, and there will be times that it's shorter.  Because of stale shares, there will be more longer periods than there will be shorter periods.  If BTC difficulty never increased, it would even out in the end compared to everyone else in p2pool.

The rub is in the difficulty increase.  In that 2 week period I should get 4 shares on average, assuming share difficulty doesn't increase.  But it is... so if I luck out and get 4 shares, or more, then great.  But if I don't, I will do better on a standard pool with little variance (like BTC Guild).  

Maybe my math is wrong.  The resident math expert will likely chime in here correcting me if I'm off.  It may just be a feeling.  Regardless, it seems to me because of the endless drastic difficulty increases, when I come out behind in that difficulty period, I will never catch up in the next difficulty period.  And there will be times when I come out behind... so therefore I'm better off in a standard pool.

Again, this applies to small miners.  With share difficulty approaching 1m, I can't imagine pointing my measly 38 gh/s at p2pool.  The variance would be awful, and before I know it, the BTC difficulty will increase again.

M

[mdude77]

Maybe my math is wrong.  The resident math expert will likely chime in here correcting me if I'm off.  It may just be a feeling.  Regardless, it seems to me because of the endless drastic difficulty increases, when I come out behind in that difficulty period, I will never catch up in the next difficulty period.  And there will be times when I come out behind... so therefore I'm better off in a standard pool.

I'll use some extreme numbers for an example.  The numbers will scale either way, I'm using these for simplicity.  I'm ignoring pool fees (lower on p2pool usually than conventional pools), share difficulty increases (doesn't increase on conventional pools), and high rejects on p2pool (doesn't increase on conventional pools).

Let's say for one given BTC difficulty period, according to average, I'm supposed to mine 1 BTC.

That period is awful luck wise.  I only get 50% of what I'm supposed to.  Instead of 1 BTC, I get 0.5 BTC.

The next period, my luck reverses.  I make 50% more than I'm supposed to!  But difficulty also increased 50%.  I'm supposed to make 0.5BTC, on average, but instead I make 0.75BTC.

For those periods, I made a total of 1.25BTC.

On a conventional pool with low variance, I would have made 1.5BTC.

Let's try it with difficulty increasing 30%.

2nd period, my luck reverses.  I'm supposed to make 0.7BTC, instead I make 1.05BTC.

For those two periods, I should have made 1.7BTC.  Instead I made 1.55BTC.  On a conventional pool with low variance, I would be a lot closer to 1.7BTC.

Granted, this is not specific to p2pool.  The same logic applies to any pool with high variance.  What's unique to p2pool is the high share difficulty (increases variance) and rejects (also increases variance).

Is there a flaw in my logic?

M

[alanwgeorge]

I was curious why all the p2pool payouts are listed on blockchain's "Strange Transactions" list.

https://blockchain.info/strange-transactions

"Unable to decode input address" 0 BTC

[IYFTech]

Hello again p2poolers 

OK, decided to switch my node on again after upgrading to 13.10. I'm struggling with getting slush's stratum proxy to play with p2pool so thought I'd ask here - does it work with p2pool? If so, can someone give me a heads up?

Ta muchly 

[forrestv]

Maybe my math is wrong.  The resident math expert will likely chime in here correcting me if I'm off.  It may just be a feeling.  Regardless, it seems to me because of the endless drastic difficulty increases, when I come out behind in that difficulty period, I will never catch up in the next difficulty period.  And there will be times when I come out behind... so therefore I'm better off in a standard pool.

I'll use some extreme numbers for an example.  The numbers will scale either way, I'm using these for simplicity.  I'm ignoring pool fees (lower on p2pool usually than conventional pools), share difficulty increases (doesn't increase on conventional pools), and high rejects on p2pool (doesn't increase on conventional pools).

Let's say for one given BTC difficulty period, according to average, I'm supposed to mine 1 BTC.

That period is awful luck wise.  I only get 50% of what I'm supposed to.  Instead of 1 BTC, I get 0.5 BTC.

The next period, my luck reverses.  I make 50% more than I'm supposed to!  But difficulty also increased 50%.  I'm supposed to make 0.5BTC, on average, but instead I make 0.75BTC.

For those periods, I made a total of 1.25BTC.

On a conventional pool with low variance, I would have made 1.5BTC.

