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

[eleuthria]

Thanks os2sam for helping out while I sleep .  Been pulling really long days lately, almost afraid to close my eyes.

[1714895527]

1714895527

[os2sam]

Thanks os2sam for helping out while I sleep .  Been pulling really long days lately, almost afraid to close my eyes.

No problem.  Even a stopped clock is right twice a day

[supermine]

Hi, I have a coupole of questions...

- Do we have an IRC for the Guild?
- How is the Stratum Address for Merged Mining with Namecoins? mergedmining.btcguild.com 8332 sounds like getwork.. ?
- Why isn't merged mining default, are there any shortcoming if I mine merged?

TY

[theowalpott]

Hi, I have a coupole of questions...

- Do we have an IRC for the Guild?
- How is the Stratum Address for Merged Mining with Namecoins? mergedmining.btcguild.com 8332 sounds like getwork.. ?
- Why isn't merged mining default, are there any shortcoming if I mine merged?

TY

Since eleuthria might be sleeping (sounds like he needs it):

- #btcguild on irc.freenode.net
- There is no option of merged mining/namecoins using stratum, only via the getwork server.
- As far as I understand, because namecoins are considered fairly dead/out of fashion (the project hasn't been updated in a long time) and so there is little incentive to implement merged mining into the stratum protocol.

[eleuthria]

Hi, I have a coupole of questions...

- Do we have an IRC for the Guild?
- How is the Stratum Address for Merged Mining with Namecoins? mergedmining.btcguild.com 8332 sounds like getwork.. ?
- Why isn't merged mining default, are there any shortcoming if I mine merged?

TY

Since eleuthria might be sleeping (sounds like he needs it):

- #btcguild on irc.freenode.net
- There is no option of merged mining/namecoins using stratum, only via the getwork server.
- As far as I understand, because namecoins are considered fairly dead/out of fashion (the project hasn't been updated in a long time) and so there is little incentive to implement merged mining into the stratum protocol.

1) Correct (this is shown in the footer on every BTC Guild page)
2) Correct, I have not implemented merged mining into Stratum, and will not be doing so.
3) Namecoin as a project is dead.  Right now it's just a pump & dump platform.  Most of the time NMC is near worthless, but because it's so cheap it's easy for somebody to force small bubbles for relatively no risk.  As such, I have put it into End-of-Life mode where support is limited, just like what has been done with getwork.

[supermine]

Thanks for the kind replies! Namecoins have risen in value recently and 100 NMC will give you 1 BTC. What about a LiteCoin Guild Pool? I tried different pools now over the past years and always come back to the Guild as it is the most reliable pools I have ever seen in any sense (payouts,pps,ppnls,uptime,support,website). I would be happy to mine in any Altercoin pool of the Guild "brand". I think alternative currencies are important to have many devs as possible in the community.

[eleuthria]

Thanks for the kind replies! Namecoins have risen in value recently and 100 NMC will give you 1 BTC. What about a LiteCoin Guild Pool? I tried different pools now over the past years and always come back to the Guild as it is the most reliable pools I have ever seen in any sense (payouts,pps,ppnls,uptime,support,website). I would be happy to mine in any Altercoin pool of the Guild "brand". I think alternative currencies are important to have many devs as possible in the community.

I made altcoin Guild spinoffs in the past, but that was very...temporary.  I have no intention of adding LTC anymore, even though I did have a successful test run of updating my stratum software to be LTC compatible.  Botnets are already starting to move over to LTC because it is CPU-friendly.  LTC pools get more DDoS attacks than BTC pools, and dealing with BTC botnets already takes up too much of my day to day life.

As for NMC:  They are rising because NMC (and LTC) are complete Pump & Dump coins.  It is extremely easy for somebody to pump & dump those coins because they are worth so little.  Minimal risk, decent reward.  The price drops down to under 0.002, then somebody spends just a hundred BTC and they're back to 0.01+ for a few days, and enough idiots follow suit and put in buys to make it profitable for the person who pumped the price.  The NMC project is dead.  It is a virtually unusable system with more overhead than it requires.

