[ANN] profit switching auto-exchanging pool - www.middlecoin.com

[ellave]

I'm still trying to figure out why some people had such a low payout from last Saturday, so I made a nice comparison :



As you can see, all miners have more or less the same hashrate. Yet they have a very different payout and remaining balances (for the immature/unechanged balances).

Some observations I made :

1)
It looks like the pool is using the unexchanged balance as a multiplier, i.e. to play with. The only ones having a decent payout or the miners that had a lot of unexchanged carried over from the day before (miners 2, 5 and 6). Note that the actual unexchanged balance remained the same at the end of the day. Don't know what to think of that..

2)
Some miners had part of their unexchanged balance changed to their balance just before the payout whilst others hadn't (miner 1 vs. miner 0). What gives?

3)
Miner 3 is a nice example of a miner that basically started the day with a clean slate. Yet it got a better deal than miner 0, even though its hash rate is lower. Huh?

As you may have guessed, miner 0 is me.. I changed from EU to US about halfway through Saturday as was recommended by the pool operator in this thread at the time.


I really don't understand what was going on last Saturday, but judging from the above comparison it doesn't look right to me.

I am worried that there are bugs in the system that are costing some miners their due payout. Also, if the pool is using the unexchanged balance as monopoly money to increase profits, fine - but why isn't this the same for everyone?

---

I've also tried to relate the graph for the pool as a whole to the individual miners. Somehow I would expect them to be very similar except for the scale :



Yet they do not look similar at all, except for the miners that got a 'regular' payout.

Anyone want to share his/her insights?

Very interesting analysis would be good to hear some expert opinions

[JCviggen]

It's difficult to extrapolate much real info, because we don't know who was mining on which server, and at which point in the day did some of them switch from eu to us or vice versa. Some people use failover others load-balance. These things make a difference that is not detectible via hashrate alone.
Certainly when I heard EU was switching to straight LTC I would have moved my rigs if I had access to them. I had a terrible payout by staying EU. Other differences appear mostly a case of unexchanged balance being exchanged, or not, which is not an issue over a longer time period anyway.


H2O clearly does not feel like giving much info so all we can do is guess, pretty futile really. If we find a better place to mine we'll leave. For the time being, here we are.

[chilin_dude]

Butter bread, look at where the unexchanged STARTED the day for miner 2,5,6 that got the good payouts. For those 3 the unexchanged started and finished the same or lower than the day.

Now look at your miner, miner 0, you started with near 0 and ended up with near 0.3. So you need to add taht 0.3 to your 0.32 you got paid out (since it will get paid at a later date). That makes 0.62
0.62 is pretty similar to miners 2,5,6 you refer to.

[ilic]

You people (luckily a minority) that start accusing H20 of stealing etc etc coz you have one bad payday sicken me.

When times are good you all love Middlecoin, then on the odd occasion we get a shitty payout you start bitching and moaning like the world is gonna end.

if you think you can do a better job do it yourself.  If not, mine with Middlecoin and shut the hell up.

If i see another "i could have made more mining LTC on my own" comment i'm gonna scream!

[envy2010]

Butter bread, look at where the unexchanged STARTED the day for miner 2,5,6 that got the good payouts. For those 3 the unexchanged started and finished the same or lower than the day.

Now look at your miner, miner 0, you started with near 0 and ended up with near 0.3. So you need to add taht 0.3 to your 0.32 you got paid out (since it will get paid at a later date). That makes 0.62
0.62 is pretty similar to miners 2,5,6 you refer to.

Pretty much what chillin' said. You need to add up the immature, unexchanged, and balance at the beginning and end of each day, and compare.

Also, this analysis is fundamentally flawed because mining is time-dependent. Run the miners on 6 new addresses for several days (STARTING AT THE SAME TIME) and compare those graphs. That would tell you a lot more.

[envy2010]

fuck!! 5 mins later and it's dead again!

I think i will bring the gpu engine down and it needs a new psu anyway, the one it got is some random shitty old one i found laying around.

Just weird that it's only just started doing it.

You absolutely need a solid PSU, power issues cause endless frustrations. Once you know your PSU is good, try upping the voltage, lowering the clocks (and maybe different drivers) until it stops dying.

[hardergamer]

fuck!! 5 mins later and it's dead again!

I think i will bring the gpu engine down and it needs a new psu anyway, the one it got is some random shitty old one i found laying around.

Just weird that it's only just started doing it.

You absolutely need a solid PSU, power issues cause endless frustrations. Once you know your PSU is good, try upping the voltage, lowering the clocks (and maybe different drivers) until it stops dying.

I agree, dont use a cheep psu with that card!!, you could end up blowing the mboard/card/cpu 

[s4ndm4ns]

The bug we had, where we got 1% extra rejects that said "duplicate share" has been resolved.

Does it mean that its ok to go --no-submit-stale again?

