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

[MoreBloodWine]

Ya but none that will offer the same earnings. Some could argue bitminter is good and while they are. They have days where thy don't find blocks and with the 3.2 Ths I have I should be seeing around 0.09x. So while Ghash has their downfalls, I will always go to them as a backup for earnings.

Another greedy miner ready to join in on sinking the whole experiment for their short term gain, good work, I applaude thee.

Ive tried others like slush etc. and while some also argue that a pools size doesn't mean much in the way of earnings the bottom line is that it does. Ghash has the blocks found for people to earn around what they should be seeing with the hash they have available.

A pool's size doesn't matter in the long run if there are no bad actors.  You're just tripping up on daily numbers.

It aint about greed, it's about me not going to a pool with 3.2 Th/s which should earn 0.09x a day and settling for whatever I get even if it was something like 0.04. I'm not the only one with this school of thought but probably the only one to speak up and not fear people like you who think were greedy when it has nothing do to with greed.

Take a look here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=416933.0

It's a pretty good experiment showing the earnings across multiple pools.  It has the benefit of being long-running as well.  There are other options than GHash.io.  They all pay pretty comparably to what you're seeing here.

I'll definitely give that a look, Ty.

Just funny that a lot of people jump to greed when Ghash is involved without considering other things like what the person paid for their hardware etc.

Cost of hardware aside, everyone has a tipping point. I doubt dropt would be like ok, I've got 10Th and am seeing about 0.1 a day but that's ok bec shit happens. One of two days fine because that's luck for ya, but I know for a fact he wouldn't be singing that jolly ol tune if he kept seeing 0.1 a day for a week or more on 10 Th/s.

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[hurricandave]

And so it begins.  New York regulators are now proposing things which would make it essentially illegal for anybody to use Bitcoin in that state without being registered. It is so over-reaching that it would even catch things like the Bitcoin tipbot on reddit, which would be an illegally operating entity if it allows you to tip a New York resident.

http://www.dfs.ny.gov/about/press2014/pr1407171-vc.pdf

I've read several articles about this proposal and most of them seem to give the same quote, that merchant and consumers using bitcoin strictly for the sale of Goods and Services are exempt. I view the fact that you collect a 2% fee for providing me the service of access to bitcoin mining software and a service of reasonable security protection from online attackers, makes you a simple merchant and 'us' the consumers of your service. Therefore "We" are not subject to the SDN verification as well as State Licensing. Though you may want to tweak the support page to make it clear 'You are only providing a Service and are not a Bank, Loan Agent, or Monetary Transfer Provider'.

[ManeBjorn]

The proposal also states mining does not need a license.
I have a feeling it is going to change quite a bit before it even gets close to being law.
There is already and uproar here in NY about the invasive privacy issue.

And so it begins.  New York regulators are now proposing things which would make it essentially illegal for anybody to use Bitcoin in that state without being registered. It is so over-reaching that it would even catch things like the Bitcoin tipbot on reddit, which would be an illegally operating entity if it allows you to tip a New York resident.

http://www.dfs.ny.gov/about/press2014/pr1407171-vc.pdf

I've read several articles about this proposal and most of them seem to give the same quote, that merchant and consumers using bitcoin strictly for the sale of Goods and Services are exempt. I view the fact that you collect a 2% fee for providing me the service of access to bitcoin mining software and a service of reasonable security protection from online attackers, makes you a simple merchant and 'us' the consumers of your service. Therefore "We" are not subject to the SDN verification as well as State Licensing. Though you may want to tweak the support page to make it clear 'You are only providing a Service and are not a Bank, Loan Agent, or Monetary Transfer Provider'.

