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

[windpath]

CoinCadence had some downtime over the Holliday weekend (Murphy is strong w/ Bitcoin, it's always on the Holidays...). Consequently block 414018 which was found during the down time was not displayed, it has been added.

[in2tactics]

If by DAG you mean Directed Acyclic Graph, I fail to see how that solves the problem much less even addresses the problem -ck was referring to.

The problems with p2pool performance are that (a) miners have to switch work frequently, which causes switching losses (which are particularly bad for Antminers, due to bad firmware, but are also problematic for high-latency connections, or for p2pool nodes with slow CPUs), and (b) the amount of variance a small miner experiences is inversely proportional to the time in between each share. If you have each miner switch work once per share, these two issues are in opposition to each other, and you have to pick a share frequency that balances these two issues.

However, there is no need to have miners switch work once per share. Bitcoin's blocks and transactions need to be serialized in a canonical ordering in order to prevent double-spending or transaction conflicts, but with p2pool there's no equivalent need for each share to come one after another. All that a share needs to do is prove that work was done in a way that benefits other p2pool users, which means (a) accurately pays out to other p2pool users and (b) is working on the correct block height at any given time.

So instead of arranging the shares as a chain of single-parent single-child links, we can come up with more imaginative arrangements. My favorite is where the first share for a new block (the switcher) gets a revenue bonus, and that switcher refers to not one parent share but as many parent shares as you know of, and the size of the switcher's bonus is proportional to the number of parents it has. Once one or more switchers have been found, the other shares (the fillers) refer to a single switcher as the parent. If there are multiple competing switchers to build off of, then the miners will want to choose the switcher that has the most fillers already laid on top of it, as those fillers will give the next switcher the greatest revenue bonus on the next block. Thus, consensus quickly emerges around one switcher, and everyone goes happily on their way. Miners only have to switch work twice per block, and you can get a 1 second (or faster) share time instead of the 30 seconds we tolerate now.

Since the miners don't have to switch work as often, the pool software doesn't have to do as much work (and only needs to recompute rewards twice per block), which means that python's performance issues will become less important.

The GHOST idea is basically that you reward uncles fractionally in the share chain. This should also work, but you'd have to tweak it a bit versus e.g. ethereum's version of GHOST if you wanted to allow for a significantly lower work switching rate than share rate, and it would probably be difficult to get it to perform as well as the odd/even heigh scheme described above.

I understood how DAG and GHOST worked before you explained them. I am trying to point out that I think you are missing the bigger issue. Improving p2pool efficiency is a worthy objective and it even may convince some miners to switch to p2pool. However, if the entry barrier, i.e. the process of setting up a node and running a node, is too great for the general novice then they are simply going to take the easier route and point their miners at something like CKPool and forget about it.

[Meuh6879]

v16 rise ... 181 GH/s to 6,81 TH/s

[veqtrus]

The CSV pull request has been merged.

[jtoomim]

I understood how DAG and GHOST worked before you explained them. I am trying to point out that I think you are missing the bigger issue. Improving p2pool efficiency is a worthy objective and it even may convince some miners to switch to p2pool. However, if the entry barrier, i.e. the process of setting up a node and running a node, is too great for the general novice then they are simply going to take the easier route and point their miners at something like CKPool and forget about it.

Mining is industrialized now. The vast majority of mining is done in farms with more than 1 PH/s of mining power in each farm. If miners could save 3% or more on pool fees by switching to p2pool, they'd be willing to spend a few hours to set up a p2pool node.

Even if they weren't willing to spend that time, with a better DAG-based algorithm, network latency to the p2pool node wouldn't matter very much, and so you wouldn't need to have your own p2pool node. They could just point their miners at something like minefast.coincadence.com and forget about it.

The #1 reason that p2pool is so unpopular right now is that the frequent work switches cause (a) a 5-10% loss of hashrate in Antminers, (b) poor stability in Antminers, and (c) a chance of hardware damage in Antminers due to the fan control bug (the ASICs continue to generate heat for a few minutes after cgminer dies, but the fans stop immediately).

