A solo Bitcoin miner just won block 718214 reward worth 6.25 $BTC

[DannyHamilton]

He's got some facts wrong

yes please correct me

Happy to do so.

COINBASE (Newly generated coins)        1PKN98VN2z5gwSGZvGKS2bj8aADZBkyhkZ  6.26810839 BTC
                                                           OP_RETURN ?x?x?x?x?x?x?x?x?x                  0.00000000 BTC
                                                           OP_RETURN ?x?x?x?x?x?x?x?x?x                  0.00000000 BTC

in pools that pay out to a pool owner only(later shared). their 'variance' in this example is instead of using a asics address as one output they use a random op return per asic(like an asic ID, unique to each asic). and then another op return as a an extra-extra-nonce to give that asic more work every few seconds

I'm not aware of a single pool that uses OP_RETURN in this way, and I can't think of any reason that they would. It would be inefficient to use OP_RETURN in this way when they can (and do) just use the input section of the transaction for extranonce.

.. gotta laugh at danny
waitress scenario.. he talks about the reward. not the work
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solo MINING emphasises the work. and who manages the work. its not about the reward.
ck pool is a 98% reward POOL. not a solo managed local independent miner

Pool (vs. solo) was created specifically because of the reward. It was created as a way to reduce the time between rewards (and the amount of luck needed to get paid) by entering an agreement with others to all share the rewards that are received.

If a pool exists where the rewards are shared among participants based on the amount of hash power that they each contribute to the pool, BUT each participant gets to run their own software to choose for themselves which transactions are included in the block (and builds those blocks themselves), would you call that solo mining?  Most wouldn't.

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[franky1]

solo mining was a thing even before the reward had a value.
solo mining was about confirming transactions by collating transaction data and getting a difficult hash of that collected data.

you might have a tardis in your avatar, but you do realise this little detail.. you cant actually go back in time and change history with a tardis avatar

If a pool exists where the rewards are shared among participants based on the amount of hash power that they each contribute to the pool, BUT each participant gets to run their own software to choose for themselves which transactions are included in the block (and builds those blocks themselves), would you call that solo mining?  Most wouldn't.

heck. i dont need a tardis avatar to have a sci-fi, fantasy entertainment view of history. i can actually find a real life documentary better way to look at history. its called searching up quotes, and statements made in history

https://braiins.com/stratum-v1
^ hint its all about the 'getwork' and blocktemplate stuff, not the reward share

[DannyHamilton]

If a pool exists where the rewards are shared among participants based on the amount of hash power that they each contribute to the pool, BUT each participant gets to run their own software to choose for themselves which transactions are included in the block (and builds those blocks themselves), would you call that solo mining?  Most wouldn't.

heck. i dont need a tardis avatar to have a sci-fi, fantasy entertainment view of history.

That's not really an answer to the question, is it?

https://braiins.com/stratum-v1
^ hint its all about the 'getwork' and blocktemplate stuff, not the reward share

Is it though?

Here's a direct quote from YOUR SOURCE (bold and underline added by me for emphasis):

many participants were no longer earning revenue reliably enough to keep mining.

The solution was for miners to pool their computing resources together so they could find blocks more consistently and therefore receive a portion of the block reward regularly enough to have a decently stable cash flow.

By the way, YOUR SOURCE also disproves your nonsense about the extranonce in the coinbase transaction being called an extra-extra-nonce.

Prior to the introduction of extranonce rolling in Stratum V1, miners were only able to modify 2 fields in a block header (nonce and ntime) which they would then hash to search for a solution to a block. Once a miner ran out of new possible combinations, they would need to make a request for more work from the pool (or straight from bitcoind), which was rather inefficient.

Stratum V1 introduced the extranonce field to expand the unique combinations that miners could iterate through when they were assigned some work. By moving this ability to create unique block headers to hash from the pool to the end miners, the whole pooled mining process was made much more efficient.