[ButterBread]

You people (luckily a minority) that start accusing H20 of stealing etc etc coz you have one bad payday sicken me.

When times are good you all love Middlecoin, then on the odd occasion we get a shitty payout you start bitching and moaning like the world is gonna end.

if you think you can do a better job do it yourself.  If not, mine with Middlepool and shut the hell up.

If i see another "i could have made more mining LTC on my own" comment i'm gonna scream!

Huh? I hope that wasn't directed at me, I haven't accused anyone of stealing. Nor am I "bitching and moaning like the world is gonna end". Nor did I state that I think I can do a better job myself.

And middlepool? I though we were talking about middlecoin.

Middlepool, the pool were you got-a shut the hell up-a

[ilic]

fuck!! 5 mins later and it's dead again!

I think i will bring the gpu engine down and it needs a new psu anyway, the one it got is some random shitty old one i found laying around.

Just weird that it's only just started doing it.

You absolutely need a solid PSU, power issues cause endless frustrations. Once you know your PSU is good, try upping the voltage, lowering the clocks (and maybe different drivers) until it stops dying.

I agree, dont use a cheep psu with that card!!, you could end up blowing the mboard/card/cpu 

with a decent PSU you'll be able to lower the voltage more too.  I get the Sick/Dead miner occasionaly when i push voltages too low.

[ilic]

You people (luckily a minority) that start accusing H20 of stealing etc etc coz you have one bad payday sicken me.

When times are good you all love Middlecoin, then on the odd occasion we get a shitty payout you start bitching and moaning like the world is gonna end.

if you think you can do a better job do it yourself.  If not, mine with Middlepool and shut the hell up.

If i see another "i could have made more mining LTC on my own" comment i'm gonna scream!

Huh? I hope that wasn't directed at me, I haven't accused anyone of stealing. Nor am I "bitching and moaning like the world is gonna end". Nor did I state that I think I can do a better job myself.

And middlepool? I though we were talking about middlecoin.

Middlepool, the pool were you got-a shut the hell up-a

no not directed at you, mainly 1 poster who accuses h20 of stealing!

I too am interested in why payouts were lower, i just think some peoples reactions and comments are a bit harsh.  Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, i'm confident H20 can do a better job than me choosing what coins to mine so i'll stick with him.

*edited my post, i meant middlecoin not middlepool, just a typo...

[ButterBread]

Also, this analysis is fundamentally flawed because mining is time-dependent. Run the miners on 6 new addresses for several days (STARTING AT THE SAME TIME) and compare those graphs. That would tell you a lot more.

The graphs are from six different miners taken at the same time. I can understand that not knowing who was mining where is a flaw in the analysis (although, why should WE be choosing where to mine @ middlecoin in the first place).

But I don't understand your reference to their timing? If the graphs are showing the same time period and you can see the begin & end situation of each miner..

[chilin_dude]

Butter read my explanation, your 0.32 balance paid out, plus 0.3 unexchanged gained through the day - meaning it willl be paid out at a later date. Add them together, 0.32+0.3 = 0.62, like the top 3 you mentioned got paid.

[hodger]

Also, this analysis is fundamentally flawed because mining is time-dependent. Run the miners on 6 new addresses for several days (STARTING AT THE SAME TIME) and compare those graphs. That would tell you a lot more.

The graphs are from six different miners taken at the same time. I can understand that not knowing who was mining where is a flaw in the analysis (although, why should WE be choosing where to mine @ middlecoin in the first place).

But I don't understand your reference to their timing? If the graphs are showing the same time period and you can see the begin & end situation of each miner..

You're right, under normal circumstances, *we* shouldn't have to choose where to mine, but my interpretation of what I've read in the last 20 or so pages is that h20 and co have had some growing pains (5000MHash increase last 7 days by the looks of it, for example, and steeper in previous couple of weeks I think) that have resulted in some stop-gap solutions on some servers (EU server was constantly on one coin for a while I think)...

Be interesting to see the results of another selection of miners once all the new servers are out of "beta" etc.

[neofatalist]

Temp cut off 99?? I was reading on the 290x (we have the same card) and it can run 94 but thats about safe levels.

Anyway, how do you run your TC so high? Mine won't let me. I set it to 12000 once and it said I needed a higher LG, which basically kills hash rate.

https://i.imgur.com/mOAPW5D.png

Soooo I noticed it said "SICK" (R9 290) a few mins ago and thought it was weird that i had never noticed it.
Then a few mins later I saw the temp drop so i checked again and now it says "DEAD".
A full restart of the rig seems to have it back running but I don't know what would have caused it? Anyone seen this before?

Either:

1) Too high overclock.
2) Too high heat.
3) Too high intensity.
4) GPU is dying.

https://i.imgur.com/mOAPW5D.png

Soooo I noticed it said "SICK" (R9 290) a few mins ago and thought it was weird that i had never noticed it.
Then a few mins later I saw the temp drop so i checked again and now it says "DEAD".
A full restart of the rig seems to have it back running but I don't know what would have caused it? Anyone seen this before?

