Should we (the investors, I mean) help incentivize p2pool?

[oda.krell]

Opinions are divided (to say the least) on how dangerous a single pool reaching 51% or more of hash power really is.

Some say it's not a big deal and it's all hysteria, others go as far as calling Bitcoin "ghash coin". I tend to think the answer is somewhere in the middle: it's a serious problem, in the sense that our "trustless network" becomes a bit less trustless when a single pool can get close to a hashrate majority, but I also don't buy that it's an imminent & practical danger - no rational pool operator would risk the entire base of this wealth to earn a few extra bucks.

First, a disclaimer: I'm not a miner myself, so some of the finer points of mining and mining pools probably elude me. That said, I am under the impression that a lot, if not: most of the 51% pool problem would disappear if a majority of "floating" hash power would join p2pool.

Agreed so far? Let's say p2pool is the solution. There seem to be reasons why miners don't use p2pool more often yet. The most common reason I've heard so far is that p2pool requires the participating miner to run a full node (while regular pools need only a light client). I never quite understood why that is exactly such a big obstacle (if you can spend thousands on ASICs, how hard can it be to get the hardware/connection to run a full node?), but I'm not here to argue with the miners. They are economical actors, so I'll assume they know what they're doing.

Alright, I'll come to my point:

1) It would be preferable for everyone who has a stake in Bitcoin if a majority of hashing power would join p2pool.

2) Miners, by and large, aren't doing that. Currently p2pool sits at around 1% of total hashing power.

My conclusion:

Those who have a large stake in Bitcoin should try to give more incentives to miners to join p2pool, as it will benefit themselves in the long run.


Do you agree? If so, what's the most effective way for us (as investors/traders) to provide such incentives? The wiki mentions p2pool donations already exist, but I couldn't even find the total of donations received so far. Also, it looks like Bitcoind is required to donate, which limits the number of potential donators.

How about a to do list?

• Set up donation address
• Advertise, and convince large Bitcoin stakeholders to donate to p2pool, arguing that it is in their own self interest
• Make sure there is little room for embezzlement of the donated funds, i.e. guarantee and check that donated funds are distributed among p2pool miners.

That's my pitch. Any input welcome.



Some links:

P2Pool Wiki article

P2Pool thread on bitcointalk

Hashrate distribution, by pools

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[norgan]

There is an easy donation tool from blisterpool in my sig that requires no bitcoind.

Donations that come through usually total around 5-10c and you may see three per week.

P2pool miners get a 0.5% bonus for finding a block.

I am sure more miners would join if some of the variation is softened by more donations.

Also miners are not required to run a node, just find one that's close to them.

[oda.krell]

There is an easy donation tool from blisterpool in my sig that requires no bitcoind.

Donations that come through usually total around 5-10c and you may see three per week.

P2pool miners get a 0.5% bonus for finding a block.

I am sure more miners would join if some of the variation is softened by more donations.

Also miners are not required to run a node, just find one that's close to them.

Sorry, 5-10c? You don't mean cent, right?

Also, care to explain the 0.5% bonus? How is that implemented, and who provides that incentive... I didn't know about that.

EDIT: just saw that this month, you got 2.5 BTC. That's not much. Any idea what the total donations to p2pool are per month, on average?

[norgan]

Opinions are divided (to say the least) on how dangerous a single pool reaching 51% or more of hash power really is.

Some say it's not a big deal and it's all hysteria, others go as far as calling Bitcoin "ghash coin". I tend to think the answer is somewhere in the middle: it's a serious problem, in the sense that our "trustless network" becomes a bit less trustless when a single pool can get close to a hashrate majority, but I also don't buy that it's an imminent & practical danger - no rational pool operator would risk the entire base of this wealth to earn a few extra bucks.

First, a disclaimer: I'm not a miner myself, so some of the finer points of mining and mining pools probably elude me. That said, I am under the impression that a lot, if not: most of the 51% pool problem would disappear if a majority of "floating" hash power would join p2pool.

Agreed so far? Let's say p2pool is the solution. There seem to be reasons why miners don't use p2pool more often yet. The most common reason I've heard so far is that p2pool requires the participating miner to run a full node (while regular pools need only a light client). I never quite understood why that is exactly such a big obstacle (if you can spend thousands on ASICs, how hard can it be to get the hardware/connection to run a full node?), but I'm not here to argue with the miners. They are economical actors, so I'll assume they know what they're doing.

