Why does auto-mining in Coinotron is more profitable than mining only BTC

[coinotron]

Over 3 weeks have passed since we implemented customizable auto-mining in Coinotron. We have gathered enough data to do some math. Obvious question was how much more profitable is auto-mining when we compare it to standard BTC mining.

First of all results: by using auto-mining you can gain 14% more coins than mining only BTC!

Now I will try to explain methodology.

Assumptions:
1.   We use real data based on work of real user connected do Coinotron pool between 2011-09-09 03:49:04 UTC and 2011-09-13 11:12:56 UTC.
2.   During that period all 3 user’s workers were set to auto-mining mode
3.   As a result user has mined for BTC, I0C and SC
4.   Because of 120 confirmations needed before withdrawal we assume that user has been withdrawing coins 2 hours after block was confirmed and exchanging them immediately at i0exchange.bitparking.com (i0coins) or btc-e.com (solidcoins).
5.   In order to mitigate factor of luck we will compare our results to results of hypothetical user connected to deepbit pool in PPS mode (0.00002563 BTC per share)

Calculations:

User submitted 18425 BTC shares, 12257 I0C shares and 31429 SC shares

If he had submitted those shares to deepbit he would gain: 1.59190493 BTC
(62111 shares*0.00002563BTC )

If he had used our auto-mining workers he would gain: 1.81650273 BTC
0.47223275 BTC for 18425 BTC shares * 0.00002563BTC
0.33642704 BTC for 12257 I0C shares
1.00784295 BTC for 31429 SC shares

1.81650273 BTC / 1.59190493 BTC = 1.141

We where interested how delaying in time i0coins and solidcoins exchange to BTC will affect results:

Delay      Profit compared to deepbit PPS

0 hours = 1.145  ( theoretically )
2 hours = 1.141
4 hours = 1.140
6 hours = 1.132
8 hours = 1.126
10 hours = 1.131
24 hours = 1.053 ( not bad )

So it is clear that there is no need to rush to exchange with every alternate coin received from pool

[iopq]

try calculating for eligius, you'll get like 5% or something

[twmz]

If he had submitted those shares to deepbit he would gain: 1.59190493 BTC
(62111 shares*0.00002563BTC )

Remember that Deepbit has 10% fees on their PPS pool.  No one who cares about maximizing profit (i.e. the sort of person who would consider using coinotron auto) would use deepbit PPS these days.  If he had submitted those shares to any of the 0% fee PPS variant (SMPPS, etc) pools, he would have gained:  

(62111 shares * 0.00002847 BTC) = 1.76878326 BTC

There goes your advantage.  Coinotron Auto-mode was only 2.7% better and only if you were Johnny-on-the-spot withdrawing and exchanging coins (which requires either some significant automation or staying away 24/7 to constantly process coins as they mature).

[coinotron]

Remember that Deepbit has 10% fees on their PPS pool.  No one who cares about maximizing profit (i.e. the sort of person who would consider using coinotron auto) would use deepbit PPS these days.  If he had submitted those shares to any of the 0% fee PPS variant (SMPPS, etc) pools, he would have gained:  

Yes. But main goal of our calculations was not proving that deepbit rates are too high, but that dynamic switching to alternate coins when they are more profitable gives us more profit than conventional BTC mining

(62111 shares * 0.00002847 BTC) = 1.76878326 BTC

There goes your advantage.  Coinotron Auto-mode was only 2.7% better and only if you were Johnny-on-the-spot withdrawing and exchanging coins (which requires either some significant automation or staying away 24/7 to constantly process coins as they mature).

I don't want to investigate if 0.00002847 BTC per share is feasible ( How much risk must operator take to give such high price?, Does it include invalid blocks and stale shares? ) Lets assume that it is possible.
Coinotron's advantage doesn't go that easy.  Remember that our user had submitted 18425 BTC. We must apply to them your SMPPS rate. That gives us:
 
(18425 shares * 0.00002847 BTC) = 0.52455975.

And total for Coinotron auto-mining changes to 1.86882973 i.e. 5.7% gain.

We also proved that you don't have to constantly process coins as they mature. When you exchange them 6 hours after block is solved ( 2-3 hours after they are available ) you are loosing only 1.3 %

[Starlightbreaker]

in short: pool-hopping inside a pool.

yo dawg, we heard you like....

