[1050 TH] BitMinter.com [1% PPLNS,Pays TxFees +MergedMining,Stratum,GBT,vardiff]

[r0ger_l]

Sorry guys I had to jump ship.   I know you can expect the same payouts over time either way, but there is another factor involved.  The odds keep increasing against us every 14 days.  If the difficulty remained constant then yes I would agree you get the same pay over time eventually.  But the fact is when the odds change every 14 days, you do not have infinity to make up for the variance.  You have 14 days and if you have horrible luck, well you have to make it up now with even harder odds.
I think the logic that you eventually get same pay only holds water if diff remains constant.  Matter of fact if pool speed remains same or drops, you can expect less and is highly unlikely you will ever regain what you lost during the bad time.
I really like this pool, not sure what is keeping another couple petahash from joining us.  If we could hit about 3PH I think we would be able to hold our own, but for now I just can not afford the gamble.

Difficulty has slowed in growth.    Stick it out.   Over the long run, your payout will be the same regardless of the size of the pool.

EDIT:   added end of sentence for clarity that his payout is not going to grow from one pool to the next.   His variance will change.

Either your logic is flawed or Pooled mining is no different than solo mining then.  If your payout remains the same regardless of hashing power, why not everyone just solo mine then?

If difficulty remained constant your logic would hold true.  Fact is you need to come close to what you should earn every 14 days or there is no getting those days back.

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[Minor Miner]

Sorry guys I had to jump ship.   I know you can expect the same payouts over time either way, but there is another factor involved.  The odds keep increasing against us every 14 days.  If the difficulty remained constant then yes I would agree you get the same pay over time eventually.  But the fact is when the odds change every 14 days, you do not have infinity to make up for the variance.  You have 14 days and if you have horrible luck, well you have to make it up now with even harder odds.
I think the logic that you eventually get same pay only holds water if diff remains constant.  Matter of fact if pool speed remains same or drops, you can expect less and is highly unlikely you will ever regain what you lost during the bad time.
I really like this pool, not sure what is keeping another couple petahash from joining us.  If we could hit about 3PH I think we would be able to hold our own, but for now I just can not afford the gamble.

Difficulty has slowed in growth.    Stick it out.   Over the long run, your payout will be the same regardless of the size of the pool.

EDIT:   added end of sentence for clarity that his payout is not going to grow from one pool to the next.   His variance will change.

Either your logic is flawed or Pooled mining is no different than solo mining then.  If your payout remains the same regardless of hashing power, why not everyone just solo mine then?
If difficulty remained constant your logic would hold true.  Fact is you need to come close to what you should earn every 14 days or there is no getting those days back.

In the extreme I agree with you about losing days.   I am not suggesting level.  I am suggesting a slowing of the curve.   Solo mining is not free and it is not simple and it is a real bitch when you solve a block and it does not populate fast enough.  Especially if you try and solo mine when you are less than 1% of the market.     
I agree 1 PH/s is not a level that is ideal in a market that will get to 170PH/s in the next months.  2% would be good enough but to each their own.   This is not a commune, it is a community of people with different goals and most (I think 97%) miners are motivated by profit.

[christhegoth]

Back to the christhegoth bet-spreading discussion...

Everyone realizes that switching over to other pools is only going to exacerbate the variance problem, right?  Honestly, the pigeon superstition is dangerous enough to sink a pool, especially one that's <1% of the network.  Nearly a quarter of the pool's hashrate has fallen off in the past couple of days...

It's about paying the electricity dude.  Some of us can't do these bad weeks.

Plus the price of BTC is dropping in the market, which piles the pressure on more.  It's only £300 now, and it was £350 on Monday.

I don't like it, but bills is bills.  I need a certain amount of my payments safe to make sure I get the cash to cover said bills.  It's just how it is I'm afraid.