Alright, I'll come to my point:

1) It would be preferable for everyone who has a stake in Bitcoin if a majority of hashing power would join p2pool.

2) Miners, by and large, aren't doing that. Currently p2pool sits at around 1% of total hashing power.

My conclusion:

Those who have a large stake in Bitcoin should try to give more incentives to miners to join p2pool, as it will benefit themselves in the long run.


Do you agree? If so, what's the most effective way for us (as investors/traders) to provide such incentives? The wiki mentions p2pool donations already exist, but I couldn't even find the total of donations received so far. Also, it looks like Bitcoind is required to donate, which limits the number of potential donators.

How about a to do list?

• Set up donation address
• Advertise, and convince large Bitcoin stakeholders to donate to p2pool, arguing that it is in their own self interest
• Make sure there is little room for embezzlement of the donated funds, i.e. guarantee and check that donated funds are distributed among p2pool miners.

That's my pitch. Any input welcome.



Some links:

P2Pool Wiki article

P2Pool thread on bitcointalk

Hashrate distribution, by pools

Yes cents, of course I only have around 200gh/s so miners with higher hash rates get a larger share of donations.

When a block is found, the 25btc (or close enough too) gets split 99.5% among the miners who have submitted shares based on how many shares they hashed and the one that actually finds the block gets the remaining 0.5% of the block reward.

[zimmah]

Personally i prefer Ghash because they offer a userfriendly website. I can automatically split the income between several wallets for example.

And most mining pools offer apps to check your hasrate on your phone or on a google chrome plugin. So you don't have to check all the time if your miner is still running.

If those things would be created for P2P to make P2P as userfriendly as Ghash than personally i would love to join P2P. But ight now it's just too much of a hassle.

[oda.krell]

Yes cents, of course I only have around 200gh/s so miners with higher hash rates get a larger share of donations.

When a block is found, the 25btc (or close enough too) gets split 99.5% among the miners who have submitted shares based on how many shares they hashed and the one that actually finds the block gets the remaining 0.5% of the block reward.

Okay, that was a bit misleading then. I thought you were talking about a 0.5% incentive provided to miners that are on p2pool vs. miners in other pools, and I was pretty surprised to hear that would have been there.

Any info on total donations to p2pool? Would you say your donation tool is the most used one?

[norgan]

Yes cents, of course I only have around 200gh/s so miners with higher hash rates get a larger share of donations.

When a block is found, the 25btc (or close enough too) gets split 99.5% among the miners who have submitted shares based on how many shares they hashed and the one that actually finds the block gets the remaining 0.5% of the block reward.

Okay, that was a bit misleading then. I thought you were talking about a 0.5% incentive provided to miners that are on p2pool vs. miners in other pools, and I was pretty surprised to hear that would have been there.

Any info on total donations to p2pool? Would you say your donation tool is the most used one?

The one in my sig (not mine but setup recently by the blisterpool guy) seems to be most used and it has stats on total donated.

[norgan]

Statistics

today

week

month


Donations
1 1 43 

Donated
0.02 btc 0.02 btc 2.5219 btc 

Largest
0.02 btc 0.02 btc 1.0 btc 

Payouts
238 238 7259

[sconklin321]

Yes cents, of course I only have around 200gh/s so miners with higher hash rates get a larger share of donations.

When a block is found, the 25btc (or close enough too) gets split 99.5% among the miners who have submitted shares based on how many shares they hashed and the one that actually finds the block gets the remaining 0.5% of the block reward.

Okay, that was a bit misleading then. I thought you were talking about a 0.5% incentive provided to miners that are on p2pool vs. miners in other pools, and I was pretty surprised to hear that would have been there.

Any info on total donations to p2pool? Would you say your donation tool is the most used one?

I wouldn't say that calling the 0.5% an incentive misleading.  P2Pool is the only pool that I know of that rewards the person who finds the block with more than just their submitted shares.  This could be a decent incentive for someone with larger hashing power to join P2Pool as they would approximately .125 BTC in addition to their shares when their hardware finds a block.  While that may not sound like a lot to some people, I wouldn't mind an extra $73.55 for letting my hardware do what it's already doing.

