Pool hopping... ethical or not?

[lucita777]

Since stories about miners are popular, let me post one to

One day, after working hard in a mine together for a whole day,  two miners go to a market. Each of them has 1 ounce of gold. At the market the average price is $1/ounce of gold. Bob offers however $2/once and Steve offers $0.1/once. both miners goes to Bob and sell their gold.
Next day is similar. After working hard in a mine together for a whole day, the same two miners go to a market. This time Bob offers $0.1/ounce and Steve offers $2/ounce. First miner goes to Bob, but second miner goes to Steve to sell his gold.
After that first miner says to the other one:
- "Why did you go to Steve, instead of Bob ?!"
- "Because Bob was paying crap today"
- "But yesterday we both went to Bob!"
-  
- "I thought that we were friends. But you left me when the times are tough!"
-  
- "You are an immoral cheater! If we go to a war and we will be on the same side, then I'll shoot you!"
-  

[dayfall]

They're supposed to be cooperating workers working the same mine with aligned interests, not predators taking advantage of each other.

Miners are predators.  By mining I make it harder for all other miners and decrease your income.    How about this,  I totally stop mining and instead of me getting 1BTC/day, all other miners give me, collectivity, 0.5BTC/day.  I save on electricity and you all get 0.5 more a day.

Honestly, what if I say we all halve our Mh/s tomorrow.  This only makes sense; we all gain.  But by your reasoning anyone who doesn't would be working with us; instead they would be trying to get more than his fair share.

Actually, tonight I will reduce my processing power in half, and anyone who doesn't is against me.  OR they realize that this prisoners dilemma is solved by defecting.

[JoelKatz]

Most of what you said was irrelevant.  Except this, so there's an implied agreement.  Okay, what are the rules for an implied agreement being reasonable?

They're the same as every other implied agreement, good faith and fair dealing.

Yes, yes.  I know you don't know.  However clearly an unreasonable implied agreement would not make the miner "unethical".  Such as one where s/he must sign over his house to the other miners until they decide s/he has earned it back in some unspecified way.

The implied agreement is always the same -- good faith and fair dealing.

So in other words, you find this unethical but that's for no other reason than the fact you chose the implied agreement and consider it reasonable.  Don't you think it's a little naive and arrogant to believe that your ideas are the only right and reasonable ones?

Edit: Oh, and just so you know.  I will leave you when things get rough Joel.  No.  Please don't cry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_covenant_of_good_faith_and_fair_dealing

[JoelKatz]

Since stories about miners are popular, let me post one to

One day, after working hard in a mine together for a whole day,  two miners go to a market. Each of them has 1 ounce of gold. At the market the average price is $1/ounce of gold. Bob offers however $2/once and Steve offers $0.1/once. both miners goes to Bob and sell their gold.
Next day is similar. After working hard in a mine together for a whole day, the same two miners go to a market. This time Bob offers $0.1/ounce and Steve offers $2/ounce. First miner goes to Bob, but second miner goes to Steve to sell his gold.
After that first miner says to the other one:
- "Why did you go to Steve, instead of Bob ?!"
- "Because Bob was paying crap today"
- "But yesterday we both went to Bob!"
-  
- "I thought that we were friends. But you left me when the times are tough!"
-  
- "You are an immoral cheater! If we go to a war and we will be on the same side, then I'll shoot you!"
-  

If the point of your analogy was to show that it's possible to make arguments that are similar to mine that are invalid, congratulations, you did that.

[lucita777]

Where my argument is invalid? Or di you mean that you argument was invalid and mine just similar?  

Consider 2 miners. One hopper and one non-hopper. Imagine that both of them have 1GH/s. It takes both of them 4s to generate a share. Now one goes gives that share to a pool which offers a lot for it, but the other gives that share to a pool which offers less. What is immoral in that?

And really, the pool does not offer less for a share because of hoppers. It there were no hoppers that pool would still offer less for that share.

[jgraham]

Most of what you said was irrelevant.  Except this, so there's an implied agreement.  Okay, what are the rules for an implied agreement being reasonable?

