btc.com vs. Slushpool

[ccgllc]

Pros:  BTC.Com - lower fees (1.5% vs. 2%), FPPS (daily payouts)
Cons: BTC.Com - owned by Bitmain, operated out of China, FAQ is typical "Chinglish"

Pros: Slushpool - great user interface
Cons: Higher fees, higher variance

From a business perspective, where I need to maximize profit and politics aside, why wouldn't I want to mine at BTC.com?

ps.  Running a ~1.6PH farm and need regular income to pay over $10K/month/USD electric bills, so simply can't afford to "ramp up" on any smaller PPLNS pool, even if they have lower fees.  Although not really a daily decision, mining profits are marginal enough that profit is checked daily to make sure price and difficulty are still in line.  Mined with this farm from November 2017 to November 2018, hibernating until April 2019.  Now watching things closely.

[bitcoinfuck]

Fees Are 4% on btc.com

[ccgllc]

Fees Are 4% on btc.com

Seeing 1.5% in several places, for instance:  https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/pools/btccom/

Unfortunately, can't seem to find it on their website.

[rifleman74]

Seeing 1.5% in several places, for instance:  https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/pools/btccom/

Unfortunately, can't seem to find it on their website.

It's much higher than 1.5%.

[ccgllc]

It's much higher than 1.5% 

Any source for that?

[philipma1957]

Any source for that?

pretty sure they keep the tx fees  and take 1.5%

how big are you ?

100th

1ph

10ph

I think slush pool is a bad choice  if you go off line  you can lose  a blocks earnings it they hit a block.

I have about 570th pointed to viabtc..  they pay 99.49% with zero variance.  sometimes they drift  up to 103.25%  if tx fees are high  they feed  some of them back to you.

they have zero variance.

I get about 0.02 btc from them every day.

[minefarmbuy]

Not always current but worth a look.

https://poolprofit.io/en/

[ccgllc]

pretty sure they keep the tx fees  and take 1.5%

how big are you ?

They claim transaction fees are shared.  At least CryptoCompare things so (see link above).

As stated in my original post, I run about 1.6PH of hashing.

I've used ViaBTC before.  Just reread their (easy to find, unlike btc.com) fee statement.  If I'm following, they charge 4% of the block reward and 2% of the transaction fee using their PPS+ payout method.  As stated, this results in a regular block reward payment and a variable transaction fee payment - which I have no issues with.  

Since I can't find solid, onsite, information on BTC.com I guess I'll just stop thinking about them.  Then my issue simply becomes one of risk reduction via lower variance by paying ViaBTC 2% more on the block reward.  That is a non-trivial amount over a year period for me.  Quick math, using ViaBTC's number of 0.00003731 BTC/TH/Day:

1600TH * 0.00003731 * 365 = 21.79BTC/Year (all things remaining static, which of course they won't).  So 2% on that is about 0.44 BTC, or about $2500/year. You can see why I'm asking...

[philipma1957]

The problem with a 10k power bill and tight margins is you need to have no variance.

So viabtc or any good pps+ pool is want you need to use.

I stopped mining at slush years ago as they penalize you if you go offline.

So what is btc payout on btc pool are they pps?

If they are why not do 1/2 btcpool and 1/2 viabtc.

On viabtc 800 th should earn about  0.03 a day and pay you every day.

Run 800 th on btcpool and see how close they are after a week then after two weeks.

And yes you have tight margins what is your gear s9? Or newer.

[ccgllc]

I don't go offline very often, and the "ramp up" is measured in hours, not days or weeks.  Yeah, my systems blink occasionally, but that hardly registers on Slush.

BTC.com is claiming 1.5% PPS+ like system with shared transaction fees, called fpps, per several sources (one quoted above), although I've yet found a statement anywhere on their site.  fpps is described on their site.

My gear is a mix of S9s and A841 running in high efficiency modes.

Not always current but worth a look.

https://poolprofit.io/en/

Nice site, and I love that they show their math.

However the ViaBTC numbers are off, they are using the older 2% PPS 1% PPLNS fees I think Via used as a promotional several months ago.

[philipma1957]

Still  slush  can steall your hash if you are offline an added risk  of mining there.

viabtc and I guess btc.com  don't have that risk.

you have enough hash  to be paid daily at viabtc.  I am paid daily with  540 th.

I suspect  that viabtc and btc.com  are close to equal.

I am the first to say mine at kano or ck but the margins to do it no longer are there.

So my suggestion stands  ½ at viabtc and ½ at btc.com.

viabtc does give some bullshit coins worth next to nothing I don't count their value.

[kano]

I am the first to say mine at kano or ck but the margins to do it no longer are there.

Well at my pool its yearly average has been above all the other pools.

So your statement about margins is false.

The difference at my pool is much higher variance vs the others (due to the current size), but long term better rewards.

