[4+ EH] Slush Pool (slushpool.com); Overt AsicBoost; World First Mining Pool

[dmwardjr]

you find a block you are pretty damn lucky ... More people means more resources means the 'luck' is shared among contributors and more consistent. This scales too.

Your perception of luck or what it means is conceptually flawed. There is no such thing as shared luck in the context of bitcoin mining, let alone that you can scale that luck.

My understanding of pool luck is that it is a simple percentage calculation based on hashing power (EDIT: that of a pool over the entire network END EDIT:) as a factor of blocks released by the bitcoin algorithm. Sometimes, weights are factored into that calcullation based on bands of hashing power (of a pool), but in my opinion, this is simply eye candy (aka smoothing). If that is what you refer to as "scalable luck" then you are confusing one thing for the other.

Exactly!!!!

I honestly believe someone needs to take a BEAM out of their own eye before they even think to take out "what they think" is a splinter out of someone else's eye.

I learned a long time ago that many times their is a "pride before a fall."

I also learned to have the honor to admit if I'm wrong and work to make amends if achievable. 

[MrTeal]

Settle down. The posts in question are like these ones.

It's more than a luck.

a 4 second round a couple of days ago which is invalid.

then one more invalid round right before that 28+ hours of thing...

It looks to more than a luck.

Somebody may be playing a game...

I'm becoming paranoid...

I got to thinking about this website change and other changes they are doing at Slush.  I was NOT willing to risk my electricity consumption on a "what if." I decided to go to another pool yesterday at noon till they get things worked out.  I'm seriously wondering if it's something they are doing on the backend or SOMETHING that is affecting this.  It could be just bad luck.  Not sure.

Since I'm "not sure" I'm staying away till changes are implemented with no more interruptions.  It ended up being a good decision to move yesterday.  Just lucky I presume.  Who knows?

I will come back to 80% Slush and 20% others after Slush gets things ironed out.  I still believe it's something they are doing on the backend.  Could be bad luck.  According to the odds of a block at our hashing power and present difficulty, we should find a block every 5 hours and 43 minutes [Approximately].  So, either something went wrong on the backend or we are having TERRIBLE bad luck.

I'm still not coming over till I know things are worked out.

till what is worked out. luck is luck u cant work it. this long block just equaled the day we got 8+ since we should only be doing 4.5 a day

May be...

Let's just say until this luck thing works out.

ONE valid block in the last 41 hours and 15 minutes and counting.  this is officially the longest drought i have witnessed.  i remember a 34 hour block, but i don't recall 41+ and only ONE valid block

Agreed!

Something is fishy and I don't like it!!!

That's why I've been on the Dark Side the last 36 hours.

Every time there's a long block, similar posts go up about how something must be broken in the back end. There's never a corresponding "We solved 3 blocks in the last 40 minutes, something fishy is going on." post though. 99.9 CDF blocks are an expected part of mining, but you could probably find similar comments every time one shows up.

[dmwardjr]

Settle down. The posts in question are like these ones.

It's more than a luck.

a 4 second round a couple of days ago which is invalid.

then one more invalid round right before that 28+ hours of thing...

It looks to more than a luck.

Somebody may be playing a game...

I'm becoming paranoid...

I got to thinking about this website change and other changes they are doing at Slush.  I was NOT willing to risk my electricity consumption on a "what if." I decided to go to another pool yesterday at noon till they get things worked out.  I'm seriously wondering if it's something they are doing on the backend or SOMETHING that is affecting this.  It could be just bad luck.  Not sure.

Since I'm "not sure" I'm staying away till changes are implemented with no more interruptions.  It ended up being a good decision to move yesterday.  Just lucky I presume.  Who knows?

I will come back to 80% Slush and 20% others after Slush gets things ironed out.  I still believe it's something they are doing on the backend.  Could be bad luck.  According to the odds of a block at our hashing power and present difficulty, we should find a block every 5 hours and 43 minutes [Approximately].  So, either something went wrong on the backend or we are having TERRIBLE bad luck.

I'm still not coming over till I know things are worked out.

till what is worked out. luck is luck u cant work it. this long block just equaled the day we got 8+ since we should only be doing 4.5 a day

May be...