They're the same as every other implied agreement, good faith and fair dealing.

Yes, yes.  I know you don't know.  However clearly an unreasonable implied agreement would not make the miner "unethical".  Such as one where s/he must sign over his house to the other miners until they decide s/he has earned it back in some unspecified way.

The implied agreement is always the same -- good faith and fair dealing.

Well if by that you mean the article you linked to then it doesn't really make your point.  If I'm hired to mine coal for you I'm essentially agreeing to produce coal in exchange for dollars.   Unless the contract states it I'd say it's unreasonable to restrict when I quit (for example my employment agreement states that I am expected to give notice in which case quitting with no notice breaks that agreement).   Moving to another mine does not in any way change that I gave you coal in exchange for dollars.   It does not deny you the coal we agreed you would get from the dollars you knew you were spending in the time period you spent it.  So this is not a breech of faith.

...and while I applaud you for actually having a definition for a term.  Almost so much that I'd be willing to concede the point purely on the basis that it might encourage you to explore how actually knowing what you are talking about really makes debates productive.   Off hand I can think of a couple of cultural references which had a different set of values.  So that might lose you the argument in the more general case.

[JoelKatz]

Consider 2 miners. One hopper and one non-hopper. Imagine that both of them have 1GH/s. It takes both of them 4s to generate a share. Now one goes gives that share to a pool which offers a lot for it, but the other gives that share to a pool which offers less. What is immoral in that?

As I explained, pool hopping breaches the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing between miners.

And really, the pool does not offer less for a share because of hoppers. It there were no hoppers that pool would still offer less for that share.

That is incorrect. The pool really does offer less for a share because of hoppers.

The expected payout per share is based on how many shares have already been accumulated towards the current block. The lower that number, the higher the payout per share. Now, consider a pool's hash rate. The more pool hoppers the pool has, the more the pool's hash rate will go up when there are fewer shares accumulated and will go down when there are more shares. The share count resets to zero when the pool finds a block, which is determined only by the average hashing power. So more pool hoppers means more of that average hashing power comes out at low share counts and less at high counts. This means the pool spends more time at high share counts than it does at low share counts.

For a non-hopping miner, the average payout per block is solely depending on the average share count. This goes up with more pool hoppers because the hash rate goes down when the share count is high, leading to more time spent at the higher count.

I do see a lot of defense of pool hoppers based on misunderstandings of the mathematics. The analogy to coal miners sharing a vein is apt. The more mine hoppers in this case, the less time the miners spend mining a vein (because there are more people mining then, so it goes faster) and the more time the miners spend trying to expose a new vein (because there are fewer people mining then).

[LeFBI]

As I explained, pool hopping breaches the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing between miners.

Dude, seriously....what is it with you and your "implied covenant" or "implied agreement" or "implied contract" .....?

You seem to have ran out of real arguments looooong time ago. All you do in this whole thread is to repeat your own "implied agreements of good faith and fair dealing". Those agreements you are talking about do not exist, it's only what YOU read into it. They aren't real, they only exist in your head, it's what you(and only you) read between the lines. And just because you repeat it over and over again doesn't make your personal subjective interpretation of things that only you read between the lines reality for everyone else.

Not to talk about your pointless analogies(vineyard, kill your mother, real miners) comparing apples and oranges over and over again.....


Now go on, tell me that i'm all wrong and that my argument is invalid. Tell us again that you see implied agreements.... you didn't point that out often enough yet. Repeat yourself for another 12 pages... 

[teukon]

As I explained, pool hopping breaches the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing between miners.

Were it not for several rather intellegent posts made by your account on several threads I would assume you a troll.  Given your reputation I offer my thoughts.

What is this implied agreement?  Can one fairly assume that other miners know of this agreement?  I certainly was not aware of it.

