7Gh/s ... NMC or BTC ... or BTC pool hopping?

[marvinmartian]

Have read some of the threads regarding NMC mining > BTC mining.  Is that still true or did the difficulty factor skyrocket and end the party?

Have also read about BTC pool hopping.  Not clear on how that nets you any gain.  If you leave a pool you have fewer shares for the round and hence make less.  Is there a loophole in how shares are calculated that would let you benefit from having few shares in many pools = more than all your shares from one?

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[gw4tt]

difficulty went back up on namecoin. I wouldn't pool hop, but I would setup different miners on your cards pointed at different pools so you can get the most up time.

[grod]

Pool hopping is based on the premise of avoiding "blocks of death", those 3+ hour sessions which have the same payout as 10 minute ones.

You abandon a pool to switch to the "freshest" block when it reaches 43.5% (or thereabouts).  If the solution is found before then or shortly after, great.  You get your full share.  If the solution is found several hours after that, great, you've received a minimum of 43.5% for a disproportionately short participation.  Meanwhile you've likely participated in several short blocks in other pools.

I'm unsure but I think the pay for last share pools increase the payout of this strategy over and above simple hopping from proportional pools.

In other words, it has NOTHING to do with connection reliability (you can run more than one miner per GPU each in a different pool if you want that) and everything to do with collecting more than your share for work submitted.

[AngelusWebDesign]

You know, pool hopping is cheating, plain and simple.

You're stealing from the honest miners who participate in those pools.

Pools are a zero-sum game. Your gain is someone else's loss. And since you haven't done anything positive to help find a block -- quite the opposite -- you're stealing the extra, not earning it.

And don't tell me you're using "math skills" to earn more money -- thieves and con men work at their trade as well. It's still theft.

Matthew

[marvinmartian]

Pool hopping is based on the premise of avoiding "blocks of death", those 3+ hour sessions which have the same payout as 10 minute ones.

You abandon a pool to switch to the "freshest" block when it reaches 43.5% (or thereabouts).  If the solution is found before then or shortly after, great.  You get your full share.  If the solution is found several hours after that, great, you've received a minimum of 43.5% for a disproportionately short participation.  Meanwhile you've likely participated in several short blocks in other pools.

How do you know when a pool reaches 43.5% (or any %) since block solution is random?

[grod]

You know, pool hopping is cheating, plain and simple.

You're stealing from the honest miners who participate in those pools.

Pools are a zero-sum game. Your gain is someone else's loss. And since you haven't done anything positive to help find a block -- quite the opposite -- you're stealing the extra, not earning it.

And don't tell me you're using "math skills" to earn more money -- thieves and con men work at their trade as well. It's still theft.

Matthew

It is no more stealing than switching from BTC to namecoin mining during the subsidized periods.  It's extra effort, analysis and development relative to firing up a miner and forgetting about it.

Non-proportional pools are optimized to avoid pool hopping.  Some proportional pools are optimized to promote pool hopping, others have various barriers to discourage it.

Expect people do what is in their best interest in a free market on average.  Expecting anything else is not rational.

[Artefact2]

You know, pool hopping is cheating, plain and simple.

You're stealing from the honest miners who participate in those pools.

Pools are a zero-sum game. Your gain is someone else's loss. And since you haven't done anything positive to help find a block -- quite the opposite -- you're stealing the extra, not earning it.

And don't tell me you're using "math skills" to earn more money -- thieves and con men work at their trade as well. It's still theft.

Matthew

Troll spotted. You sir are wrong. Pool hopping is a practical solution to earn more bitcoins. Now of course it only works if only a minority of people do it, but if you gain something from it, good for you.

I think you know that and you are pool hopping yourself while trying to convince others not to do it so it's more profitable for you.

[kiwiasian]

You know, pool hopping is cheating, plain and simple.

You're stealing from the honest miners who participate in those pools.

Pools are a zero-sum game. Your gain is someone else's loss. And since you haven't done anything positive to help find a block -- quite the opposite -- you're stealing the extra, not earning it.

And don't tell me you're using "math skills" to earn more money -- thieves and con men work at their trade as well. It's still theft.

Matthew

Troll spotted. You sir are wrong. Pool hopping is a practical solution to earn more bitcoins. Now of course it only works if only a minority of people do it, but if you gain something from it, good for you.

I think you know that and you are pool hopping yourself while trying to convince others not to do it so it's more profitable for you.

This. There is nothing wrong with maximizing your profits.

[1.21gigawatts]

Anusgelus doesn't know how to pool hop, so he will tell everyone to avoid doing it because it doesn't benefit him.  He will scare you into stop mining though.

[AngelusWebDesign]

You can rationalize your theft all you want.

You aren't putting in 15% more effort to find blocks, but you'll happily walk away with 15% more pay.

Mining namecoins for a few days is different. You're mining something more profitable. You're not stealing from anyone.
When you pool hop, you steal from the other pool members, who make less money than they *should* because of your "optimizations".

That's cheating, and stealing.

It's nice to know the next generation doesn't have any morals. 

