[CLOSED] BTC Guild - Pays TxFees+NMC, Stratum, VarDiff, Private Servers

[allinvain]

Any chance of introducing other merged mining coins, kinda like ghash.io is doing?

DVC/IXC are truly worthless.  They would be even more worthless if BTC Guild bothered to merge mine them and roughly doubled their difficulty again.

Knowing the load that altcoin daemons put on servers (because they all use extremely old bitcoin forks), I'm pretty convinced that you end up hurting your earnings more than they will add to them just due to the increased rate of stales/time to perform longpolls/work restarts.  Combined they don't even add up to 0.1% additional earnings *at current difficulty*.

Of all the scamcoins/altcoins out there, the only one that is actually something new/useful is Namecoin, even though I'm personally not a major fan of it.  But all the others are mindless clones of Bitcoin that bring nothing worthwhile to the table.  At least Namecoin was designed to do something outside of a cash grab.

Yeah I guess you're right. But I'm wondering what you think about PPC (aka peercoin). Useless?

Don't believe that can be piggybacked onto BTC.

Hmm, yeah ooops, forgot about that. It uses a hybrid proof of work/proof of stake system which makes it too different from bitcoin to be piggybacked on to it like all the other clonecoins.

Anyways, I'm gonna drop this subject as it seems from a sha-256 perspective btc and nmc should be enough. IXC should die in a fire like i0coin.

[1714201605]

1714201605

[1714201605]

1714201605

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

Am I looking at BC.I correctly? Did btcguild really mine 10 or so blocks in a row?

[os2sam]

Am I looking at BC.I correctly? Did btcguild really mine 10 or so blocks in a row?

Looks like 11 to me.  What of it?

[Gyrsur]

Am I looking at BC.I correctly? Did btcguild really mine 10 or so blocks in a row?

Looks like 11 to me.  What of it?

what's going on slave tards!?!  

http://blockorigin.pfoe.be/blocklist.php

[os2sam]

Am I looking at BC.I correctly? Did btcguild really mine 10 or so blocks in a row?

Looks like 11 to me.  What of it?

what's going on slave tards!?!  

Umm, no idea what that is supposed to mean?

[eleuthria]

Uhm...somebody call in organofcorti.  I want to know how astronomically large the odds are that 25-28% of the network hash rate manages to pull off 11 blocks in a row!

[os2sam]

Uhm...somebody call in organofcorti.  I want to know how astronomically large the odds are that 25-28% of the network hash rate manages to pull off 11 blocks in a row!

I'm sure his Red Alert klaxon went off after the 7th block.

[jojo69]

much amaze

such wow

[DrG]

keep it up.  Need to get back to 104%+ 

[organofcorti]

Uhm...somebody call in organofcorti.  I want to know how astronomically large the odds are that 25-28% of the network hash rate manages to pull off 11 blocks in a row!

Wow, I thought there'd be some huge hue and cry about this. Plus one to the mining fraternity for not freaking out.

The chances of this happening? The easiest way to consider it is as a shifted geometrically distributed random number, like the number of shares it takes to solve a round, where p = 1 - 0.25. The probability of winning less than or equal to n wins in a row is:

Code:

1 - (1 - p)^n

using p = 1 - 0.25, and n = 11, this is ~ 0.9999998. This means that 99.99998 times out of a hundred runs of blocks in a row, the number of blocks in a row will be less than or equal to 11 for a pool with 25% of the network.

Alternatively, just to make clear unlikely 11 blocks in a row is for a pool at 25% of the network, the upper tail probability for more than 10 blocks in a row is (1 - p)^10 ~ 0.000001, meaning that it would be likely to happen once in a million runs of blocks in a row.

These values for other pool percentages of the network are:

Code:

  Percentage of the network less than 11 in a row more than 10 in a row
                      25 %           99.999976 %          0.00009537 %
                      28 %           99.999917 %          0.00029620 %
                      30 %           99.999823 %          0.00059049 %
                      35 %           99.999035 %          0.00275855 %
                      40 %           99.995806 %          0.01048576 %
                      45 %           99.984677 %          0.03405063 %
                      50 %           99.951172 %          0.09765625 %

To have a 50-50 chance of a run of blocks lasting more than 10 in a row the pool percentage of the network needs to be:

Code:

0.5 = (1 - p)^10
p = 1 - 0.5^(1/10)
p = 0.06696701
percentage of network = (1 - 0.06696701)*100 ~ 93.3%

So in order for a pool pool to have a 50-50 chance of winning more than 10 blocks in a row, they'd need to have 93.3% of the network.

(the above ignores differences in the various pools' orphan rates)

I'm sure his Red Alert klaxon went off after the 7th block.

I was asleep, and my missus has made me turn the klaxon off during the night. The flashing red light and low voltage taser weren't enough to wake me, unfortunately.

[eleuthria]

Uhm...somebody call in organofcorti.  I want to know how astronomically large the odds are that 25-28% of the network hash rate manages to pull off 11 blocks in a row!

Wow, I thought there'd be some huge hue and cry about this. Plus one to the mining fraternity for not freaking out.

The chances of this happening? The easiest way to consider it is as a shifted geometrically distributed random number, like the number of shares it takes to solve a round, where p = 1 - 0.25. The probability of winning less than or equal to n wins in a row is:

Code:

1 - (1 - p)^n

using p = 1 - 0.25, and n = 11, this is ~ 0.9999998. This means that 99.99998 times out of a hundred runs of blocks in a row, the number of blocks in a row will be less than or equal to 11 for a pool with 25% of the network.

