Why are people drawn to GHash.io, and how can we reverse it?

[empoweoqwj]

Yeah, 60% is a lot. Could do with having a dozen "big" players. Unfortunately its a free market, so what to do?

This issue has been already pointed out during last year bitcoin conference.
That's what you get with proof of work and ASICwith an "high" entry barrier.
Core developers should seriously start to think about a way to mitigate 51%

Except that miners have zero incentive to destroy the bitcoin network. Its like cutting off your own head.

[bitmagi]

Except that miners have zero incentive to destroy the bitcoin network. Its like cutting off your own head.

Not true miners obviously have incentive to destroy the bitcoin network.  This doesn't mean they are doing it intentionally.  What I have learned at this point is that if wall street wants to destroy bitcoin one of the ways is creating a slick, easy to use pool with great payouts and lots of incentives.   Miners will jump to them for easy "profit" and once the network gets 50%+ it's game over.  You think wall street would have a problem dumping billions of dollars they would never see again into destroying bitcoin?  They would do it without thinking and the billions lost creating a slick miner friendly ticking time bomb would be like you losing a dime in the couch cushions.

[Akka]

Except that miners have zero incentive to destroy the bitcoin network. Its like cutting off your own head.

Not true miners obviously have incentive to destroy the bitcoin network.  This doesn't mean they are doing it intentionally.  What I have learned at this point is that if wall street wants to destroy bitcoin one of the ways is creating a slick, easy to use pool with great payouts and lots of incentives.   Miners will jump to them for easy "profit" and once the network gets 50%+ it's game over.  You think wall street would have a problem dumping billions of dollars they would never see again into destroying bitcoin?  They would do it without thinking and the billions lost creating a slick miner friendly ticking time bomb would be like you losing a dime in the couch cushions.

[Tinfoilhat] And what a better way would there be to destroy Bitcoin, than by its own users? What a proof that decretilized and unregulated currencies can't work. [/Tinfoilhat]

Not that I believe that, but the irony if something malicious happens, that was only possible thanks to the endless greed of Bitcoiners (WOW, I make a Satoshi more a Week there!), would be priceless. Actually, there may even be a lessen to be learned here and better now Bitcoin gets a big hit from this than in a few years.

[empoweoqwj]

Except that miners have zero incentive to destroy the bitcoin network. Its like cutting off your own head.

Not true miners obviously have incentive to destroy the bitcoin network.  This doesn't mean they are doing it intentionally.  What I have learned at this point is that if wall street wants to destroy bitcoin one of the ways is creating a slick, easy to use pool with great payouts and lots of incentives.   Miners will jump to them for easy "profit" and once the network gets 50%+ it's game over.  You think wall street would have a problem dumping billions of dollars they would never see again into destroying bitcoin?  They would do it without thinking and the billions lost creating a slick miner friendly ticking time bomb would be like you losing a dime in the couch cushions.

So Wall St owns ghash.io is what you are saying?

[e521]

Yeah, 60% is a lot. Could do with having a dozen "big" players. Unfortunately its a free market, so what to do?

This issue has been already pointed out during last year bitcoin conference.
That's what you get with proof of work and ASICwith an "high" entry barrier.
Core developers should seriously start to think about a way to mitigate 51%

Except that miners have zero incentive to destroy the bitcoin network. Its like cutting off your own head.

LOL Why are we talking about miners?
Pools operators have the real power, miners are only sending data.
What are you talking about?

[empoweoqwj]

Yeah, 60% is a lot. Could do with having a dozen "big" players. Unfortunately its a free market, so what to do?

This issue has been already pointed out during last year bitcoin conference.
That's what you get with proof of work and ASICwith an "high" entry barrier.
Core developers should seriously start to think about a way to mitigate 51%

Except that miners have zero incentive to destroy the bitcoin network. Its like cutting off your own head.

LOL Why are we talking about miners?
Pools operators have the real power, miners are only sending data.
What are you talking about?

And where do pool operators get all their profits from? Miners. Doh.

[e521]

Except that miners have zero incentive to destroy the bitcoin network. Its like cutting off your own head.

Not true miners obviously have incentive to destroy the bitcoin network.  This doesn't mean they are doing it intentionally.  What I have learned at this point is that if wall street wants to destroy bitcoin one of the ways is creating a slick, easy to use pool with great payouts and lots of incentives.   Miners will jump to them for easy "profit" and once the network gets 50%+ it's game over.  You think wall street would have a problem dumping billions of dollars they would never see again into destroying bitcoin?  They would do it without thinking and the billions lost creating a slick miner friendly ticking time bomb would be like you losing a dime in the couch cushions.

So Wall St owns ghash.io is what you are saying?

More like the City

[e521]

Yeah, 60% is a lot. Could do with having a dozen "big" players. Unfortunately its a free market, so what to do?

This issue has been already pointed out during last year bitcoin conference.
That's what you get with proof of work and ASICwith an "high" entry barrier.
Core developers should seriously start to think about a way to mitigate 51%

Except that miners have zero incentive to destroy the bitcoin network. Its like cutting off your own head.

