Overview BTC Solo pools

[jack1cryptotalk007]

No. miners submit their every share submission don't include the pool's bitcoin address, and these submit are just communication between miners and the pool.

I think that is incorrect, if that was the case, i could just mine to a pool, submit shares, get paid, but once i find a block i just put my own address as the coinbase address, which of course can not be done.

The nonce you are hashing is done against many things, one of them is the coinbase transaction which must be in the block header, that transaction ensures the payout goes to the pool address, if you change anything in that transaction the hash you sumbit will be invalid to both the pool and the network as a whole.

The pool keeps all necessary data about block header and transactions for a valid submit to bitcoin network and miners are not given all data by the pool. So only the pool can submit solved block header which includes nonce. Transaction data, sometime, is a huge data; so it won't be given to miners in stratum mode. This answers your curious or doubt.

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[citb0in]

The nonce you are hashing is done against many things, one of them is the coinbase transaction which must be in the block header, that transaction ensures the payout goes to the pool address, if you change anything in that transaction the hash you sumbit will be invalid to both the pool and the network as a whole.

The pool keeps all necessary data about block header and transactions for a valid submit to bitcoin network and miners are not given all data by the pool. So only the pool can submit solved block header which includes nonce. Transaction data, sometime, is a huge data; so it won't be given to miners in stratum mode. This answers your curious or doubt.

Mining on self node in BTC network has a fundamental good point is that a BTC is going to your BTC address, which can avoid a risk of operation failure in pool side or dishonourable operator of pools. So solo miner must bear this in mind.

Does this mean that the operator of a solo pool has the technical possibility of manipulation, e.g. to redirect the reward to himself in case of a block find? And this although the user of his pool had entered his own Bitcoin address as user name when started the mining? I would be interested from a technical point of view whether this would be possible in general. That would be disastrous, of course, because a pool operator could be a scammer. Can you please explain this in more detail? Thanks.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

...
Does this mean that the operator of a solo pool has the technical possibility of manipulation, e.g. to redirect the reward to himself in case of a block find? And this although the user of his pool had entered his own Bitcoin address as user name when started the mining? I would be interested from a technical point of view whether this would be possible in general. That would be disastrous, of course, because a pool operator could be a scammer. Can you please explain this in more detail? Thanks.

Well, yes. That is why we raise the Warning Flags whenever some unknown newbie announces they've started a new pool be it solo, pplns, or pps. Trust must be earned!

Your BTC address is just being coded by the pool software as reward recipient vs the software pointing to a pool wallet to then be either sent to the solo miner or in the case of pplns, split up by the pool & distributed to the users. Where the reward is sent to and how much the pool takes as a fee are choices made by the operator when they set the pool..

In the case of -ck solo he coded the front end to take the address you provided and plug it into the block header to pay all but his 2% fee to you as the reward target instead of running through a pool wallet first. For Kano's solo pool you setup the payment address in your solo act, the pool wallet gets the reward and the accounting side of his software (KDB) transfers it (-0.5%) to your address on-file.

Either way the address you supply does *not* directly set where the block reward goes. The pool operator does and it all depends on how they code the pool.

[jack1cryptotalk007]

The nonce you are hashing is done against many things, one of them is the coinbase transaction which must be in the block header, that transaction ensures the payout goes to the pool address, if you change anything in that transaction the hash you sumbit will be invalid to both the pool and the network as a whole.

The pool keeps all necessary data about block header and transactions for a valid submit to bitcoin network and miners are not given all data by the pool. So only the pool can submit solved block header which includes nonce. Transaction data, sometime, is a huge data; so it won't be given to miners in stratum mode. This answers your curious or doubt.

Mining on self node in BTC network has a fundamental good point is that a BTC is going to your BTC address, which can avoid a risk of operation failure in pool side or dishonourable operator of pools. So solo miner must bear this in mind.

Does this mean that the operator of a solo pool has the technical possibility of manipulation, e.g. to redirect the reward to himself in case of a block find? And this although the user of his pool had entered his own Bitcoin address as user name when started the mining? I would be interested from a technical point of view whether this would be possible in general. That would be disastrous, of course, because a pool operator could be a scammer. Can you please explain this in more detail? Thanks.

