Which pool are best now ?

[ladyfox]

any suggestion?

[1715500601]

1715500601

[1715500601]

1715500601

[Trongersoll]

any suggestion?

I like Slush Pool and BTCguild, but only you can figure out which pool is right for you.

[os2sam]

Bitcoin-QT

[eleuthria]

Bitcoin-QT

Bitcoin-QT is a terrible pool if you have ASICs

[os2sam]

Bitcoin-QT

Bitcoin-QT is a terrible pool if you have ASICs

If your a low end ASIC miner, like me, may as well solo mine on a machine that is running all the time anyway and forget about it for a couple years and see what happens.  Power consumption is low enough to not worry too much about power costs.  Many of us have a machine, or two, that needs to run 24/7 anyway.

That's what I'm thinking of doing anyway.

[eleuthria]

Bitcoin-QT

Bitcoin-QT is a terrible pool if you have ASICs

If your a low end ASIC miner, like me, may as well solo mine on a machine that is running all the time anyway and forget about it for a couple years and see what happens.  Power consumption is low enough to not worry too much about power costs.  Many of us have a machine, or two, that needs to run 24/7 anyway.

That's what I'm thinking of doing anyway.

Low end ASIC would be okay.  The problem comes with trying to solo mine against Bitcoin-QT with a a lot of hash rate.  It doesn't keep up with high speeds (unless bfgminer has been updated to do its own extranonce-rolling when solo mining against Bitcoin-QT).

[tripppn]

I jump around between BTCGuild and Bitminter trying to catch lucky streaks... sometimes it works sometimes... not so much. 

[os2sam]

Low end ASIC would be okay.  The problem comes with trying to solo mine against Bitcoin-QT with a a lot of hash rate.

Yep, I'm going to wait and see how things shake out before investing in anymore hardware.

The point .85 version of Bitcoin-QT actually works pretty good for solo with my BE's.  Now to see how long the BE's will actually last.

[HellDiverUK]

I've tried all the big pools - BTCGuild, EMC, Slush's, and P2Pool.  I always end up back with Eligius, though.  They're the most reliable for me.

P2Pool was OK, but variance is high due to a low hashrate, and you really need a decent machine to run it on.  Running P2Pool needed an i3 3.3GHz running 24/7, where just mining with Eligius means I can get away with running a tiny TPLink 703N micro-router running OpenWRT which uses less than 2W.

[Trongersoll]

Low end ASIC would be okay.  The problem comes with trying to solo mine against Bitcoin-QT with a a lot of hash rate.

Yep, I'm going to wait and see how things shake out before investing in anymore hardware.

The point .85 version of Bitcoin-QT actually works pretty good for solo with my BE's.  Now to see how long the BE's will actually last.

how have you tested to insure that your solo endeavor will payout correctly, to the right wallet?

[KrLos]

I use http://mmpool.bitparking.com/pool

It's little with just ~11 TH/s, but the winning margins with nmc and the other alts are nice.

Also if more people jump in, would be much better

[spiccioli]

any suggestion?

HHTT

Reliable and low fees.

spiccioli

[os2sam]

Low end ASIC would be okay.  The problem comes with trying to solo mine against Bitcoin-QT with a a lot of hash rate.

Yep, I'm going to wait and see how things shake out before investing in anymore hardware.

The point .85 version of Bitcoin-QT actually works pretty good for solo with my BE's.  Now to see how long the BE's will actually last.

how have you tested to insure that your solo endeavor will payout correctly, to the right wallet?

What wallet would you expect it to payout too?  Not sure I know what you mean?

[Trongersoll]

Low end ASIC would be okay.  The problem comes with trying to solo mine against Bitcoin-QT with a a lot of hash rate.

Yep, I'm going to wait and see how things shake out before investing in anymore hardware.

The point .85 version of Bitcoin-QT actually works pretty good for solo with my BE's.  Now to see how long the BE's will actually last.

how have you tested to insure that your solo endeavor will payout correctly, to the right wallet?

What wallet would you expect it to payout too?  Not sure I know what you mean?

I'm not sure what i mean either. If you find a block the 25 BTCs goe into the QT wallet you are mining with? how do you know it will work?

[os2sam]

Low end ASIC would be okay.  The problem comes with trying to solo mine against Bitcoin-QT with a a lot of hash rate.

Yep, I'm going to wait and see how things shake out before investing in anymore hardware.