Let's try it with difficulty increasing 30%.

2nd period, my luck reverses.  I'm supposed to make 0.7BTC, instead I make 1.05BTC.

For those two periods, I should have made 1.7BTC.  Instead I made 1.55BTC.  On a conventional pool with low variance, I would be a lot closer to 1.7BTC.

Granted, this is not specific to p2pool.  The same logic applies to any pool with high variance.  What's unique to p2pool is the high share difficulty (increases variance) and rejects (also increases variance).

Is there a flaw in my logic?

M

Yes. You're assuming that you'll have bad luck now and good luck later, but you have to look at all possible outcomes to calculate what you expect to happen.

Using the average return for your case and the case where you have good luck now and bad luck later happens to be enough for the calculated return to be what it should be:

First period: supposed to mine 1 BTC, mine 1.5 BTC instead (+50% luck)
Second period: supposed to mine 0.5 BTC, mine 0.25 BTC instead (-50% luck)

You made 1.75 BTC, more than expected.


Average of 1.25 BTC and 1.75 BTC = 1.5 BTC, what you're "supposed to mine."

[mdude77]

Maybe my math is wrong.  The resident math expert will likely chime in here correcting me if I'm off.  It may just be a feeling.  Regardless, it seems to me because of the endless drastic difficulty increases, when I come out behind in that difficulty period, I will never catch up in the next difficulty period.  And there will be times when I come out behind... so therefore I'm better off in a standard pool.

I'll use some extreme numbers for an example.  The numbers will scale either way, I'm using these for simplicity.  I'm ignoring pool fees (lower on p2pool usually than conventional pools), share difficulty increases (doesn't increase on conventional pools), and high rejects on p2pool (doesn't increase on conventional pools).

Let's say for one given BTC difficulty period, according to average, I'm supposed to mine 1 BTC.

That period is awful luck wise.  I only get 50% of what I'm supposed to.  Instead of 1 BTC, I get 0.5 BTC.

The next period, my luck reverses.  I make 50% more than I'm supposed to!  But difficulty also increased 50%.  I'm supposed to make 0.5BTC, on average, but instead I make 0.75BTC.

For those periods, I made a total of 1.25BTC.

On a conventional pool with low variance, I would have made 1.5BTC.

Let's try it with difficulty increasing 30%.

2nd period, my luck reverses.  I'm supposed to make 0.7BTC, instead I make 1.05BTC.

For those two periods, I should have made 1.7BTC.  Instead I made 1.55BTC.  On a conventional pool with low variance, I would be a lot closer to 1.7BTC.

Granted, this is not specific to p2pool.  The same logic applies to any pool with high variance.  What's unique to p2pool is the high share difficulty (increases variance) and rejects (also increases variance).

Is there a flaw in my logic?

M

Yes. You're assuming that you'll have bad luck now and good luck later, but you have to look at all possible outcomes to calculate what you expect to happen.

Using the average return for your case and the case where you have good luck now and bad luck later happens to be enough for the calculated return to be what it should be:

First period: supposed to mine 1 BTC, mine 1.5 BTC instead (+50% luck)
Second period: supposed to mine 0.5 BTC, mine 0.25 BTC instead (-50% luck)

You made 1.75 BTC, more than expected.

Average of 1.25 BTC and 1.75 BTC = 1.5 BTC, what you're "supposed to mine."

Good point about the average. 

However, when you factor in the additional variance introduced by high share difficulty and reject rate, and you get more variance than you would elsewhere. 

Yes?

M

[forrestv]

Good point about the average. 

However, when you factor in the additional variance introduced by high share difficulty and reject rate, and you get more variance than you would elsewhere. 

Yes?

M

P2Pool definitely has more variance than other pools; I'm not sure if it makes sense to say that difficulty changes contribute to P2Pool's variance more than they do to other pools (but I wouldn't be surprised if that were somehow true...)

Difficulty changes definitely effectively "magnify" past variance relative to current earnings, at least.

[IYFTech]

Hello again p2poolers 

OK, decided to switch my node on again after upgrading to 13.10. I'm struggling with getting slush's stratum proxy to play with p2pool so thought I'd ask here - does it work with p2pool? If so, can someone give me a heads up?

Ta muchly 

Anyone?