Yes. solo pool operators can manipulation of your submits and rippe off you at current start of the art in software of the pool side, eg:

1. Pool can submit  your found in a different bitcoin address to the bitcoin network. Because the pool got the coinbase data. This is quite wide practice in altercoin pools in terms of  my watching. Some pool operators are gangs and untracable, even by Agents.

2. Current miner softwares only got a message indicates the pool accepted this submit. But it does not provide information whether this submit has beem submit to the bitcoin network? or whether bitcoin network has accepted this submit? or confirmed this submit? This is an issue which give the pool operators a back door, I believe.  The altercoin pools and miner programs even got worst, they don't provide the height information of block. You never know your submits are accepted by the network or not.  They got webpage only indicate few second ago you did submit a share.

3.  After you submit your found to the pool, the pool firstly verify your submit with pool's share difficulty and then pool verify your submit with bitcoin network's difficulty. But, the pool never return a feedback information whether your submit is above the network's difficulty. This can be done easily in software, and this is a key issue in transparency of bitcoin network. Actually, the bitcoin core will return a message "under diff, sth like" if submit is below the diff.

So, there is a real risk in crypto coin mining business. When you ran a miner for one year, and got a good submit, then, ripped off or missed.
What can you do?  You have to work with reliable pool operator at first place.

[jack3rror]

Excuse me, I manage Soloblocks.io mining pool and have some answers.

Yes. solo pool operators can manipulation of your submits and rippe off you at current start of the art in software of the pool side, eg:

1. Pool can submit  your found in a different bitcoin address to the bitcoin network. Because the pool got the coinbase data. This is quite wide practice in altercoin pools in terms of  my watching. Some pool operators are gangs and untracable, even by Agents.

Pool cannot submit your found block in a different bitcoin address and I've made a methodology to verify it.
It works only on soloblocks.io and you can try it on your own.

It was a problem until 2022 and I solved it on my solo pool.

Topic about it : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5397166.msg60503248#msg60503248

2. Current miner softwares only got a message indicates the pool accepted this submit. But it does not provide information whether this submit has beem submit to the bitcoin network? or whether bitcoin network has accepted this submit? or confirmed this submit? This is an issue which give the pool operators a back door, I believe.  The altercoin pools and miner programs even got worst, they don't provide the height information of block. You never know your submits are accepted by the network or not.  They got webpage only indicate few second ago you did submit a share.

Most of shares you submit on solo pools are useless as they don't match network difficulty. The only share that is sent to the network is the share that matches the difficulty and it is manifested by a winning block on the bitcoin blockchain.
On soloblocks you can see current realtime height of current job.

3.  After you submit your found to the pool, the pool firstly verify your submit with pool's share difficulty and then pool verify your submit with bitcoin network's difficulty. But, the pool never return a feedback information whether your submit is above the network's difficulty. This can be done easily in software, and this is a key issue in transparency of bitcoin network. Actually, the bitcoin core will return a message "under diff, sth like" if submit is below the diff.

So, there is a real risk in crypto coin mining business. When you ran a miner for one year, and got a good submit, then, ripped off or missed.
What can you do?  You have to work with reliable pool operator at first place.

I'm planning to add the maxDiff on current block and maxDiff ever on informations on the Dashboard. You can verify it by yourself with your mining software as they calculate the shareDiff.


Sorry for this specific response but I've worked hard to address these issues and the work is done and online and I still have ZERO miners on the pool since 1 year.  

[citb0in]

I'm planning to add the maxDiff on current block and maxDiff ever on informations on the Dashboard. You can verify it by yourself with your mining software as they calculate the shareDiff.

Sorry for this specific response but I've worked hard to address these issues and the work is done and online and I still have ZERO miners on the pool since 1 year.  

yes what now? Are you still planning or is the work done ? You should also watch your own support thread about the pool and give some helpful answers to questions like this.

[jack3rror]

I'm planning to add the maxDiff on current block and maxDiff ever on informations on the Dashboard. You can verify it by yourself with your mining software as they calculate the shareDiff.