[franky1]

and your quote you underlined
when they were assigned work

and then re read the page from the prospective of MINING. not rewarding

its pool MINING and solo MINING
not pool REWARDING and solo REWARDING

the main task of a pool is to manage the blocktemplate and the getwork messages.

i know end users that never mined before and dont know about bitcoin technically only think about and care about the reward. but the technical side is different

EG
most users think a car is 'vroom vroom speedy thing' but a car is actually a motorised vehicle for transport of driver and passengers

i know you might want to spend multiple posts being a social drama queen saying "franky wrong coz waitress deserves a tip'
but a waitress is actually a worker for a restaurant. her job is not "tipy tipy" its "clean and serve".

i know a certain group wants to play games, telling people to prune their node and not store blocks, and use altnets instead of bitcoin. and now i have been seeing some trying to break the mining protocol by trying to make mining seem like a useless task apart from getting paid by greedy people... sorry but mining is important and its about the mining of blocks. not the social drama of pretending its only about the tips.

here is a compromise of accurate description of terms

pool mining, 98% solo rewarding

[leea-1334]

Perhaps a better analogy would be tip pooling in a restaurant.

Scenario 3 (ckpool):
Restaurant still exclusively accepting credit card, and still handling payment processing. Instead of distributing the tips based on how much time each employee spent working during that period, the restaurant keeps track of exactly which tips were paid for which employee.  On payday each employee receives ONLY the tips that were paid by customers whose tables they waited on. Restaurant keeps 2% of the tips from each employee to pay for handling the payment processing and distribution of funds. Like Scenario 1, you only get the tips that were paid by your customers, but like Scenario 2, all funds and payment processing are being managed by the restaurant.

I guess this explains it properly,,, and I guess the technical understanding of pool is different from a rational understanding since I would still see this scenario as tip pooling (I enter the pool, the pool manages my funds and payments, I only get rewarded for the work I do from the customers that pay, especially because the pool takes a commission my mind sees this strictly as a pool.

In other words,,, I would say, ckpool is a rewards pool, but you would be doing solo-mining if you join. So this makes the thread topic to me perfectly accurate.

[fillippone]

CK Pool won another block recently.

Here, just to warm the thread a little bit (as if it were necessary), an article from Bitcoinist:


What’s CK Pool? And, Why Are There So Many Solo Miners Getting Block Rewards?

First they pour a little bit of water on the matter, interviewing CK and letting him explaining it's perfectly normal:

People think that this small miner should not have solved the block. People think that was impossible, that there’s something wrong with Bitcoin, or that proof of work is broken or there’s a back door. And this is completely, utterly wrong. There isn’t something wrong with Bitcoin when it happens. It’s perfectly normal, it’s just unlikely.”

“When you’ve got something like an S19, which is the current generation fastest miner you can buy commercially, it consists of millions of tiny little miners itself. So, ultimately, when you solve a block with an S19, you’re actually just solving it with just one hash again, from one chip, within a vast array of millions of other chips, over millions of other hash units.”

Then, they advance some doubt:

And that’s the CK Pool story. The question is, do you believe it? Or are they gaming the system to get attention for their venture? Is it even possible for four solo miners to beat the odds in that fashion? Maybe it is.

Journalism at his best!

[KingsDen]

If a pool exists where the rewards are shared among participants based on the amount of hash power that they each contribute to the pool, BUT each participant gets to run their own software to choose for themselves which transactions are included in the block (and builds those blocks themselves), would you call that solo mining?  Most wouldn't.

I wouldn't call it a solo mining.
The scenario of the waitress in the restaurant seems that the miner is paid based on his hash power (working ability) just as an individual waitress. Let's assume the most hardworking waitress is thrown out of the restaurant to serve customers out of nothing, he will not make such money. The waitress is successful because a restaurant(pool) exists.
Let's see a scenario where there is a sea for fishing, and the target fish is dolphin. Individual fishers have small canoe that cannot penetrate the sea, then decided to join their canoes to build a big boat. Everyone of them climbs the boat for fishing and then one person catches the dolphin.
Is is correct to call him a solo fisher, because his hook caught the dolphin? Besides there would never be a scenario that two hooks from two fishers will catch the dolphin simultaneously.