Alternatively, just to make clear unlikely 11 blocks in a row is for a pool at 25% of the network, the upper tail probability for more than 10 blocks in a row is (1 - p)^10 ~ 0.000001, meaning that it would be likely to happen once in a million runs of blocks in a row.

Thanks for the insight.  I'm a bit surprised at the lack of uproar myself.  It's probably because reddit is currently on hold with the suicide hotline after today's crash, so they had to pause their Guild-hating posts for a day or two.

EDIT/UPDATE:  For those not aware (since it may have changed by the time you see this), the top post in /r/bitcoin was a number for the Suicide Hotline this morning, and it was there for the majority of the day.

[jojo69]

rofl

[os2sam]

It's probably because reddit is currently on hold with the suicide hotline after today's crash

Bitcoin price dipping below $600 is considered a crash?

[eleuthria]

It's probably because reddit is currently on hold with the suicide hotline after today's crash

Bitcoin price dipping below $600 is considered a crash?

Yeah...but it's reddit posters.  Long term memory isn't their strong suit.

[trevorh]

There appears to be a problem with the website this morning?

Secure Connection Failed

An error occurred during a connection to www.btcguild.com. The OCSP server has no status for the certificate. (Error code: sec_error_ocsp_unknown_cert)

[BitMinerN8]

There appears to be a problem with the website this morning?

Secure Connection Failed

An error occurred during a connection to www.btcguild.com. The OCSP server has no status for the certificate. (Error code: sec_error_ocsp_unknown_cert)

I'm seeing this too, must just be a website issue, all my rigs are still mining. I'm sure he'll be on it soon.

[eleuthria]

There appears to be a problem with the website this morning?

Secure Connection Failed

An error occurred during a connection to www.btcguild.com. The OCSP server has no status for the certificate. (Error code: sec_error_ocsp_unknown_cert)

I'm seeing this too, must just be a website issue, all my rigs are still mining. I'm sure he'll be on it soon.

Seems to have fixed itself?  Not seeing it on my end.  Generally anything like that is just a generic Cloudflare problem that only lasts a few minutes or so.

[jojo69]

I apologize in advance, some will find this off topic, but I disagree.

As miners in one of the leading pools, I believe we have a responsibility to educate ourselves about developments and trends in bitcoin.  Miners have the final word on any changes to the protocol.

I am linking a talk by Andreas Antonopoulos on Bitcoin Neutrality at the recent Latin American Bitcoin Confrence.  I ask miners to invest the half hour to digest this excellent presentation.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy6XIBnThpY&feature=youtu.be

[eleuthria]

Thanks for the link jojo69.  It's probably a good time to restate BTC Guild's stance on some of this:

BTC Guild's primary focus is neutrality when it comes to the network.  Unless forced to take a stance (such as the BIP16, version 2 network blocks), the pool follows the standards currently in place in the official bitcoind client.  In the event of fast action being required (hardfork earlier this year), the choice will always be the one that keeps the network compatibility as close to 100% as possible with the given options.

When it comes to transactions, BTC Guild makes no prioritization of any transaction, nor does it deprioritize/block any transaction that follows the official client rules.  No modifications are made to the selection process, only the block size values (such as increasing the minimum block size to 150kb, and maximum to 500kb currently).

At this time, there are no plans to ever stray from the official bitcoin branch, unless a change within that main branch goes against the above stances, such as blacklisting, whitelisting, or immediate hardforking without a proper upgrade path, long timeline, and REASON to do so that is justified.  Example: The v0.8 upgrade which broke compatibility with some 0.7 clients in order to fix the problem of blocks with many affected transactions from being accepted by the network.  Once the hardfork was reverted, an upgrade path and time frame were made available in order to move the network forward.  The reason for this fork was it brought the client in line with the original protocol, which had a 1MB maximum size, while the 0.7 branch had the chance to reject blocks that fit within the previously defined parameters of what a valid block is.

[mdopro1]

Thanks for the link jojo69.  It's probably a good time to restate BTC Guild's stance on some of this:

BTC Guild's primary focus is neutrality when it comes to the network.  Unless forced to take a stance (such as the BIP16, version 2 network blocks), the pool follows the standards currently in place in the official bitcoind client.  In the event of fast action being required (hardfork earlier this year), the choice will always be the one that keeps the network compatibility as close to 100% as possible with the given options.

When it comes to transactions, BTC Guild makes no prioritization of any transaction, nor does it deprioritize/block any transaction that follows the official client rules.  No modifications are made to the selection process, only the block size values (such as increasing the minimum block size to 150kb, and maximum to 500kb currently).

At this time, there are no plans to ever stray from the official bitcoin branch, unless a change within that main branch goes against the above stances, such as blacklisting, whitelisting, or immediate hardforking without a proper upgrade path, long timeline, and REASON to do so that is justified.  Example: The v0.8 upgrade which broke compatibility with some 0.7 clients in order to fix the problem of blocks with many affected transactions from being accepted by the network.  Once the hardfork was reverted, an upgrade path and time frame were made available in order to move the network forward.  The reason for this fork was it brought the client in line with the original protocol, which had a 1MB maximum size, while the 0.7 branch had the chance to reject blocks that fit within the previously defined parameters of what a valid block is.

I have no idea what you just said as long as it doesn't mean that my miners will become useless?