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

[murdof]

I installed p2pool 2 days ago and still no payment.
I see the past two days no block has been found.
I assume today or tomorrow 1 or 2 blocks will be found and get payouts.

Which brings me to the next question.
How many blocks is p2pool is trying to discover at the same time?

No blocks found for 2 days, 8 hours, 37 minutes and 54 seconds as of me writing this.  Expected time to block is 23 hours, 19 minutes, 42 seconds.

It's variance.  On 6/3, p2pool found 4 blocks in 24 hours.

Pretty sure the answer to how many blocks at the same time is exactly like the answer for every other pool: the latest one.

Thanks for your answer.

Just to clarify how mining works among competitive pools.
So if P2Pool has 500 TH/s and Eligius has 6500 TH/s how can any "smaller" pool (e.g. P2Pool) be competitive?

Eligius in this example has more chances to to find the block as it has more TH/s.

What happens to the work that the P2Pool has done on this block as well as the work done from other pools? Just goes to trash?

Just trying to figure out with simple words/example how pool mining works...

Using simple numbers
2 Pools
1 has 1 miner with 10 TH
1 has 10 miners with 10 TH each for a total of 100 TH

The faster pool will find 10x as many blocks as the slower one. BUT when the slower one finds a block that 1 miner gets the full amount with the faster pool each miner gets 1/10 of the amount. In the end you do wind up with the same amount.

And yes, the old work gets chucked in the trash.

-Dave

Thanks Dave,

so if I understand correctly it doesn't really matter where you mine. Based on chances you will anyway get the same amount of BTC any pool you mine (maybe with a 10% luck difference) if you mine for a year.
So what about solo mining then? I have 2.8TH/s so my chance is that I find a block in 208 days. Even if I do find it in 1 year it is much more than mining in a pool.

So that's question #1.

Which bring me to question #2:
So for 3 days no blocks have been found with p2pool. If I stop mining today in p2pool I will get payment for 1 block only? Or will I get payment from next blocks as well even though I'm not in to compensate for the "loss" ?

[Polyatomic]

so if I understand correctly it doesn't really matter where you mine. Based on chances you will anyway get the same amount of BTC any pool you mine (maybe with a 10% luck difference) if you mine for a year.
So what about solo mining then? I have 2.8TH/s so my chance is that I find a block in 208 days. Even if I do find it in 1 year it is much more than mining in a pool.

Or you could find a block in 3 days , the randomness is unreal. Just remember the network diff is increasing.

[Mogumodz]

Any word on when the stats page http://p2pool.info/ is coming back?  It's been down for days now.  It was fully transfered to forrestv a few months ago right?

Yes, I control it, and I'll fix it soon, hopefully in the next day.

Any update on this?

[bitdigger2013]

Is there a formula to calculate the amount of expected shares in 24 hours given a hashrate on p2pool?

[Farmer17]

Is there a formula to calculate the amount of expected shares in 24 hours given a hashrate on p2pool?

I asked a similar question a few days ago, and jonnybravo0311 has given me a perfect answer.

Code:

Difficulty * 2**32 / hashrate / 86400 = number of days to find a share

The larger p2pool is, the higher the share difficulty.  Right now the share difficulty is 2million.  Yes, that makes variance large for little guys.  Has always been a downside of p2pool.

In today's day and age, 200gh/s isn't that much.

At that share difficulty, how much hashrate do I need to have, so I could expect 1 share a day on average?

I'm guessing about 100gh/s.

M

You can figure it out using the following formula:

Difficulty * 2**32 / hashrate / 86400 = number of days to find a share

Since you want the days to find a share to be 1, you can solve for hash rate.

2272866.97 * 2**32 / hashrate / 86400 = 1

hashrate = 112.98482991097931851851852 GH/s as of right now

[bitdigger2013]

Thanks

So my 24hour share estimate is roughly 11.13 for 1 TH  if I did it right

[DaveF]

Using simple numbers
2 Pools
1 has 1 miner with 10 TH
1 has 10 miners with 10 TH each for a total of 100 TH

The faster pool will find 10x as many blocks as the slower one. BUT when the slower one finds a block that 1 miner gets the full amount with the faster pool each miner gets 1/10 of the amount. In the end you do wind up with the same amount.