[DannyHamilton]

If a pool exists where the rewards are shared among participants based on the amount of hash power that they each contribute to the pool, BUT each participant gets to run their own software to choose for themselves which transactions are included in the block (and builds those blocks themselves), would you call that solo mining?  Most wouldn't.

I wouldn't call it a solo mining.

Most wouldn't.  But franky1 keeps saying that solo mining is when you create your own block headers and has nothing to do with how the reward is shared, so I assume he would disagree with you (however, he hasn't answered the question yet even though I've asked it of him in multiple threads now so we don't know for sure).

The scenario of the waitress in the restaurant seems that the miner is paid based on his hash power (working ability) just as an individual waitress. Let's assume the most hardworking waitress is thrown out of the restaurant to serve customers out of nothing, he will not make such money. The waitress is successful because a restaurant(pool) exists.

You've stretched the analogy too far.  In that particular analogy, the restaurant isn't meant to represent the pool. It's meant to represent the Bitcoin mining process. You'll notice that ALL the participants in the analogy work in the same restaurant, just like all the participants being discussed participate in the Bitcoin mining process.  I chose it specifically BECAUSE "tip pooling" is a concept that many people are already familiar with.
 

Let's see a scenario where there is a sea for fishing, and the target fish is dolphin. Individual fishers have small canoe that cannot penetrate the sea, then decided to join their canoes to build a big boat. Everyone of them climbs the boat for fishing and then one person catches the dolphin.
Is is correct to call him a solo fisher, because his hook caught the dolphin? Besides there would never be a scenario that two hooks from two fishers will catch the dolphin simultaneously.

Well, the first thing to understand is that in bitcoin mining the miner that solves the block does NOT increase his chances of solving a block by participating in a pool.  In your analogy you indicate that the fishers "cannot penetrate the sea" individually, but that on the boat "one person catches the dolphin". This implies that he improved his ability to catch the dolphin because he was on the boat. That doesn't happen with bitcoin mining and mining pools.

Let's make your analogy more accurate...

There is a sea for fishing.  This sea has VERY big fish that don't bite hooks very often, but if they do bite then they are easy to pull in.  Catching a single fish will set a fisher up for decades of fishing costs.  So, hundreds of thousands of fishers go out and try to catch fish in this sea.  Every once in a while 1 fisher will catch a fish and be VERY happy. The money he will get for this fish will take care of his family for a VERY long time. Meanwhile, the other hundreds of thousands of other fishers will come home empty-handed again, and again, and again for their entire lifetime. You can fish from the shore, or you can fish from a boat that you own, or you can fish from someone else's boat.  It doesn't matter, your chances of a fish biting one of your hooks are the same.  You can, however, drop as many hooks into the water as you can afford to buy and maintain.

Eventually, someone with a very big boat comes along.  This person states that anyone can fish from his boat. Everyone understands that fishing from his boat won't make them any more likely to catch a fish, so why should they fish from HIS boat? The owner of the boat tells everyone that he is offering 2 important things for those that fish from his boat.  First, there is some effort involved in the fishing process and he is willing to assist in that effort.  He personally will monitor the hooks and bait them if they no longer have bait on them, he'll also personally reel in the fish if they bite, The fishers just have to provide and maintain the functionality of all the fishing equipment themselves.  ALSO, there is an important condition to be allowed to fish from his boat...  If you catch a fish, you do not get to keep it all to yourself. Instead, he'll remove a small portion of the fish for himself as a fee and then all the remainder of ALL of the fish caught from this boat will be split up amongst all of the fishers on the boat with each fisher receiving an amount of fish that is proportional to the number of hooks they put in the water. Now everyone sees a good reason to participate. The chances for each individual fisher haven't increased at all, but the chances that they'll go home with SOME fish that day are much better since it's a pretty good chance that SOMEONE on the boat will catch a fish. Instead of fishing for their entire life hoping to maybe catch 1 BIG fish, they can fish on this boat and take home a small amount of fish regularly. This would be analogous to traditional "Bitcoin Pool Mining" where the boat owner is the pool operator and the hooks are the hash power.