I'll also be honest:

This has always been a small pool ( with a great GUI and customer service ).  Losing 1/4 oh the Hash still leaves it a small pool.  What we really need is for a couple of the Petahash Icelandic DataCentres to come over.  Trying to nab lots of small miners, who in my experience have the higher electricity bills, is not gonna work.  You need people with low electricity bills so that they can genuinely tough these bad patches out.

People based near Solar and Wind farms are good ( Afirca? ), but the Icelandic mines are the obvious crowd to talk to.  Even if they only divert 1/4 of their hash ( per business ) that's still some nice hash coming in.   It's why Bitmine.ch are doing their hosting out that way.

The problem is how Bitcoin and Electricity cost.  We're in a bit of a perfect storm at present by the looks of it.

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/coinfloorGBP#rg120ztgTzm1g10zm2g25

A bad week or two in the pool is one thing, but we've got a price drop coming in at the same time.  It really does hit the small miners I'm afraid.

And what happens to the BTC price when everyone on the network migrates to the 2-3 biggest pools and we're back at the mining-collusion-scare hysteria again?

Market forces I know of...

Not retailers selling off via payment processing...?

No idea, but someone snapped up the Silk Road BTC a month back, so that might be it.

[christhegoth]

Sorry guys I had to jump ship.   I know you can expect the same payouts over time either way, but there is another factor involved.  The odds keep increasing against us every 14 days.  If the difficulty remained constant then yes I would agree you get the same pay over time eventually.  But the fact is when the odds change every 14 days, you do not have infinity to make up for the variance.  You have 14 days and if you have horrible luck, well you have to make it up now with even harder odds.
I think the logic that you eventually get same pay only holds water if diff remains constant.  Matter of fact if pool speed remains same or drops, you can expect less and is highly unlikely you will ever regain what you lost during the bad time.
I really like this pool, not sure what is keeping another couple petahash from joining us.  If we could hit about 3PH I think we would be able to hold our own, but for now I just can not afford the gamble.

Difficulty has slowed in growth.    Stick it out.   Over the long run, your payout will be the same regardless of the size of the pool.

EDIT:   added end of sentence for clarity that his payout is not going to grow from one pool to the next.   His variance will change.

Either your logic is flawed or Pooled mining is no different than solo mining then.  If your payout remains the same regardless of hashing power, why not everyone just solo mine then?

If difficulty remained constant your logic would hold true.  Fact is you need to come close to what you should earn every 14 days or there is no getting those days back.

Heh! I have a single U1 set up for solo-mining as the odds are so bad. I call it my Lottery Ticket

[r0ger_l]

So it boils down to we need enough hash power to expect a result of statistical significance +/- 5%.  In order to acheive that in a 14 day period there has to be a number we need to reach or pass in hash power.  I think we did fine with 1% or more of network speed.  I am sure someone can do the math, but just a guess is 1 to 2% of total should get us within a range that we can honestly say you make the same here or there over time.

I played poker for a living back in the day.  I know AA vs KJ is 80% fav, but I would not want to have to base my poker career of one hand.  I would never want to bet it all on that one hand.  Now if someone gives me those hands and says winner best of 100, I might bet it all on the AA.  If they gave me best of 10,000 it is a no brainer I will take the bet for sure.  So how many hands doe we need to play in 14 days (hash power) to expect a result of any statistical significance?

[Fahlcor]

So it boils down to we need enough hash power to expect a result of statistical significance +/- 5%.  In order to acheive that in a 14 day period there has to be a number we need to reach or pass in hash power.  I think we did fine with 1% or more of network speed.  I am sure someone can do the math, but just a guess is 1 to 2% of total should get us within a range that we can honestly say you make the same here or there over time.

I played poker for a living back in the day.  I know AA vs KJ is 80% fav, but I would not want to have to base my poker career of one hand.  I would never want to bet it all on that one hand.  Now if someone gives me those hands and says winner best of 100, I might bet it all on the AA.  If they gave me best of 10,000 it is a no brainer I will take the bet for sure.  So how many hands doe we need to play in 14 days (hash power) to expect a result of any statistical significance?

