Eligius: 0% Fee BTC, 105% PPS NMC, No registration, CPPSRB

[ProfMac]

Hi,
can you send screenshot of your settings for Eligius?

Hi!

I hope the previous image is sufficient, please let me know otherwise.

Thanks,
Vittorio


PS: How long does it normally take for stats to post for a new miner?
PS2: Wallet address for pastiness: 3HMiKMkBCBeEoP5ik4u3mBzckKfBYsru1B

Um... I thought all BTC addresses start with a 1... Why is yours starting with a 3...?

Edit: well I guess it is a valid address since I can find it in blockchain... Learn something new every day...

Those are multi-sig addresses.  I think they are a good idea for a payout address for a consortium.
At this point, I would add a 3rd address to a 1prefix, and I would run the miner as load balanced.  I would point it to the same address as the 2nd miner.  I don't recognize the 1st http address, so naturally I suspect it.

After it has run a while, I would check all payout addresses.  If the 1address shows statistics and the 3address does not I would send a message in to wizkid and Luke to see if that is intentional behavior.

[MrTeal]

From my mathematics training, I tend to speculate about changing rules, and what outcomes are likely.

This weekend, I wondered what would happen if the "recent backpay" was changed to "oldest backpay."

One effect is that the very old backpay would be paid out.  In the current system, there is some doubt whether it will ever be paid.
Another effect is that new miners would see a drop in their revenue, because initially they would not receive any backpay.
Possibly a blended system, 50% recent and 50% oldest would balance these two concerns.

I assume wizkid & Luke evaluated this question in the past.  I wonder what their reasoning was.

Whether 100% oldest or 50% oldest, neither system works without including a fee. The reason is that as soon as a backlog develops, it is always more profitable to just move to another pool than to continue to mine there even if your shares are in the old backlog.

[jcumins]

Ok the reason why you can not mine 2 pools  at the same time.

Priority 0 will be the first place mined if it is running,

if it is not available it will drop to priority 1 pool if it is not available

it will drop to priority 2 pool. 

You can only mine 1 pool at a time.

[KNK]

...
Just to follow-up to my earlier post....

1) There is a possibility for mining in a pool, and withholding blocks, to be net profitable for an attacker solely by the effect on the difficulty level, and delaying the difficulty retargeting.
...

Have you read my post some time ago?

Yes, it is possible, but it takes time (2+ months) to profit from it - to get the attacker and punish him for that is the 'antidote' for such attempts

[KNK]

You can only mine 1 pool at a time.

check load balancing strategy

[ProfMac]

ahh thanks! I thought I can split my power into 3 pools ...nevermind thank you!

which pool is the best at the moment? the one with the biggest hash rate or something different?

I am using ghash.io at the moment

You can split your power into multiple pools.  I ran an Avalon with 2 payout addresses on Eligius to simplify some accounting. 
You have to use load balancing.  There are also some commands to specify the % load each receives, but I never did grok how to do that.

[ProfMac]

From my mathematics training, I tend to speculate about changing rules, and what outcomes are likely.

This weekend, I wondered what would happen if the "recent backpay" was changed to "oldest backpay."

One effect is that the very old backpay would be paid out.  In the current system, there is some doubt whether it will ever be paid.
Another effect is that new miners would see a drop in their revenue, because initially they would not receive any backpay.
Possibly a blended system, 50% recent and 50% oldest would balance these two concerns.

I assume wizkid & Luke evaluated this question in the past.  I wonder what their reasoning was.

Whether 100% oldest or 50% oldest, neither system works without including a fee. The reason is that as soon as a backlog develops, it is always more profitable to just move to another pool than to continue to mine there even if your shares are in the old backlog.

I never understood the pool-hopping business.  Would you (anyone) mind working up an example with a 10% oldest / 90% recent?  Perhaps use the actual Eligius block data for a new 1 THs miner starting at block 308,729?

[wizkid057]

Mining payouts to multisig addresses are not officially supported (yet).  They're currently treated as invalid due to some incomplete code which needs to be finished in order to properly handle them.  Unfortunately it hasn't been a priority and no one has really requested this either.