Sorry for this specific response but I've worked hard to address these issues and the work is done and online and I still have ZERO miners on the pool since 1 year.  

yes what now? Are you still planning or is the work done ? You should also watch your own support thread about the pool and give some helpful answers to questions like this.

Answer has been made in pm : this functionnality is currently being made (implemented on the pool side, not tested yet, api not implemented, and frontend not implemented).
Not necessary for proof of work, mining software have this data. But for a pleasing experience will add it when I will have time to implement it.

I work for free. If they need functionnality, they can grant. And you have less than 100 Ths so it's not in my priority order, currently, in this bear market cycle.

If my contribution to a better decentralisation and fair job providing doesn't please you, you can Switch to shitty solo pools.

Edit : answer done in the thread and by pm where you haven't responded to my message (where I was asking WHAT EXACT information you needed (bestShare ever or also bestshare per block), I'm sorry if you didn't understood me with my poor english skills)

[100knot2dae]

Every new pool will add in for decentralization, so that is to be appreciated. However, also anyone can decode the coinbase data regardless of the (solo) pool, since that data is exchanged via stratum. So there always was a way to verify what address is being rewarded with what amount (if the respective block wins) - and since the block hash is based on that input data, any tampering with the data will result in another hash value that won't meet the target difficulty.

Assuming on block level all is fine, you still have to always trust the pool operator to be fully operational, with up-to-date blockchain and capable to get your winning block out to the network as fast as possible. There are known and proven solo pools out there already, so as a new solo pool operator it will be hard to find trust and acceptance. In fact you can only earn trust with the count of solved blocks.

[jack3rror]

Every new pool will add in for decentralization, so that is to be appreciated. However, also anyone can decode the coinbase data regardless of the (solo) pool, since that data is exchanged via stratum. So there always was a way to verify what address is being rewarded with what amount (if the respective block wins) - and since the block hash is based on that input data, any tampering with the data will result in another hash value that won't meet the target difficulty.

Assuming on block level all is fine, you still have to always trust the pool operator to be fully operational, with up-to-date blockchain and capable to get your winning block out to the network as fast as possible. There are known and proven solo pools out there already, so as a new solo pool operator it will be hard to find trust and acceptance. In fact you can only earn trust with the count of solved blocks.

Node height is available and instantly broadcasted through API and stratum. https://soloblocks.io/api/servers

No solved blocks if no trust. Fixed the trust. No hashrate. No blocks xD.

Thinking about closing the pool rn as nobody wants it and the large amount of defiance i've seen even if i'm in Bitcoin since 13 years.
Baremetal servers cost a lot for absolutely no reason. Mining is highly centralized right now.

I've got dual node failover on the mining pool, 32 Gb RAM and NVMe hard drives, stability is awesome at 0.5 Exahash on 1 pool at these difficulties.
I provide Full API, notably server health via https://soloblocks.io/api/servers

Most hash farms I know are unable to face the variance...
Discouraged by all of these and working had to address them still. Don't know what to do.

[100knot2dae]

Every new pool will add in for decentralization, so that is to be appreciated. However, also anyone can decode the coinbase data regardless of the (solo) pool, since that data is exchanged via stratum. So there always was a way to verify what address is being rewarded with what amount (if the respective block wins) - and since the block hash is based on that input data, any tampering with the data will result in another hash value that won't meet the target difficulty.

Assuming on block level all is fine, you still have to always trust the pool operator to be fully operational, with up-to-date blockchain and capable to get your winning block out to the network as fast as possible. There are known and proven solo pools out there already, so as a new solo pool operator it will be hard to find trust and acceptance. In fact you can only earn trust with the count of solved blocks.

Node height is available and instantly broadcasted through API and stratum. https://soloblocks.io/api/servers

No solved blocks if no trust. Fixed the trust. No hashrate. No blocks xD.

Thinking about closing the pool rn as nobody wants it and the large amount of defiance i've seen even if i'm in Bitcoin since 13 years.
Baremetal servers cost a lot for absolutely no reason. Mining is highly centralized right now.