[eleuthria]

And so it begins.  New York regulators are now proposing things which would make it essentially illegal for anybody to use Bitcoin in that state without being registered. It is so over-reaching that it would even catch things like the Bitcoin tipbot on reddit, which would be an illegally operating entity if it allows you to tip a New York resident.

http://www.dfs.ny.gov/about/press2014/pr1407171-vc.pdf

I've read several articles about this proposal and most of them seem to give the same quote, that merchant and consumers using bitcoin strictly for the sale of Goods and Services are exempt. I view the fact that you collect a 2% fee for providing me the service of access to bitcoin mining software and a service of reasonable security protection from online attackers, makes you a simple merchant and 'us' the consumers of your service. Therefore "We" are not subject to the SDN verification as well as State Licensing. Though you may want to tweak the support page to make it clear 'You are only providing a Service and are not a Bank, Loan Agent, or Monetary Transfer Provider'.

The problem is it isn't worth the risk to be operating in the grey area of how it's interpreted.  Prosecutors will always have the upper hand on that one, especially when they have could throw enough prosecutors/lawyers with a combined annual salary higher than the gross income received from the pool in its lifetime.

[murraypaul]

And so it begins.  New York regulators are now proposing things which would make it essentially illegal for anybody to use Bitcoin in that state without being registered. It is so over-reaching that it would even catch things like the Bitcoin tipbot on reddit, which would be an illegally operating entity if it allows you to tip a New York resident.

http://www.dfs.ny.gov/about/press2014/pr1407171-vc.pdf

I've read several articles about this proposal and most of them seem to give the same quote, that merchant and consumers using bitcoin strictly for the sale of Goods and Services are exempt. I view the fact that you collect a 2% fee for providing me the service of access to bitcoin mining software and a service of reasonable security protection from online attackers, makes you a simple merchant and 'us' the consumers of your service. Therefore "We" are not subject to the SDN verification as well as State Licensing. Though you may want to tweak the support page to make it clear 'You are only providing a Service and are not a Bank, Loan Agent, or Monetary Transfer Provider'.

A mining pool is not just buying hashpower and paying in units of a virtual currency, it is using that hashpower to create units of a virtual currency.
It can't sensibly be argued to be the same as a retailer accepting payments for goods.

[ManeBjorn]

So you are saying we should be ready for you to shut down without notice or be blocked based on the state we are in??
I understand not wanting to take the risk I am not belittling that at all.  I just want to have an idea what we need to plan for?
The proposal will not stand as is. It has already been pointed out that it violates federal privacy laws and interstate commerce laws.

And so it begins.  New York regulators are now proposing things which would make it essentially illegal for anybody to use Bitcoin in that state without being registered. It is so over-reaching that it would even catch things like the Bitcoin tipbot on reddit, which would be an illegally operating entity if it allows you to tip a New York resident.

http://www.dfs.ny.gov/about/press2014/pr1407171-vc.pdf

I've read several articles about this proposal and most of them seem to give the same quote, that merchant and consumers using bitcoin strictly for the sale of Goods and Services are exempt. I view the fact that you collect a 2% fee for providing me the service of access to bitcoin mining software and a service of reasonable security protection from online attackers, makes you a simple merchant and 'us' the consumers of your service. Therefore "We" are not subject to the SDN verification as well as State Licensing. Though you may want to tweak the support page to make it clear 'You are only providing a Service and are not a Bank, Loan Agent, or Monetary Transfer Provider'.

The problem is it isn't worth the risk to be operating in the grey area of how it's interpreted.  Prosecutors will always have the upper hand on that one, especially when they have could throw enough prosecutors/lawyers with a combined annual salary higher than the gross income received from the pool in its lifetime.

[eleuthria]

So you are saying we should be ready for you to shut down without notice or be blocked based on the state we are in??
I understand not wanting to take the risk I am not belittling that at all.  I just want to have an idea what we need to plan for?
The proposal will not stand as is. It has already been pointed out that it violates federal privacy laws and interstate commerce laws.

There is a 45 day period before the regulations would go into effect, and that doesn't begin until after they are finalized (which is after a 45+ day comment period and then a revision period).  If they come into effect and still have wording which is absolutely applicable to pools, then the pool will begin shutting down and cease to exist at the end of that 45 day grace period.