[wizkid057]

Maybe I'm FUBAR, but if I had 20% of the network hash rate I think I'd be more concerned with what color Lamborghini Aventador I was going to buy next, versus a withholding attack.

I'm with you on that one.

Tesla Model S P85+

I confirmed a month ago for a P85+ but it will be at least 6-7 weeks longer until it's built and delivered

Was just saying what I would have gotten if I had 20% of the network hash rate worth of my own mining equipment... I didn't actually get a Tesla Model S P85+...

...... I did get a blue Tesla Model S P85, though.  Nothing to do with Bitcoin, however. I had invested in TSLA back when it was ~$39 (500 shares)... it shot to ~$260, so I sold some of it and my Volt then bought the Model S.  Took delivery from showroom stock, so, I kind of cheated the wait I guess.

[silverthornne]

ahh thanks! I thought I can split my power into 3 pools ...nevermind thank you!

which pool is the best at the moment? the one with the biggest hash rate or something different?

I am using ghash.io at the moment

You could SSH into your Antminer and modify its cgminer settings directly to enable load-balancing and thus split the hashing power among multiple pools if you want. A quick search in this forum should yield the post with the steps on how to do that.

[crashoveride54902]

ya i was wondering that...if lets say i split my hashrate with eligius, guild, slush, i guess ghash.io and maybe a cpl more...would that take luck outta the question? usually seems like when a pool luck is down its gotta be up somewhere else

[eleuthria]

ya i was wondering that...if lets say i split my hashrate with eligius, guild, slush, i guess ghash.io and maybe a cpl more...would that take luck outta the question? usually seems like when a pool luck is down its gotta be up somewhere else

Luck isn't a zero-sum game.  The entire network can be having bad or good luck simultaneously.  That's why any graphs which try to show the network hash rate have massive fluctuations from day to day.  People are NOT turning equipment on/off at random, it's simply the network getting lucky/unlucky as a whole.

EDIT:  I didn't mean to imply that splitting hash rate will not reduce the impact of luck.  Just that the concept of "luck has to go somewhere" is false.

[organofcorti]

ya i was wondering that...if lets say i split my hashrate with eligius, guild, slush, i guess ghash.io and maybe a cpl more...would that take luck outta the question? usually seems like when a pool luck is down its gotta be up somewhere else

Mining on multiple pools will make luck much less of an issue: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=78031.0

[wizkid057]

ya i was wondering that...if lets say i split my hashrate with eligius, guild, slush, i guess ghash.io and maybe a cpl more...would that take luck outta the question? usually seems like when a pool luck is down its gotta be up somewhere else

Mining on multiple pools will make luck much less of an issue: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=78031.0

@organofcorti - If you get a chance, there seems to be a paper that is trying to say that a block withholding attack is somehow * more profitable * for the attacker than legitimate mining... (someone linked to it a page or so ago in this thread)

I skimmed it and, honestly, was not able to come to that conclusion from what they described.  I personally (and presumably others) would value your opinion a lot more on the topic, however, if you ever get around to checking it out.

[DeeBo]

From my mathematics training, I tend to speculate about changing rules, and what outcomes are likely.

This weekend, I wondered what would happen if the "recent backpay" was changed to "oldest backpay."

One effect is that the very old backpay would be paid out.  In the current system, there is some doubt whether it will ever be paid.
Another effect is that new miners would see a drop in their revenue, because initially they would not receive any backpay.
Possibly a blended system, 50% recent and 50% oldest would balance these two concerns.

I assume wizkid & Luke evaluated this question in the past.  I wonder what their reasoning was.

They have indeed evaluated this.  Eligius used to use SMPPS which is very similar to the current system but with oldest backpay.  If I understand it right, the only difference with SMPPS was instead of the logic with "shelving shares" it paid out every share but upon bad luck reduced the amount paid per share proportionally.  Upon good luck, these underpaid shares got paid back "extra credit" (in the order of oldest first) until every share gets paid the full PPS amount.

