Non Merged Mining Pools ?

[Manko]

Which pools do not use merged mining ?

Are they aiming to switch to merged mining ?

What's the best non merged mining pool out there ?

[eleuthria]

I know Deepbit and Arsbitcoin do not currently offer merged mining.  Is there any reason you're looking for a pool that doesn't?  Merged mining doesn't take any of your bitcoins away, it just provides NMC as a bonus.  I know I certainly turned a lot of people away towards pools that offered it when BTC Guild did not.

[Manko]

I may have misunderstood how it works then. I thought that merged mining meant the miners work on both BTC and NMC.

I want my miners to work solely on BTC.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I may have misunderstood how it works then. I thought that merged mining meant the miners work on both BTC and NMC.

I want my miners to work solely on BTC.

Why?

With BTC only mining if you get X BTC then w/ merged mining you get the same X BTC PLUS some NMC.  Even if you threw away the NMC you wouldn't earn any less than a BTC only pool.

It would be like if your boss paid you 10 BTC and 50 NMC per hour.  You don't like NMC so you quit and work for a company which pays you 10 BTC per hour.  How exactly did you come out ahead?

[Meni Rosenfeld]

I may have misunderstood how it works then. I thought that merged mining meant the miners work on both BTC and NMC.

I want my miners to work solely on BTC.

You don't take some of your compute power away from BTC and into NMC. With the same computation you solve both BTC and NMC blocks. That's why it's called "merged mining". You get the same BTC and bonus NMC, which is why everyone is excited about it.

For a technical explanation of how it works you can read this stackexchange answer.

[Inaba]

At Eclipse, you have the option of turning off your Merged Mining if you want.  https://eclipsemc.com

[teukon]

At Eclipse, you have the option of turning off your Merged Mining if you want.  https://eclipsemc.com

If a miner at your pool opts out of merged mining and they submit a share which would generate a Namecoin block is the winning hash not broadcast?  I couldn't find anything on the "Pool Disccusion" page about it.

[DeathAndTaxes]

At Eclipse, you have the option of turning off your Merged Mining if you want.  https://eclipsemc.com

If a miner at your pool opts out of merged mining and they submit a share which would generate a Namecoin block is the winning hash not broadcast?  I couldn't find anything on the "Pool Disccusion" page about it.

Yeah what exactly happens to those shares?  Do you not solve the NMC block even if it generates a solution?

[Inaba]

It is just not submitted to the Namecoind in the first place, so there's no test as to whether or not it's a valid share.  It's kind of a pointless feature IMHO, but I had a couple people ask for it.  Maybe some people just hate Namecoin?

[DeathAndTaxes]

It is just not submitted to the Namecoind in the first place, so there's no test as to whether or not it's a valid share.  It's kind of a pointless feature IMHO, but I had a couple people ask for it.  Maybe some people just hate Namecoin?

Well at least you give them the option.  Interesting idea.  Funny that people would be that dedicated to run down "free money".

[teukon]

It is just not submitted to the Namecoind in the first place, so there's no test as to whether or not it's a valid share.  It's kind of a pointless feature IMHO, but I had a couple people ask for it.  Maybe some people just hate Namecoin?

Good.  I would imagine that some people opting out of merged mining are specifically wanting to not support the Namecoin network.  Honestly though, knowing the mining community I would expect most people opting out mistakenly believe that doing so will boost their Bitcoin income.

[Manko]

It is just not submitted to the Namecoind in the first place, so there's no test as to whether or not it's a valid share.  It's kind of a pointless feature IMHO, but I had a couple people ask for it.  Maybe some people just hate Namecoin?

Good.  I would imagine that some people opting out of merged mining are specifically wanting to not support the Namecoin network.  Honestly though, knowing the mining community I would expect most people opting out mistakenly believe that doing so will boost their Bitcoin income.

That's exactly it. Misunderstanding how it works. I thought that your miners would be split between the two coins, jumping from one to the other, or whatever. But if you say that people merge mining will get the same amount of BTC as those using pools that are only mining BTC, then I'll stick with the merged mining.

Seems a bit hocus pocus to me, but I'll believe you. Hell, it was the original NMC run, way back, that paid for all my equipment, therefore I am very glad to be involved in it again

[teukon]

That's exactly it. Misunderstanding how it works. I thought that your miners would be split between the two coins, jumping from one to the other, or whatever. But if you say that people merge mining will get the same amount of BTC as those using pools that are only mining BTC, then I'll stick with the merged mining.

Seems a bit hocus pocus to me, but I'll believe you. Hell, it was the original NMC run, way back, that paid for all my equipment, therefore I am very glad to be involved in it again

Unfortunately, the profitability of merged mining over normal Bitcoin mining has fallen quite a lot since it was first rolled out but it's still a nice bonus (about 3.6% right now).  There was a period after merged mining became available that Namecoin mining was actually more profitable than Bitcoin mining (so the merged mining bonus was over 100%)!  Namecoin difficulty is still rising fast so this bonus should continue to drop.

[DeathAndTaxes]

That's exactly it. Misunderstanding how it works. I thought that your miners would be split between the two coins, jumping from one to the other, or whatever. But if you say that people merge mining will get the same amount of BTC as those using pools that are only mining BTC, then I'll stick with the merged mining.

Seems a bit hocus pocus to me, but I'll believe you. Hell, it was the original NMC run, way back, that paid for all my equipment, therefore I am very glad to be involved in it again

Unfortunately, the profitability of merged mining over normal Bitcoin mining has fallen quite a lot since it was first rolled out but it's still a nice bonus (about 3.6% right now).  There was a period after merged mining became available that Namecoin mining was actually more profitable than Bitcoin mining (so the merged mining bonus was over 100%)!  Namecoin difficulty is still rising fast so this bonus should continue to drop.