I've got dual node failover on the mining pool, 32 Gb RAM and NVMe hard drives, stability is awesome at 0.5 Exahash on 1 pool at these difficulties.
I provide Full API, notably server health via https://soloblocks.io/api/servers

Most hash farms I know are unable to face the variance...
Discouraged by all of these and working had to address them still. Don't know what to do.

People are very cautious to not get scammed and solo pools just mean "all-or-nothing", which makes them even more uber cautious. And again, imho the only way to earn reputation as a pool is by solving blocks. People will come mining once you have achieved this proof.

So please don't take it as personal offense against your new pool and your efforts. That was rather meant as a general statement. Go for your idea and make it great, I honestly wish you all the best luck and success!

[citb0in]

Answer has been made in pm : this functionnality is currently being made (implemented on the pool side, not tested yet, api not implemented, and frontend not implemented). Not necessary for proof of work, mining software have this data. But for a pleasing experience will add it when I will have time to implement it. I work for free. If they need functionnality, they can grant. And you have less than 100 Ths so it's not in my priority order, currently, in this bear market cycle. If my contribution to a better decentralisation and fair job providing doesn't please you, you can Switch to shitty solo pools.

Edit : answer done in the thread and by pm where you haven't responded to my message (where I was asking WHAT EXACT information you needed (bestShare ever or also bestshare per block), I'm sorry if you didn't understood me with my poor english skills)

you should stop spreading lies, you are not making your entry into the pool business any easier. I had answered you by DM

Seriously? Sorry dude, but if you try to run a solo pool and ask such questions I'm curious if you know what you're doing. By this you cannot earn reputation and trust. I'm out, I will stick with another solo pool that has been around for long time and they know how stuff work. Sorry man. However thanks for the contact and best wishes to you and your side project.

What is the difference between the bestshare and bestever ?

And you have less than 100 Ths so it's not in my priority order, currently, in this bear market cycle.
If my contribution to a better decentralisation and fair job providing doesn't please you, you can Switch to shitty solo pools.

Not sure if understood correctly but keep in mind that most serious solo pool users rent hash power and send lots of hashpower to a solo pool. So I do, I always rent > 1 PH/s for solo mining lottery. There won't be only USB miner on a solo pool.

Don't get me wrong, I think your effort and project is great and competition is always good as it stimulates the market and supply. Of course, it's hard for you as a newcomer to attract new users. If you ask me, you should start where others have failed or continue to fail and do it wrong. Your ultimate goal should be that your pool finds a block and the reward is successfully paid out to the respective miner, in the best case even to a longtime member here in the forum with a good reputation. That would catapult you to the top and you would be in business.

A few suggestions from my side that might help you:

- stop bitching about other pools or people. Leave bashing to others who are good at it and have been doing it forever (e.g. Kano). By deliberately and maliciously badmouthing others, you do not make yourself better. Also the community doesn't care if you're coding in your free time or not, there are far more important things in this bussiness.

- include "bestshare" and "bestever" information into your statistics

- your ports only offer low diff or high diff, but no varDiff or customDiff is possible. For example port 3333 always offers fixed 65536 diff shares. You should fix that and upgrade the feature set accordingly.

- implement more servers spread over all continents (one server is not enough and would be a single point of failure)

- blaming others or slipping into the victim role will not help you, but will have the opposite effect

- add your instructions for checking the coinbase transaction to your website. You've already put a lot of effort into this great guide and you're the first, so that's a big plus for you. Work this out further in detail step-by-step (for command line) so that potential users will be motivated to check it themselves.

- think about how you could advertise with a sponsoring program or something similar to get some first users to mine your pool.

I'm optimistic on you, you have potential, you just have to play your cards right first. Don't let it get you down and go for it. I wish you every success with your project. Every beginning is hard and only the tough ones cross the finish line.

[jack3rror]

Answer has been made in pm : this functionnality is currently being made (implemented on the pool side, not tested yet, api not implemented, and frontend not implemented). Not necessary for proof of work, mining software have this data. But for a pleasing experience will add it when I will have time to implement it. I work for free. If they need functionnality, they can grant. And you have less than 100 Ths so it's not in my priority order, currently, in this bear market cycle. If my contribution to a better decentralisation and fair job providing doesn't please you, you can Switch to shitty solo pools.