I understand implied agreements and try to be fair to those with whom I deal but I always reserve the right to think for myself, not divulge my thoughts, and use anything I learn to my advantage.  If a thing is not obviously implied (e.g. is pool hopping ok) then an explicit agreement should be made.  I will not be bound by agreements which exist only in the minds of others and certainly not those which encourage bad mathematics, hidden information, and inefficiency.

You don't have to worry about my taking advantage of non-hopping proportional miners.  I mine with simplecoin.us which uses 'pay per last n shares' and urge others who dislike the mess which stems from the fundamentally flawed 'proportional reward system' to give it a try.

[lucita777]

Consider 2 miners. One hopper and one non-hopper. Imagine that both of them have 1GH/s. It takes both of them 4s to generate a share. Now one goes gives that share to a pool which offers a lot for it, but the other gives that share to a pool which offers less. What is immoral in that?

As I explained, pool hopping breaches the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing between miners.

And really, the pool does not offer less for a share because of hoppers. It there were no hoppers that pool would still offer less for that share.

That is incorrect. The pool really does offer less for a share because of hoppers.

The expected payout per share is based on how many shares have already been accumulated towards the current block. The lower that number, the higher the payout per share. Now, consider a pool's hash rate. The more pool hoppers the pool has, the more the pool's hash rate will go up when there are fewer shares accumulated and will go down when there are more shares. The share count resets to zero when the pool finds a block, which is determined only by the average hashing power. So more pool hoppers means more of that average hashing power comes out at low share counts and less at high counts. This means the pool spends more time at high share counts than it does at low share counts.

For a non-hopping miner, the average payout per block is solely depending on the average share count. This goes up with more pool hoppers because the hash rate goes down when the share count is high, leading to more time spent at the higher count.

I do see a lot of defense of pool hoppers based on misunderstandings of the mathematics. The analogy to coal miners sharing a vein is apt. The more mine hoppers in this case, the less time the miners spend mining a vein (because there are more people mining then, so it goes faster) and the more time the miners spend trying to expose a new vein (because there are fewer people mining then).

Well you are right, that in a pool with pool hoppers miners will be paid less if there won't be pool hoppers. But this is only because the pool hoppers will compete with miners over the hot deals, while they will leave "bad deals" intact.

Since you mentioned math lets agree first on some facts, ok?
1) When the block is still being solved, share submitted with sequence number 100 has higher expected payout value than share submitted with sequence number 100000. (Proof draft: When submitting share number 100 or 100000, there is still the same expected number of shares needed to solve the block, that means the total number of shares will be higher in the latter case)
2) When there are no hoppers, miners submit shares, where some of them have expected value > 50 / difficulty and some of them have expected value  < 50 / difficulty. In the long run, the expected value of all shares together will average to 50 / difficulty.
3) With hoppers: hoppers do not submit shares with expected value < 50 / difficulty. However they submit shares with expected value > 50 / difficulty. That means 24/7 miners will receive less shares with expected value > 50 / difficulty. That way, those shares submitted with EV < 50 / difficulty by 24/7 miners will no longer be offset by the highly paid shares and in the long run such miner will receive less than 50 / difficulty per share.

However it is not hoppers fault, that there are miners who submit shares with low EV. Seriously, if you found ounce of gold and sold it for 1/3 of it's market price and later you tried to sell other ounce of gold for higher price than market price without success, would you really blame other people for your loss?

Hoppers are not forcing you to sell your shares to the pool for cheap. If you sell it for cheap, than it is purely your own responsibility and don't talk about covenant. We don't run a charity here and we will not skip hot deals just because you are doing bad deals with your shares.

[JoelKatz]

Dude, seriously....what is it with you and your "implied covenant" or "implied agreement" or "implied contract" .....?

Every agreement between two human beings has an implied component that the two people are dealing with each other in good faith. If two people enter into an agreement, there is no need for them to say, "By the way, are you okay with me ripping you off and lying and cheating? Is that cool?" Of course they implicitly agree that this is not cool That's how agreements work.

You seem to have ran out of real arguments looooong time ago. All you do in this whole thread is to repeat your own "implied agreements of good faith and fair dealing". Those agreements you are talking about do not exist, it's only what YOU read into it.