[oda.krell]

I'd still like to get some feedback from some of the large-ish holders that I know exist in this forum

Come on, 100+ guys, talk to me...

The 51% situation doesn't bother you at all? And wouldn't it be nice if we could actually do something to fix it? Would be cool, if in a year from now p2pool is the single biggest provider of hash power, and it was us, the investors, who gave the nudge to get there...

[Hyena]

I've been using p2pool for 6 months now and interestingly someone keeps sending me additional bonuses to my mining address:

Status: 84 confirmations
Date: 27/06/2014 08:06
From: unknown
To: 1DmMArx84zA6fpAsvDzrR1hsjnFgC5h6EK (own address, label: Mining_06_2014)
Credit: 0.00002588 BTC
Net amount: +0.00002588 BTC
Transaction ID: b11fd4e62df27c5ddd71c139603eed8006bfa298dced10632b5dd3281883055a-000

10 such transactions this month ~0.00025000 not much but I appreciate the support

[oda.krell]

I've been using p2pool for 6 months now and interestingly someone keeps sending me additional bonuses to my mining address:

Status: 84 confirmations
Date: 27/06/2014 08:06
From: unknown
To: 1DmMArx84zA6fpAsvDzrR1hsjnFgC5h6EK (own address, label: Mining_06_2014)
Credit: 0.00002588 BTC
Net amount: +0.00002588 BTC
Transaction ID: b11fd4e62df27c5ddd71c139603eed8006bfa298dced10632b5dd3281883055a-000

10 such transactions this month ~0.00025000 not much but I appreciate the support

Nice

But that's exactly why I'd like to see the effort a bit more advertised, and perhaps bundled.

More exposure means more donations are coming in, means miners become more aware of the incentives, means donators see their donation have an effect, etc.

I'd hope to get some positive feedback loop going here...

To get this started, I'll pledge contributing 1 btc to this effort (EDIT: to be clear, not your personally I meant as a donation to an address as described in my OP). But I'm still waiting for any non-miners to say what they think of this, and whether they care to make an effort as well (or maybe say that they did already).

[JimboToronto]

There seem to be reasons why miners don't use p2pool more often yet.

There are probably many reasons. Mine is laziness.

I used the Easy Miner software that came with my BFL rig and it had single-click options for only Eclipse and Eligius.

I chose the latter.

[Hyena]

Actually P2Pool mining is really simple because you don't need to register any account anywhere. You can find existing P2pool nodes here:
http://p2pool.hostv.pl/

I use http://pool.fabulouspanda.co.uk:9332/static/ for example.

All one needs to do is to start the miner like that:
./bfgminer -o http://pool.fabulouspanda.co.uk:9332 -u 1DmMArx84zA6fpAsvDzrR1hsjnFgC5h6EK -p whatever
where username is your receiving address and password can be anything.

Also, people who wish to donate to P2P miners can go here:
https://blockchain.info/blocks/P2Pool

and they will see the latest blocks found by P2Pool. Clicking on any of the blocks gives you a list of addresses that participated in finding the block so a donations could be sent to the same addresses.

If anyone is interested in monitoring your P2Pool mining effort, I created this Linux shell script that I can gladly share with you:

Code:

#!/bin/sh

#When hashrate falls below `minimal_hashrate` the alarm goes off.
minimal_hashrate=30

#Only if current time is more than `first_active_hour` the script can raise alarm. This is to be quiet during the night.
first_active_hour=10

#To change the number of idle seconds after checking metrics modify the following variable:
script_frequency=300

#P2Pool:
pool_addr="http://pool.fabulouspanda.co.uk:9332"
btc_addr="1DmMArx84zA6fpAsvDzrR1hsjnFgC5h6EK"