Now, someone else comes along with another big boat (perhaps not quite as big).  He also offers people the ability to fish from his boat.  Again, everyone understands that fishing from his boat won't make them any more likely to catch a fish, so why should they fish from HIS boat? The owner of this boat tells everyone that like the other boat, he will monitor the hooks and bait them if they no longer have bait on them, he'll also personally reel in the fish if they bite. The fishers still have to provide and maintain the functionality of all the fishing equipment themselves. HOWEVER, if your hook is the one that catches a fish, then you don't share that fish with the others on the boat.  He will remove a small portion of the fish as a fee for himself, and then just like when you were fishing all by yourself, you'll get to keep the rest of the fish for yourself. So, just like when you fish alone, if you're lucky and get a fish on YOUR hook, then you get a HUGE fish, but most end up fishing from this boat for their entire life and never going home with any fish. This would be analogous to CK Solo Pool where the boat owner is again the pool operator and the hooks are the hash power.

In the first scenario, you are "pooling" with the other fishers, sharing in the rewards.  In the second scenario you are "partnering" with the boat owner (paying him a small fee to handle some of the work for you), but you are not "pooling" with other fishers. You are still keeping all the rewards for yourself (minus the small fee you paid to the boat owner). It seems that franky1 would call the second scenario "pooled" because the boat owner is handling some of the work for multiple people.  Most people don't seem to consider that a "pool" since there is no increase in your chances of catching anything or with going home with anything.

Now there's another scenario that I keep asking franky1 about and he does answer:
A group of fishers see what's going on with the first boat and like the idea of getting a small amount of fish regularly, but they don't want to pay the fee, and they want to have control over their own bait. They form an organization. Anyone can join this organization, and you can fish from wherever and however you like. The only condition for being a member of this organization is that you agree that if you ever catch a fish you will split it up with everyone else that is a member of the organization. Each member will get a portion of the fish that is proportional to the number of hooks that they've put in the water.  Note that there is no longer someone else handling the baiting and reeling in for you, but you get to share in all the fish caught by everyone in the organization.  Is this a fishing "pool"?  According to franky1's explanation, it would seem that it is not since you have full control over your own equipment, but I think most people would say that the point of the "pooling" is to increase the frequency that you get some fish.

[franky1]

If a pool exists where the rewards are shared among participants based on the amount of hash power that they each contribute to the pool, BUT each participant gets to run their own software to choose for themselves which transactions are included in the block (and builds those blocks themselves), would you call that solo mining?  Most wouldn't.

I wouldn't call it a solo mining.

Most wouldn't.  But franky1 keeps saying that solo mining is when you create your own block headers and has nothing to do with how the reward is shared, so I assume he would disagree with you (however, he hasn't answered the question yet even though I've asked it of him in multiple threads now so we don't know for sure).

you have not asked me in multiple threads.. but anyway
if your making your own block and hashing it, you wont need a pool. because.. drum roll....  YOUR MAKING YOUR OWN BLOCKS
why would you make your own blocks putting in your own collated data and then hashing it yourself to then share 9X.XX% random others... when they done absolutely nothing to help you
no one would do that.

its not even a thing. no one does that. thats just a silly made up scenario

the only reason ck gives away 98% is because he is not doing the work of hashing

collating your own blocks and hashing them SOLO is what solo mining is
solo mining is a term that existed way before the reward had a value.. solo mining is a thing that existed way before reward sharing..

anything involving requiring a pool is not SOLO mining

there was no pool mining in 2009-2010. no one really cared about the reward value in 2009-2010. but they all knew what solo mining was.
creating and hashing your own block all by yourself independent of anyone else

again every pool has a pool manager that collates block data and gives unique allotments for each asic to churn through so they are all not doing the same work as each other.
ALL pools including ck

so if you think that this means that if asics have different work it makes them solo.. then all asics in your world are solo MINING
but they are not.

the only difference between ck and other pools is the reward. not the mining.. just the reward split

[BlackHatCoiner]

I'm utterly confused on which statements Danny and Franky disagree. Isn't solo mining when the miner attempts to solve a block all by themselves and whose reward will go entirely to them? Isn't pooled mining when miners are gathered to compute hashes and get rewarded accordingly to how much each contributed when one of those solves a block?

