p2pool - Advancement of Decentralized Mining - Vital to Bitcoin Network Security

[aa]

I wish people would donate so we can finally get some proper updates to P2Pool. By not supporting P2Pool mining, people are only helping the operators of the standard pools.

You can set up your own P2Pool node (even in Windows) and mine without a fee. It's idiotic to keep dumping your coins into the pockets of the operators of standard pools.

Of course, this is ignoring the native security of mining P2Pool, where you can mine on any node and there is zero risk of your coins being stolen (since you are mining directly into your wallet).

[Dende]

Im bumping this thread, this chart is looking ugly

http://i40.tinypic.com/x5eed3.jpg

ghash.io is showing 33% with 4 days chart and 36% with 24hr chart.
their cex.io scheme is getting them a lot of hash.

[coins101]

bump

[solex]

Recent post on reddit describes frustration with p2pool

"I tried to switch to p2pool, but it's simply not working for me. The computer I use to control my ASIC's is an old one that can not run bitcoind and p2pool at the same time. I tried, but it's just too slow. p2pool always warns about not being able to access bitcoind and CPU is constantly at 100% whenever bitcoind receives new transactions.
Next I tried to mine using other p2pool nodes that I chose from here: http://p2pool-nodes.info/ I tried to select nodes that are close, low latency, and have no fee. Unfortunately about 10% of my work seems to get rejected, not sure why. So that did not work either.
Any ideas what I could do? I love the concept of p2pool, but currently the centralized mining pools are just much more usable."

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1usb72/p2pool_i_really_tried_but_its_not_working_for_me/

[LiteCoinGuy]

great goal! this will help BTC and LTC!

[El Dude]

bitcoin and litecoin need this now , more then ever.

[RandyMagnum]

Push it, push it real good.

[Mashuri]

How much do you estimate is needed to implement these changes?

[semaster]

Recent post on reddit describes frustration with p2pool

"I tried to switch to p2pool, but it's simply not working for me. The computer I use to control my ASIC's is an old one that can not run bitcoind and p2pool at the same time. I tried, but it's just too slow. p2pool always warns about not being able to access bitcoind and CPU is constantly at 100% whenever bitcoind receives new transactions.
Next I tried to mine using other p2pool nodes that I chose from here: http://p2pool-nodes.info/ I tried to select nodes that are close, low latency, and have no fee. Unfortunately about 10% of my work seems to get rejected, not sure why. So that did not work either.
Any ideas what I could do? I love the concept of p2pool, but currently the centralized mining pools are just much more usable."

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1usb72/p2pool_i_really_tried_but_its_not_working_for_me/

Dont worry about rejects on p2pool. 10% of rejects is normal.
Rejects are on centralized pools too, simple they hide it as they are centralised and they work on pps so that doesn't matter for them.

Join us on http://elizium.name

[Carlton Banks]

Recent post on reddit describes frustration with p2pool

"I tried to switch to p2pool, but it's simply not working for me. The computer I use to control my ASIC's is an old one that can not run bitcoind and p2pool at the same time. I tried, but it's just too slow. p2pool always warns about not being able to access bitcoind and CPU is constantly at 100% whenever bitcoind receives new transactions.
Next I tried to mine using other p2pool nodes that I chose from here: http://p2pool-nodes.info/ I tried to select nodes that are close, low latency, and have no fee. Unfortunately about 10% of my work seems to get rejected, not sure why. So that did not work either.
Any ideas what I could do? I love the concept of p2pool, but currently the centralized mining pools are just much more usable."

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1usb72/p2pool_i_really_tried_but_its_not_working_for_me/

Dont worry about rejects on p2pool. 10% of rejects is normal.
Rejects are on centralized pools too, simple they hide it as they are centralised and they work on pps so that doesn't matter for them.

Join us on http://elizium.name

10% is better than the current p2pool average, in fact. I think people just need to fully absorb the way the concept works (including me  ).

For the whole mining world, not just those trying out p2pool, too many miners seem to have the impression that you simply "plug it in, then watch the money fly out". You really need to get a grasp of everything that affects your mining as best you can. For instance, there are still people that think buying with fiat and making more than that amount back at a future cryptocurrency exchange rate constitutes profitability. Even more hilariously, some buy coins to pay for the equipment immediately before they make their order. It seems that money printing machines are a little too tempting a business to become involved with, strange isn't it!

[riclas]

is this still active?

Is #5 just the creation of one sub-pool? the description of the idea is very shallow...

IMHO p2pool should behave like gnutella (or any other decent DHT with supernodes), where each user says if he can be a supernode. If he can, he becomes a sub-pool of p2pool. He has no control over who joins him.
When a regular miner connects to p2pool, p2pool chooses a sub-pool to connect to, balancing the miners. With enough sub-pools, no/very small double spend probability.

This would also solve the ease of use problem discussed in the reddit thread http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1usb72/p2pool_i_really_tried_but_its_not_working_for_me/

Maybe this has democratization implications? We want democracy, not anarchy though.
I'm sure this has been proposed ages ago since it is so simple, but another push won't hurt. I'd donate decently for it.