LOL Why are we talking about miners?
Pools operators have the real power, miners are only sending data.
What are you talking about?

And where do pool operators get all their profits from? Miners. Doh.

Right ok, you won. Miners have the real power...

[bkpduke]

From a miner's perspective the main draws to ghash.io (if you own your own equip) are:

1) 0% pool fee (but orphans are not included)
2) merged mining
3) good user interface with alerts for individual miners, and the ability to track detailed stats
4) stability of payout - when the pool is larger like ghash.io, there is less variance in your daily payout due to bad luck of the pool

With the small margins on mining gear, even with the run up in BTC/USD, all of the above adds up, and every extra % helps.

I suspect miners would love to point their gear at other pools, but no other pool I have seen has everything else listed above.  It is an attractive combination.

NOTE TO POOL OPERATORS: you want to compete with ghash.io, the above is what you need.

[tk1337]

the biggest incentive (I see) for using CEX.io/Ghash.io is one major thing, a lot of pool owners have said no to...

auto-payouts with splits by percentage

Which makes it tons easier when I have a friend that wants to throw some money down on a miner and have me toss in the rest + host it, then I just have to put in an address and what % he gets, what % I get... and nothing else. No more screwing around with spreadsheets, no more bullshit.

Awhile back I asked several 'group buy leaders' in PM how they did the split %'s on shares in miners, the answer I always got back was 'spreadsheet'. Seriously, a spreadsheet... I was debating on making something to handle the splitting for myself in PHP or some other language, however CEX.io/Ghash.io came along, 0% pool fee, splits everything easily, bam, sold.

Not to mention when people ask me why I use it, I tell them that and... then they start using it for the same reason. Obviously a feature a lot of people overlooked, plus merged mining in IXC, DVC, NMC is also a damn good perk.

EDIT: Yes, I did copy/paste this from my post in the other thread. I would like to add in the fact, Ghash.io continually is updating their interface and services, something not seen much from pool owners these days, not of this speed anyway.

[bitmagi]

Except that miners have zero incentive to destroy the bitcoin network. Its like cutting off your own head.

Not true miners obviously have incentive to destroy the bitcoin network.  This doesn't mean they are doing it intentionally.  What I have learned at this point is that if wall street wants to destroy bitcoin one of the ways is creating a slick, easy to use pool with great payouts and lots of incentives.   Miners will jump to them for easy "profit" and once the network gets 50%+ it's game over.  You think wall street would have a problem dumping billions of dollars they would never see again into destroying bitcoin?  They would do it without thinking and the billions lost creating a slick miner friendly ticking time bomb would be like you losing a dime in the couch cushions.

So Wall St owns ghash.io is what you are saying?

That isn't what I said.  Merely pointing out that anyone with deep pockets who could profit off the destruction of bitcoin has likely realized an avenue to compromise bitcoin.  Create something bright and shiny for the miners, use their ignorance to turn them against the bitcoin network.

[bitmagi]

the biggest incentive (I see) for using CEX.io/Ghash.io is one major thing, a lot of pool owners have said no to...

auto-payouts with splits by percentage

Which makes it tons easier when I have a friend that wants to throw some money down on a miner and have me toss in the rest + host it, then I just have to put in an address and what % he gets, what % I get... and nothing else. No more screwing around with spreadsheets, no more bullshit.

Awhile back I asked several 'group buy leaders' in PM how they did the split %'s on shares in miners, the answer I always got back was 'spreadsheet'. Seriously, a spreadsheet... I was debating on making something to handle the splitting for myself in PHP or some other language, however CEX.io/Ghash.io came along, 0% pool fee, splits everything easily, bam, sold.

Not to mention when people ask me why I use it, I tell them that and... then they start using it for the same reason. Obviously a feature a lot of people overlooked, plus merged mining in IXC, DVC, NMC is also a damn good perk.

EDIT: Yes, I did copy/paste this from my post in the other thread. I would like to add in the fact, Ghash.io continually is updating their interface and services, something not seen much from pool owners these days, not of this speed anyway.

What are the cost of these incentives when you are holding a paperweight at some point and all your "payouts" are in the form of private keys that are worth nothing?  What if all these great incentives aren't the result of supply and demand, rather artificially propped up in hopes of luring miners in so a 51% can be achieved?

[Kazimir]

From a miner's perspective the main draws to ghash.io (if you own your own equip) are:

1) 0% pool fee (but orphans are not included)
2) merged mining
3) good user interface with alerts for individual miners, and the ability to track detailed stats
4) stability of payout - when the pool is larger like ghash.io, there is less variance in your daily payout due to bad luck of the pool

With the small margins on mining gear, even with the run up in BTC/USD, all of the above adds up, and every extra % helps.

I suspect miners would love to point their gear at other pools, but no other pool I have seen has everything else listed above.  It is an attractive combination.

NOTE TO POOL OPERATORS: you want to compete with ghash.io, the above is what you need.

This.