And yes, the old work gets chucked in the trash.

-Dave

Thanks Dave,

so if I understand correctly it doesn't really matter where you mine. Based on chances you will anyway get the same amount of BTC any pool you mine (maybe with a 10% luck difference) if you mine for a year.
So what about solo mining then? I have 2.8TH/s so my chance is that I find a block in 208 days. Even if I do find it in 1 year it is much more than mining in a pool.

So that's question #1.

Which bring me to question #2:
So for 3 days no blocks have been found with p2pool. If I stop mining today in p2pool I will get payment for 1 block only? Or will I get payment from next blocks as well even though I'm not in to compensate for the "loss" ?

This is a vast oversimplification of it but you get paid on shares of work submitted. These are rolling shares that are good for a period of time. So using the simple numbers that I like. If you submit 10 shares an hour over 10 hours you will have 100 shares. If the rolling period of time is 10 hours and you keep up the 10 per hour you will always have 100 shares in the pool. So if a block if found at 1:00 and then again at 1:01 and another at 1:02 you will have 100 shares in each block. And get paid accordingly. Now, if you stop mining at 2:00 then by 3:00 you will only have 90 shares by 4:00 you will have 80. If a block is then found at 4:00 you will get paid on 70 shares. If a block is found at 11:59 you get nothing.

Now along that same note if we are in a dry spell like now and with my simple numbers your shares fall off after 10 hours then whatever you did 11 hours ago does not matter.

Let me state again, this is an oversimplification but should give you a good idea of how it works.


Now as to the which pool you use, for the most part in the long run yes they all will give you about the same payout. However, there are other factors.

Some pools charge a fee some don't, some are closer to you and will give you slightly fewer stales shares then others, some will merge mine coins and give them to you. Some will merge mine coins and pocket them, never tell you making them money. Some pool operators are friendly and help out others are egotistical a--holes who think they know better then everyone and you just want to slap them upside the head. Also, when mining at a pool that is not p2pool node you have to trust the operators not to run off with your BTC, with P2 they can't. Although they still can merge mine and not tell you about it.

-Dave

[murdof]

Thanks Dave

Merged mining slows down anything on BTC side?

Which cons are must for merged mining when running BTC node?

Also eligius says and i can see from payouts that my daily payout is 0.12213 BTC per day.

Your approximate maximum potential earnings at the current network difficulty of 11,756,551,916.90 and maintaining your 3-hour average hash rate of 2,855.07 Gh/s is 0.12213214 BTC per day.

P2Pool says that my payout if a block is found is about 0.11 BTC.
So far 3 days I would have gotten payouts with Eligius of 0.36 BTC.
But with P2Pool I have 0. You saying that something within the week I should get about 4 blocks to compensate statistically for the loss?
Or as long as there is no payout from P2Pool the payout amount is increasing?

[DaveF]

Thanks Dave

Merged mining slows down anything on BTC side?

Which cons are must for merged mining when running BTC node?

Also eligius says and i can see from payouts that my daily payout is 0.12213 BTC per day.

Your approximate maximum potential earnings at the current network difficulty of 11,756,551,916.90 and maintaining your 3-hour average hash rate of 2,855.07 Gh/s is 0.12213214 BTC per day.

P2Pool says that my payout if a block is found is about 0.11 BTC.
So far 3 days I would have gotten payouts with Eligius of 0.36 BTC.
But with P2Pool I have 0. You saying that something within the week I should get about 4 blocks to compensate statistically for the loss?
Or as long as there is no payout from P2Pool the payout amount is increasing?

Merged mining slows down anything on BTC side?
Not if the server has enough RAM / CPU speed / Drive Speed. At the smaller node level it's not a lot of extra power, as you get to the larger levels it can jump quickly.
 Once again simple numbers 1TH = X amount of computing power, 10TH = 2 times X computing power, 50TH = 5 times X computing power, 100TH = 70 times X computing power. Somewhere along the line you have to go to separate stratum server, and DB server, wallet server, etc.  Once again, these are made up numbers to illustrate the point.

Which cons are must for merged mining when running BTC node?

If you mean which coins then:
It's an opinion question. Some people think that anything but NMC is a waste, others think mine everything if you have the computing power after all money is money.

