[CLOSING] GHash.IO mining pool official page

[ghash.io]

Official Statement on the Last Week’s DDoS-attack against GHash.IO Mining Pool

Last week, GHash.IO has experienced a DDoS-attack against the pool. Although the website itself did work, miners were not able to mine during 6 hours, as a result of the attack tacking up to 40 Gbps.
At the moment, GHash.IO works properly. Anti-DDoS protection provided by Voxility hosting is integrated with our platform. It’s worth mentioning that there was no information leak or crashed accounts, and only GHash.IO stratum server has been attacked, not affecting CEX.IO exchange.

The attack has been conducted by a hacker who has already DDOS-ed CEX.IO in October, 2014. Previously, he demanded 2 BTC for stopping the attack. This time, the payment has been raised to 5-10 Bitcoins. According to his words,
“Usually, I have to run the attack for 1 hour or less and I get paid, so large damage is prevented,”
which means, other services have also been attacked. After everything has been fixed, the hacker stopped writing to us.

At the moment, we are in touch with other services that have been DDOS-ed, among them — Bitalo. We are open for communication and are ready to help other Bitcoin services to prevent the attacks.

Since we suspended cloud mining services, all miners that are currently using GHash.IO are individual miners who trust our platform. With a 0% fee, we are not getting any profit from the mining pool, but we believe that mining is an extremely valuable process for the industry in general, for generating new coins and confirming transactions.

That is why we’ve made all possible efforts to restore the service and are encouraging miners to connect their hardware to the pool. We will continue developing mining side of our company and invest into improving security of the pool so that Bitcoin adherents could enjoy using our service that is secure and free of charge.

Source: CEX.IO blog – http://blog.cex.io/news/official-statement-on-the-ddos-attack-against-ghash-io-mining-pool-13355

(CoinDesk: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-mining-pools-ddos-attacks/)

[IYFTech]

...we are not getting any profit from the mining pool...

BS. You don't seriously expect anyone to believe that do you?

[Xian01]

Is Ghash.io still having issues ? I've never seen a period like this last week or so where the block-times have been so long.

Just bad luck ?

[ghash.io]

...we are not getting any profit from the mining pool...

BS. You don't seriously expect anyone to believe that do you?

GHash.IO does not get any profit from miners. Our pool has 0% fees, and every block reward goes to miners who have chosen to connect their hardware to the pool and contribute to the Bitcoin network.
We do not get any profit from our cloud mining services (which are still available for everyone – you can turn on cloud mining manually if you choose to do so) as well – all the fees go to service providers to cover electricity and maintenance cost. We consider these two directions as our input in the Bitcoin community and cryptocurrency itself.

Our main project is CEX.IO, the exchange, and trading is where the revenue comes from.
By registering with GHash.IO, miners automatically get a CEX.IO account where they can trade their GHs or crypto. Truth to be told, by allowing miners to use our 0% pool, we are hoping to increase our user base at CEX.IO.

[ghash.io]

Is Ghash.io still having issues ? I've never seen a period like this last week or so where the block-times have been so long.

Just bad luck ?

Last week there was a problem where miners could not mine for 6 hours at all. Right now, everything is under control, we are managing the attacks well.
Blocks taking so long to mine is, unfortunately, bad luck indeed.

[cathoderay]

...we are not getting any profit from the mining pool...

BS. You don't seriously expect anyone to believe that do you?

GHash.IO does not get any profit from miners.

We do not get any profit from our cloud mining services.

Absolute lies. So are you trying to say that you are doing all this out of the kindness of your heart?  

Your only "input in the Bitcoin community" has been using your pool for double spending attacks (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=327767.0) & manipulating prices on your scam CEX cloudmining/exchange service.

The Bitcoin network is better off without you.

[IYFTech]

...we are not getting any profit from the mining pool...

BS. You don't seriously expect anyone to believe that do you?

GHash.IO does not get any profit from miners.

We do not get any profit from our cloud mining services.

Absolute lies. So are you trying to say that you are doing all this out of the kindness of your heart?  

Your only "input in the Bitcoin community" has been using your pool for double spending attacks (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=327767.0) & manipulating prices on your scam CEX cloudmining/exchange service.

The Bitcoin network is better off without you.

+1

Not forgetting their block withholding on a regular basis in an effort to increase their profits they claim not to be making......

[Xian01]

Not forgetting their block withholding on a regular basis in an effort to increase their profits they claim not to be making......

Is there any discussion and proof of this somewhere ?

Something just feels "off" mining there over the last little while. Logically, I would just like to write it off to bad luck and DDoS, but I've seen these withholding rumors enough that it's gotten me thinking there might be some substance to the allegations.

EG: Ghash.io has considerably more hash rate than BTCGuild, yet BTCguild is solving more blocks, according to https://blockchain.info/pools - Just bad luck ?

[BCwinning]

Not forgetting their block withholding on a regular basis in an effort to increase their profits they claim not to be making......

Is there any discussion and proof of this somewhere ?

Something just feels "off" mining there over the last little while. Logically, I would just like to write it off to bad luck and DDoS, but I've seen these withholding rumors enough that it's gotten me thinking there might be some substance to the allegations.

EG: Ghash.io has considerably more hash rate than BTCGuild, yet BTCguild is solving more blocks, according to https://blockchain.info/pools - Just bad luck ?

thats what I'm saying. Even with btcguild fee, you make more money and that just doesn't seem logical.

[aurel57]

Not forgetting their block withholding on a regular basis in an effort to increase their profits they claim not to be making......

Is there any discussion and proof of this somewhere ?