[eleuthria]

I have outlined a plan for mitigating the potential of BTC Guild obtaining 51% of the network, by attacking the problem with increasing severity at 40% and 45% of the network.  The current plan can be found here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=168108.0


Current users will mostly be affected by the proposal to increase fees on the pool, if BTC Guild's share of the network continues to increase.  This was not in the original proposal, but talking with several people, it seems to be the most effective way to shave off some of the pool's hash rate without FORCING miners to leave.  The key points for current users are:

1) At 40% of the network (using blockorigin.pfoe.be as the indicator):  PPS fee will be increased to 7% for all new miners.  Old miners will see the new fee at the next difficulty as well.  The fee will be dropped back to 5% when the pool drops back down under 40%.

2) At 45% of the network:  Getwork pools will be shut down within 24 hours.  This means users on BTC Guild will need to upgrade to a Stratum based miners or use a Stratum proxy on their machines to continue mining if they are not already doing so.  mergedmining.btcguild.com WILL remain online as a getwork pool at first, but may also get taken down.

3) If 40% of the network happens again after removing getwork (will need time for the 2016 block average to adjust):  PPLNS fees will be increased to 4%.  Again, this fee will be dropped back down once the pool has dropped back down to a sub-40% level.

I am doubtful #2 and #3 will be required.  I think the problem is getting enough attention at this point, but a plan is needed so miners are not caught off guard by sudden changes.

I hope the loyal and long time Guild miners understand why these steps are necessary for the Bitcoin network as a whole.  I hate the idea of pushing people away forcefully, but steps must be taken to make other pools seem more appealing if BTC Guild grows too large.

I would like to thank all the current miners for what the pool has become today.  I never expected a project that started as a LAMP server running on mining rig in my dining room to grow into something like this.

[zif33rs]

Been thinking about this for a few days now. I really dont have enough mh/s to make much a difference but it feels right to me to take my workers and move to a smaller pool. Im glad you have protocols in place to limit the perceived threat to the network. In the short time I have mined here I can honestly say that you, Eleuthria..are a outstanding Admin. Thank you for all your hard work. I would not want another person in charge of the globes largest mining operation.

Few other thoughts.

Would it be possible or profitable to "split" the guilds hashrate? Into teams or region? I mean it would still be run by one I guess...but the hashrate split into streams?  As bitcoin adoption becomes more widespread, thousands if not millions of new users coming to join the network are going to have to go someplace. I guess it will be a opportunity for new pools to open up and smaller ones to gain more share.

Anyways..be seeing you around.

Thanks
zif

[DeQuade]

Hello, when Restores password, I get the error "There was an error connecting to the database. Please try again after a few seconds."

[Quantus]

I keep getting strange error messages. IO/error tolerance 2... or something.  And then some thing -kernel. I don't know I'll copy and paste it next time I see it. Also lots of   warning: job finished lasting 2 to 3 secs each.

Using GUI miner with Radeon cards.  I thought it was some thing i was doing but its only happening on your pool.

Edit here is one of them (  'NoneType' object has no attribute 'settimeout'   )

2013-04-07 13:57:46: Listener for "BTC": File "GetworkSource.pyo", line 106, in request
2013-04-07 13:57:46: Listener for "BTC": File "GetworkSource.pyo", line 144, in timeout_response
2013-04-07 13:57:48: Listener for "BTC": btcguild.com:8332 07/04/2013 13:57:48, long poll IO error
2013-04-07 13:57:50: Listener for "BTC": btcguild.com:8332 07/04/2013 13:57:50, long poll IO error

[eleuthria]

Would it be possible or profitable to "split" the guilds hashrate? Into teams or region? I mean it would still be run by one I guess...but the hashrate split into streams?  As bitcoin adoption becomes more widespread, thousands if not millions of new users coming to join the network are going to have to go someplace. I guess it will be a opportunity for new pools to open up and smaller ones to gain more share.

Unfortunately, that doesn't fix the problem of one person (pool) controlling the majority of the network.  It just makes it look shady because now people have to consciously add the two pools together when evaluating the threat.

I keep getting strange error messages. IO/error tolerance 2... or something.  And then some thing -kernel. I don't know I'll copy and paste it next time I see it. Also lots of   warning: job finished lasting 2 to 3 secs each.