If you mean what are the cons, then the more processes running on your server makes for more things to screw up, which could put you off line and not mining till you fix it...

But with P2Pool I have 0. You saying that something within the week I should get about 4 blocks to compensate statistically for the loss?

In *theory* yes. In reality luck can be good or bad for weeks / months at a time. And with the difficulty increasing every 2 weeks or so a long dry spell might take a while to catch up. P2Pool should be finding a block about once a day using my back of the napkin numbers at 550 TH. From 10:45 AM on June 3rd to 7:30 AM on the 5th the pool found 5 blocks, with 3 of them being on the 4th. And none since the 5th. Luck can be like that.

Or as long as there is no payout from P2Pool the payout amount is increasing?
Nope, what you get paid per block is what you get paid per block, there is no "bank"

-Dave

[murdof]

Thanks Dave,

you've been really helpful with clearing things out for me.

What I mean about merged mining is that if for example I have 1 TH to find BTC shares, if I merge mine then I have for example 0.8 TH for BTC and 0.2 TH for the merged coins?

Also for merged mining it is actually solo mining correct? Should I see in p2pool logs that a block was found for NMC or IXC?

[mdude77]

Thanks Dave,

you've been really helpful with clearing things out for me.

What I mean about merged mining is that if for example I have 1 TH to find BTC shares, if I merge mine then I have for example 0.8 TH for BTC and 0.2 TH for the merged coins?

No.  The beauty of merged mining is the full hashrate applies to all the chains.

Also for merged mining it is actually solo mining correct? Should I see in p2pool logs that a block was found for NMC or IXC?

Correct.  Check the difficulties on those coins, you'll see they are WAY up there, close to bitcoin.  While it's possible you'll find a block on them, it's highly unlikely, just like it's highly unlikely you'll find a bitcoin block.

That's why I promote sharing of merged mining findings with p2pool.  If everyone did it, it'd make it more like conventional pools.

M

[murdof]

Also for merged mining it is actually solo mining correct? Should I see in p2pool logs that a block was found for NMC or IXC?

Correct.  Check the difficulties on those coins, you'll see they are WAY up there, close to bitcoin.  While it's possible you'll find a block on them, it's highly unlikely, just like it's highly unlikely you'll find a bitcoin block.

That's why I promote sharing of merged mining findings with p2pool.  If everyone did it, it'd make it more like conventional pools.

M

I have only seen guides to start p2pool.py with --merged and just specify user/pass for the coins.
Is there a guide on how to implement this sharing for merged mining? I have no problem to implement this.

[bitpop]

Also for merged mining it is actually solo mining correct? Should I see in p2pool logs that a block was found for NMC or IXC?

Correct.  Check the difficulties on those coins, you'll see they are WAY up there, close to bitcoin.  While it's possible you'll find a block on them, it's highly unlikely, just like it's highly unlikely you'll find a bitcoin block.

That's why I promote sharing of merged mining findings with p2pool.  If everyone did it, it'd make it more like conventional pools.

M

I have only seen guides to start p2pool.py with --merged and just specify user/pass for the coins.
Is there a guide on how to implement this sharing for merged mining? I have no problem to implement this.

There's a script but basically you sell the coins then donate

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/P2Pool#Donating_to_P2Pool_miners

[mdude77]

Also for merged mining it is actually solo mining correct? Should I see in p2pool logs that a block was found for NMC or IXC?

Correct.  Check the difficulties on those coins, you'll see they are WAY up there, close to bitcoin.  While it's possible you'll find a block on them, it's highly unlikely, just like it's highly unlikely you'll find a bitcoin block.

That's why I promote sharing of merged mining findings with p2pool.  If everyone did it, it'd make it more like conventional pools.

M

I have only seen guides to start p2pool.py with --merged and just specify user/pass for the coins.
Is there a guide on how to implement this sharing for merged mining? I have no problem to implement this.