Which is very much expected outcome of increased production without (much) increased utility.  There is no something for nothing.  For example if we increased the Bitcoin block reward to 5000 BTC does one thing miners would make 100x as much?  Of course not.  The price of Bitcoin eventually would simply fall to 1/100th of its current value.

If utility for BTC & NMC increases 0% then we should expect the value of BTC & NMC to eventually be equal to BTC prior to merged mining.  The good news is the utility of NMC has increase (some) as it is stronger and that should increase confidence in the system.   If people value NMC more (as other issues get worked out) then the value of merged mining will rise.  If the utility decreases (because interest dies off) then value of merged mining will decrease.

[ThiagoCMC]

At Eclipse, you have the option of turning off your Merged Mining if you want.  https://eclipsemc.com

I think that, if somebody turn off merged mining, the pool can turn it on for itself.
So, for every user with NMC off, the pool will in fact, not disable the merged mining and stay with that namecoins.

[Graet]

It is just not submitted to the Namecoind in the first place, so there's no test as to whether or not it's a valid share.  It's kind of a pointless feature IMHO, but I had a couple people ask for it.  Maybe some people just hate Namecoin?

At Eclipse, you have the option of turning off your Merged Mining if you want.  https://eclipsemc.com

I think that, if somebody turn off merged mining, the pool can turn it on for itself.
So, for every user with NMC off, the pool will in fact, not disable the merged mining and stay with that namecoins.

I guess you didnt read down a little before you posted? or are you making very strong unsubstantiated accusations?

and at the end of the day if it is making NO difference to BTC earnings and the MINER choses not to want nmc on a MM pool what is so bad about them remaining in the pool wallet. seems too many miners expect pools to be charities....

http://eligius.st/wiki/index.php/FAQ has an interestring slant on it - register for nmc or the pool keeps them

of course the simple way to avoid these issues is mine on a non-MM pool (oh hang on i remember they secretly mine NMC but keep them all)- well according to some that post in these forums...

so much crap in these forums, i would have expected better from someone tagged as "staff"

[Meni Rosenfeld]

It is just not submitted to the Namecoind in the first place, so there's no test as to whether or not it's a valid share.  It's kind of a pointless feature IMHO, but I had a couple people ask for it.  Maybe some people just hate Namecoin?

At Eclipse, you have the option of turning off your Merged Mining if you want.  https://eclipsemc.com

I think that, if somebody turn off merged mining, the pool can turn it on for itself.
So, for every user with NMC off, the pool will in fact, not disable the merged mining and stay with that namecoins.

I guess you didnt read down a little before you posted? or are you making very strong unsubstantiated accusations?

and at the end of the day if it is making NO difference to BTC earnings and the MINER choses not to want nmc on a MM pool what is so bad about them remaining in the pool wallet. seems too many miners expect pools to be charities....

http://eligius.st/wiki/index.php/FAQ has an interestring slant on it - register for nmc or the pool keeps them

of course the simple way to avoid these issues is mine on a non-MM pool (oh hang on i remember they secretly mine NMC but keep them all)- well according to some that post in these forums...

so much crap in these forums, i would have expected better from someone tagged as "staff"

I don't think ThiagoCMC was making any accusations, rather an optimization suggestion. He said that Eclipse can, instead of not doing MM for opt-outers as is the current policy, do MM and keep the NMC either for the operator or for the other miners.

Personally I think it is reasonable to expect that if you disable MM then your shares will not be used for MM at all.

[deepceleron]

http://eligius.st/wiki/index.php/FAQ has an interestring slant on it - register for nmc or the pool keeps them

Maybe that's how the other "non-merged" pools work, you don't know they are actually running merged mining, and they do keep them...

Rhetorical: The hashrate of Namecoin is now about 40% of Bitcoin; do all the pools with merged mining add up to that?

[eleuthria]

http://eligius.st/wiki/index.php/FAQ has an interestring slant on it - register for nmc or the pool keeps them

Maybe that's how the other "non-merged" pools work, you don't know they are actually running merged mining, and they do keep them...

Rhetorical: The hashrate of Namecoin is now about 40% of Bitcoin; do all the pools with merged mining add up to that?

40% sounds pretty close.  BTC Guild + Slush + Eligius alone aren't far off from it.  There certainly aren't any LARGE pools that are hiding merged mining as far as I can tell.  You can check yourself though by looking at blocks solved by "non-merged" pools.  You can't hide the fact that you're merged mining if you post which blocks your pool is finding.

[DeathAndTaxes]

http://eligius.st/wiki/index.php/FAQ has an interestring slant on it - register for nmc or the pool keeps them

Maybe that's how the other "non-merged" pools work, you don't know they are actually running merged mining, and they do keep them...

Rhetorical: The hashrate of Namecoin is now about 40% of Bitcoin; do all the pools with merged mining add up to that?

40% sounds pretty close.  BTC Guild + Slush + Eligius alone aren't far off from it.  There certainly aren't any LARGE pools that are hiding merged mining as far as I can tell.  You can check yourself though by looking at blocks solved by "non-merged" pools.  You can't hide the fact that you're merged mining if you post which blocks your pool is finding.

Exactly. Really the only pool with a chance of hiding it would be a pure PPS pool which provides no block data.
"We pay xxx BTC per valid share."  The agreement is simply a set  compensation per share.  In that case they aren't exactly cheating unless they are asked and lie.

As far as the 40%.  It isn't very easy to merge mine when solo mining.  If you could solo merge easier I think we would get over 50%.  Interestingly both NMC & BTC seem to have stabilized their hashrates.