I was thinking the same.  I found an option that gives me a reasonable choice.  I'm not promoting another pool here but Nicehash has an option when you mine with them. So all you have to do is set what you want to earn/thash using the password field.  Then if they don't have work for you at a given rate that you want to earn say .0275/Thash then the site will lock you out until it has hash for you.  Pretty simple and a way to diversify.

I would actually recommend that all hashers have some balance in where they hash.  This does make it more easy to take the dry spells.

I actually started dabbling on CEX.io and have been making a little buying hash.  It is like the stock market buy them low and sell them high.  But at the same time you hold them they hash for you.  So if you buy a thash ~4 BTC you can earn an extra ~.13 BTC or so like i did and sell at a good time and make on the sale.

I know that buying ghash at the rates that they have does not make sense to hold long term.  But to sell them higher and have them hashing while you hold them is pretty cool.  Also the maintenance fees are about half what you making hashing but still I can make  .0002/ghash I have in a given day if I watch the rates.  Just somehting for my BTC to do while I'm waiting for them to turn into $5000 ;-)

I think the simple fact the the bigger pools payout so fast and often that new hashers just like seeing the numbers clicking into their BTC account.  If the veterans of the trade can sit for a week and watch 3 blocks go by then more power to them.  I do agree that the difficulty is ticking.  And we need to get as many block solved as soon as possible.

And I thought that using 1 miner as solo and naming it the lotto ticket was hilarious.  I might just try that myself on bitsolo.org. ;-)

Fahlcor

[btcshiner]

Didn't see it in this thread yet but good job getting us in Dogie's guides.  Thanks Doc.

[christhegoth]

This week's takings are in, and they're good enough.

Out of my 1.2 TH only 210 GH has been with Bitminter for obvious reasons ( The bills! The bills! They haunt me! *swings from a rope whilst being all bent over* ).

The other 0.99 TH was 'elsewhere'.  3 other pools.


Yeah, takings were good enough.  So bet-spreading is seeing me through this without having to abandon Bitminter.


I don't have to cash in for another couple of weeks, so hopefully the Bitcoin price will have improved by then.  Life eh?

I haven't had to dial my miners back to better power profiles yet.


Hang in there people.  Think the Falcon vs a Star Destroyer.  We can't out-hash a big hasher, but we can out-think it

[christhegoth]

So it boils down to we need enough hash power to expect a result of statistical significance +/- 5%.  In order to acheive that in a 14 day period there has to be a number we need to reach or pass in hash power.  I think we did fine with 1% or more of network speed.  I am sure someone can do the math, but just a guess is 1 to 2% of total should get us within a range that we can honestly say you make the same here or there over time.

I played poker for a living back in the day.  I know AA vs KJ is 80% fav, but I would not want to have to base my poker career of one hand.  I would never want to bet it all on that one hand.  Now if someone gives me those hands and says winner best of 100, I might bet it all on the AA.  If they gave me best of 10,000 it is a no brainer I will take the bet for sure.  So how many hands doe we need to play in 14 days (hash power) to expect a result of any statistical significance?

You're over-analysing things.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with checking things over; but you need to relax a bit.


Bitcoin mining happens in phases.  Each phase so far has been around 6 months ( ish, near enough ).  During each 6 month phase difficulty continues to go up.  So, slowly but surely, your mining kit gets less effective.  An S3 will probably last about 7-8 months due to how well it's designed.  The old S1 is now winking out after 8 months-ish.

It's just how it is.

So planning for the next fortnight ( or it's Doomsday ) is not the way to do it.  You average over a month.  And ideally you buy hardware that will pay for itself over the next 4-5 months and has a power-profile over 1.05 GH / w ( based on today's tech ).   The S3 is a good example here.


However, it's undeniable that Bitminter is having a bad month ( it's been 3 weeks as the bottom performer of my 4 mined pools so far ).  But then Bitminter had 3 months of pretty ok luck before ( we were regularly ahead of the curve ), so having a correction is quite natural.