Let's just say until this luck thing works out.

ONE valid block in the last 41 hours and 15 minutes and counting.  this is officially the longest drought i have witnessed.  i remember a 34 hour block, but i don't recall 41+ and only ONE valid block

Agreed!

Something is fishy and I don't like it!!!

That's why I've been on the Dark Side the last 36 hours.

Every time there's a long block, similar posts go up about how something must be broken in the back end. There's never a corresponding "We solved 3 blocks in the last 40 minutes, something fishy is going on." post though. 99.9 CDF blocks are an expected part of mining, but you could probably find similar comments every time one shows up.

Can you say, WITH 100% CERTAINTY, that no maintenance is being done on the back end [WITHOUT TELLING US] which would keep us from finding a block?

I don't think you can.  That is what I meant about "something fishy..."

When was the last time "NEWS" was posted on the Slush home page?  Why do we have to navigate to Facebook to get any kind of news?  WHY can't they at least post something in the "NEWS" section telling us to navigate to Facebook for updates.  I just see lack of professionalism.  I'm calling it like I see it.  If others want to criticize me for that, so be it.

A company gets better at serving its customers by listening to its customers.  I know Slush is an intelligent individual.  I'm not saying he should respond to all posts here or on Facebook for that matter.  All I'm saying is keep people informed on the actual website that hosts their product SO AS TO BUILD UP TRUST.  Don't make periodic posts on another website that does not even host your product (Facebook). 

I cannot stand Facebook.  They will allow a post of a baby kitten being tortured with fire in a bucket and say it is appropriate.  However, they deem it inappropriate to post even one single pic of a firearm.  Facebook is a disgrace to the human race!

So, again, what I mean by "fishy" is LACK OF PROFESSIONALISM in running a business.  Customer is number 1 IF one intends on keeping customers.  That's all I'm saying.  IF all of this is being done for free, then it's all the more reason NOT to depend on TRUE TRANSPARENCY.

Again, that's my opinion!  If I'm to be criticized for my opinion, so be it.

[Billbags]

^ ghash and a couple others added to their corporate farms this week which threw the network off and with the pool hoppers here comming and going threw our numbers off, and our luck was already low.

So the factors in the last few days = luck, ghash's farm expansion and pool hoppers. Same old stuff.....we have to get back in the grove and hope people quit rocking the boat.(Stay, Go or Solo)

These links below are what is being looked at to solve some of the present and future mining problems.

This one is ok:
https://bitcoinfoundation.org/2014/07/mining-decentralisation-the-low-hanging-fruit/

This one's good:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=281180.0

@ dmwardjr
I agree with you about the support/News 100%. My other miners are at BTCguild and if you post a question on their thread it gets answered by eleurthra(pool owner) within an hour if it's important. He even comes on here and answers people's questions sometimes.

Slush just got tired of answering the same questions over and over and people would accuse him of cheating or degrade him when we have bad luck. So he left the thread unlocked for us to chat and he stopped posting here. He is still on the forum, just in the tech/programming section. Between Slush, Stick and Jan(world class programmers) they keep the pool running right, there's just nothing they can do for luck and unstable pool/network hash rate.

Right now it's just bad luck............

[MrTeal]

Can you say, WITH 100% CERTAINTY, that no maintenance is being done on the back end [WITHOUT TELLING US] which would keep us from finding a block?

I don't think you can.  That is what I meant about "something fishy..."

Of course not, just like I can't guarantee with 100% certainty that Slush wasn't fiddling with his new quantum computer module the week before when we were at 200% luck for the week.

Shifting the goalposts to be about professionalism aside, the original observation remains valid. Every time there's a long block pages of posts pop up talking about how something must be broken, or Slush is playing games, or whatnot. It won't change of course, I imagine this conversation will die down soon until the next time we get a 99%+ block, at which point new people will be talking about how Slush broke the pool or is stealing everyone's money.

[pekatete]

Of course not, just like I can't guarantee with 100% certainty that Slush wasn't fiddling with his new quantum computer module the week before when we were at 200% luck for the week.