Did you overclocked your GPU ?
This happen to me when the card voltage is too low compared to my overclocking.

It also happens around 2-3 times a month for no reason.

Well this is the config for that particular card:

Code:

 
 -I 20 \
 -w 512 \
 --gpu-threads 1 \
 --thread-concurrency 32765 \
 --gpu-engine 990 \
 --gpu-memclock 1500 \
 --gpu-powertune 11 \
 --gpu-vddc 1.025 \
 --device 3 \
 --remove-disabled \
 --temp-cutoff 99 \
 --temp-overheat 95 \
 --temp-target 85 \
 --auto-fan \
 --gpu-fan 50-85

It doesnt give any HW errors like this.
It does run hot but all 290's run hot (85c - 90c, although I have seen it go over 95c once before).
It's got it's own psu to it's self.

Hope it's not on the way out, not had it long lol.

[ButterBread]

Butter bread, look at where the unexchanged STARTED the day for miner 2,5,6 that got the good payouts. For those 3 the unexchanged started and finished the same or lower than the day.

Now look at your miner, miner 0, you started with near 0 and ended up with near 0.3. So you need to add taht 0.3 to your 0.32 you got paid out (since it will get paid at a later date). That makes 0.62
0.62 is pretty similar to miners 2,5,6 you refer to.

Thanks. The thought had occurred to me to take that into account (which is why I included a slither of the day before and the day after), but there's still a rather significant difference I think even after correcting for this.

Even if I gained 0.03 in unexchanged (didn't measure the pixels but it looks like a good guess), that gets me to 0.062 vs. 0.073 for 'comparable' miners 2, 5 and 6. Doesn't sound like much, but 0.01 btc difference is 6 eur and 16% of the net result for that day.

I can imagine a lot of settings influence the net result for the day : who's mining where, when did they switch, what settings are they using for dealing with disconnects, etc. just like an earlier poster remarked.

It's just surprising how much difference such 'small' influences make on the day's net profit

[sykal]

So I had a power failure overnight and one of my rigs had zero power when i turned it back on...It's a good 860 seasonic platinum.
I didn't have a surge protector on it so i figured it fried...

I tested both outlets with a box fan and both plugs in the outlet worked...


get home from work tonight, put all my rigs on surge protectors, and the machine powers up fine...lol

anyone ever seen anything like that before?

[kalus]

Very interesting analysis would be good to hear some expert opinions

would be informative if we had the numbers at the beginning and the end of the day for immature, exchanged, and exchanged (earning) for each of the 6 miners. then we could at least run a student's t-test with a post-hoc analysis (e.g. tukey's) to determine if there is statistical significance between the 6 experimental cohorts.  if there is statistical significance in earning differences, take the derivative and redo the t-test for significance for the slope (rate of earning).  we could at least determine if there is statistically significant deviation from the norm, or if it falls within random chance.  

[ButterBread]

get home from work tonight, put all my rigs on surge protectors, and the machine powers up fine...lol

anyone ever seen anything like that before?

Yes, after a PSU has turned itself off (due to overloading, overheating, shorting, ...), it has often come back to life after I unplugged it (and plugged it back in again of course )

Don't know why that is though..

[cdesjard09]

I think considering the definiton of the unexchanged balance may also clarify some of this. The unexchanged balance is an estimate of the value of a portfolio of altcoins you've previously mined which have not yet been exchanged.

Now say I'm Miner 2 (I'm not) and I mined on the US server all day Friday and we were mining a coin that was not autotrading (so my unexchanged was shooting up). Now imagine we changed the coin we were mining at some point on Saturday and you started mining on the US server at some point after. So now my portfolio has all these coins I mined on Friday that have not been exchanged yet, and your portfolio has none of these coins because you were mining on the EU server on Friday (for example). Now we mine all day and our balances grow at similar rates (as your graphs suggest they do, the slopes being fairly similar all things considered), but at the close of Saturday our portfolios are drastically different because I still have all these coins I mined on Friday that you don't have. Now if H2O decides its time to sell those coins (the ones mined on Friday), well my unexchanged plummets and my balance shoots up, but yours does not because he didn't sell the coins that were in your unexchanged portfolio.

To address your point about how Miners 2,5, and 6 returned to essentially the start of day unexchanged values, well thats likely a product of the how much unexchanged they accrued over the day that wasn't whatever coin was mined on Friday, and hence these coins acted exactly the same as yours, give or take some variability for differences in the altcoin composition of everyone's portfolio based on which days you've mined what servers in the past.

Now I don't know if this is how H2O approaches everyone's share of the unexchanged balance, and this assumes no daytrading of altcoins that squeeze out every last mBTC, but it seems like a potential explanation.