[TierNolan]

When a regular miner connects to p2pool, p2pool chooses a sub-pool to connect to, balancing the miners. With enough sub-pools, no/very small double spend probability.

What if the pool owner rips off the people who connect to him?

Putting everything onto a chain is what keeps everything honest.  Connecting to a public p2pool node has the same variance as connecting to your own personal one.

For public nodes to work, there has to be reputation of some kind, you can't just have hidden super-nodes.

[riclas]

For public nodes to work, there has to be reputation of some kind, you can't just have hidden super-nodes.

why do supernodes have to be hidden for what i said to work? they can be public, just let p2pool handle the connection.
Obviously an hacked up miner could connect to a node of his choice, but what incentive would he have to do so in a balanced network?

[TierNolan]

why do supernodes have to be hidden for what i said to work? they can be public, just let p2pool handle the connection.
Obviously an hacked up miner could connect to a node of his choice, but what incentive would he have to do so in a balanced network?

For a node to handle some of the load for the network, it would have to manage shares and payouts.  This requires trust of some kind.

The p2pool system is to use a sharechain, but to move some of the load off the sharechain means you have to replace that trust.

[jedimstr]

Is this initiative and the suggestions put forth still active?

The current hashrate of P2Pool for Bitcoin seems to have dropped or remained flat as the difficulty has sky-rocketed in the last few months.

Are we going to see another push here and on Reddit to get more hashrate onto P2Pool nodes?

[spartacusrex]

With regards to an incentive for large miners to increase their share difficulty, like (1 - Fee per share) in the document,

If a miner on p2pool sets a higher difficulty, his block effectively 'weighs' more than a normal share, and so is his share LESS lightly to be turned into a stale share ?


 

[Carlton Banks]

With regards to an incentive for large miners to increase their share difficulty, like (1 - Fee per share) in the document,

If a miner on p2pool sets a higher difficulty, his block effectively 'weighs' more than a normal share, and so is his share LESS lightly to be turned into a stale share ?

No difference AFAIK

Stales happen because a share is based on the identifiable "current share". Everyone works on that. When someone submits a solution to the current share, it propagates across p2pool nodes, and it takes time to do that. This means that more than one person can have a solution to the current share competing to hit the majority of p2pool nodes. If your share looses the race, it's an orphan. There is no question of which share was the higher difficulty, just whose share gets majority acceptance first.

[CAMTRONNNNN]

BTCest thread I've seen in months.

Yes. Yes. I will be pledging more than just $/BTC to this cause. I am working towards working on this most important project, too!

P2P Mining Decentralization is the CORNERSTONE of the bitcoin protocol

[spartacusrex]

With regards to an incentive for large miners to increase their share difficulty, like (1 - Fee per share) in the document,

If a miner on p2pool sets a higher difficulty, his block effectively 'weighs' more than a normal share, and so is his share LESS lightly to be turned into a stale share ?

No difference AFAIK

Stales happen because a share is based on the identifiable "current share". Everyone works on that. When someone submits a solution to the current share, it propagates across p2pool nodes, and it takes time to do that. This means that more than one person can have a solution to the current share competing to hit the majority of p2pool nodes. If your share looses the race, it's an orphan. There is no question of which share was the higher difficulty, just whose share gets majority acceptance first.

That can't be right.. When working out which chain is the one with the most work, the longest, and so which one to extend, a large miner's share with higher difficulty must be more important than a normal share.. Otherwise there is wasted work being done and the chain is weaker?

[Carlton Banks]

With regards to an incentive for large miners to increase their share difficulty, like (1 - Fee per share) in the document,

If a miner on p2pool sets a higher difficulty, his block effectively 'weighs' more than a normal share, and so is his share LESS lightly to be turned into a stale share ?

No difference AFAIK

Stales happen because a share is based on the identifiable "current share". Everyone works on that. When someone submits a solution to the current share, it propagates across p2pool nodes, and it takes time to do that. This means that more than one person can have a solution to the current share competing to hit the majority of p2pool nodes. If your share looses the race, it's an orphan. There is no question of which share was the higher difficulty, just whose share gets majority acceptance first.

That can't be right.. When working out which chain is the one with the most work, the longest, and so which one to extend, a large miner's share with higher difficulty must be more important than a normal share.. Otherwise there is wasted work being done and the chain is weaker?

I'm not sure whether a chain of proofs (for this purpose) is made stronger for any practical purpose if the more difficult solution is favoured. It makes little sense to favour more difficult solutions anyway, there would have to be some time limit or majority chain committal cutoff to define when a more difficult solution couldn't unseat a solution that was in the process of being accepted by the network. Then you'd have to reset the cutoff, to make it "fair", and another unseating could take place. This could create occasional chains of multiple usurped shares, according to the random distribution of miners on p2pool trumping a committed share.