[Sukrim]

And now compare this to results from hopping a handful of prop. pools...!

[Jack of Diamonds]

Your pool still compares very poorly against 'cheating' on proportional pools by hopping.
With a simple 43% switch script you can earn 30-50% of your expected value (according to Meni Rosenfeld possibly even more).

And as it is, 24/7 prop. miners apparently have no idea they're being ripped off since the hash rates never seem to go down on those pools,
so it's still a very viable earning method for those still looking to earn something from mining (if you are fine with indirect stealing)

[Starlightbreaker]

here we go again. 

[coinotron]

Your pool still compares very poorly against 'cheating' on proportional pools by hopping.
With a simple 43% switch script you can earn 30-50% of your expected value (according to Meni Rosenfeld possibly even more).

True. But 43% switch script compares very poorly against marihuana-growing.   Lets compare apples to apples.

And as it is, 24/7 prop. miners apparently have no idea they're being ripped off since the hash rates never seem to go down on those pools,
so it's still a very viable earning method for those still looking to earn something from mining (if you are fine with indirect stealing)

In fact I don’t see a lot of hoppers activity in Coinotron. Maybe a little bit more hashpower at beginning of BTC round. Finding hoppers in i0c or icx subpools during 60 seconds rounds is quite difficult. But to be honest I didn't try.

[bizzy]

As I understand it, Coinotron's BTC mining uses a proportional payout method, so is vulnerable to pool hoppers, especially since the "Profit/BTC" figure used by the auto miner isn't adjusted to match the expected earnings under a proportional system (ie much higher while the shares are low, and terrible when the shares are really high).

This means a user who blindly used the "auto" miner would essentially have some of their profits taken by the pool hoppers, on average. Make sense? It would work much better with a PPS* or even PPLNS system that has the same expected payment per share no matter when it's submitted.

All that said, using Coinotron is fun! You don't even need to install the client applications for i0coin etc to mine for them - you can just get a deposit address from an exchange to get the payment sent to (just be VERY careful to prevent 2 payments to be sent to an address that is only set up to accept 1).

The minimum of 0.5BTC before you can get a BTC payout is way too high though. Most pools have a minimum of 0.01BTC.

[coinotron]

As I understand it, Coinotron's BTC mining uses a proportional payout method, so is vulnerable to pool hoppers, especially since the "Profit/BTC" figure used by the auto miner isn't adjusted to match the expected earnings under a proportional system (ie much higher while the shares are low, and terrible when the shares are really high).

Correct. There is some "classic" pool hopping in BTC part but it really doesn't matter much because when more profitable coin shows up almost 2/3 of btc miners are switching to this new coin. So it’s a kind of coin hopping
I didn't observe pool hopping in alternative parts of pool. Maybe because of very short round times.

This means a user who blindly used the "auto" miner would essentially have some of their profits taken by the pool hoppers, on average. Make sense? It would work much better with a PPS* or even PPLNS system that has the same expected payment per share no matter when it's submitted.

I agree that PPS* , PPLNS are more fair but BTC part in our pool is way too small to introduce PPS without risking a lot of our own coins. And regarding alternative coins – almost non hopping observed.

All that said, using Coinotron is fun! You don't even need to install the client applications for i0coin etc to mine for them - you can just get a deposit address from an exchange to get the payment sent to (just be VERY careful to prevent 2 payments to be sent to an address that is only set up to accept 1).

I’m glad to hear that!
Auto was made mainly for fun. And for profit of course. Hmm, and for fun
But seriously soon we introduce even better auto worker. You will be able to set handicap over BTC. It should smooth very rapid movements to more profitable coin.

The minimum of 0.5BTC before you can get a BTC payout is way too high though. Most pools have a minimum of 0.01BTC.

It will be changed. Technically change is trivial, but before I’ll do it I must inform all users who have balance < 0.5. They may have btc addresses which expired like those in Bitparking.

[bizzy]

A PPS variety could easily work. You would just have to delay payment until a block is found, and in some cases partially delay it longer (when luck is down and thus the pool didn't earn enough to pay the full amount). Similar to Eligius really, though I think you could do slightly better by giving active miners priority for payment when payment was previously delayed.