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

[eleuthria]

After many months of consideration, I have finally made the choice to announce the planned closure of BTC Guild.  Below, I've outlined the closure process/timeline and reasons that this decision was made.



Closure Timeframe and Process

As identified in the support section and in the 2nd post on this thread, BTC Guild has had an official policy for the amount of time that will be given in the event of closure.  The official date that BTC Guild will cease all business is January 31, 2015.  This post is the start of the identified 3 months of warning.

- Effective immediately, registrations are closed to new users.
- BTC Guild mining servers will remain online until November 30, 2014.
- After the mining servers shutdown, manual withdrawals between 0.001 and 0.009 will no longer have a fee deducted.  Manual withdrawals will be available for balances as low as 0.0005, with a fee of 0.0001 deducted if it is under 0.001.
- Users will have until 11:59 PM (PST) on January 31, 2015 to withdraw any remaining balances on their account.

The above timeline may change if BTC Guild is sold prior to the planned date of closure.



Main Reasons for Closure

1) Risk/cost of a successful attack against the pool.  As pooled mining in general is shrinking due to large manufacturers creating private farms, the potential revenue for the pool has gone down as expected.  While the pool is still very profitable, the amount of time it would take to recover from an attack has increased due to the overall share of the network shrinking.

BTC Guild has, to date, never been successfully hacked.  However, I have seen a rise in attack attempts, and things like Heartbleed/Shellshock which show that efforts are being put into compromising common Linux services if possible.  Neither of those attacks had any affect on BTC Guild, but they were both reminders that under BTC Guild's own code, there are many services which could be a doorway into the pool's servers if a vulnerability was discovered.

One successful attack could cost close to a year of pool revenue, maybe more depending on what happens in the mining landscape over that period of time.  If something else happened in that time (subsequent attack or regulation forcing closure), it would mean continuing to operate the pool beyond this point has cost me more money than it might potentially make in the rest of its lifetime.


2) US government/regulators are already taking stances against specific business types in Bitcoin, applying requirements which would be impossible for BTC Guild to operate under if they attempt to extend regulation into pooled mining, either directly or indirectly due to unclear definitions.  Nobody will mine on a pool which requires them to provide personally identifiable information when they can change a single line in their configuration to point elsewhere.

Additionally, state regulators are starting to make noise about Bitcoin.  New York is the first to publicly put anything forward, but there are 49 other states which can put their own spin on things.  Due to the ability for states to establish a nexus for businesses dealing with their state's residents, it is a scary landscape to continue operating in.

I have no intention of leaving the US myself, and given the recent history of the US when it comes to online businesses, I wouldn't feel safe simply moving the business legal entity to another country while continuing to live in the US myself.



Aquisition and Users's Privacy/Funds

In the event that BTC Guild is acquired prior to closure, users will not have their mining history and withdrawal history transferred to the new owner.  All balances up to the date of aquisition will be retained by myself, and a separate service will be made available to claim any funds owed.  I am unwilling to compromise on this, because I refuse to do anything where it puts the users of the pool at risk of not receiving what they've earned under my watch.



Pool Recommendations

For users looking for a new home for their miners, I highly recommend BitMinter, Eligius, and p2pool.  I do not recommend Slush over any of those 3 options, and I actively encourage users to not use Discus Fish or GHash.io.  Other smaller pools exist which are run by honest people, but due to their size, it is difficult to recommend them to the average miner.


Closing Words

When I got into Bitcoin back in March of 2011, I never expected anything that we've seen over the last 3 and a half years.  I had never built a computer before, never run a server beyond a Gentoo PC in a spare bedroom, and never setup a website that experienced even 0.1% of the traffic BTC Guild gets on an average day.

Bitcoin and BTC Guild have both radically changed my life.  While I am closing BTC Guild, I still plan to remain a part of the Bitcoin community.  I do believe, even in the face of over-regulation, that Bitcoin will continue to grow and become more useful and usable.  I just feel that it is time to move on from BTC Guild, and take pride in the fact that BTC Guild's closure can show that not all Bitcoin businesses end with somebody stealing funds from their users, either by "getting hacked" or outright theft.

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[Minor Miner]

Just to clarify:
IF no one buys BTC Guild from you, we need to have moved our miners BEFORE November 30.   The 90 days is just for withdraws, not for mining.  Correct?

[eleuthria]

Just to clarify:
IF no one buys BTC Guild from you, we need to have moved our miners BEFORE November 30.   The 90 days is just for withdraws, not for mining.  Correct?

Correct.  Unless the pool is sold, users will need to move miners by November 30th.  The remaining 60 days are there for users to claim any balances left on their accounts.