At this point, I don't believe what exists currently will pass, but that doesn't mean what does come out won't still be applicable to pools in some way which makes it too risky to continue operating.  The reason for that post is that under those circumstances, the 3-month closure period identified in the 2nd post of this thread and in the FAQ on the website will be reduced from 90 days to 45 days in order to cease operations prior to the regulation going into effect.

[ManeBjorn]

I really hope it does not come to this.
I appreciate your straight dealing with us all.
So far it looks like many of the things that would mess with Bitcoin will not happen.  Fingers crossed and we need to keep the community mobilized behind getting the proposal changed.

So you are saying we should be ready for you to shut down without notice or be blocked based on the state we are in??
I understand not wanting to take the risk I am not belittling that at all.  I just want to have an idea what we need to plan for?
The proposal will not stand as is. It has already been pointed out that it violates federal privacy laws and interstate commerce laws.

There is a 45 day period before the regulations would go into effect, and that doesn't begin until after they are finalized (which is after a 45+ day comment period and then a revision period).  If they come into effect and still have wording which is absolutely applicable to pools, then the pool will begin shutting down and cease to exist at the end of that 45 day grace period.


At this point, I don't believe what exists currently will pass, but that doesn't mean what does come out won't still be applicable to pools in some way which makes it too risky to continue operating.  The reason for that post is that under those circumstances, the 3-month closure period identified in the 2nd post of this thread and in the FAQ on the website will be reduced from 90 days to 45 days in order to cease operations prior to the regulation going into effect.

[sconklin321]

Well, if this ends up coming to fruition then I guess ghash will be getting a big bump from people because that's where I'll be going as I suspect others will too when the pool closes if it ever does.

I'll go to everywhere, except GHASH.IO. There are lot of good guys still remaining. SLush, Eligius, p2pool, etc...

I'm not sure where slush is located, but Eligius I'm pretty sure is a US based pool and would be subject to the same laws as this pool. P2Pool doesn't support all hard, specifically they have problems with bitfury and S2s to my knowledge, and to my knowledge, no one is sure the S3s will work properly on it.  Also, P2Pool doesn't scale very well for small miners.  I was recently mining on there, before coming back to BTC Guild, and I would have 24 hour periods with no shares at 250Gh/s.  Then there is the variance of possible going days without payment from P2Pool.  They way I see it, and I'd REALLY hate to say it, but if the US pools that can at least minimize variance (BTC Guild and Eligius (though I don't know wizkid's stance on the NY Law)) disappear the best remaining option would maybe slush and ghash.  I really hope that NY doesn't go and screw the rest of us over by issuing a vague law that will force pools out of business, but then again, it is NY and who knows what will happen.

[eleuthria]

Well, if this ends up coming to fruition then I guess ghash will be getting a big bump from people because that's where I'll be going as I suspect others will too when the pool closes if it ever does.

I'll go to everywhere, except GHASH.IO. There are lot of good guys still remaining. SLush, Eligius, p2pool, etc...

I'm not sure where slush is located, but Eligius I'm pretty sure is a US based pool and would be subject to the same laws as this pool. P2Pool doesn't support all hard, specifically they have problems with bitfury and S2s to my knowledge, and to my knowledge, no one is sure the S3s will work properly on it.  Also, P2Pool doesn't scale very well for small miners.  I was recently mining on there, before coming back to BTC Guild, and I would have 24 hour periods with no shares at 250Gh/s.  Then there is the variance of possible going days without payment from P2Pool.  They way I see it, and I'd REALLY hate to say it, but if the US pools that can at least minimize variance (BTC Guild and Eligius (though I don't know wizkid's stance on the NY Law)) disappear the best remaining option would maybe slush and ghash.  I really hope that NY doesn't go and screw the rest of us over by issuing a vague law that will force pools out of business, but then again, it is NY and who knows what will happen.