[DannyHamilton]

If a pool exists where the rewards are shared among participants based on the amount of hash power that they each contribute to the pool, BUT each participant gets to run their own software to choose for themselves which transactions are included in the block (and builds those blocks themselves), would you call that solo mining?  Most wouldn't.

I wouldn't call it a solo mining.

Most wouldn't.  But franky1 keeps saying that solo mining is when you create your own block headers and has nothing to do with how the reward is shared, so I assume he would disagree with you (however, he hasn't answered the question yet even though I've asked it of him in multiple threads now so we don't know for sure).

you have not asked me in multiple threads..

And yet:

If a pool exists where the rewards are shared among participants based on the amount of hash power that they each contribute to the pool, BUT each participant gets to run their own software to choose for themselves which transactions are included in the block (and builds those blocks themselves), would you call that solo mining?  Most wouldn't.

heck. i dont need a tardis avatar to have a sci-fi, fantasy entertainment view of history.

That's not really an answer to the question, is it?

and

- snip -

it all depends on. . .
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- snip -

If a pool exists where the rewards are shared among participants based on the amount of hash power that they each contribute to the pool, BUT each participant gets to run their own software to choose for themselves which transactions are included in the block (and builds those blocks themselves), would you call that solo mining? Since the rewards are being shared, most wouldn't. I've asked this question of franky1 in the past and haven't gotten an answer from him yet, so I'm not sure what his thoughts are on that or where it fits into his opinion of how to define "solo mining".

And here you still haven't really answered the question yet, have you?  Instead you offered some nonsense about how it would never happen. That doesn't tell me if you would consider it to be a pool or not.

you have not asked me in multiple threads.. but anyway
if your making your own block and hashing it, you wont need a pool. because.. drum roll....  YOUR MAKING YOUR OWN BLOCKS
why would you make your own blocks putting in your own collated data and then hashing it yourself to then share 9X.XX% random others... when they done absolutely nothing to help you
no one would do that.

its not even a thing. no one does that. thats just a silly made up scenario

I'm utterly confused on which statements Danny and Franky disagree. Isn't solo mining when the miner attempts to solve a block all by themselves

That really depends on what you mean by "attempts to solve a block".  As franky1 correctly points out, every unit if ASIC equipment is receiving a completely different block header than every other unit, so (regardless of whether you are in a pool or not) it could be said that there is no way possible to mine in any way other than "all by yourself". Alternatively, an important part of the mining process is the building of the block header (which generally does not use ANY ASIC power at all). So, it could be said that you are only mining "all by yourself" if you yourself (or rather, software that you have direct control over) are creating the block headers that will be fed to the ASICs.

In my opinion, it doesn't matter who creates the block headers. If the block rewards are split up amongst a group that are all contributing hash power, then it is "pooled". If the block rewards are not split up amongst a group that are all contributing hash power, but rather are kept by the person whose ASIC finds the solution, then it is "solo".

Apparently in franky1's opinion, it doesn't matter how the rewards are split up. If the block header was created by software that is under the control of someone else, then it is "pooled". If the block header was created by software that is under the miner's own control then it is "solo".

and whose reward will go entirely to them? Isn't pooled mining when miners are gathered to compute hashes and get rewarded accordingly to how much each contributed when one of those solves a block?

This is where franky1 and most of the rest of the world disagree.

From what I can tell from what franky1 has said so far, it has nothing to do with the reward.  franky1 seems to be saying that if the miner is depending on a piece of software that someone else is running to supply the "work", then it is a "pool" EVEN IF THE REWARD GOES ENTIRELY TO THE MINER WHOSE ASIC SOLVES THE BLOCK. franky1 also seems to be saying (but I haven't gotten a straight answer from him yet) that if the miner is running their own software to supply the "work" then they are "solo mining" EVEN IF THAT MINER IS IN A GROUP THAT ALL SHARES THE REWARD FROM ANY BLOCKS THAT ARE SOLVED BY ANY ASIC  IN THE GROUP.