There's no need to abandon Minter.  Just leave less hash here until this Storm passes.  If you leave some your account will remain open, and that means you'll get instant returns on your work when it's safe to move some hash back.


And, being honest, if you can't handle the peaks and troughs of Bitminter then permanently leave some of your hash on a much larger pool ( so that you get regular payments ).  That will smooth the ride for you.

I only have 1/6th of my business hash here at present ( it was 2/5 before ).  Due to this past month being rotten.  But then that's life.  If I ditch Minter entirely I'll have to spend a few days warming my account back up etc etc ( based on Doc's statements about how Mining Pools have some defence against luck-chasers ).

I predicted a 2 week bad-patch a few weeks back, due to how well we were doing.  I was one week out on when it would hit, but so far my hunch has held true.

IT'S JUST A HUNCH, THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES, BUT EVEN SO.  As a miner you always get final say on where you put your hash.  You make the call.

As such I'll make another prediction.  Another hunch:

- I'm guessing that by the end of this week we'll be back on an even keel, and performing at an average rate ( not the regular good luck we had in the past, but certainly ok mining ).


Obviously I might be wrong, but Doc's graph shows the peaks and troughs I always mention ( including how long they last ), and this trough can't last forever ( due to the Law of Averages ).


Bitminter won't be in a bad way forever, and don't panic about difficulty.  If you've bought decent kit at a reasonable price ( like S3's and Coincraft A1 units ) you'll be fine


As a poker player you'll get this:  I'm only a grand in.  It pays for a few IT repairs for me at present, which is handy.  So there is some profit.  But if Bitcoin ( the product ) dies tomorrow then I only owe the Bank a grand.  Which I can cover with my normal earnings.

And when Minter is playing a bit nicer I'll shift some more hash back here.  Once I believe the storm has passed.

I leave my personal mining here anyway ( as I have done so for the past 6 months ), so I know the Law of Averages will cover that one.  But business is business, and I have to consider my return before I take the plunge etc.

[Flashman]

Do we have some network issues this morning? Pool hash showing low, my hash on pool registering a lot lower than normal (It's sent me running to the mine twice to see if any canaries fell off their perch)

[DrHaribo]

Do we have some network issues this morning? Pool hash showing low, my hash on pool registering a lot lower than normal (It's sent me running to the mine twice to see if any canaries fell off their perch)

Looks like we had a short issue where many miners got disconnected, but where quickly back on again.

[Flashman]

Something else looks broke now, stats showing 99.99% CDF here after only 8 hours on this block.

[Flashman]

Difficulty showing as 1 also... that would be nice or we just made our own blockchain... not so nice.



Edit: Oh, back to normal.... I did refresh a few times just to check (And the first time 'coz I didn't believe my eyes.)

[gb1971]

i saw the same things happening yesterday
lasted half an hour an then went back to normal again

[DrHaribo]

Hang on.. looking into it.

[DrHaribo]

Sorry that I had to disconnect everyone from the mining server for a sec. Mining should now be ok again. Something was causing the pool software some instability.

It may be related to the namecoin software crashing about 10 times so far today. Although the pool usually runs fine during that, the namecoin software doesn't normally crash that many times in the same day, so it may be related. I'll track the issue down and prevent it from happening in the future.

Apologies for the bumpy ride this evening.

Happy to see miners quickly reconnecting after a disconnect though. It wasn't like that in the olden days.

[gb1971]

wow i just saw a lot of weird things happening  ???lol
but now everything looks normal again thx doc

[jfederkins]

wow i just saw a lot of weird things happening  ???lol
but now everything looks normal again thx doc

What really is Normal?

[Mirdude]

Thank you for this, it seems like great speeds.

[DrHaribo]

Unstable network at our hosting provider this morning. Looks like they are getting it under control though.

Let me know if you have problems connecting, please.