But there's no way to ever tell anything at that other pool you mentioned since there is no history of it anywhere ... no one would ever even know if someone mining on it was doing something wrong, the only log is a line of text for each worker in a text file that has no history ...

[ccgllc]

Guess it boils down to estimating my downtime and see if that is more or less than the $2500/year those other two would cost me over Slush.

Using the numbers above, Kano would win by $250/year over Slush, and $2750/year over viabtc or btc.com, if my business could adapt to Kano's variance. Currently, our confidence we will be running next month is not high enough to make that call, nor do we have enough banked to weather through Kano's ramp up period, although we evaluate that regularly.

Thanks, I do appreciate the conversation.

[philipma1957]

Well at my pool its yearly average has been above all the other pools.

So your statement about margins is false.

The difference at my pool is much higher variance vs the others (due to the current size), but long term better rewards.

But there's no way to ever tell anything at that other pool you mentioned since there is no history of it anywhere ... no one would ever even know if someone mining on it was doing something wrong, the only log is a line of text for each worker in a text file that has no history ...

Oh please.  Let’s not get into a fight again.

The problem with your pool is lack of hash. Your older records had a higher amount of the overall hash.

What is your current hash rate right now?

What is your ramp up right now?

He gets a monthly bill of ten thousand.

I checked your pool
80 ph   Takes a while for ramp up

About 3 weeks

He is just firing up his gear. And his margin is he earn about 11000 and spends 10000 each month.

So. The first 3 weeks  with normal luck on your pool drop him in a pretty big hole.  Do the math give your pool normal luck vs viabtc certain payout instantly

Let’s pretend after 3 weeks you hit exactly 5 blocks he gets paid as if you hit 2.5 blocks.

So carry it out to 9 weeks about two months

Your pool hits 15 blocks he gets paid like he hit 12.5 blocks

And viabtc certainly pays him like he hit 14.9 blocks

So at 9 weeks he is fucked

Go to 18 weeks

You pay 12.5 + 15 = 27.5.    Only if luck is normal
Via pays 14.9 + 14.9 = 29.8. No risk

Go to 27 weeks

You pay 27.5+15 = 42.5
Via pays 29.8 + 14.9 = 44.7

Go to 54  weeks
You pay. 42.5 + 45 = 87.5
Via pays 44.7 + 44.7 = 89.4

The 3 week ramp up is a killer for him. Because he has very tight margins.

Let’s say I am wrong about via take out.

Drop to 14.8  and you get 88.8 after 54 weeks.
Drop to 14.7 and you get 88.2 after 54 weeks.
Drop to 14.6 and you get 87.6 after 54 weeks.

So it takes a long time to get past the ramp up.

The first nine weeks are bad since 12.5/15 = 83.3% of full payment.

If luck is normal and your pool hash to network difficulty is stable.

So 83.3 % of 22000 is about 18300 and his power is 20000.

Asking a guy to go 1700 in the hole it he first two months is a tough. Ask.

Viabtc he gets say 14.9 blocks of 15 and earns more then 21500.

So your pool after sixty days  in the hole 1700 normal luck
Via after sixty days plus 1500. A 3200 difference for first 9 weeks.

He has old gear and wants to squeeze some coin from it.

A small 5 n pool simply does not work for him due to ramp up.

If you have a five day ramp up a 5 n pool is okay.

And of course if you did the ramp up you may as well stay.

[kano]

Hmmmm ... $1700 (according to you) is a big issue ... and you are assuming the BTC price also ... which changes every single day.

OK so to do your numbers accurately - since your math is actually wrong:

On my web site it currently says:
"The pool hash rate for the last day is roughly 74.65PHs which means the 5Nd 'ramp' is roughly 22days 8hrs."

So what does that actually mean?
It means that it currently takes 22 1/3 days to reward your mining.

It also means the expected return for the first 22.33 days is half PPS+ expected, but consistent from then onwards, and of course if he leaves, then he gets the ramp down also for 5Nd after he leaves.

We've only found one block this month so far so the reward is based on one lower than average txn block - check the previous two months, the average is 104.77% and 103.00% - but I'll also use that low current number.
101.78% minus the pool fee of 0.9% gives 100.8% expected.

At the current diff, a 1600TH miner expects, on average at 100% PPS, 0.06003001 BTC a day - 100.8% gives 0.06051025 BTC expected average per day
So for the first two weeks of this diff, he'd expect 14 times that = 0.84714356 BTC

Now we can leave this 0.06051025 BTC a day if you like, even though it's wrong after this diff, since diff changes every 2 weeks, and if we keep that number it makes his results look worse than they are - so my calc below is actually worse than what would happen - but we'll go with that.