Shifting the goalposts to be about professionalism aside, the original observation remains valid. Every time there's a long block pages of posts pop up talking about how something must be broken, or Slush is playing games, or whatnot. It won't change of course, I imagine this conversation will die down soon until the next time we get a 99%+ block, at which point new people will be talking about how Slush broke the pool or is stealing everyone's money.

For those who have seen it all and got the t-shirt, I suppose it would be in order to simply ignore those "annoying" posts accussing Slush of everything under the sun for the sake of their sanity. Barring which, be prepared to batten down for the storm if you talk down to the ignorants ...

[dmwardjr]

Of course not, just like I can't guarantee with 100% certainty that Slush wasn't fiddling with his new quantum computer module the week before when we were at 200% luck for the week.

Shifting the goalposts to be about professionalism aside, the original observation remains valid. Every time there's a long block pages of posts pop up talking about how something must be broken, or Slush is playing games, or whatnot. It won't change of course, I imagine this conversation will die down soon until the next time we get a 99%+ block, at which point new people will be talking about how Slush broke the pool or is stealing everyone's money.

For those who have seen it all and got the t-shirt, I suppose it would be in order to simply ignore those "annoying" posts accussing Slush of everything under the sun for the sake of their sanity. Barring which, be prepared to batten down for the storm if you talk down to the ignorants ...

LOL

You can call me Mr. Ignorance from now own, pekatete.

Sure, it could very well be a string of bad luck at the moment.

I understand perfectly well about GHash adding more of their own miners, as well as "UNKNOWNS" adding more hashing power, which in turn would affect Slush's ability to find more blocks by decreasing Slush's percentage of over all hashing power from lets say 6% to 5 % of the total BTC mining network.

It could very well be a string of bad luck.

Forgive me IF my comment about Slush's back end possibly being down "maybe" [we'll never know].  I'll stop making comments like those.

With that aside, I still think I made the correct decision to mine elsewhere, as I'm BETTING THE LUCK elsewhere will be a little better than at Slush today.  When I play Texas No Limit Holdem, I PLAY FOR LUCK, so to speak.  That is pretty much the same thing I'm doing when I mine.  However, I'm not a hopper, in the sense of using a program to quickly switch from one pool to another.  It's like I wake up each day and wonder, "Which pool am I putting my bets on TODAY to be lucky."

By the way, it won't be long before I have a "T-Shirt" as well.  So, bare with me.  LOL

[Billbags]

Offsubject, anyone else experience very slow transaction conformation times in the last couple of hours? I've made 3 purchases from 2 different wallets and none have confirmed at all. SLOW today!!!

[MrTeal]

Sure, it could very well be a string of bad luck at the moment.

I understand perfectly well about GHash adding more of their own miners, as well as "UNKNOWNS" adding more hashing power, which in turn would affect Slush's ability to find more blocks by decreasing Slush's percentage of over all hashing power from lets say 6% to 5 % of the total BTC mining network.

It could very well be a string of bad luck.

That's not how it works. The only thing that affects the number of blocks found (besides luck) is the pool hashrate and the current difficulty. Other pools could add an Exahash/s of equipment and it wouldn't affect how many blocks Slush mines (at least until the difficulty adjusts). Conversely, every other pool could cease to exist and the only thing mining on the network is Slush's ~10PH/s, and we would still find one block every five hours or so.

tl;dr - Luck or hashrate at other pools makes no difference in the short term. The only thing that matters is the current hashrate and difficulty.

[pekatete]

Offsubject, anyone else experience very slow transaction conformation times in the last couple of hours? I've made 3 purchases from 2 different wallets and none have confirmed at all. SLOW today!!!

Actually, that happened to me 2 days ago from my last payout from slush. I did eventually confirm, but it took unusually long to.

[pekatete]

tl;dr - Luck or hashrate at other pools makes no difference in the short term. The only thing that matters is the current hashrate and difficulty.

Do you care to throw some light on how Slush computes their pool luck then? Surely, network hash-rate is a factor (not mathematically speaking, but could also be!).

[MrTeal]

tl;dr - Luck or hashrate at other pools makes no difference in the short term. The only thing that matters is the current hashrate and difficulty.

Do you care to throw some light on how Slush computes their pool luck then? Surely, network hash-rate is a factor (not mathematically speaking, but could also be!).