Miners may wish to leave now, but it is possible that BTC Guild continues to operate under new management and the full closure does not happen.

[PatMan]

This is a sad day.

I commend you on what you have done for the Bitcoin community and for Bitcoin itself with your tireless work on BTCGuild. You set the highest standards possible with your honesty, understanding and continuous help towards your miners, no other pool comes close to your customer support.

Your Legendary status is an understatement. Kudos to you. And thank you.

Y'all come on over to p2pool now - ya hear? 

[navigator]

 

[kingcolex]

This is terrible news, i can't believe it. 

[pikachuy]

You said:

"Pool Recommendations and Advice

For users looking for a new home for their miners, I highly recommend BitMinter, Eligius, and p2pool. I do not recommend Slush over any of those 3 options, and I actively encourage users to not use Discus Fish or GHash.io. Other smaller pools exist which are run by honest people, but due to their size, it is difficult to recommend them to the average miner."

Is something up with slush that we should know about?

[eleuthria]

You said:

"Pool Recommendations and Advice

For users looking for a new home for their miners, I highly recommend BitMinter, Eligius, and p2pool. I do not recommend Slush over any of those 3 options, and I actively encourage users to not use Discus Fish or GHash.io. Other smaller pools exist which are run by honest people, but due to their size, it is difficult to recommend them to the average miner."

Is something up with slush that we should know about?

Slush does not have any presence on his own pool thread (or the forum itself), continues to use a broken payout method even after saying he was going to change to a proper unhoppable method, and redirected a DDoS at BTC Guild in the past by pointing his DNS to my servers.

[eleuthria]

Manual payout has been adjusted to only take a 0.0001 fee for payouts under 0.01.  Automatic payouts will be adjusted to send the full amount rather than the exact amount specified before the weekend is over.

[BRADLEYPLOOF]

E,
   You're an amazing person to have developed 2 of the most successful pools in the history of cryptos, BTCGuild and ScryptGuild.  I hope that your endeavors take you to higher realms of possibility.  It's sad to see bitcoin becoming so centralized with large farms popping up, but that's what PoW coins will eventually see happen as machines become more powerful, costs rise, and difficulty skyrockets.  I have high hopes for bitcoin, but the immense expenditure on electricity makes me feel slightly ill...

Good luck out there and I hope your next adventure is a success!

[Gogreen]

Sad news I hope Bitmain will take over this awesome pool. 

[Luckycoin90]

Just to clarify:
IF no one buy
s BTC Guild from you, we need to have moved our miners BEFORE November 30.   The 90 days is just for withdraws, not for mining.  Correct?

I'd love to buy BTC Guild mining pools if offer a good price. it has a nice and simple UI. too bad it is closing down.

[eleuthria]

This is a small update, and is reflected on the website.  There is already interest being shown by multiple parties, at least two of which appear to be seriously interested, in purchasing BTC Guild.

While I absolutely recommend users prepare to switch pools, it *may* not be needed.  If the pool is sold prior to November 30th, or is in the final stages of negotiation, then the pool will continue to operate, hopefully without any downtime in the transition to new management.

[windpath]

This is a sad day.

I commend you on what you have done for the Bitcoin community and for Bitcoin itself with your tireless work on BTCGuild. You set the highest standards possible with your honesty, understanding and continuous help towards your miners, no other pool comes close to your customer support.

Your Legendary status is an understatement. Kudos to you. And thank you.

Y'all come on over to p2pool now - ya hear? 

This.

Looking forward to seeing your next direction eleuthria, any plans in the works?

[philipma1957]

This is a small update, and is reflected on the website.  There is already interest being shown by multiple parties, at least two of which appear to be seriously interested, in purchasing BTC Guild.

While I absolutely recommend users prepare to switch pools, it *may* not be needed.  If the pool is sold prior to November 30th, or is in the final stages of negotiation, then the pool will continue to operate, hopefully without any downtime in the transition to new management.

THANKS FOR BEING A GOOD POOL OPERATOR.

[pjcltd]

BTC Guild was the first pool i used
TOP service 
TOP support
YOU will be missed.

Paul...

[cesarm]

You should donate the pool to the community.

[Kexkey]

Thanks for everything Eleuthria, BTC Guild was my first pool and you are one of the most present and active pool operators around!  Great work, great contribution!

Good luck for your future projects!

Kexkey

[faetos]

E, thank you for running such a top notch and honest operation. Your commitment to the community and your transparency will always be appreciate by me.

[kingcolex]

You should donate the pool to the community.

and how would that work? Community ran pools are P2Pool not central authority pools.