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

[ThePiGuy]

So what pool will most people move to - for many of us, BTCGuild was the one and only place to mine.  Which pool is second best or even comes close?

Eligius is pretty great, I used it as a backup pool but will now use it as my primary and maybe GHash.io as a backup.

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[eleuthria]

You know your pool is pretty great when there are over 400 pages of comments.

Best of luck to you in your future endeavours.  I have been a supporter since the beginning, and appreciate everything you've done.

Keep us up to date on your new projects!

Don't forget the couple hundred other pages in the thread before this one (the pool closed it's original thread when it switched from proportional to PPS back in 2011)!


I'll probably end up using BTC Guild's domain/page for some future Bitcoin project.  My current projects are completely unrelated to Bitcoin (other than my retro game store which will accept Bitcoin).  But I'm looking forward to some kind of app (or game) development in the future and will probably try to make Bitcoin integrated in some way.

[hmblm1245]

so sad to see it go. Best of luck to ya.

[Landstander]

As a long time user of BTC Guild, thank you eleuthria. Your honorable presence in the bitcoin mining space has been greatly appreciated. Good luck with your future endeavors!

This feels like the end of yet another era.

[Miner-TE]

All I can say is ... Thanks E.

[chalkboard17]

Another victory for centralized mining.

Finally, I have been growing concerned for some time now about attempts to defraud pools. The pool's luck has been on a decline for over a year. The luck on a few other pools has also shown a negative trend. While it is not impossible that it's a coincidence, this is something I have been constantly made aware of and am helpless against. There is no way to know whether it's just bad luck, a small bug in older miners (BTC Guild probably has the highest percentage of first/second generation ASICs) resulting in a few % of block-solving shares to disappear, or a large pool trying to hurt the competition (many of the largest pools have large private mining operations now). It would only take a fraction (1 PH/s or less could do it) to cause significant harm to a competing pool, and that activity could be masked by proxies and multiple accounts to be impossible to catch.

What do you mean with this?

[eleuthria]

Another victory for centralized mining.

Finally, I have been growing concerned for some time now about attempts to defraud pools. The pool's luck has been on a decline for over a year. The luck on a few other pools has also shown a negative trend. While it is not impossible that it's a coincidence, this is something I have been constantly made aware of and am helpless against. There is no way to know whether it's just bad luck, a small bug in older miners (BTC Guild probably has the highest percentage of first/second generation ASICs) resulting in a few % of block-solving shares to disappear, or a large pool trying to hurt the competition (many of the largest pools have large private mining operations now). It would only take a fraction (1 PH/s or less could do it) to cause significant harm to a competing pool, and that activity could be masked by proxies and multiple accounts to be impossible to catch.

What do you mean with this?

I mean the pool's luck for the last 3 months has been 88~89% of expected block solves.  Eligius' 3 month luck is almost identical to that last I checked in their thread.  Slush doesn't give a 3 month luck but his 1-month luck is pretty close to that.  I do not know if that is statistically bad enough (Guild + Eligius pools in aggregate) to point towards something other than variance.  Both pools combined are only about 5% of the network, so 12% under expectation over 90 days might be something that could happen 1 in a hundred samples.  I'm sending organofcorti a message about it since that's his area of expertise.

[chalkboard17]

Another victory for centralized mining.

Finally, I have been growing concerned for some time now about attempts to defraud pools. The pool's luck has been on a decline for over a year. The luck on a few other pools has also shown a negative trend. While it is not impossible that it's a coincidence, this is something I have been constantly made aware of and am helpless against. There is no way to know whether it's just bad luck, a small bug in older miners (BTC Guild probably has the highest percentage of first/second generation ASICs) resulting in a few % of block-solving shares to disappear, or a large pool trying to hurt the competition (many of the largest pools have large private mining operations now). It would only take a fraction (1 PH/s or less could do it) to cause significant harm to a competing pool, and that activity could be masked by proxies and multiple accounts to be impossible to catch.

What do you mean with this?

I mean the pool's luck for the last 3 months has been 88~89% of expected block solves.  Eligius' 3 month luck is almost identical to that last I checked in their thread.  Slush doesn't give a 3 month luck but his 1-month luck is pretty close to that.  I do not know if that is statistically bad enough (Guild + Eligius pools in aggregate) to point towards something other than variance.  Both pools combined are only about 5% of the network, so 12% under expectation over 90 days might be something that could happen 1 in a hundred samples.  I'm sending organofcorti a message about it since that's his area of expertise.