No, that is not true. They exist and they are legally and morally enforceable.

They aren't real, they only exist in your head, it's what you(and only you) read between the lines. And just because you repeat it over and over again doesn't make your personal subjective interpretation of things that only you read between the lines reality for everyone else.

I don't know what you're talking about. Are you saying that you don't think contracts include an agreement to act in good faith and deal fairly?

Now go on, tell me that i'm all wrong and that my argument is invalid. Tell us again that you see implied agreements.... you didn't point that out often enough yet. Repeat yourself for another 12 pages...  

I'll keep saying it as long as people actually don't understand that every agreement includes an implicit agreement that one is dealing fairly with the other party. This is recognized by pretty much every legal and moral system on the planet.

If this was not the case, every single agreement or contract would have a phase where people say "do you agree that you are negotiating in good faith, dealing fairly with me, and intend to comply with the agreements and not find some technical way to weasel out of them" and the other person would say "yes". That would be a pointless waste of time. (And otherwise, people would have to carefully read every page of every agreement lest some dishonest person sneak a word or two into a harmless-looking phrase that destroys the entire point of a contract. That would also be both inefficient and intolerable in civil society.)

Please take the five minutes to actually read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_covenant_of_good_faith_and_fair_dealing

[JoelKatz]

However it is not hoppers fault, that there are miners who submit shares with low EV. Seriously, if you found ounce of gold and sold it for 1/3 of it's market price and later you tried to sell other ounce of gold for higher price than market price without success, would you really blame other people for your loss?

It is not the hopper's fault that there are miners who submit shares with low EV. It is, however, the hopper's fault that there are miners who submit a disproportionate number of shares with low EV. That wouldn't happen if there were no hoppers. (Unless you had some kind of crazy reverse hopper who specifically chose to disproportionately submit shares with low EV.)

Hoppers are not forcing you to sell your shares to the pool for cheap. If you sell it for cheap, than it is purely your own responsibility and don't talk about covenant. We don't run a charity here and we will not skip hot deals just because you are doing bad deals with your shares.

They are forcing you, because someone has to sell shares to the pool for cheap or the pool will stall. And the hoppers aren't doing it. They don't force any one particular person to do it, but they force someone to do it. (Or the pool dies.)

[organofcorti]

I'll keep saying it as long as people actually don't understand that every agreement includes an implicit agreement that one is dealing fairly with the other party. This is recognized by pretty much every legal and moral system on the planet

But it's ethics, not legal and moral codes in particular. That means in order to argue we must both know which ethical system the OP refers to. I didn't see it named anywhere.

So which ethical system are you saying this is a problem for? Many of the current and historical ethical systems are incongruous at best and contrary more often. Responding to arguments will be a little easier if we all know that. This is a question which I should have asked weeks ago.

Edit: this isn't so-called 'moral relativism' - it's a simple fact that

pretty much every legal and moral system on the planet

will have differing view on many ethical issues - look at the difference between US and UK libel law as an example.

[lucita777]

It is not the hopper's fault that there are miners who submit shares with low EV. It is, however, the hopper's fault that there are miners who submit a disproportionate number of shares with low EV. That wouldn't happen if there were no hoppers. (Unless you had some kind of crazy reverse hopper who specifically chose to disproportionately submit shares with low EV.)

True. But submitting shares with low EV is already a mistake

They are forcing you, because someone has to sell shares to the pool for cheap or the pool will stall. And the hoppers aren't doing it. They don't force any one particular person to do it, but they force someone to do it. (Or the pool dies.)

Daaa. If the pool uses crappy reward system then let it die or change the reward system to be fair. There are other pools with fair reward systems. If you are ok with getting low EV then don't complain about hoppers, if you are not ok with the low EV, then nothing easier, switch to a fair pool.

[Clipse]

However it is not hoppers fault, that there are miners who submit shares with low EV. Seriously, if you found ounce of gold and sold it for 1/3 of it's market price and later you tried to sell other ounce of gold for higher price than market price without success, would you really blame other people for your loss?