This system sounds OK in theory but the problem is that luck does not even out to 100%.  According to Eligius's stats, the luck for the entire duration of the pool evens out to about 98%.  This is due in a big part to orphaned blocks (and maybe a small part due to some miners withholding blocks.)  In any case, this means if you backpay the oldest shares first over time the backlog will grow faster than the pool can pay it off.  Eventually the pool will end up in a situation where the backlog reaches a very undesirable length for new miners.  Say it gets to the point where it takes 3 months to pay back everything in the backlog.  If you're a new miner this means you won't see any benefit from lucky blocks for 3 whole months until your first shelved shares reach the front of the queue.  Also the people mining 3 months ago may no longer be contributing to the pool (and if it's been that long who knows if they even still control the payout address.)  A lot of people thought it unfair that current miners were using their hashpower to pay people no longer contributing.  The current miners are also depending on the pool still mining 3 months down the road in order to receive any of their backpay. (if the backlog gets that bad it's likely the miners will abandon or the pool with switch payment methods like Eligius did.)

Another way to think about it is that oldest backpay is unfair because it benefits the people who mine on the pool when it first opens (and eventually punishes new miners as the backlog grows.)  This is because there is no backlog initially so chances are good that all your shares will be paid out 100% making it effectively a 0% fee straight PPS pool (with your backpays being only slightly delayed.)  This low/no backlog state can also occur later if the pool gets some very good luck (likely while the pool is still relatively new since, given time, the backlog will inevitably grow faster than it can be paid off) and this encourages pool hopping.  If someone sees the pool has a low/no backlog they can benefit themselves by hopping on it while the chances are good that they'll get all their shares paid 100% in a timely matter.

In any case, when a pool with oldest backpay shuts down or changes payment systems (which will likely happen to any such pool when the backlog inevitably reaches unacceptable levels) the end result will be the same:  the original miners and the pool hoppers who mined when the backlog was low and then bailed when the backlog grew will get all their shares paid 100% while the new miners may never get any of their backpay.

[baddw]

ya i was wondering that...if lets say i split my hashrate with eligius, guild, slush, i guess ghash.io and maybe a cpl more...would that take luck outta the question? usually seems like when a pool luck is down its gotta be up somewhere else

Mining on multiple pools will make luck much less of an issue: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=78031.0

@organofcorti - If you get a chance, there seems to be a paper that is trying to say that a block withholding attack is somehow * more profitable * for the attacker than legitimate mining... (someone linked to it a page or so ago in this thread)

I skimmed it and, honestly, was not able to come to that conclusion from what they described.  I personally (and presumably others) would value your opinion a lot more on the topic, however, if you ever get around to checking it out.

The paper's fatal flaw was assuming that one miner's luck affected the other miners' luck, so if one pool had bad luck, the other participants in the network would have better luck to compensate.  The "profit" conclusion (expressed in a nice little formula) hinged entirely on this false assumption.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=441465.msg7712963#msg7712963

[mdude77]

They have indeed evaluated this.  Eligius used to use SMPPS which is very similar to the current system but with oldest backpay.  If I understand it right, the only difference with SMPPS was instead of the logic with "shelving shares" it paid out every share but upon bad luck reduced the amount paid per share proportionally.  Upon good luck, these underpaid shares got paid back "extra credit" (in the order of oldest first) until every share gets paid the full PPS amount.

This system sounds OK in theory but the problem is that luck does not even out to 100%.  According to Eligius's stats, the luck for the entire duration of the pool evens out to about 98%.  This is due in a big part to orphaned blocks (and maybe a small part due to some miners withholding blocks.)  In any case, this means if you backpay the oldest shares first over time the backlog will grow faster than the pool can pay it off.  Eventually the pool will end up in a situation where the backlog reaches a very undesirable length for new miners.  Say it gets to the point where it takes 3 months to pay back everything in the backlog.  If you're a new miner this means you won't see any benefit from lucky blocks for 3 whole months until your first shelved shares reach the front of the queue.  Also the people mining 3 months ago may no longer be contributing to the pool (and if it's been that long who knows if they even still control the payout address.)  A lot of people thought it unfair that current miners were using their hashpower to pay people no longer contributing.  The current miners are also depending on the pool still mining 3 months down the road in order to receive any of their backpay. (if the backlog gets that bad it's likely the miners will abandon or the pool with switch payment methods like Eligius did.)