[kano]

...
If miners could save 3% or more on pool fees by switching to p2pool
...

That seems like a high number, who's ass did you pull that out of?

...
and so you wouldn't need to have your own p2pool node. They could just point their miners at something like minefast.coincadence.com and forget about it.
...

Decentralisation though centralisation ... right ... ... ...

[OgNasty]

Doing some short term testing of Bitmain's new Antminer S9 on our NastyPool p2pool node.  You can see the live chart below (no longer live).

[jtoomim]

If miners could save 3% or more on pool fees by switching to p2pool

That seems like a high number, who's ass did you pull that out of?

Wang Chun's ass: 4% (plus transaction fees). https://www.f2pool.com/help

Jihan's has something similar: Antpool is 2.5% plus tx fees. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools

and so you wouldn't need to have your own p2pool node. They could just point their miners at something like minefast.coincadence.com and forget about it.

Decentralisation though centralisation ... right ... ... ...

I don't think Bitcoin's security would be threatened if we had 1000 miners spread out among 100 p2pool nodes.

[jtoomim]

Doing some short term testing of Bitmain's new Antminer S9 on our NastyPool p2pool node.  You can see the live chart below (click it if it doesn't update).

Any indication of whether the S9 loses hashrate on p2pool, like every non-modded Antminer before?

When I visited Bitmain HQ in December, I talked to two of their engineers about the p2pool performance problems, and pointed them at ckolivas's fixes. It sounded like they intended to do something about it, but I don't know if their intentions were ever translated into actions.

[kano]

If miners could save 3% or more on pool fees by switching to p2pool

That seems like a high number, who's ass did you pull that out of?

Wang Chun's ass: 4% (plus transaction fees). https://www.f2pool.com/help

Jihan's has something similar: Antpool is 2.5% plus tx fees. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools

Ah ok so you are yet another of the "we all mine on antpool and f2pool" goons.

Meanwhile on the best pool on the planet, the pool fees are 0.9% and the transaction fees more than reverse that with average 1.4% back to the miners.
My pool.

and so you wouldn't need to have your own p2pool node. They could just point their miners at something like minefast.coincadence.com and forget about it.

Decentralisation though centralisation ... right ... ... ...

I don't think Bitcoin's security would be threatened if we had 1000 miners spread out among 100 p2pool nodes.

Not relevant.
That's not decentralisation, that's centralisation.
Yes you can give excuses why you think centralisation of p2pool is ok, but it's still centralisation.
At least get forrestv to change the thread title.
This has already been going on for a long time anyway.

So you still don't understand one of the big problems with p2pool ...
The larger miners get a higher PPS% reward, taken from from the smaller miners.
Better setups get a higher PPS% reward, taken from crappy setups.
But yeah, push that line but pretend it doesn't exist ...

[OgNasty]

Doing some short term testing of Bitmain's new Antminer S9 on our NastyPool p2pool node.  You can see the live chart below (click it if it doesn't update).

Any indication of whether the S9 loses hashrate on p2pool, like every non-modded Antminer before?

When I visited Bitmain HQ in December, I talked to two of their engineers about the p2pool performance problems, and pointed them at ckolivas's fixes. It sounded like they intended to do something about it, but I don't know if their intentions were ever translated into actions.

Nope.  I would only be speculating.

[jtoomim]

Ah ok so you are yet another of the "we all mine on antpool and f2pool" goons.

No, I'm one of the "47% of us mine on antpool and f2pool" goons. Only the Sith deal in absolutes.

So you still don't understand one of the big problems with p2pool ...
The larger miners get a higher PPS% reward, taken from from the smaller miners.
Better setups get a higher PPS% reward, taken from crappy setups.
But yeah, push that line but pretend it doesn't exist ...

The DAG ideas I put forth earlier would fix those problems.

[donatebitcointome]

Could someone explain to me what is the difference between running p2pool with port 8333 and 9333 open and close.

Please don't explain that "I help the bitcoin network by running full node with port 8333 open" or similar answer
or something like I couldn't create a block with port 8333 close -> does this mean I can never solved a block in p2pool if port 8333 close?