Myself, and apparently yourself along with most others, would state that if the reward isn't being shared with others that are contributing "Work" then it is "solo" and if the reward is being shared then it is "pooled".

[Gamerholic]

I think a similar thing happened to Etherium recently. All this, in my opinion, demonstrates the presence of additional motivation for the miners of these coins. In addition to constant mining, they have a ghostly chance to receive such a reward. And in fact, everyone can theoretically be in the place of those lucky ones. Big and super fair lottery! This is wonderful!

[KingsDen]

I have gone through the wall of texts again to decipher the disagreement, because I was also as confused as BlackHatCoiner on the context of disagreement. Then these statements of franky1 and DannyHamilton gave me a clue about the disagreement.  While franky1 believes that the manner in which the reward was shared should not determine the manner in which the block was solved.

its pool MINING and solo MINING
not pool REWARDING and solo REWARDING

This is further buttressed in the quote below.;

From what I can tell from what franky1 has said so far, it has nothing to do with the reward.  franky1 seems to be saying that if the miner is depending on a piece of software that someone else is running to supply the "work", then it is a "pool" EVEN IF THE REWARD GOES ENTIRELY TO THE MINER WHOSE ASIC SOLVES THE BLOCK.

My take
Without putting much consideration in the technicals that happens at the backend, it is logical to determine the type of mining with the reward. Mining busines is not a charity organisation. So, no miner will contribute in any form and be denied a due reward.

[franky1]

a block solve is about the work done on the block data
mining is about mining it.
mining is mining whether the reward is worth nothing in 2009-2010 or 2140+
mining is mining whether the reward is 50, 25, 12.5, 6.25. 3.125.....
mining is mining whether the reward is valued at 0.01 cent or $70,000
mining is mining whether the reward is split 98% or 0.00000x%
 
mining is not based on the reward, its based on the work and who manages the work
if you are solo mining a block you are collating data, forming the block and mining data alone with no ones help, your doing it all on your own SOLO

the reward is not the work, the reward is just payment at the end
infact not just before 2010 did no one care about the reward, but after 2140 no one will care about the reward.

again the emphasis of solo mining a block is not "getting reward" its solo mining a block.. MINING A BLOCK

if you think the because someone got 98% they are solo.
what if ck changes it today where out of his 2% he keeps 1% and at the end of each day shares the other 1% with all his users as a separate transaction..
are people going to suddenly back peddle and then say its pool again..
no its already pool mining the clue is in the fact that ck is a pool already


alll pools ALL POOLS are like restaurants where a manager tells waitresses what tables to work

solo is where a restaurant owner manages his own restaurant and works all his tables in his restaurant, with no help.. he is working solo

solo mining became a redundant term in 2014 because no one was solo mining..
it seems some people want to bring back the term to active use by rebranding what the term means under some new paradigm than its earlier terminology

but if they want to think its just about the rewarding.. then say its solo rewarding

[DannyHamilton]

what if ck changes it today where out of his 2% he keeps 1% and at the end of each day shares the other 1% with all his users as a separate transaction..

Then I would agree with you that the participants are no longer "solo mining".  However, it would still be just as big a stroke of luck for the person that got to keep the 98%.

are people going to suddenly back peddle and then say its pool again..

Sure. In that situation, I'd say that the participants are no longer "solo mining".

You still refuse to answer my very simple question.

[PrimeNumber7]

Eventually, someone with a very big boat comes along.  This person states that anyone can fish from his boat. Everyone understands that fishing from his boat won't make them any more likely to catch a fish, so why should they fish from HIS boat?

I have to disagree with this part. You explain why:

The owner of the boat tells everyone that he is offering 2 important things for those that fish from his boat.  First, there is some effort involved in the fishing process and he is willing to assist in that effort.  He personally will monitor the hooks and bait them if they no longer have bait on them, he'll also personally reel in the fish if they bite, The fishers just have to provide and maintain the functionality of all the fishing equipment themselves. 