Another way to think about it is that oldest backpay is unfair because it benefits the people who mine on the pool when it first opens (and eventually punishes new miners as the backlog grows.)  This is because there is no backlog initially so chances are good that all your shares will be paid out 100% making it effectively a 0% fee straight PPS pool (with your backpays being only slightly delayed.)  This low/no backlog state can also occur later if the pool gets some very good luck (likely while the pool is still relatively new since, given time, the backlog will inevitably grow faster than it can be paid off) and this encourages pool hopping.  If someone sees the pool has a low/no backlog they can benefit themselves by hopping on it while the chances are good that they'll get all their shares paid 100% in a timely matter.

In any case, when a pool with oldest backpay shuts down or changes payment systems (which will likely happen to any such pool when the backlog inevitably reaches unacceptable levels) the end result will be the same:  the original miners and the pool hoppers who mined when the backlog was low and then bailed when the backlog grew will get all their shares paid 100% while the new miners may never get any of their backpay.

I want to make sure I understand what you're saying.  You're saying if Eligius used the other system, this problem would eventually surface.  But the system it's on now does not have this problem?

M

[eleuthria]

I want to make sure I understand what you're saying.  You're saying if Eligius used the other system, this problem would eventually surface.  But the system it's on now does not have this problem?

M

Correct.  The current system will have eternally shelved shares (most likely) since the expected luck is 98-99% due to orphans.  Luck can pay off some shelved shares, but it's extremely unlikely it will ever pay them all.  The problem with paying oldest first is that it penalizes newer miners, which discourages pool growth, and instead of having very old shares that will never get paid, its the newest shelved shares that will never get paid.

[organofcorti]

ya i was wondering that...if lets say i split my hashrate with eligius, guild, slush, i guess ghash.io and maybe a cpl more...would that take luck outta the question? usually seems like when a pool luck is down its gotta be up somewhere else

Mining on multiple pools will make luck much less of an issue: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=78031.0

@organofcorti - If you get a chance, there seems to be a paper that is trying to say that a block withholding attack is somehow * more profitable * for the attacker than legitimate mining... (someone linked to it a page or so ago in this thread)

I skimmed it and, honestly, was not able to come to that conclusion from what they described.  I personally (and presumably others) would value your opinion a lot more on the topic, however, if you ever get around to checking it out.

The paper's fatal flaw was assuming that one miner's luck affected the other miners' luck, so if one pool had bad luck, the other participants in the network would have better luck to compensate.  The "profit" conclusion (expressed in a nice little formula) hinged entirely on this false assumption.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=441465.msg7712963#msg7712963

baddw, I agree the paper has a number of conceptual and real-world inaccuracies, and as it stands I'd agree that it's wrong.

However, unless I'm completely off-base, I'd always thought it was trivial to show that a substantially sized block-withholding attack on one section of the network would increase the proportion of the network attributable to the attacking group, and therefore solve more blocks than expected before the next retarget.

[eleuthria]

baddw, I agree the paper has a number of conceptual and real-world inaccuracies, and as it stands I'd agree that it's wrong.

However, unless I'm completely off-base, I'd always thought it was trivial to show that a substantially sized block-withholding attack on one section of the network would increase the proportion of the network attributable to the attacking group, and therefore solve more blocks than expected before the next retarget.

I've still never seen any math where a withholding attack doesn't cost you more than it provides.  If you have 10 PH/s, the network is 100 PH/s (including you), and you do a withholding attack on a pool with 20 PH/s.  Okay, so now you have effectively removed your 10 PH/s from the network, so the difficulty won't reflect your speed.  However, in the course of doing that (effectively reducing the next difficulty by 10%) you're taking a HUGE cut in your pay.  You'd be earning 33% less than expectation (you would be 1/3rd of that originally 20 PH/s pool, and by withholding that pool will under-perform by 33%).

I've played with the numbers endlessly, and the result is always the same.  You cannot perform a withholding attack where you end up earning more are higher than they would be if you were legitimately mining at 100% capacity.  It's the simple fact that you can not make the network difficulty be adjusted by more than the pay cut you're taking by performing the attack.

Now, this obviously only applies to non-PPS pools.  With PPS it's completely viable to do withholding attacks because your earnings hit is only the pool fee whether you are solving blocks or not.  Your only problem there is making sure you are able to continue pulling your balance out before the pool goes bankrupt.