So for 22.33 days that's 1.35119388 BTC expected.
But due to the 5Nd it's half that - so 0.67559694 BTC expected for 22.33 days.
Then say it's only 30 days (again makes the result worse) there's thus another 7.66 days at 0.06051025 = 0.46350852 gives
1.13910546 BTC of 1.81470240 if he was already fully ramped

Every month after that, it has no effect.

However, the starting position is not correct either:
1.81470240 BTC is not $11,000 ... it's more like $10525 ($5800 per BTC) if he can pay NO fees converting it (which I also doubt)
Of course he isn't expected to get $10525 on my pool, but 1.13910546 BTC which gives $6606 = a $3394 loss in the first month.

However, on ViaBTC his expected BTC for 30 days is PPS-4% but they supposedly add more on top of that ... but since we are saying that txn fees are only 101.78% for my pool above, I very much doubt you'll get much more than 96% PPS but we'll throw in that extra 1.78% and say about 97.8% PPS
So 97.8% PSS for 30 days is 30 x 0.06003001 x 0.978 = 1.76128049 BTC (N.B. ViaBTC has withdrawl fees also) but magically without any fees anywhere that = $10,215 so his numbers basically say there's no way he should do this especially considering the next diff change will most likely be over 10% and thus a loss mining even on ViaBTC.

So while you are trying to trash my pool due to the PPLNS 5Nd, you completely ignored the fact that your suggestion to use ViaBTC is a bad idea also, just not as bad for the first 22.33 days as mining on my pool

Edit: though if you think price is rising, then the 22.33 day 5Nd is a good thing to get a higher BTC price

[philipma1957]

Here is current pay off for btc  99.57  which is  0.00003715   x 1600 = 0.05944

for your pool   There is no guaranteed payoff.

and your ramp up is now  22.3 days

Block Statistics

Description   Time   Mean Diff%   MeanTx%   CDF[Erl]   Luck%   ?PAPPS%
Last 5 Blocks   7.5wks   143.23%   103.41%   0.8412   69.82%   71.55%
Last 10 Blocks   9.4wks   104.20%   103.41%   0.5934   95.97%   98.35%
Last 25 Blocks   19.2wks   110.12%   102.14%   0.7109   90.81%   91.92%
Last 50 Blocks   30.5wks   130.43%   101.62%   0.9779   76.67%   77.21%
Last 100 Blocks   41.0wks   111.97%   101.47%   0.8821   89.31%   89.81%
Last 250 Blocks   79.5wks   106.91%   104.98%   0.8619   93.54%   97.31%
Last 500 Blocks   99.7wks   107.08%   109.47%   0.9409   93.39%   101.31%
Last 1000 Blocks   137.5wks   104.08%   109.09%   0.9004   96.08%   103.87%
All - Last 2413 Blocks   240.8wks   98.75%   104.66%   0.2716   101.26%   105.03%

So with no  gauranteed payoff

any of you PAPPS numbers can happen

your 99 .7 wk figure  of 101.31%  Would be competitive after  rampup. and win in the long run.

your 79.5 week 97.31  loses to via 99.57
your 41.9 week 89.81 loses to via  99.57
your 30.5 week 77.21 loses to via 99.57

I am trained and degreed in accounting

so 3 of those benchmarks lose not counting the ramp up penalty.

his margins are tight.

0.05944 is  about 350.45  x 30 = $10,513  or a 513 profit if he pays 10000 for power  he gets paid every day.

Now your pool would be an easy pick if price was to jump to 7500  as  it is about 445.80 or 13374-10000 = 3374  margin not so tight.

If he was to ask me to advise him financially which he did  I would tell him put most of hs gear on viabtc due to his tight profit margin.

If coins jumped to 7500  real fast  I would tell him  use you and use via btc  or use ckpool and via btc

in a ratio of:

70 via 30 kano
70 via 30 ck

That would be responsible advice. viabtc is way more nimble then your pool  he gets paid every day and updated on the hour.  He can leave easy and join back easy.

BTW  you are correct your  ramp up penalty  is evened out on the back end.  But he stated he can't afford the  ramp up cost.

[DaveF]

He can leave easy and join back easy.

And that statement there makes the all important point.
*IF* you don't care about profit and all you want to do is mine BTC then yes you can argue over who pays better.

If you care about money, there are at times coins / pools that pay better then BTC.
You don't have to like BCH / BSV / PPC / BCA or just about any other SHA coin.
You don't have to like Nicehash or any other rental pool.

But if they will make you more BTC to mine there / those coins that you have to convert to fiat to pay bills, and you are not mining there / those coins then fighting over btc.com / viabtc / slush / kano is a waste of time.

BECAUSE IF YOU ARE NOT MINING THERE / THOSE COINS, THEN YOU ARE NOT FOLLOWING THE MONEY AND IT'S ALL IRRELEVANT

-Dave

[ccgllc]

If you care about money, there are at times coins / pools that pay better then BTC.
You don't have to like BCH / BSV / PPC / BCA or just about any other SHA coin.
You don't have to like Nicehash or any other rental pool.