It is not the hopper's fault that there are miners who submit shares with low EV. It is, however, the hopper's fault that there are miners who submit a disproportionate number of shares with low EV. That wouldn't happen if there were no hoppers. (Unless you had some kind of crazy reverse hopper who specifically chose to disproportionately submit shares with low EV.)

Hoppers are not forcing you to sell your shares to the pool for cheap. If you sell it for cheap, than it is purely your own responsibility and don't talk about covenant. We don't run a charity here and we will not skip hot deals just because you are doing bad deals with your shares.

They are forcing you, because someone has to sell shares to the pool for cheap or the pool will stall. And the hoppers aren't doing it. They don't force any one particular person to do it, but they force someone to do it. (Or the pool dies.)

Now I know where I saw your avatar before, its in the bible.

Jesus H. Christ

[LeFBI]

Every agreement between two human beings has an implied component that the two people are dealing with each other in good faith. If two people enter into an agreement, there is no need for them to say, "By the way, are you okay with me ripping you off and lying and cheating? Is that cool?" Of course they implicitly agree that this is not cool That's how agreements work.

No, that is not true. They exist and they are legally and morally enforceable.

I don't know what you're talking about. Are you saying that you don't think contracts include an agreement to act in good faith and deal fairly?

So now you are completely ignoring that we are specifically talking about pool hopping in this thread and not about contracts in general. My comment was referring to pool hopping and your ignorance of accepting that only you read "don't pool hop" between the lines of the pools TOS(if they even exist). You still have to provide evidence for your claim, btw. Where exactly did you find your implied agreements not to pool hop? Please show us the lines in TOS of the ten largest pools that made you read between the lines not to pool hop.

I'll keep saying it as long as people actually don't understand that every agreement includes an implicit agreement that one is dealing fairly with the other party. This is recognized by pretty much every legal and moral system on the planet.

Yay \o/ Let's all repeat ourselves over and over again, the one who repeats himself the most often wins the "discussion" and his argument will magically become true for everyone else! JoelKatz is way ahead of us and is heading straight for the title "repeat-master" of this thread! Do you have a b-side or are you stuck in an infinite loop?

[Starlightbreaker]

huh.

the only implied argument for me is "you give me $, i give you a part of it" to the pool.

[jgraham]

I'll keep saying it as long as people actually don't understand that every agreement includes an implicit agreement that one is dealing fairly with the other party. This is recognized by pretty much every legal and moral system on the planet.

How shall I take that statement down...let me count the ways.  

Well for one you're probably building a strawman.  LeFBI might mean that there is no implied component in any contract.  However I doubt that's true.  What is more likely true he is that he disagrees that your particular implied component is implied in every contract.  In other words that your definition of "fair" is generally accepted.  

Which is your problem Joel my man is that you keep loading the term "fair" with all of your petty cultural biases.  Sure the "Implied Covenant of Good Faith" might be considered reasonable in most cultures - however it's purpose is to protect a very specific thing.  The things your contract promises you.  That is, to a point someone should not be able to use the terms of a contract to undermine the things the contract promises.  Which is rational.  It is not unreasonable to assume that the purpose of the contract is to obtain for each party the things spelled out in the contract.  However when you give an example of mining - the exchange of money for ore - clearly leaving a company is allowed as long as that is within the terms of the contract (i.e. conforms to the contracts requirement for notice) so what I decide to leave the company for does not directly undermine the ore that you got from me. Ergo the "implied covenant of good faith" has absolutely nothing to say on the matter.

Now clearly you could word a contract in a way that would deliberately restrict mine hopping or even attach some meaning to the bonus structure.  For example if you called that bonus explicitly a "retention bonus" which is for some reason paid a priori then you would have an argument.  However your long, petty, meandering diatribe about being with the company in good times and bad.   Is completely unreasonable because, broadly interpreted it significantly interferes with a persons ability to pursue a paying job ("Sorry, you can't leave until the economy bounces back!").