Something just feels "off" mining there over the last little while. Logically, I would just like to write it off to bad luck and DDoS, but I've seen these withholding rumors enough that it's gotten me thinking there might be some substance to the allegations.

EG: Ghash.io has considerably more hash rate than BTCGuild, yet BTCguild is solving more blocks, according to https://blockchain.info/pools - Just bad luck ?

thats what I'm saying. Even with btcguild fee, you make more money and that just doesn't seem logical.

I think this is why so many miners have left this pool.

[FreeK]

Ghash even billed me for mining 0.00000000 BTC with my own hardware ("11.2. Maintenance Cost is not charged if the Bitcoins are mined with the User’s personal hardware." source: Terms ):
https://i.imgur.com/4XChC0J.png

So if there isn't a bug within their calculation, I'd say they're scamming honest miners.

[Prelude]

I can't understand why anyone would stay here when there are so many superior options.

[MaximeAD]

I can't understand why anyone would stay here when there are so many superior options.

What would you suggest?

I don't understand all the hate with GHash. Not charging fees does not mean that they are thieves...

[Xian01]

Yeah, looking at stats today, I think I'm going to bail on ghash.io tonight and return back to the venerable Guild mining for Team America.

Looking at the stats over the last two weeks vs BTCGuild, I can't understand why ghash.io is dramatically underpaying when it has ~+5PH more.

What are the odds of that happening ?!

EDIT: Done. Moved 15THs off ghash.io and moved it to BTCG. Buh bye ghash. It was nice while it lasted.

[IYFTech]

I can't understand why anyone would stay here when there are so many superior options.

What would you suggest?

I don't understand all the hate with GHash. Not charging fees does not mean that they are thieves...

But that's exactly what they are - thieves. There are 2 examples on this page alone, double spending & mining with your own equipment for a negative balance are both fine examples stealing/thieving.....

I would suggest any pool that has a reputable owner (research), pays on time (research again), has a happy user base (read the pools thread) and doesn't use a ticket system to hide behind for support - a good, well run & honest pool will give timely support directly on their pools thread.

[MaximeAD]

But that's exactly what they are - thieves. There are 2 examples on this page alone, double spending & mining with your own equipment for a negative balance are both fine examples stealing/thieving.....

I would suggest any pool that has a reputable owner (research), pays on time (research again), has a happy user base (read the pools thread) and doesn't use a ticket system to hide behind for support - a good, well run & honest pool will give timely support directly on their pools thread.

The double spending episode was in November 2013 which is kind of old in this industry. I didn't investigate, but it may be a bug or a malicious employee. Seems it got fixed

For the maintenance fee, didn't happen in two of the accounts I manage.

The only thing is the bad luck they are having right now. Since they supposedly have 6% of the network, there shouldn't be that much variance over 4 days to easifly justify such a deviation. I'm keeping my eyes open but they look wayyyyy less shady than other operators. It's not an efficient strategy to hop pool at each bad luck streak..

[aurel57]

I know when I was mining on GHash there were a couple of times their code messed up and I would get paid for the same block multiple times. So one can only figure it screwed up other ways as well that we didn't see?

[BCwinning]

But that's exactly what they are - thieves. There are 2 examples on this page alone, double spending & mining with your own equipment for a negative balance are both fine examples stealing/thieving.....

I would suggest any pool that has a reputable owner (research), pays on time (research again), has a happy user base (read the pools thread) and doesn't use a ticket system to hide behind for support - a good, well run & honest pool will give timely support directly on their pools thread.

The double spending episode was in November 2013 which is kind of old in this industry. I didn't investigate, but it may be a bug or a malicious employee. Seems it got fixed

For the maintenance fee, didn't happen in two of the accounts I manage.

The only thing is the bad luck they are having right now. Since they supposedly have 6% of the network, there shouldn't be that much variance over 4 days to easifly justify such a deviation. I'm keeping my eyes open but they look wayyyyy less shady than other operators. It's not an efficient strategy to hop pool at each bad luck streak..

4 days? it's been longer than that.
Which pool are you mining at that is shady? I've been on the scene for a long time and mined at several pools along the way and ghash is by far the worst one I have dealt with.
If it's a new pool and you didn't read all the fine print and lost from it, does that mean all ops are shady?

Maybe the war is getting to them. They trying to bank and move away from the cold Ukraine winters and away from Mother Russia.

[Fatman3001]

Not forgetting their block withholding on a regular basis in an effort to increase their profits they claim not to be making......

Is there any discussion and proof of this somewhere ?

Something just feels "off" mining there over the last little while. Logically, I would just like to write it off to bad luck and DDoS, but I've seen these withholding rumors enough that it's gotten me thinking there might be some substance to the allegations.

EG: Ghash.io has considerably more hash rate than BTCGuild, yet BTCguild is solving more blocks, according to https://blockchain.info/pools - Just bad luck ?

thats what I'm saying. Even with btcguild fee, you make more money and that just doesn't seem logical.

With BTCGuild you get both good and bad luck, with Ghash.io you just get bad luck. I'm told it could theoretically happen without any foul play. However, I am also told that if every atom in my hand is correctly in time with the table I can move my hand through the table without touching it. It could happen, but it's very^very unlikely.

[MaximeAD]

It could happen, but it's very^very unlikely.

Not THAT unlikely... A quick calculation with:
* 20 PH/s of calculation power
* 77 blocks found in 10.85 days

We find that it had about 6% of chance (Assume a Poisson Distribution with lambda = 92) of having worst luck. It's bad, but not a total surprise to see it.

We are far from 0.1%--1%...

If we had the history of GHash block found with reported hashing power (Longer than what is provided), we could evaluate on longer term.. BUt for now, no alarm to hop.