It's an interesting idea! It does mean that you have to own ETH, though, I could imagine some BTC maxis not happy!
May I ask why you're going on this project? Is it for the "beauty of art"?
I don't really understand why you're going through a smart contract rather than the traditional route, like with Willi for example...
Doesn't this potentially add security risks to the funds ? What does this smart contract offer that the traditional way doesn't ? At the end this is always the owner of the contract which distribute the funds if a block is found, so trust is still always needed.
In any case, I think it's very interesting in principle.
If the idea works and people like the idea I will create a front end for it and a nice dashboard to show the rounds in progress and round status
and mining status when a round begins.
Nice idea. I think that a lot of people would really like something like this.
Yes, I am afraid that means I own ETH, as I am playing a lot with smart contracts at the moment but still a Bitcoin lover at heart.
Also I think there is a lot of people who would rather burn alts for a chance to get some more Bitcoin so In reality were turning one possibly into the other!
Any Bitcoin lover should love the prospect of another coin funding hashrate right?
Over the years I have seen people interested in mining in the groups but most are BTC buy in and as a lot of people would rather hodl onto the BTC than spend it then offering it this way is a good idea.
As for security risks I took every step I could to ensure the code has no functions that are not required and I ensured that any critical functions like completeRound are executable only by the ownerOnly.
I also took steps to ensure the contract could not hold more than a set balance per round to add some extra later of security.
It will only accept deposits in the correct amount and will check if the balance is at the round threshold.
I also put my money where my mouth is and took slot 1 for round 1 by depositing my 0.1 ETH first.
And yes just like the groups a layer of trust is required in myself the op to distribute the funds once a block is found.
This is something I am thinking hard on as I would love to come up with a way to also have this done automated and open to ideas or collaboration to come up with such a system.
This is still a early concept idea with much room for improvement but I feel building a community around the idea we could come up with something really unique for people wishing to rent hash power in groups and know its all trusted behind a smart contract. The whole idea is to build a framework with a smart contract that can handle the rounds and funds and work on a system for distributing the payment to the users once a block is found.
Also with it being a smart contract and people can be assured that if a round is not filled they will be refunded traditional groups there is no refund function if they don't fill and your at the whim of the OP once again.
Like I said this is a early concept idea with some really big plans in the background take this V1 as the test bed if it works and people like it then we move forward with the framework and website and dapp while working on some kind of automated payout system.
Hope this clears up my though process with the project.
Best regards
Magic!