I'm not sure exactly what he uses for his time averaging. Network hashrate is a factor in that it will eventually affect difficulty, but it's not a factor in and of itself. All that matters is the number of shares submitted, and the current difficulty which only changes once every ~14 days.

On a per block basis, you can just use diff/shares. If you want an average over a few blocks, just use #blocks * difficulty / total shares.

[dmwardjr]

tl;dr - Luck or hashrate at other pools makes no difference in the short term. The only thing that matters is the current hashrate and difficulty.

Do you care to throw some light on how Slush computes their pool luck then? Surely, network hash-rate is a factor (not mathematically speaking, but could also be!).

I know I'm not the one the question was pointed towards.  However, I did mention this in several other posts in the past.

The hash rate has EVERYTHING to do with it.  They would have to have a program that keeps up with the hourly total pool hash rate in the same way they  have a program that computes the hourly hash rate of individual workers.

FIRST, lets say slush averaged 8 PH/s TOTAL hash rate from 00:01am at the beginning of the day till 24:00pm at the end of the day.  

At present difficulty [35,002,482,026], that is approximately 5 hours, 13 minutes time for each block found (can vary greatly depending on our luck).  

To be at 100% Luck for THAT 24 HOUR DAY [while averaging 8 PH/s for the entire day] we would need to find [24 hours divided by 5.21666667 hours] = 4.60063897 blocks for it to be 100% LUCK for THAT 24 hour period.  Hence, you hardly ever see exactly 100% for 1 day luck.  WHY?  Cause we can't find 60% of a block.  We can only find a "whole" block.  You might see 100% for 7 day or 1 month, but not 1 day luck.  That would be a rare occasion indeed.

Slush's "Luck" percentage for 1 day can also vary every hour IF they are computing this based on an "hourly" hash rate average.

The source I use to determine how many blocks on average that can be found for a "given" amount of hash rate is located at the following address:

http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/   IF it does not load when you first navigate there, refresh the page and it should appear.  You enter in the difficulty and the hash rate.  No need to enter in the other data unless you are interested in your own profitability factor.  The only thing we are concerned with is "How long it takes the pool to find a block on average for a given amount of hash rate of the pool."

The following answer was given for 8000 Th/s (8 Ph/s):

Difficulty   35,002,482,026.00
Mining Factor 100   0.00 USD/24h@100MHash/s as in these charts
Average generation time for a block (solo)   5 hours, 13 minutes (can vary greatly depending on your luck)
Hardware break even   1 day
Net profit first time frame   3890503.64 USD

You can come up with these figures for ANY pool you desire by first entering in an approximate average hash rate of the pool.  Then, if you like, you can determine the average payout for your personal hash rate at that pool by staying at the pool for 24 hours.  Once you know your payout based on shares [considering if the hash rate is the same average as your previous calculation], you can multiply the average pay out by the average number of blocks found for each day.  Then multiply that answer by 30 days and you have an average payout for a month for that pool.

Example:

[Slush] 4.60063897 blocks x .01452471 average shares with 4.67 TH/s = 0.06682295 BTC average each day.  That would be 2.00468841 BTC in 30 days (1 month).

[MrTeal]

I know I'm not the one the question was pointed towards.  However, I did mention this in several other posts in the past.

The hash rate has EVERYTHING to do with it.  They would have to have a program that keeps up with the hourly total pool hash rate in the same way they  have a program that computes the hourly hash rate of individual workers.

FIRST, lets say slush averaged 8 PH/s TOTAL hash rate from 00:01am at the beginning of the day till 24:00pm at the end of the day.  

At present difficulty [35,002,482,026], that is approximately 5 hours, 13 minutes time for each block found (can vary greatly depending on our luck).  

To be at 100% Luck for THAT 24 HOUR DAY [while averaging 8 PH/s for the entire day] we would need to find [24 hours divided by 5.21666667 hours] = 4.60063897 blocks for it to be 100% LUCK for THAT 24 hour period.  Hence, you hardly ever see exactly 100% for 1 day luck.  WHY?  Cause we can't find 60% of a block.  We can only find a "whole" block.  You might see 100% for 7 day or 1 month, but not 1 day luck.  That would be a rare occasion indeed.