[1.21gigawatts]

Someone tell me which pool Anusgelus is mining so I can personally go there and pool hop it.

[grod]

Look at how stupid you are.

This is a free market.  Nobody has a gun to miner's heads coercing them to mine in any pool susceptible to hopping.  They have plenty of alternatives and yet they still choose to mine there for whatever reason.

This is precisely what happens with NMC to BTC.  Every other 2016 blocks many NMC miners *choose* to mine at a 25-40% disadvantage to the exchange rate for a month to subsidize a 2-3 day profit bonanza for BTC miners.  Nobody forces them, yet they're glad to do it for whatever reason.  Am I stealing when I only mine NMC when that has a 50% advantage relative to exhange rate subsidized by their month long loss?

Also, I probably have t-shirts older than you.

[Artefact2]

Someone tell me which pool Anusgelus is mining so I can personally go there and pool hop it.

^ This.

[1.21gigawatts]

Also, I probably have t-shirts older than you.

By the way Anusgelus is only 21 and he thinks 95% of miners are 18 and under living in their mom's basement.
That's why he tries to act like a wise old grandpa, and calls miners "next generation" and "young whippersnapper"

[pennytrader]

You can rationalize your theft all you want.

You aren't putting in 15% more effort to find blocks, but you'll happily walk away with 15% more pay.

Mining namecoins for a few days is different. You're mining something more profitable. You're not stealing from anyone.
When you pool hop, you steal from the other pool members, who make less money than they *should* because of your "optimizations".

That's cheating, and stealing.

It's nice to know the next generation doesn't have any morals.  

By your definition, you're cheating when mining namecoins. You're stealing from long-term namecoin miners.

[gnaget]

I agree pool hopping is cheating, plain and simple, and you people suggesting otherwise just shows a lack of ethics.  Nothing wrong with maximizing profits?  So if a pool owner decided to not announce a block won and keeps it for himself, isn't that just maximizing profits?  If you drop out of a pool, you decrease the hashrate of the pool which decreases the chances of a block being found.  That in turn increases the length for a new block to be found, thus taking from the hands of honest miners. 

I for one definitely have the technical skills to pool hop, not that it takes any more technical skills than being honest.  The difference is I am an ethical person and I am in the game with the other miners in the pool.  I will not steal from them, and I would hope they will not steal from me.

tl;dr: you are all a bunch of assholes

[Grinder]

When you pool hop, you steal from the other pool members, who make less money than they *should* because of your "optimizations".

There's no such thing as cheating in a free market. Pool hopping is just taking advantage of the weak and defenseless who are too dumb to protect themselves. It's what capitalism and liberalism is all about, so don't fight it - embrace it. The almighty Market will sort it out, so who are you to interfere?

[grod]

You're looking at it wrong.  Yes, pool operators cheating is always a possibility.  We evaluate it and go with the most trustworthy option.  For example, I like some of the decisions Tycho has made and believe him to be trustworthy.  Which is why my miners are pointed at deepbit as often as practical.

But that has nothing to do with pool hopping.   The solution to pool hopping is for *EVERYONE* to do it, or for no one to do it.  Relying on "morals" to police the population simply means a smaller, less ethical proportion of the population will benefit to a larger degree.  That is of little to no value.

Spreading awareness of the problem and its magnitude is part of a solution.  Encouraging pool hopping until the rewards at susceptible pools approach normal rewards and/or vulnerable pools fix themselves is a solution.  Ignoring it and simply going "nono it's bad don't do it" is useless.

[gnaget]

There's no such thing as cheating in a free market. Pool hopping is just taking advantage of the weak and defenseless who are too dumb to protect themselves. It's what capitalism and liberalism is all about, so don't fight it - embrace it. The almighty Market will sort it out, so who are you to interfere?

WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?

Yeah, Ponzie schemes exist in the free market, cheating...
There are MANY MANY MANY examples of cheating in the free market...  Bait and switch, false advertising,

Unless you meant your post ironically, in which case please use the ironic emote in the future

[gnaget]

You're looking at it wrong.  Yes, pool operators cheating is always a possibility.  We evaluate it and go with the most trustworthy option.  For example, I like some of the decisions Tycho has made and believe him to be trustworthy.  Which is why my miners are pointed at deepbit as often as practical.

But that has nothing to do with pool hopping.   The solution to pool hopping is for *EVERYONE* to do it, or for no one to do it.  Relying on "morals" to police the population simply means a smaller, less ethical proportion of the population will benefit to a larger degree.  That is of little to no value.

Spreading awareness of the problem and its magnitude is part of a solution.  Encouraging pool hopping until the rewards at susceptible pools approach normal rewards and/or vulnerable pools fix themselves is a solution.  Ignoring it and simply going "nono it's bad don't do it" is useless.

I wish that were not the case, but that is probably the most succinct rationalization for pool hopping I have seen.  Claiming it is ethical, is flat out false, but claiming the only way to fix it is to do it, that I can't argue.  Wouldn't it be nice if people would have enough self respect to not sell their ethics for a few extra btc.