Using GUI miner with Radeon cards.  I thought it was some thing i was doing but its only happening on your pool.

Edit here is one of them (  'NoneType' object has no attribute 'settimeout'   )

2013-04-07 13:57:46: Listener for "BTC": File "GetworkSource.pyo", line 106, in request
2013-04-07 13:57:46: Listener for "BTC": File "GetworkSource.pyo", line 144, in timeout_response
2013-04-07 13:57:48: Listener for "BTC": btcguild.com:8332 07/04/2013 13:57:48, long poll IO error
2013-04-07 13:57:50: Listener for "BTC": btcguild.com:8332 07/04/2013 13:57:50, long poll IO error

I'm not quite sure on the exact cause of the error.  I would recommend updating to the GUI Miner available on the BTC Guild support page, which will utilize the Stratum servers and does not rely on the getwork server in any way.

[Kirks]

I PM'd eleuthria about this during the sleepy days

But the GUIMiner version on BTCGuild.com isn't the latest adn I had a similar error with it.  I went to http://guiminer.org/ and that version [ 20121203 ] solved the issue for me.

--Kirks

[DeQuade]

Guys please tell me how to recover the password?

[BitMinerN8]

Guys please tell me how to recover the password?

Support available in IRC channel #btcguild on irc.freenode.net (Eleuthria is the admin) or PM him here on the forums.

[eleuthria]

I've received a response from the ASICMINER team.  They are aware of BTC Guild's growing share of the network, and have told me that their next batches of power will be split among more pools or even solo mining to avoid a pool reaching 51%.  They have also identified that selling hardware is on the table if their own share of the network approaches the 51% level.  This doesn't mean the 51% plan in place will change, but it hopefully means the pool will not hit the 45% stage, and any increases in fees if we hit 40% should only last for 1-2 weeks.

[lophie]

I've received a response from the ASICMINER team.  They are aware of BTC Guild's growing share of the network, and have told me that their next batches of power will be split among more pools or even solo mining to avoid a pool reaching 51%.  They have also identified that selling hardware is on the table if their own share of the network approaches the 51% level.  This doesn't mean the 51% plan in place will change, but it hopefully means the pool will not hit the 45% stage, and any increases in fees if we hit 40% should only last for 1-2 weeks.

How does it feel to have the power to destroy the universe 

[eleuthria]

Just another reminder:  Lock your wallet address if you're positive you won't lose control of your wallet!  There are multiple keyloggers out there right now that will look for logins to Bitcoin pools.  If your wallet is locked, even a compromised account is completely safe, outside of the person messing with worker settings/names.  Your coins cannot be withdrawn to another address if your address is locked!

[Nemesis]

Just another reminder:  Lock your wallet address if you're positive you won't lose control of your wallet!  There are multiple keyloggers out there right now that will look for logins to Bitcoin pools.  If your wallet is locked, even a compromised account is completely safe, outside of the person messing with worker settings/names.  Your coins cannot be withdrawn to another address if your address is locked!

why dont you just implement 2-factor authentication?

Locked address is a bandage, not a solution.

btw, where is pool server located for US? my connection isnt great compared to other pools. I'm using stratum.

[eleuthria]

I've re-enabled a feature that was turned off a year ago when the pool began sending too many emails and ended up being throttled to the point it was unusable.  When changing your email or wallet address from now on, an email will be sent to your current email to confirm the change before it is made active.  It still won't solve the most common attack vector (compromised email + password reset request), but it will prevent a keylogger that only grabbed your pool credentials and not your email credentials.  Just make sure it isn't the same password on both!

btw, where is pool server located for US? my connection isnt great compared to other pools. I'm using stratum.

The servers for 'stratum.btcguild.com' are actually with OVH in Canada now.  I've had to diversify in recent months to make DDoS attacks less effective (no single point of failure for all servers like the previous colocation).  I'm working on diversifying further with colocation in multiple datacenters.  Until recently the pool was not earning enough to pay for multiple colocations, and I had to wait to see if this was going to be another $32-40 bubble followed by another rapid crash before I invested money in buying more hardware and paying the much higher costs to colocate.