Slush's "Luck" percentage for 1 day can also vary every hour IF they are computing this based on an "hourly" hash rate average.

The source I use to determine how many blocks on average that can be found for a "given" amount of hash rate is located at the following address:

http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/   IF it does not load when you first navigate there, refresh the page and it should appear.  You enter in the difficulty and the hash rate.  No need to enter in the other data unless you are interested in your own profitability factor.  The only thing we are concerned with is "How long it takes the pool to find a block on average for a given amount of hash rate of the pool."

The following answer was given for 8000 Th/s (8 Ph/s):

Difficulty   35,002,482,026.00
Mining Factor 100   0.00 USD/24h@100MHash/s as in these charts
Average generation time for a block (solo)   5 hours, 13 minutes (can vary greatly depending on your luck)
Hardware break even   1 day
Net profit first time frame   3890503.64 USD

You're looking at it backwards. Slush has no way of knowing what the hashrate pointed at his pool is. All he can see is the number of shares he has received, and then he infers the hashrate from that. He doesn't need to do that though other than as a convenience to users that he just added in the last couple months. All he needs to calculate luck is the number of shares, the number of blocks found, and the difficulty.

[dmwardjr]

I know I'm not the one the question was pointed towards.  However, I did mention this in several other posts in the past.

The hash rate has EVERYTHING to do with it.  They would have to have a program that keeps up with the hourly total pool hash rate in the same way they  have a program that computes the hourly hash rate of individual workers.

FIRST, lets say slush averaged 8 PH/s TOTAL hash rate from 00:01am at the beginning of the day till 24:00pm at the end of the day.  

At present difficulty [35,002,482,026], that is approximately 5 hours, 13 minutes time for each block found (can vary greatly depending on our luck).  

To be at 100% Luck for THAT 24 HOUR DAY [while averaging 8 PH/s for the entire day] we would need to find [24 hours divided by 5.21666667 hours] = 4.60063897 blocks for it to be 100% LUCK for THAT 24 hour period.  Hence, you hardly ever see exactly 100% for 1 day luck.  WHY?  Cause we can't find 60% of a block.  We can only find a "whole" block.  You might see 100% for 7 day or 1 month, but not 1 day luck.  That would be a rare occasion indeed.

Slush's "Luck" percentage for 1 day can also vary every hour IF they are computing this based on an "hourly" hash rate average.

The source I use to determine how many blocks on average that can be found for a "given" amount of hash rate is located at the following address:

http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/   IF it does not load when you first navigate there, refresh the page and it should appear.  You enter in the difficulty and the hash rate.  No need to enter in the other data unless you are interested in your own profitability factor.  The only thing we are concerned with is "How long it takes the pool to find a block on average for a given amount of hash rate of the pool."

The following answer was given for 8000 Th/s (8 Ph/s):

Difficulty   35,002,482,026.00
Mining Factor 100   0.00 USD/24h@100MHash/s as in these charts
Average generation time for a block (solo)   5 hours, 13 minutes (can vary greatly depending on your luck)
Hardware break even   1 day
Net profit first time frame   3890503.64 USD

You're looking at it backwards. Slush has no way of knowing what the hashrate pointed at his pool is. All he can see is the number of shares he has received, and then he infers the hashrate from that. He doesn't need to do that though other than as a convenience to users that he just added in the last couple months. All he needs to calculate luck is the number of shares, the number of blocks found, and the difficulty.

I'm telling you "hash rate" will affect how many "shares" you have.  One can "over clock" their miners to the point of having all kinds of rejects, stales, duplicates, etc... and their shares will increase "in spite of the duplicates, rejects, stales, etc...

I gave you my calculations on what I "THINK" is the way they compute it.  I report, you decide.   LOL

Also, IF you know, why bother asking?

Also, you said, "Slush has no way of knowing what the hashrate pointed at his pool is."

Really?



What the heck is that you are seeing after being on the pool for 60 Minutes IF it is not hash rate?

 If I can see my hash rate, THEY can certainly see my own hash rate.  

IF they can see MY hash rate, THEY can certainly see everyone else's!