I understand that and am aware about (now) minor pools' bad luck. To tell you the truth I was under the suspicious they could be using our hashrate to rarely mine on other addresses, thus lowering luck. But that's just me and you get a very suspicious character after being scammed and robbed so many times by other people. I wanted to know what you meant with them being possibly attacked, and how?
I never used btc guild and although I mine on eligius due to the no fee (and will leave them the second they add any fee at all) I would suggest you to raise the fee instead of closing the pool. People who disagree would leave but I doubt a currently 12ph/s pool would go below 1ph/s, except if the fee goes up a lot.

[CanaryInTheMine]

You know your pool is pretty great when there are over 400 pages of comments.

Best of luck to you in your future endeavours.  I have been a supporter since the beginning, and appreciate everything you've done.

Keep us up to date on your new projects!

Don't forget the couple hundred other pages in the thread before this one (the pool closed it's original thread when it switched from proportional to PPS back in 2011)!


I'll probably end up using BTC Guild's domain/page for some future Bitcoin project.  My current projects are completely unrelated to Bitcoin (other than my retro game store which will accept Bitcoin).  But I'm looking forward to some kind of app (or game) development in the future and will probably try to make Bitcoin integrated in some way.

Hope you will take on a project that will turn out as good as the pool in its glory days, but even better good luck!

[man114]

Another victory for centralized mining.

Finally, I have been growing concerned for some time now about attempts to defraud pools. The pool's luck has been on a decline for over a year. The luck on a few other pools has also shown a negative trend. While it is not impossible that it's a coincidence, this is something I have been constantly made aware of and am helpless against. There is no way to know whether it's just bad luck, a small bug in older miners (BTC Guild probably has the highest percentage of first/second generation ASICs) resulting in a few % of block-solving shares to disappear, or a large pool trying to hurt the competition (many of the largest pools have large private mining operations now). It would only take a fraction (1 PH/s or less could do it) to cause significant harm to a competing pool, and that activity could be masked by proxies and multiple accounts to be impossible to catch.

What do you mean with this?

I mean the pool's luck for the last 3 months has been 88~89% of expected block solves.  Eligius' 3 month luck is almost identical to that last I checked in their thread.  Slush doesn't give a 3 month luck but his 1-month luck is pretty close to that.  I do not know if that is statistically bad enough (Guild + Eligius pools in aggregate) to point towards something other than variance.  Both pools combined are only about 5% of the network, so 12% under expectation over 90 days might be something that could happen 1 in a hundred samples.  I'm sending organofcorti a message about it since that's his area of expertise.

88-89% doesn't seem anything out of the ordinary for variance for a 3 month period. Slush has had a bad run of luck in the last two weeks or so and the drop in hash rate certainly hasn't helped. Of course the drop due to summer certainly won't help hash rates any.

I don't know if older ASICs would have anything to do with it, an old 1th/s is going to do the same but use more electricity to do it.

[nwfella]

Thanks for running one of the most legit BTC pools for so long.  I actually think it's a pretty stand-up gesture that Eleuthria is unwilling to sell the domain/pool given the # of sheer scammers in the BTC space still.  Your work is much appreciated sir and you've certainly left your mark in the bitcoin space.  Best of luck to you sir one your future endeavors.

[Xialla]

uhh guild is closing? I spent the best times of my mining "career" here, also IRC and admin were cool and helpful. I never had any problems at all..

@eleuthria, thanks for providing amazing service and good luck with any future projects.)

[kik1977]

Good luck with your future projects, E!

[Biomech]

Very saddened to see you go. I remember when you were the "big bad wolf' that people were afraid was going to mount a 51% attack on Bitcoin It was amusing, since it was obvious how much you were dedicated.

May you fare well where ever you fair. Many have come and gone, and few will be missed. BTCGuild will.

My very first attempt at bitcoin mining was on your pool. It was frequently my failover even after that (Eligius winning out, barely). I haven't mined bitcoin in some time, preferring the "wild west" of alts. But I have watched, and learned much from you.

goodbye to a legend.

[hZti]

Sad to see another Legend go, i never mined BTC but i was very much involved at Dogecoin mining and always had plans to mine BTC at your pool at some point but never really had the opportunity to do so

[bizzyb]

Thanks for all your time and commitment, you have shown many how crypto can be "legit".

[SgtMoth]

Thank you!  I've made a lot of money with this pool.  Good luck in the future!

[dogie]

What sad news And I finished mining 180 but with 11 blocks, so my OCD will never resolve that my average won't catch up now.

[windpath]

Will be sad to see you shutter BTC Guild, 2nd pool I ever tried, best interface at the time, and trustworthy.

Hope you find your way back to the bitcoin space professionally, you are an asset to the community.

That being said, I'm sure that come June 30th you will feel a sense of relief from shedding the stress of the pool

Cheers!

[sirky]

Thanks for everything - I have been a member since May or June of 2011.