We have a couple months before anything is really known at this point.  Logically, NY state should not be able to enforce this regulation against any company without a nexus in NY, even though the proposed regulation is trying to claim differently.  The problem is whether or not there is some federal law/agreement that would allow them to extend their authority.  The other problem is that even if they have no authority to do so, it doesn't mean they can't try.

There's also the chance that other states jump on board with the NY regulation.  If that happens, there's no guarantee how much time companies in other states will have to react before they become targets.

At least from what we've spoken about so far, wizkid057 (Eligius) appears to believe there is no legal threat to businesses not based in NY.  I'm much more conservative, and as such have been preparing for the worst.

[ManeBjorn]

Eleuthria thanks for being so open about how and why you will react the way you will.
Can I ask if you will join others in the community in creating a response and responsible guidelines on how to regulate it?

[Zelek Uther]

If the worst happens, couldn't you just shut down the US server and keep the European server running?

[hurricandave]

Section 200.15
(g)(4) Identification required for large transactions. Each Licensee must require verification of accountholders initiating transactions having a value greater than $3,000.    'page 27'
 This is Copy/Pasted from the actual NY proposal document. I think at the very least with respect to miners who carry a high account balance on the BTC Guild Pool, that this is a reasonable threshold and argument for limiting the size of balance any one miner retains in the pool account or could expect to withdraw in a single round of payouts.

[silverston]

How can I change the address for the withdrawals? BTC-e changed addresses to recharge and coins can now go to a nonexistent address. My pool bitcoin wallet address is locked

[AussieHash]

How can I change the address for the withdrawals? BTC-e changed addresses to recharge and coins can now go to a nonexistent address. My pool bitcoin wallet address is locked

I don't know if locking your withdrawal address to an anonymous exchange, based in an undetermined country, run by nameless eastern europeans was a great idea ...

[silverston]

How can I change the address for the withdrawals? BTC-e changed addresses to recharge and coins can now go to a nonexistent address. My pool bitcoin wallet address is locked

I don't know if locking your withdrawal address to an anonymous exchange, based in an undetermined country, run by nameless eastern europeans was a great idea ...

no problem anymore
locked wallet is my own wallet.

[AussieHash]

no problem anymore
locked wallet is my own wallet.

That is good, because should you ever need to prove ownership of an address, you may need to sign a message.

[padrino]

Looking around for documentation on BTC Guild JSON API, didn't see much on Google searches aside from existing implementations, those are useful but curious to see if there is a comprehensive doc for the JSON API?

[eleuthria]

There was a display error on the Recent Block rewards caused by the poor luck yesterday.  The recent block rewards is a calculated set of numbers, since your actual rewards are only stored per shift, not per block.  The calculations didn't work when a block was in the recent blocks list that was more than about 30 hours old, because the page didn't have all the information cached for shifts that old.

Looking around for documentation on BTC Guild JSON API, didn't see much on Google searches aside from existing implementations, those are useful but curious to see if there is a comprehensive doc for the JSON API?

There's no documentation on the BTC Guild API.  It's simple JSON, and all of the fields are named in a manner that gives their description.  You can copy and paste the output of the API page into a JSON parser which will give you a very easy to read breakdown of all the possible fields.

[MoreBloodWine]

So 1024 in the miner and on worker page of the pool guarantees no issues outside of a problem with the pool or the miner. That said, am I correct with the worker setting of 128 for my Prospector200 machine since the next jump up is 256 for 256Gh + ?

Yes, 1024 for a dragon is the recommended setting, and should guarantee proper results while mining without any weird stats popping up.  I'm not familiar with the prospector 200, but if it's under 250 GH/s, then 128 is the recommended setting, yes.

However, as far as I'm aware, the only ASIC where the setting *can* cause a problem is the Dragon Miners.  Anything else is just a recommendation, it should have no material effects on other hardware.

Hey Michael, Do you know if the BTCGarden machines have dif issues like the dragons ?