[TechByPC]

Don't confuse cex.io with ghash.io. These are two separate issues.

cex.io is part of ghash.io
The ghashes people trade on cex.io are hashing for ghash.io

I'll try to make it clearer. The OP and the point of this and other threads is the hash power not the potential for someone to gain or lose trading at cex.io. It is completely irrelevant if everyone sold their cex.io hashing power today at a loss or gain. Ghash.io would still have the hash power and possibly even more incentive to do something untoward with the blockchain. People are pointing their own miners to ghash.io. That's what OP wanted to figure out how to stop, or at least slow.

[tk1337]

What are the cost of these incentives when you are holding a paperweight at some point and all your "payouts" are in the form of private keys that are worth nothing?  What if all these great incentives aren't the result of supply and demand, rather artificially propped up in hopes of luring miners in so a 51% can be achieved?

Features drive the market at times (esp. when people keep asking for them), when you have 3x alt coins on merged mining, give the people something they've been asking for a long time (auto-split payouts) and then to sweeten the deal, you also get 3% of any referrals bought cloud hash speed (which for me is almost 20GH/s)... also alerts that are really persistent & accurate...

Well, maybe now some of the pool owners whom turned down the idea of auto-split percentages (and other features) will reconsider, until said day, I'm pretty sure there's going to be a lot of hashing power going to ghash.io just due to the features it has over other pools.

[Dende]

Don't confuse cex.io with ghash.io. These are two separate issues.

cex.io is part of ghash.io
The ghashes people trade on cex.io are hashing for ghash.io

I'll try to make it clearer. The OP and the point of this and other threads is the hash power not the potential for someone to gain or lose trading at cex.io. It is completely irrelevant if everyone sold their cex.io hashing power today at a loss or gain. Ghash.io would still have the hash power and possibly even more incentive to do something untoward with the blockchain. People are pointing their own miners to ghash.io. That's what OP wanted to figure out how to stop, or at least slow.

cex.io is part of the problem, I was trying to convince people to stay away from the place and keep their money out of it. This is not going to stop the miners they already have but would probably slow down their expansion.

About 3 weeks ago a sell off at cex.io started which saw the price dropped from 0.072 to 0.032 at the end of last year. 2 days ago I noticed ghash.io had 33% network share and today 40%. Coincidence?

[TechByPC]

Right - not a coincidence. It is obvious they diluted the commodity. I just don't want to invoke the wrath of the severely pro/con cex.io people here because cex.io is irrelevant to the current hash rate. Those miners are mining regardless of whether you or I have rented them or they are currently not rented to anyone. The pro/con debate over cex.io being a way to make money hasn't been resolved yet, so it is unlikely to be resolved in the midst of this current issue, but bringing it up it is likely to make it harder to focus on the real issue if people can't get away from it.

[sturle]

Except that miners have zero incentive to destroy the bitcoin network. Its like cutting off your own head.

Which is why I wonder why any miners want to mine at a pool which mines very small blocks, intentionally delaying thousands of perfectly valid transactions by keeping them out of every block they mine.  Just compare the sizes of Ghash.io blocks with blocks from Bitcoin friendly pools.  Miners must be blind.  If it isn't intentional, it must be due to gross incompetence.

I wonder why the Ghash.io is trying so hard to destroy bitcoin.  They haven't done anything to reduce the size of the pool, and keep mining microblocks.  When one pool operator which already is known to deny most transactions gets to decide for themselves which transactions will go into blocks and not, Bitcoin have lost one of its most important properties.  Instead of being a distributed currency, it is a currency controlled by one malicious pool.

[hyphymikey]

If any pool had the ease of use of bitminter, with the lowest fees, and would advertise with mining manufacturers as the "go to place" it would take over.

What I'm looking for in order:

1. Ease of use
2. Consistent payouts (Larger the pool the more consisten.. You get larger by advertising you ease of use)
3. Fees (Some pools are 1%, that's cheap to me. So paying it over 0 isn't that big of deal)

[aynstein]

I'm willing to throw down some BTC for bounties to improve other pools, particularly the p2pool implementation.

Right now, if I want to destroy bitcoin, I need to coerce just two people. This is a huge, huge problem.

I have been testing a linode stack scripts automated p2pool hosted vps with the prime directive of miners currently at gnash.io incentive to leave while helping promote truly decentralized p2pool. Not sure if this will attract miners from gnash.io but the idea is to offer miners with a free p2pool vps that is setup and deployed for them in minutes, and makes things people either love, or hate, like merged mining, already set up and good to go. I think it would be best if the entire setup is and was audited by trusted well known people if possible, and I could use help of course! I do not have the financial wherewithal to support this indefinitely but I am able and willing to start with a 2 or 3 btc worth of hosting. I have been testing on linode vps but it would probably require dedicated hosting with some sort of stack-script like solution to be as cost effective as possible. I am not sure if this is something that may get some of the "independent" miners to take action but I am sure its worth trying, if not this then something ... Is this the type of thing you would support? This is by no means a perfect solution, not even sure if it is a good one but its an idea and now its yours to judge. If someone has a better idea I would happily donate my btc I am about to spend on hosting and use it in some other way.