There's a script but basically you sell the coins then donate

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/P2Pool#Donating_to_P2Pool_miners

I'm also collecting if you don't want to go through converting and distributing them:

DVC: 1f56VqR9ajX3K42qSaDezvKXFmruSDg1B
IXC: xaNQ54gxowcwHyxqGtFM4vwCfS84V6fmKF
NMC: N1XhWNmvGhFL145zmQGQv7Vug6mThNh1iQ
I0C: jMDtRnMAk2WxaoAw8HUceMaxPPqAuZ8AEN
FSC: Fjhv8Sk8iC7AF76CTJbKo1zkHLUbTTTBs2

M

[DaveF]

Correct.  Check the difficulties on those coins, you'll see they are WAY up there, close to bitcoin.  While it's possible you'll find a block on them, it's highly unlikely, just like it's highly unlikely you'll find a bitcoin block.

That's why I promote sharing of merged mining findings with p2pool.  If everyone did it, it'd make it more like conventional pools.

M

Which is why in my paranoid mind I think that there are people merge mining and not telling. Outside of GHash I don't know of a large pool that is telling people that they are mining DVC / IXC but their difficulty is way above where it should be IMHO if the only big pool mining was them.

Yes I know MM and a few other pools are mining but not enough to put the difficulty that high. Once again, using some rough numbers that I put together.

-Dave

[mdude77]

Correct.  Check the difficulties on those coins, you'll see they are WAY up there, close to bitcoin.  While it's possible you'll find a block on them, it's highly unlikely, just like it's highly unlikely you'll find a bitcoin block.

That's why I promote sharing of merged mining findings with p2pool.  If everyone did it, it'd make it more like conventional pools.

M

Which is why in my paranoid mind I think that there are people merge mining and not telling. Outside of GHash I don't know of a large pool that is telling people that they are mining DVC / IXC but their difficulty is way above where it should be IMHO if the only big pool mining was them.

Yes I know MM and a few other pools are mining but not enough to put the difficulty that high. Once again, using some rough numbers that I put together.

-Dave

I think you are correct.

M

[DaveF]

Correct.  Check the difficulties on those coins, you'll see they are WAY up there, close to bitcoin.  While it's possible you'll find a block on them, it's highly unlikely, just like it's highly unlikely you'll find a bitcoin block.

That's why I promote sharing of merged mining findings with p2pool.  If everyone did it, it'd make it more like conventional pools.

M

Which is why in my paranoid mind I think that there are people merge mining and not telling. Outside of GHash I don't know of a large pool that is telling people that they are mining DVC / IXC but their difficulty is way above where it should be IMHO if the only big pool mining was them.

Yes I know MM and a few other pools are mining but not enough to put the difficulty that high. Once again, using some rough numbers that I put together.

-Dave

I think you are correct.

M

Do you have the math skills to run the numbers for approx hash power for the difficulty? I tried and did not like the answer I got.
-Dave

[mdude77]

Correct.  Check the difficulties on those coins, you'll see they are WAY up there, close to bitcoin.  While it's possible you'll find a block on them, it's highly unlikely, just like it's highly unlikely you'll find a bitcoin block.

That's why I promote sharing of merged mining findings with p2pool.  If everyone did it, it'd make it more like conventional pools.

M

Which is why in my paranoid mind I think that there are people merge mining and not telling. Outside of GHash I don't know of a large pool that is telling people that they are mining DVC / IXC but their difficulty is way above where it should be IMHO if the only big pool mining was them.

Yes I know MM and a few other pools are mining but not enough to put the difficulty that high. Once again, using some rough numbers that I put together.

-Dave

I think you are correct.

M

Do you have the math skills to run the numbers for approx hash power for the difficulty? I tried and did not like the answer I got.
-Dave

I think I do.  But I don't think I need it.  The difficulty is a little less than that of BTC.  So therefore the hashpower is a little less.

I think approximate is good enough in this case.

M

[zvs]

Now as to the which pool you use, for the most part in the long run yes they all will give you about the same payout. However, there are other factors.

It's also problematic that p2pool randomly takes your shares and applies them to the default address, even on 0% fee pools.

Use your own p2pool, unless you know the person that's running the one you choose will actually look at the log to reimburse you if this bug occurs.

See my post one page up.

[IYFTech]

Any word on when the stats page http://p2pool.info/ is coming back?  It's been down for days now.  It was fully transfered to forrestv a few months ago right?

Yes, I control it, and I'll fix it soon, hopefully in the next day.

Any update on this?

Update? C'mon - this is p2pool. Updates are unheard of.....

Ask again in 12 months.