I would like to understand the difference between opening or closing port 8333 and 9333 when running p2pool.

Thank you very much.

[jtoomim]

Could someone explain to me what is the difference between running p2pool with port 8333 and 9333 open and close.

In order to participate in the bitcoin and p2pool p2p networks, your node needs to make connections with other computers. These connections can either be outgoing (your computer initiates) or incoming (another computer initiates). If port 8333 and 9333 are closed, then your computer can only make outgoing connections.

Since there are a lot of computers that have closed ports, this means that there are more computers trying to make outgoing connections than there are computers that are able to receive them. As a result, if you have closed ports, your bitcoind and p2pool processes will make fewer total connections, and will not be able to propagate shares and blocks as well. You also make the issue worse of there being more outgoing connection attempts than there are recipients.

Port 8333 is for bitcoind's p2p communication. Port 9333 is for p2pool's p2p communication. Bitcoind's p2p communication is for transmitting blocks and transactions, and p2pool's p2p communication is for transmitting p2pool shares (and also some blocks). Port 9333 makes a much larger difference for p2pool's performance than 8333.

[donatebitcointome]

Could someone explain to me what is the difference between running p2pool with port 8333 and 9333 open and close.

In order to participate in the bitcoin and p2pool p2p networks, your node needs to make connections with other computers. These connections can either be outgoing (your computer initiates) or incoming (another computer initiates). If port 8333 and 9333 are closed, then your computer can only make outgoing connections.

Since there are a lot of computers that have closed ports, this means that there are more computers trying to make outgoing connections than there are computers that are able to receive them. As a result, if you have closed ports, your bitcoind and p2pool processes will make fewer total connections, and will not be able to propagate shares and blocks as well. You also make the issue worse of there being more outgoing connection attempts than there are recipients.

Port 8333 is for bitcoind's p2p communication. Port 9333 is for p2pool's p2p communication. Bitcoind's p2p communication is for transmitting blocks and transactions, and p2pool's p2p communication is for transmitting p2pool shares (and also some blocks). Port 9333 makes a much larger difference for p2pool's performance than 8333.

Hi jtoonim,

thanks for the explaination.

from what I understand from your explaination, with port 8333 and 9333 closed about not able to propagate shares and blocks means I could solve a block but it just I will have to rely on someone else full node bitcoind and p2pool to propagate it to the network?

And if possible, I open both port. but if for some reason I couldn't, it will still be better open port 9333 than 8333 right?

[kano]

Ah ok so you are yet another of the "we all mine on antpool and f2pool" goons.

No, I'm one of the "47% of us mine on antpool and f2pool" goons. Only the Sith deal in absolutes.
...

You said 3% or more.
If you think 3 can sometimes not be absolutely 3 ... ... ... ...

[jtoomim]

You said 3% or more.

2.5% base fee plus 1-2% transaction fees > 3%.

I'm a little surprised you think this is worth arguing about.

[kano]

You said 3% or more.

2.5% base fee plus 1-2% transaction fees > 3%.

I'm a little surprised you think this is worth arguing about.

Again quoting F2Pool or Bitmain.

Look around, there are plenty of other pools out there that make your 3% comment a major exaggeration.
You keep implying that it's all about F2Pool and Bitmain ... well it isn't, open your eyes.

Also mining on P2Pool doesn't mean high txn fees.
It depends on the average miner settings on P2Pool, which is not "full blocks", and the pool average is not 'high'
... also the fact that P2Pool produces empty blocks by design, with NO txn fees at all ... ... ...

[drazah]

Im just getting back into mining and i picked up two cheap S4s (i get free electricity) and from the pools that i looked at to go into, 3% does seem really high to me.

[in2tactics]

Im just getting back into mining and i picked up two cheap S4s (i get free electricity) and from the pools that i looked at to go into, 3% does seem really high to me.

It is not hard to get a better rate than 3%.

https://kano.is/ is 0.9%
https://bitminter.com/ is 1%
https://slushpool.com/ is 2%