But if they will make you more BTC to mine there / those coins that you have to convert to fiat to pay bills, and you are not mining there / those coins then fighting over btc.com / viabtc / slush / kano is a waste of time.

BECAUSE IF YOU ARE NOT MINING THERE / THOSE COINS, THEN YOU ARE NOT FOLLOWING THE MONEY AND IT'S ALL IRRELEVANT

-Dave

Off topic Dave.  That said:

A quick look at coin.dance shows BTC being 8.3% more profitable to mine than BCH, and 53.8% more profitable to mine than BSV.  When you mine altcoins your mostly speculation mining, hoping the current loss is made up by some future spike.

Profit mining pools are risky:  They look at the current price of a coin at some exchange or two, figure the difficulty of finding a block, and go with the most "profitable".  However, the price of that coin is likely to be different after 100 confirms, when it can be exchanged for something else, so at the time of exchange it may, or may not, be the most profitable.  Few, if any, profile mining pools check the order depth as well.  Its pretty easy to overwhelm an exchanges order depth with profit pools.

[philipma1957]

I did not bring up via btc  switch option  as I don't chase.  A switcher is always a bit behind the curve so I don't bother with the software.
Best analogy is imagine 90% of network is on viabtc with auto switch.  it senses  bch is better then btc and switches to it.  In under 1 hour btc becomes better then bch and it switches back.  So you would always be behind the curve.

I find a  useful tool is pretending  90% of the net work does the exact same thing and then project the result.  When you do this  It helps in decision making process.

I want to stress that  via btc pays 98% of tx fees and 96% of the block  this translates  to 99.57%  of 12.50 coin blocks today.

This is guaranteed and you can leave it in a day right before the days payment is sent.  This is really freaking flexible and helps a guy like ccllgc
with his 10000 power bill for 10500/10600 in coin  ie tight margins.

now magically make his gear all s17's
and you have :

  5000 power bill  for 10600 in coin  if hash stays same power is cut 50% or
10000 power bill for 21200 in coin if power stays same hash is 2x

in either case he is  at 47.17% power for coin vs  94.34% power cost for coin
this is not a tight margin of profit  and he could afford to  pay the upfront 5n ramp up penalty  and risk bad variance with ck or kano 5n pools.

Going back to viabtc charging pay 96% block  and 98% tx fee
the worst  is 96 % of 12.5 coins  which is  if  tx fees are 0.00000001
the best would be closer to 115.6%  which is if tx fees are 2.5 coins

that is .96 x 12.5 = 12.00
and     .98 x  2.5 =   2.45

totals      15.00   14.45  or   14.45/12.50 = 115.6%

if  fees are .5 coins

12 + .49 = 12.49  which is 12.49/12.50 = 99.92%  this is close to right now.

I do not knock kano's pool if you are ramped up and mining with him
I do not knock kano's pool if you have all modern gear and it is at 40-45 watts a th.   it is a decent move to go to his pool or stay on it under those cases.

But if you  have 80 watt a th gear moving 1.6 ph to his pool is an unfavorable risk..
the op has two choices  slush or viabtc mostly due to his tight margins  of 10000 power and about 10,500/10600 usd in coins earned monthly.

[DaveF]

Off topic Dave.  That said:

A quick look at coin.dance shows BTC being 8.3% more profitable to mine than BCH, and 53.8% more profitable to mine than BSV.  When you mine altcoins your mostly speculation mining, hoping the current loss is made up by some future spike.

Profit mining pools are risky:  They look at the current price of a coin at some exchange or two, figure the difficulty of finding a block, and go with the most "profitable".  However, the price of that coin is likely to be different after 100 confirms, when it can be exchanged for something else, so at the time of exchange it may, or may not, be the most profitable.  Few, if any, profile mining pools check the order depth as well.  Its pretty easy to overwhelm an exchanges order depth with profit pools.

We can probably go back and forth on this for a while. But:

1) Yes it's a bit off topic, but when discussing profit you can't live in a bubble and since this started as btc.com vs slush and added viabtc and others it does kind of come in.
2) As of now it's better to be on BTC then BCH / BSV but there are times (sometimes days) when that is not true.
2a) viabtc / btc.com / others are PPS BCH same as BTC and you can convert it quickly and cheaply.
3) True on mining the other coins. You do have to wait and that can kill profits.
4) Nicehash / MRR  are not profit mining pools, you are renting your rigs to people who are paying you in BTC they one is PPS the other is btc per th per time. There are others that operate in this way also.

Since this AM it has been more profitable to mine on nicehash even with their insane fees. If you are in it for the profit you don't care why, you just point and mine.

Discussions like this go round and round and round. It's kind of like religious or political discussion. 99.999% of the time we are not going to change the other persons view. But I think it is important to have them.
 
-Dave