Edit : answer done in the thread and by pm where you haven't responded to my message (where I was asking WHAT EXACT information you needed (bestShare ever or also bestshare per block), I'm sorry if you didn't understood me with my poor english skills)

you should stop spreading lies, you are not making your entry into the pool business any easier. I had answered you by DM

Seriously? Sorry dude, but if you try to run a solo pool and ask such questions I'm curious if you know what you're doing. By this you cannot earn reputation and trust. I'm out, I will stick with another solo pool that has been around for long time and they know how stuff work. Sorry man. However thanks for the contact and best wishes to you and your side project.

What is the difference between the bestshare and bestever ?

A few suggestions from my side that might help you:

- stop bitching about other pools or people. Leave bashing to others who are good at it and have been doing it forever (e.g. Kano). By deliberately and maliciously badmouthing others, you do not make yourself better. Also the community doesn't care if you're coding in your free time or not, there are far more important things in this bussiness.

- include "bestshare" and "bestever" information into your statistics

- implement more servers spread over all continents (one server is not enough and would be a single point of failure)

- blaming others or slipping into the victim role will not help you, but will have the opposite effect

- add your instructions for checking the coinbase transaction to your website. You've already put a lot of effort into this great guide and you're the first, so that's a big plus for you. Work this out further in detail step-by-step (for command line) so that potential users will be motivated to check it themselves.

- think about how you could advertise with a sponsoring program or something similar to get some first users to mine your pool.

I'm optimistic on you, you have potential, you just have to play your cards right first. Don't let it get you down and go for it. I wish you every success with your project. Every beginning is hard and only the tough ones cross the finish line.

Kindness is more sexy than telling me via PM I don't understand what I do by not understanding your exact request (in english by the way, sorry that I don't speak well this langage)
I really don't bitch, I tell only what I think about mining and tries to improve it, and what I think about it right now. And tired to see that really nobody gives a f;

It's highly concentrated, nobody verifies jobs, nobody verifies earnings, PPLNS and scoring is shady as F.

Now it's a chance for miners to stop going on shitty highly centralized pools.

It's purely pro bono at 0.4%

Thanks for your constructive message, really appreciate it and will consider every single point.

[citb0in]

Every new pool will add in for decentralization, so that is to be appreciated. However, also anyone can decode the coinbase data regardless of the (solo) pool, since that data is exchanged via stratum. So there always was a way to verify what address is being rewarded with what amount (if the respective block wins) - and since the block hash is based on that input data, any tampering with the data will result in another hash value that won't meet the target difficulty.

Assuming on block level all is fine, you still have to always trust the pool operator to be fully operational, with up-to-date blockchain and capable to get your winning block out to the network as fast as possible. There are known and proven solo pools out there already, so as a new solo pool operator it will be hard to find trust and acceptance. In fact you can only earn trust with the count of solved blocks.

Absolutely agree to this point. Anyone can look at the coinbase transactions that a pool has set. When the miner does his work and finds a valid hash below the target, it's all based on the block header that the miner originally received from the pool. If the miner now passes the valid hash to the pool and a malicious pool operator were to try to retroactively modify the coinbase transaction in his favor, then the nonce value would not fit at all. The pool operator in this example cannot therefore subsequently modify the coinbase transaction in order to defraud the miner.

But
What a malicious pool operator could do, however, would be:
The malicious pool operator first configures a valid coinbase TX and let his pool run for months or a year and hoping that many users will check it and make sure it is correct. He tries to attract a lot of users onto his pool. And after he has built up the trust of his users and gained many users he could e.g. after months or years suddenly and unknowingly changing the coinbase TX for the mining afterwards. He enters his own address as the payout address and removes the miners address. The miners would never notice this unless they check the coinbase TX beforehand for each mining process.

An even worse scenario would be if the pool operator periodically made this coinbase change according to set procedures, with the hope that users would not notice it. For example, he could use a good coinbase TX for 12h per day, and a malicious coinbase TX for the remaining 12h per day. Or at other intervals and irregularities with the goal that a user trying to check the coinbase TX of his pool will not notice anything.

But as a remainder: We went totally off-topic.