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

[Moria843]

Best of luck. Pool will be missed.

[1713867370]

1713867370

[OleOle]

All the best to you for the future.

Thanks for your invaluable service.

[coins101]

BitLicences do not require pools and miners to register.

But I guess the economics of running the pool are also the issue.

Bummer.

[matt4054]

This is a sad day.
I'm sorry it came to this.
BitLicense is a mess that harms everyone. Organized block withholding attacks are also a nasty reality of the current ecosystem.
It won't be long before more centralization happens. Not a good thing.
Thanks for always being professional and maintaining a solid pool that has been a cornerstone for so long.

+1

Thanks for your dedication as a pool operator. You will be missed.

[eleuthria]

BitLicences do not require pools and miners to register.

BitLicense doesn't require miners to register.  Pools are in a very ugly gray area, because they can be considered a custodian of the users' funds.  That is one of the many criteria that can be used for what is considered a virtual currency business activity and requires BitLicense registration.  There is no exemption for pools.

EDIT:  Exact line:  "(2) storing, holding, or maintaining custody or control of Virtual Currency on behalf of others; "

But I guess the economics of running the pool are also the issue.

Bummer.

This is the other (and major) reason.  The pool was/is profitable, but not profitable enough to cover a loss of user funds if a compromise ever happened in the future.  It has never happened in the history of the pool.  We've lost coins (and covered the losses) before from software bugs (double payments sent, the bitcoin 0.8 upgrade causing one server to credit people PPS as if network difficulty was 1).  But never a compromise.

[kuroman]

Sad to see you closing doors, The first pool I tried out mining on was users a couple of years ago.

Hopefully you still have some other projects related to bitcoin in store and that you'll stay around

[coins101]

BitLicences do not require pools and miners to register.

BitLicense doesn't require miners to register.  Pools are in a very ugly gray area, because they can be considered a custodian of the users' funds.  That is one of the many criteria that can be used for what is considered a virtual currency business activity and requires BitLicense registration.  There is no exemption for pools.

EDIT:  Exact line:  "(2) storing, holding, or maintaining custody or control of Virtual Currency on behalf of others; "

But I guess the economics of running the pool are also the issue.

Bummer.

This is the other (and major) reason.  The pool was/is profitable, but not profitable enough to cover a loss of user funds if a compromise ever happened in the future.  It has never happened in the history of the pool.  We've lost coins (and covered the losses) before from software bugs (double payments sent, the bitcoin 0.8 upgrade causing one server to credit people PPS as if network difficulty was 1).  But never a compromise.

Did you read the edit by CoinDesk?

Following the publication of this article, a spokesperson for the New York State Department of Financial Services told CoinDesk that "miners and mining pools are exempt from the BitLicense".

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-mining-pool-btc-guild-close-bitlicense/

Keep the pool open, put T&Cs in there that funds are not your responsibility and miners should empty funds every 24hrs, etc. Maybe a little script to send funds out every few hours.

[fcmatt]

You had a great run and did an awesome job. congrats! time to find the next project.

i just don't know if you will find one that can make that kind of cash though ;-)

[iglasses]

336Mhs USB connected to Guild was my entry to mining.  I've always found eleuthria to be the most accessible and responsive pool operator of them all.

Thank you for putting up with noobs like me and all who came before & after!

ig

[jbrnt]

BTCGuild was the top pool when I mined. It is the most professionally run pool I have seen. It is sad to see you go. I think this show that it is the end of the home mining era. Mining is so centralised now that even a long standing pool only has 2% of the netwrok hash rate.

Good luck with your new ventures, eleuthria.

[freedomno1]

I'm going to miss BTCGuild I never really got into mining myself but I did use the pool to test out the idea and see how it works
After a long history of operating and great reliable service you will be missed best of luck on your future ventures.

[navigator]

So long and thanks for all the fish!

I'm really going to miss this place. It's been a major minor part of my life over the last 4 years.

I'm also curious about where everyone is moving to. The times I've tried other pools, sooner or later I always hit a failover pool. At btcguild this almost never happened. I think if we can get 5ph or more of btcguild's hashrate to all move to the same pool it would really benefit everyone there. As of now I might move to eligius or ghash(ew) or even antpool IDK. Anyone decided on where they are moving to yet?

[eleuthria]

So long and thanks for all the fish!

I'm really going to miss this place. It's been a major minor part of my life over the last 4 years.

I'm also curious about where everyone is moving to. The times I've tried other pools, sooner or later I always hit a failover pool. At btcguild this almost never happened. I think if we can get 5ph or more of btcguild's hashrate to all move to the same pool it would really benefit everyone there. As of now I might move to eligius or ghash(ew) or even antpool IDK. Anyone decided on where they are moving to yet?