The point .85 version of Bitcoin-QT actually works pretty good for solo with my BE's.  Now to see how long the BE's will actually last.

how have you tested to insure that your solo endeavor will payout correctly, to the right wallet?

What wallet would you expect it to payout too?  Not sure I know what you mean?

I'm not sure what i mean either. If you find a block the 25 BTCs goe into the QT wallet you are mining with? how do you know it will work?

I've heard that it works.

[hulk]

BTCguild is the best...

[MXRider]

BTCguild is the best...

Yes, let's all point our miners to BTC Guild.

[bbxx]

https://polmine.pl/?setlang=en is the best.

PPS: 0.000063310763 mBTC very good
merged mining nmc
you get fees also
no downtime, no ddos (uptime about 90 days)


nice charts and stats
instant payments
dont worry about luck
shareholders payments
vardiff depends on port you choose
hall of fame (top hashrates, block founders, shares)

[waltermot321]

BTCguild , reason cause they have good DDOS protection and is the biggest pool.

[TheQuin]

It depends how you define best. Everyone will have their own reasons.

I like in order:

1) Reliable
2) Cheap
3) Big (Smaller pools have more variance.)

So I use Bitminter.

Good Ddos protection.
1% fee
Current hash rate gets average 10 blocks a day.

Yes BTC Guild is bigger but they charge a 3% fee.

[semaster]

p2pool.info is best at any time because of it nature!
- 0% fee
- PPLNS
- tx fee for miners
- decentralised (ddos impossible)

[spiccioli]

p2pool.info is best at any time because of it nature!
- 0% fee
- PPLNS
- tx fee for miners
- decentralised (ddos impossible)

HHTT is on a par on a lot of things and easier to setup:

- 0.5% fee (p2pool has a default 1% fee to its author which you have to disable if you want to be 0% fees)
- PPLNS
- 1/2 transaction fees for the miner who solves a block
- high availability and resiliency (I won't say it cannot be DDOSed... but a lot of p2pool nodes could be easily).

spiccioli

[CanaryInTheMine]

any suggestion?

I like Eligius, no account and password to setup and issues with that to worry about... recall what occurred with 50btc recently as an example.

[Wave]

Another vote for HHTT, link to pool i :-\n Sig.

[Right13]

I like http://pool.itzod.ru
Pro: 0% fee, RSMPPS reward system, vardiff (up to 512), transactions fee and users donation goes to cover deferred payouts.
Contra: Deferred payouts.

[zvs]

p2pool.info is best at any time because of it nature!
- 0% fee
- PPLNS
- tx fee for miners
- decentralised (ddos impossible)

well, probably a majority of the people that use p2pool set up their own node... if it's using a computer that you usually have off, say, 18 hrs a day, then that's extra electricity costs.  even if it's on a 24/7 computer, that's resources used up & higher load

i ran a node locally for a bit on a very good computer (think it was an i7-920 at the time, maybe about 8 months ago)... but my upstream is capped so low that whenever I did anything else w/ my computer, it'd cause orphan issues w/ the local node.  i got higher efficiency by just eating the 170ms latency to germany

ofc there's

http://p2pool-nodes.info/
http://p2pool.hostv.pl/

to find a pool.  should have at least one backup, probably two.     lower latency isn't always best, check what your DOA rate would be & check the pool's orphan rate.   a pool that gets 10% orphans that you have 20ms latency to would probably be lower efficiency for you then a pool that gets 5% orphans w/ 150ms latency (this likely wasn't the case when the shares were 15s apart instead of 30s, but it reduces the importance of low latency)

anyway.  i agree, p2pool is the best.   outside of that, i'd recommend hhtt and bitminter.  possibly eclipsemc too, i haven't checked their fees in 1/2 a year or more though

[BitcoinBarrel]

Check out Triplemining sometimes the blocks can take a little while, but it's really picking up and only 1% fee. With the Jackpots and referral bonuses you can make more than other pools.

[wunkbone]

For bitcoin BTCguild....

[TheQuin]

Bitminter are running Mint Race #5 for November.