WHY SO OBJECTIVE?  Can you not keep an open mind?  Do you have everything figured out?  

I think you need to take that damn T-Shirt off!

EVERY POOL LETS YOU KNOW WHAT THEIR HASH RATE IS.

LOOK:







All of these are proof they KNOW the hash rate.

[MrTeal]

I'm telling you "hash rate" will affect how many "shares" you have.  One can "over clock" their miners to the point of having all kinds of rejects, stales, duplicates, etc... and their shares will increase "in spite of the duplicates, rejects, stales, etc...

I gave you my calculations on what I "THINK" is the way they compute it.  I report, you decide.   LOL

Also, IF you know, why bother asking?

I didn't ask, pekatete did.

Slush doesn't count rejects or duplicates in his numbers. Again, Slush doesn't know a user's hashrate, just their number of accepted shares. Up until a month or two ago he didn't even provide a hashrate estimation on his website, just the number of shares for the current round. Yes your hashrate will dictate the number of shares you have, but that is not something Slush has access to.

[pekatete]

May I just say, I am of that generation where we used to do calculus on paper and were banned (in exams) from using calculators. in the same breath, the link to the site does not reveal how they compute their numbers, simply plug in a few numbers and you have a result ... ! As such, I still am at a loss as to how pool luck is calcullated!

EDIT: I just hit upon a plan, I'll rephrase my question: How do I find out what a pool's luck is?

[MrTeal]

May I just say, I am of that generation where we used to do calculus on paper and were banned (in exams) from using calculators. in the same breath, the link to the site does not reveal how they compute their numbers, simply plug in a few numbers and you have a result ... ! As such, I still am at a loss as to how pool luck is calcullated!

If you want a quick check, you can look at Eligius.
http://eligius.st/~wizkid057/newstats/blocks.php
The luck number listed for each block is just Difficulty/shares

You can also look at Organ of Corti's blog.
http://organofcorti.blogspot.com.au/

"Luck" is the usual difficulty 1 equivalent shares per round / mining difficulty,  or (equivalently) accepted shares / expected shares.

Edit: Note that OoC expresses the luck the opposite way, in which <1 is lucky and >1 is unlucky. The calculation is the same though.

[pekatete]

May I just say, I am of that generation where we used to do calculus on paper and were banned (in exams) from using calculators. in the same breath, the link to the site does not reveal how they compute their numbers, simply plug in a few numbers and you have a result ... ! As such, I still am at a loss as to how pool luck is calcullated!

If you want a quick check, you can look at Eligius.
http://eligius.st/~wizkid057/newstats/blocks.php
The luck number listed for each block is just Difficulty/shares

You can also look at Organ of Corti's blog.
http://organofcorti.blogspot.com.au/

"Luck" is the usual difficulty 1 equivalent shares per round / mining difficulty,  or (equivalently) accepted shares / expected shares.

Right, I shall cease asking difficult questions ..... that's it.

[dmwardjr]

I'm telling you "hash rate" will affect how many "shares" you have.  One can "over clock" their miners to the point of having all kinds of rejects, stales, duplicates, etc... and their shares will increase "in spite of the duplicates, rejects, stales, etc...

I gave you my calculations on what I "THINK" is the way they compute it.  I report, you decide.   LOL

Also, IF you know, why bother asking?

I didn't ask, pekatete did.

Slush doesn't count rejects or duplicates in his numbers. Again, Slush doesn't know a user's hashrate, just their number of accepted shares. Up until a month or two ago he didn't even provide a hashrate estimation on his website, just the number of shares for the current round. Yes your hashrate will dictate the number of shares you have, but that is not something Slush has access to.

Then we agree that "hash rate" is very important in determining shares, which in turn determines the percentage for pool luck?  There is no computation program that I know of that will determine the length of time it would take to find a block based on number of shares.  All of them I know of determine this based on hash rate... PERIOD!  They do say, "can very greatly depending on luck."  I say it can also vary greatly depending on the "quality" of the miners mining.  If they are over clocked to the point of having one stale after another, HW too high, etc... one's ability to find a block "solo" is diminished; and one's ability to build up sufficient amount of shares in a pool is diminished.