-ck provides an important service, that is network connectivity to the rest of the network.

if you are solo mining from your garage and are using your google fiber internet connection to have your node broadcast any found blocks, if you find a block within x second(s) of a major pool finding a block, your block will likely get orphaned because the pools are very well connected amongst each other, and other pools (miners) are likely to have received (and accepted) a pool's block before ever seeing your block that would have to make its way through the network "organically". I would assume that -ck is running multiple, well-connected nodes, that is capable of quickly broadcasting any found block that someone using his service finds. Another service that -ck provides is ensuring that any block found is valid (more specifically that any miner using his service is mining for a valid block).

Instead of charging a fee to connect to his service, -ck charges on a commission-based model in which he charges a fee out of the block reward of any block found using his service.

I am not sure how large this advantage is, but for every 1 second more quickly that -ck's service is able to get your block to the rest of the miners is a 0.167% reduction in the chance that your block will get orphaned. Someone using -ck's service would receive a similar advantage on the other end too -- a miner using -ck's service is going to be looking for a block on top of the most recently found block more quickly when compared to a miner using his home internet connection to get the most recent block for similar reasons.

[franky1]

danny no one would collate a merkle of transactions, add their own coinbase and hash it themselves... but also then pay out to thousands of random people that done NOTHING.

so your "simple question" is not even a viable scenario, because no one does that

lets use your boat scenario

the amount of fish per 1000m² of water is like a 1 chance per 10 minutes if there are like 100,000 fishermen fishing in that area

there are 510million of km² meaning on average enough fish to last until 2140

the chance of a solo fisherman building his own boat and deciding which lake, and which 100m² area in that lake, and deciding with degree from north to fish in. and then to cast out the line over trillions of casts at different distance from the boat starting from 1cm to 5.6m out. means that fishermans chance of getting a fish in 10 minutes is super small. but he is inchange of all the variables so if he gets lucky so be it he deserves it all

alone in his own lake by himself making all the decisions on where to cast his line (solo)

or
if he gets on another fishermans boat alongside other fisherman. where the boatman decides what lake and what 100m² area in the lake to fish from where he organises 100,000 fishermen to all cast out at a 0.0036^o angle, so that all possible angles are probably met, meaning all 1cm area within the 100m² at all angles would be hit in 10 minutes so the chances of a fisherman on the boat getting a fish is reasonably high

this is pool mining

then yea one fisherman on that boat is likely to get a fish.
and because the boatman organised this fishing trip, the boatman decides what to do with the fish.
the guy that hooked the fish does not get to decide what to do with the fish because he did not organise the fishing trip.
the lucky fisherman cant just take the boat back to shore and keep the fish. because the boatman controls the boat and decides what goes to shore

all a fisherman got to decide was.. before fishing.. should he:
1) fish alone in his own lake by himself making all the decisions on where to cast his line where he decides what goes to shore (solo)
2) fish in an organised boat where the boat manager organises each fishermans cast direction to be more efficient(pool)
where by the boatmaster decides to share the fish
3) fish in an organised boat where the boat manager organises each fishermans cast direction to be more efficient(pool)
where by the boatmaster decides to give 98% of the fish to the guy that hooked it

making a decision to get on someones elses organised managed boat(2&3). is POOL mining.

making the decision to fish(in any scenario) is not solo mining
making the decision to fish(in a managed boat of someone else) does not make one scenario pool or solo.. based on how the fish was shared.. its both still pool

solo is only when its your boat, your choice to cast in what area of what lake and you are in power to decide what goes to shore

[DooMAD]

I don't know if this is a helpful analogy or if I'm only making it worse, but it seems like we're arguing about the difference between Multiplayer Coop and Multiplayer Deathmatch.  Some people are calling deathmatch "solo" because it's not a team game and someone isn't happy because solo sounds more like the Single Player Campaign which is something else.

Calling it a "Deathmatch Pool" does sound kinda cool, but I doubt the idea would gain popularity, heh.   