Win a KnCMiner Jupiter 550 GH/s ASIC device (currently selling for $4995)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=321629.msg3445345#msg3445345

[semaster]

to find a pool.  should have at least one backup, probably two.     lower latency isn't always best, check what your DOA rate would be & check the pool's orphan rate.   a pool that gets 10% orphans that you have 20ms latency to would probably be lower efficiency for you then a pool that gets 5% orphans w/ 150ms latency (this likely wasn't the case when the shares were 15s apart instead of 30s, but it reduces the importance of low latency)

a few words about latency. there is a perception that 100-200ms latency is batter than 20ms. as it is explained in efficiency thread that because of limiting number of included tx and as well - lower tx fee.

That is mistake! 20ms (lower) IS better then 100ms (higher) latency.

Let's look. It's true that to reduce latency is used limiting of tx number
For example we can include only transaction that have 0.0001 and higher tx fee
this way we will filter 'transaction dust'
what we loose in this case? 
avarege number ot transaction in block now is about 300-500, so filtering dust we reject about 0.0001*500=0.05Bbtc fee
and it will be only if all 500 transactions have less than 0.0001 fee. Practically it hundreds  times less.
So rejecting about 0.0005 fee each block we get latency 20ms instead of 200ms and theoretical less amount of rejected shares on pool

[easynote]

I like a lot of bitminter pool

[vervolioman]

Bitminter are running Mint Race #5 for November.

Win a KnCMiner Jupiter 550 GH/s ASIC device (currently selling for $4995)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=321629.msg3445345#msg3445345

+1, anyone can win, even small hashers 

Also best is to use backup pool or 2 as well 

[zvs]

to find a pool.  should have at least one backup, probably two.     lower latency isn't always best, check what your DOA rate would be & check the pool's orphan rate.   a pool that gets 10% orphans that you have 20ms latency to would probably be lower efficiency for you then a pool that gets 5% orphans w/ 150ms latency (this likely wasn't the case when the shares were 15s apart instead of 30s, but it reduces the importance of low latency)

a few words about latency. there is a perception that 100-200ms latency is batter than 20ms. as it is explained in efficiency thread that because of limiting number of included tx and as well - lower tx fee.

That is mistake! 20ms (lower) IS better then 100ms (higher) latency.

Let's look. It's true that to reduce latency is used limiting of tx number
For example we can include only transaction that have 0.0001 and higher tx fee
this way we will filter 'transaction dust'
what we loose in this case?  
avarege number ot transaction in block now is about 300-500, so filtering dust we reject about 0.0001*500=0.05Bbtc fee
and it will be only if all 500 transactions have less than 0.0001 fee. Practically it hundreds  times less.
So rejecting about 0.0005 fee each block we get latency 20ms instead of 200ms and theoretical less amount of rejected shares on pool

obviously lower latency is better than higher latency... as in network latency.

bitcoind getblocktemplate latency would cause you to have a higher chance to have an orphan BLOCK, but not really a whole lot else (though generally when you have a high gbt latency as in 0.5s+, your whole damn system is strained).  already, 1/2 the time or more, these shares that are being 'punished' end up being the ones that become the main chain.

the problem with having a lot of transactions on a public node that a lot of people use, is that with 5-10 work requests, it can take 100ms to get these all out if you have a 100kb block, even on something like a xeon e3-1270v2.  if i was running a private node w/ just myself, i would set maxblocksize to 500000

i said if you choose a p2pool, the # of orphans that p2pool has is the most important thing to look at.   the DOA rate is easy to see, run a miner on it for 10 minutes

"82.196.8.44:9333": 3816

so you are running 3816 bytes of transactions atm.  i am at 4873 (though I think I'll just go ahead and drop that to 2000 or so)

my latency is average of 3.16ms over the last 24 hours, yours is 7.64ms,  so you don't need to lecture me about it.  i do this so there is less time between work assignments, not for getblocktemplate stats

[fizzmine]

For bitcoin BTCguild....

Care to elaborate?  They're an expensive pool with average features.  If reliability is a concern, you can simply set your miner to failover to any number of lower-fee pools giving you the same or better uptime as just mining at one big pool.

Why do people seem to think that bigger = better?

I stay away from BTCGuild, my profitability is better mining elsewhere.

[zvs]

For bitcoin BTCguild....

Care to elaborate?  They're an expensive pool with average features.  If reliability is a concern, you can simply set your miner to failover to any number of lower-fee pools giving you the same or better uptime as just mining at one big pool.

Why do people seem to think that bigger = better?

I stay away from BTCGuild, my profitability is better mining elsewhere.