I recommended BitMinter, Eligius, and Kano CKPool at the bottom of my closing message.  All 3 are long standing, trustworhy operators who are always accessible in IRC or in their respective pool threads.  Well, Kano CK Pool isn't long standing as a pool, but as a presence in the community it still holds true.

[Adrian-x]

So long and thanks for all the fish!

I'm really going to miss this place. It's been a major minor part of my life over the last 4 years.

I'm also curious about where everyone is moving to. The times I've tried other pools, sooner or later I always hit a failover pool. At btcguild this almost never happened. I think if we can get 5ph or more of btcguild's hashrate to all move to the same pool it would really benefit everyone there. As of now I might move to eligius or ghash(ew) or even antpool IDK. Anyone decided on where they are moving to yet?

eleuthria has a list he recommends.

absent from that list is Slush - i think its to do with bad blood and a misunderstanding, the result is Slush was responsible for a DoS attack on BTC Guild.

The one pool that I wouldn't put on that list is Eligius Mining Pool the owner has a reputation see below.

Luke-Jr used the pools hashing power to 51% attack an alt with out the permission or authorization of the people hashing for the pool.
Luke-Jr also injected his personal Bitcoin address black list into Gentoo Linux code base. for religious reasons multiple times.
Luke-Jr also threatened to 51% attack an independent Bitcoin protocol build as a core developer.  (read the whole thread to get a feel for his personality)
Luke-Jr also ripped off CGMiner code without giving credit,  

so no i wouldn't group Eligius with the others on that list, there is a history of abuse of power there.

[chalkboard17]

Yeah, Eligius and Ghash are the only pools without fees as of now. Besides eligius doing all that, ghash also 51%'d bitcoin. What's worst, who is to say these (or any other pool) isn't sometimes stealing some hashrate? In a very small scale that would be unnoticeable and nearly impossible to find/track. I just started mining and I found it sad it is SO centralized. I tried p2pool but unfortunately most hardware dont work very well there, my s5 included.
Unfortunately I will have to stay with eligius (and ghash as backup) for now. Just hope they don't get hashrate or do anything bad, but "having to trust" is really fucking bad!

[Adrian-x]

Yeah, Eligius and Ghash are the only pools without fees as of now. Besides eligius doing all that, ghash also 51%'d bitcoin. What's worst, who is to say these (or any other pool) isn't sometimes stealing some hashrate? In a very small scale that would be unnoticeable and nearly impossible to find/track. I just started mining and I found it sad it is SO centralized. I tried p2pool but unfortunately most hardware dont work very well there, my s5 included.
Unfortunately I will have to stay with eligius (and ghash as backup) for now. Just hope they don't get hashrate or do anything bad, but "having to trust" is really fucking bad!

I think Ghash just had 51% i don't think they abused there power did they?

[-ck]

I think Ghash just had 51% i don't think they abused there power did they?

GHash.IO and double-spending against BetCoin Dice
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=327767.0

[Digitalmocking]

I'd recommend kano.is if you're looking for a good pool run by an outstanding member of the community.

low fees and the guy really busts his ass. 

[windpath]

Lets not forget P2Pool folks

trust-less, decentralized, open source, run your own node, free, etc...

https://github.com/forrestv/p2pool

[Biomech]

So long and thanks for all the fish!

I'm really going to miss this place. It's been a major minor part of my life over the last 4 years.

I'm also curious about where everyone is moving to. The times I've tried other pools, sooner or later I always hit a failover pool. At btcguild this almost never happened. I think if we can get 5ph or more of btcguild's hashrate to all move to the same pool it would really benefit everyone there. As of now I might move to eligius or ghash(ew) or even antpool IDK. Anyone decided on where they are moving to yet?

eleuthria has a list he recommends.

absent from that list is Slush - i think its to do with bad blood and a misunderstanding, the result is Slush was responsible for a DoS attack on BTC Guild.

The one pool that I wouldn't put on that list is Eligius Mining Pool the owner has a reputation see below.

Luke-Jr used the pools hashing power to 51% attack an alt with out the permission or authorization of the people hashing for the pool.
Luke-Jr also injected his personal Bitcoin address black list into Gentoo Linux code base. for religious reasons multiple times.
Luke-Jr also threatened to 51% attack an independent Bitcoin protocol build as a core developer.  (read the whole thread to get a feel for his personality)
Luke-Jr also ripped off CGMiner code without giving credit,  

so no i wouldn't group Eligius with the others on that list, there is a history of abuse of power there.

Luke-jr has not been the operator of Eligius for quite some time. And Wizkid is about as straight up as they come.