[DannyHamilton]

danny no one would collate a merkle of transactions, add their own coinbase and hash it themselves... but also then pay out to thousands of random people that done NOTHING.

Sure they would if they could count on those thousands of random people also sharing the rewards. People don't join pools to give up block header creation. They join pools to ensure a regular payday. Although, from what I can tell from what you've said so far, you wouldn't consider it to be pool mining (or would you?)

so your "simple question" is not even a viable scenario, because no one does that

Viable or not (I still say it's viable), you still haven't answered the question.

[franky1]

I don't know if this is a helpful analogy or if I'm only making it worse, but it seems like we're arguing about the difference between Multiplayer Coop and Multiplayer Deathmatch.  Some people are calling deathmatch "solo" because it's not a team game and someone isn't happy because solo sounds more like the Single Player Campaign which is something else.

Calling it a "Deathmatch Pool" does sound kinda cool, but I doubt the idea would gain popularity, heh.    

yep in that analogy multiplayer deathmatch is were only the person doing the round winning hit gets the reward (via the game server deciding the reward split)
yep in that analogy multiplayer coo is were all players doing the round get the reward no matter who gave the final hit(via the game server deciding the reward split)
where in both cases its lots of individuals working together..

ofcourse some(mostly danny) will want to rebrand a single player campaign to mean multiplayer death match by trying to deny the multiplayer aspect is part of the game. and deny the point of the game "deathmatch" and just say the game is only about the reward.

sorry but the important thing about bitcoin is the WORK.. its called Proof of WORK. not receipt of reward
im surprised someone like danny is trying to re-imagine what proof of work mining is about, just to cater to ck's tweaking of words for some PR.
..
as for dannies silly scenario of just paying random people.. thats called generosity. like deciding if your kids nephews and nieces and cousins deserve a pay out from your lotto win when they had nothing to do with helping choose some numbers and there was no syndicate in place. and no central person managing the tickets or payout(getwork or coinbase allocation)
.... wait.. i think i can see what danny is thinking. that because for instance G andresen mined and operated a faucet to pay random people that he must have been some quasi solo-pool.. where by if g andresen operated a faucet or not was a deciding factor of the pool or solo debate..(in dannys mind)
.. um no he was just generous. his generosity of doing a faucet had nothing to do with if he was solo or pool mining. he just wanted to give away coins. the give away had no impact on how he mined. they are separate scenarios


if you made an agreement that each family member would decide their own numbers, but share the rewards that any winner gets by showing the numbers pre draw and then showing they have the winning numbers after the draw. . they are forming a lotto syndicate. in other words.. a silly insecure pool but still a pool. just not one based on code or structure but based on  "trust"..
something that bitcoin has never been based on. "trust". after all thats what code is for. rules

which is why no one operates such a silly scenario. thus no point making up a non existant thing.

again bitcoin MINING. ill emphasis this because its an important word MINING. is about PoW work, not the reward
its based on rules and structure. not fairy tale imaginary scenarios of trust

getting a reward/paid for work is pretty much common sense that people get paid for work completed. but again the important thing is about the work.

imagine you worked for a living
arguing about getting paid either a salary as a lump sum amount once a year or paid daily does not really explain the work or if your self employed or working for someone.
its common sense you should be paid for doing work. but your not explaining how you got the work or do the work to get the pay

dannys mindset is trying to say "i dont get paid hourly, i get paid once a month so that must mean im self employed."
pay structure does not determine employee or self employed status.

how the work was managed/organised, and who wrote the invoice where by if the work is complete a payment is settled determines employment status.
if you done absolutely everything yourself. your self employed.
if you had a manager that organised and managed the work, telling you what region to work, and he set that you will get 98% of any invoice upon successful completion. then you are employed.. you are just in (good or bad) employment depending on if you get to finish the job or not depending on the terms the manager set
this topic has stretched to 60+ posts(4pages)
and danny is still trying to re-write a term that has existed for a decade + to mean something totally new.
maybe he forgets that no one cared about reward amount 11+ years ago
maybe he forgets that no will care about reward amount in 120+ years time
maybe he forgot what mining is all about (PoW)