Some have probably been there since 2011.. I guess I could understand that.  Not sure why someone new would start there though, esp. when you have a whole bunch of quality 1% pools available, if you don't feel like messing with something like p2pool (I think Eligius might be 0 fee too, not sure).

[TheQuin]

For bitcoin BTCguild....

Care to elaborate?  They're an expensive pool with average features.  If reliability is a concern, you can simply set your miner to failover to any number of lower-fee pools giving you the same or better uptime as just mining at one big pool.

Why do people seem to think that bigger = better?

I stay away from BTCGuild, my profitability is better mining elsewhere.

Some have probably been there since 2011.. I guess I could understand that.  Not sure why someone new would start there though, esp. when you have a whole bunch of quality 1% pools available, if you don't feel like messing with something like p2pool (I think Eligius might be 0 fee too, not sure).

I think the reason a lot of new miners go to BTC Guild is that the idea that bigger is better appeals. It actually just means less variance in the short term, but over the long term that evens out and a 3% fee over a 1% fee means you will earn 2% less.
Others pay the 7.5% fee for PPS so as to totally eliminate luck, or rather I should say, to shift the risk of bad luck onto the pool operator.

Edit eleuthria has pointed out that I forgot to mention that BTC Guild pays orphans whereas 1% pools don't.

Eligius has "Capped PPS with Recent Backpay" which doesn't guarantee full payment, and I personally find that off putting.

Bitminter has been a great pool to use for a long time. The customers are very quick to offer good help and advise in the pool thread on this forum, and Dr Haribo is always willing to go the extra mile to make sure everything runs smoothly.

[eleuthria]

For bitcoin BTCguild....

Care to elaborate?  They're an expensive pool with average features.  If reliability is a concern, you can simply set your miner to failover to any number of lower-fee pools giving you the same or better uptime as just mining at one big pool.

Why do people seem to think that bigger = better?

I stay away from BTCGuild, my profitability is better mining elsewhere.

Some have probably been there since 2011.. I guess I could understand that.  Not sure why someone new would start there though, esp. when you have a whole bunch of quality 1% pools available, if you don't feel like messing with something like p2pool (I think Eligius might be 0 fee too, not sure).

I think the reason a lot of new miners go to BTC Guild is that the idea that bigger is better appeals. It actually just means less variance in the short term, but over the long term that evens out and a 3% fee over a 1% fee means you will earn 2% less.

Except there is no 1% fee pool that offers the benefits of BTC Guild that reduce variance even more.  IE:  BTC Guild pays for orphaned blocks.  Bitminter does not (without users paying an extra 1%(or more?)).  That's a ~1% effective fee reduction.  Now you're looking at a 1% fee difference in exchange for a massive reduction in variance, and an admin whose only source of income depends on making sure the pool is running smoothly 24/7.

[Trongersoll]

From a small miner's perspective, 1% is almost nothing.

[TheQuin]

For bitcoin BTCguild....

Care to elaborate?  They're an expensive pool with average features.  If reliability is a concern, you can simply set your miner to failover to any number of lower-fee pools giving you the same or better uptime as just mining at one big pool.

Why do people seem to think that bigger = better?

I stay away from BTCGuild, my profitability is better mining elsewhere.

Some have probably been there since 2011.. I guess I could understand that.  Not sure why someone new would start there though, esp. when you have a whole bunch of quality 1% pools available, if you don't feel like messing with something like p2pool (I think Eligius might be 0 fee too, not sure).

I think the reason a lot of new miners go to BTC Guild is that the idea that bigger is better appeals. It actually just means less variance in the short term, but over the long term that evens out and a 3% fee over a 1% fee means you will earn 2% less.

Except there is no 1% fee pool that offers the benefits of BTC Guild that reduce variance even more.  IE:  BTC Guild pays for orphaned blocks.  Bitminter does not (without users paying an extra 1%(or more?)).  That's a ~1% effective fee reduction.  Now you're looking at a 1% fee difference in exchange for a massive reduction in variance, and an admin whose only source of income depends on making sure the pool is running smoothly 24/7.

Hey eleuthria, I'm not knocking the Guild, I know it is a very well run pool. I mined there myself for a long time. The way the last round of Ddos attacks were handled was excellent.
IMO the number of orphans does not justify paying the optional fee at Bitminter. The point I was really trying to make is that lower fees are more important than lower variance. There is a minimum hash rate to make a pool function effectively, but I personally cannot justify paying extra to reduce variance beyond that as it has no long term impact on income.