So as is often your problem you are equivocating. Even if every agreement included the "implied covenant of good faith" that does not necessitate your ideas about "fairness" ie. "no mine hopping".  

So until you come up with an argument to support that - your point is dead.

(And incidentally it's worth noting that ICFG is considered poor practice by the US and Canada.   From my understanding it's been replaced by "gap filling".  The...almost platonic (in the classical sense)...notion that there exists some "true agreement" and attempting to determine what that is and enforcing that rather than a specific set of cultural biases.  )

[JoelKatz]

So as is often your problem you are equivocating. Even if every agreement included the "implied covenant of good faith" that does not necessitate your ideas about "fairness" ie. "no mine hopping".  

So until you come up with an argument to support that - your point is dead.

I made that argument about 10 places in this very thread. But just in case you somehow missed them all, I'll repeat some of them for you:

"A pool hopper does benefit at the expense of other miners."

"That is nothing like a mining pool where many miners believe their interests are aligned."

"If you left the pool because you want to shift a disproportionate share of the work to the other miners, only to re-enter it when you claim a disproportionate share of the profit, that's bad faith. That's abusing the system to get a share greater than your fair share at the expense of your fellow miners."

"Pool hoppers see it as a competition to get the most from the cake. Other miners believe that it's a cooperative. That's the problem. If everyone understands it's a competition, that's fine. But otherwise, you expect that the guys on the same team as you are playing for the team, not themselves."

"Entering a profit-making cooperative with others when times are good, taking a disproportionate share of the profit earned by the work of others, only to desert the cooperative as soon as hard work is necessary to make more profit, with the intent of re-joining the cooperative as soon as the hard work is done in time to get another disproportionate share of the profit is an inherently unethical practice."

[jgraham]

So as is often your problem you are equivocating. Even if every agreement included the "implied covenant of good faith" that does not necessitate your ideas about "fairness" ie. "no mine hopping".  

So until you come up with an argument to support that - your point is dead.

I made that argument about 10 places in this very thread. But just in case you somehow missed them all, I'll repeat some of them for you:

"A pool hopper does benefit at the expense of other miners."

"That is nothing like a mining pool where many miners believe their interests are aligned."

"If you left the pool because you want to shift a disproportionate share of the work to the other miners, only to re-enter it when you claim a disproportionate share of the profit, that's bad faith. That's abusing the system to get a share greater than your fair share at the expense of your fellow miners."

"Pool hoppers see it as a competition to get the most from the cake. Other miners believe that it's a cooperative. That's the problem. If everyone understands it's a competition, that's fine. But otherwise, you expect that the guys on the same team as you are playing for the team, not themselves."

"Entering a profit-making cooperative with others when times are good, taking a disproportionate share of the profit earned by the work of others, only to desert the cooperative as soon as hard work is necessary to make more profit, with the intent of re-joining the cooperative as soon as the hard work is done in time to get another disproportionate share of the profit is an inherently unethical practice."

Firstly, only one of those things actually qualifies as an argument and that one doesn't appear to be the argument I asked for.  So you can understand why I didn't mention them.  

Next I suspect you're missing the point a bit here so.  Do you mind clarifying if you are saying that these things you are claiming above are derived from the legal understanding of the "implied covenant of good faith" or are they implied through some other means?

If the former then you need to show how these necessitate not a breach of YOUR personal idea of "good faith" but rather how it undermines a particular element expressed in the contract - which is what the ICoGF - as weak as it is legally - protects.   As far as the pools I've been involved with there isn't much in the way of a contract.   Without such an agreement and assuming you are arguing that "unless specified as acceptable pool hoping is always unethical" then it would seem reasonable that the broadest sense of "mining" would prevail here: "I will give you computing time on my machine for some period in exchange for some share of what the pool generates in the same time period as derived by their payback algorithm".   Can you explain, specifically which relationship explicitly stated in that definition is undermined by pool hopping.

If the later then your point is probably dead but if you want to pursue it I'd start with your third quoted statement the other three are garbage (in terms of a logical argument).