 

[eleuthria]

For bitcoin BTCguild....

Care to elaborate?  They're an expensive pool with average features.  If reliability is a concern, you can simply set your miner to failover to any number of lower-fee pools giving you the same or better uptime as just mining at one big pool.

Why do people seem to think that bigger = better?

I stay away from BTCGuild, my profitability is better mining elsewhere.

Some have probably been there since 2011.. I guess I could understand that.  Not sure why someone new would start there though, esp. when you have a whole bunch of quality 1% pools available, if you don't feel like messing with something like p2pool (I think Eligius might be 0 fee too, not sure).

I think the reason a lot of new miners go to BTC Guild is that the idea that bigger is better appeals. It actually just means less variance in the short term, but over the long term that evens out and a 3% fee over a 1% fee means you will earn 2% less.

Except there is no 1% fee pool that offers the benefits of BTC Guild that reduce variance even more.  IE:  BTC Guild pays for orphaned blocks.  Bitminter does not (without users paying an extra 1%(or more?)).  That's a ~1% effective fee reduction.  Now you're looking at a 1% fee difference in exchange for a massive reduction in variance, and an admin whose only source of income depends on making sure the pool is running smoothly 24/7.

Hey eleuthria, I'm not knocking the Guild, I know it is a very well run pool. I mined there myself for a long time. The way the last round of Ddos attacks were handled was excellent.
IMO the number of orphans does not justify paying the optional fee at Bitminter. The point I was really trying to make is that lower fees are more important than lower variance. There is a minimum hash rate to make a pool function effectively, but I personally cannot justify paying extra to reduce variance beyond that as it has no long term impact on income.

That's fine.  But making it sound like there is some huge different in earnings is dishonest.  It is a *1%* effective difference between Bitminter and BTC Guild, and less variance to boot.  Orphaned blocks *do* eat about 1% of your earnings (AKA:  Hidden 1% "fee"), and on BTC Guild they are paid.

And while pure BTC earnings are unaffected in long term by variance (within certain limits), USD earnings *can* be impacted.  More consistent earnings means you're more readily able to execute market positions with a steady supply of coins rather than being left dry during short term spikes.

[TheQuin]

That's fine.  But making it sound like there is some huge different in earnings is dishonest.  It is a *1%* effective difference between Bitminter and BTC Guild, and less variance to boot.  Orphaned blocks *do* eat about 1% of your earnings (AKA:  Hidden 1% "fee"), and on BTC Guild they are paid.

And while pure BTC earnings are unaffected in long term by variance (within certain limits), USD earnings *can* be impacted.  More consistent earnings means you're more readily able to execute market positions with a steady supply of coins rather than being left dry during short term spikes.

I have gone back and edited my original post. I certainly didn't mean to be dishonest, I just forgot about the orphans.

[hZti]

any suggestion?

I like Slush Pool and BTCguild, but only you can figure out which pool is right for you.

Why is one pool better for you and the other not?

[Walter Rothbard]

Bitminter has been a great pool to use for a long time. The customers are very quick to offer good help and advise in the pool thread on this forum, and Dr Haribo is always willing to go the extra mile to make sure everything runs smoothly.

I second that.  DrHaribo is helpful, the pool is friendly, and fun!

[spiccioli]

Guys,

there are only two kind of pools:

- too big
- all the other pools.

Choose wisely, choose a smaller one and in doing so:

1) - help increasing bitcoin network health: DE-CEN-TRA-LI-ZED means nothing to you?

2) - be a bigger fish in a smaller pool (instead of the other way around), remember: bigger fishes eat smaller ones.

3) - please do understand that all the hardware which was bought in the last four months and all hardware being bought from now on is NOT going to break even, so pool choice makes no real difference FOR YOU but can make a difference for bitcoin network health, see point 1)

4) - a better bitcoin network health can help increase bitcoin value and in doing so can help you earning more from your investment.

Variance means that some days you get less, but some other days you get more and the days when you earn less are LONGER than the days when you earn more, so be patient!

A smaller pool is easier to monitor, a smaller pool has to have smaller fees, a smaller pool is more enjoyable to join since you become part of a (smaller) community of miners which share your same goals.

Stop being a lemming, start mining somewhere else!

spiccioli