#Helper variables:
last_hash=""
pool_fee=""
first_run="yes"

echo -en "\033]0;ASIC Stats\a"

while :
do
hashrate=`curl -s $pool_addr'/local_stats' | grep -Po '"'$btc_addr'":(.+?),' | tail -1 | cut -d' ' -f 2 | cut -d'.' -f 1`
newest_hash=`curl -s $pool_addr'/recent_blocks' | grep -Po '"hash":(.+?),' | head -1 | cut -d' ' -f 2 | cut -d'"' -f 2`
now=`date`
hour=`date +%H`
orig="$hashrate"
if echo "$hashrate" | egrep -q '^[0-9]+$'; then
    hashrate=$(($hashrate/1000000000))
    printf "%s: Hashrate: %-16s%8s " "$now" "\"$orig\"" "$hashrate GHs"
else
    hashrate=0
    printf "%s:           %24s " "$now" "NO CONNECTION"
fi

if test "$minimal_hashrate" -gt "$hashrate"
then
    printf "(\033[1;31m%s\033[0m)\n" 'FAIL'    
    test "$hour" -gt "$first_active_hour" && (beep -l 350 -f 392 -D 100)
else
    printf "(\033[1;32m%s\033[0m)\n" 'OK'
fi

if [ "$last_hash" != "$newest_hash" ]
then   
    if [ "$first_run" != "yes" ]
    then   
        payout=`curl -s $pool_addr'/current_payouts' | grep -Po '"'$btc_addr'":(.+?),' | cut -d' ' -f 2 | cut -d',' -f 1`    
        pool_fee=`curl -s $pool_addr'/fee'`    
        printf "\033[1;35m%s\033[0m\n" "$newest_hash"
        printf "Payout:       \033[1;33m%46s\033[0m BTC\n" "+$payout"
        printf "Pool fee:     \033[1;31m%46s\033[0m %%\n" "$pool_fee"    
        test "$hour" -gt "$first_active_hour" && (beep -l 300 -f 100 -n -l 300 -f 112 -n -l 300 -f 126 -n -l 300 -f 100 -n -l 300 -f 100 -n -l 300 -f 112 -n -l 300 -f 126 -n -l 300 -f 100 -n -l 300 -f 126 -n -l 300 -f 133 -n -l 600 -f 150 -n -l 300 -f 126 -n -l 300 -f 133 -n -l 600 -f 150 -n -l 150 -f 150 -n -l 150 -f 168 -n -l 150 -f 150 -n -l 150 -f 133 -n -l 300 -f 126 -n -l 300 -f 100 -n -l 150 -f 150 -n -l 150 -f 168 -n -l 150 -f 150 -n -l 150 -f 133 -n -l 300 -f 126 -n -l 300 -f 100 -n -l 300 -f 100 -n -l 300 -f 75 -n -l 600 -f 100 -n -l 300 -f 100 -n -l 300 -f 75 -n -l 600 -f 100)
    else
        printf "\033[1;35m%s\033[0m\n" "$newest_hash"
    fi
    last_hash=$newest_hash    
fi
first_run=""
sleep "$script_frequency"
done

The above script will play a PC speaker melody if the pool finds a block and it will make a single bleep if your miner is not producing enough GHashes per second. the beep command requires the PC speaker to be enabled however, which is another story.

[Hunterbunter]

EDIT: just saw that this month, you got 2.5 BTC. That's not much. Any idea what the total donations to p2pool are per month, on average?

I set up http://blisterpool.com/p2pdonate about 3 weeks ago, at the bequest of a business owner who wanted an easy way to donate to "decentralized miners". His catch cry was "1% for decentralization", hoping to inspire other business owners to donate 1% of their weekly profits to something like p2pool so there was more incentive to mine on it.

In my experience with p2pool (4-5 months), I've not seen a single donation. I don't know how much as gone through prior to that.

After presenting the tool, there was a flurry of donations totally about 2.5 btc so far (across 43 donations, to lots of miners), with the highest being 1.0 btc. Donations have died off somewhat the last week, but they still come in every now and then. I also posted the source on github, and noticed maybe half a dozen or so donations that didn't go through my tool. I'd estimate it was around 0.5 btc through those.

I do think that investors and businesses have a vested interest in regularly donating to p2pool mining...if the blockchain fails, all their assets fail with it. 1% for decentralization is a great idea, and if enough people start thinking about it, p2pool should far out pay any other pool, and that's all the real incentive miners need.

[oda.krell]

EDIT: just saw that this month, you got 2.5 BTC. That's not much. Any idea what the total donations to p2pool are per month, on average?

I set up http://blisterpool.com/p2pdonate about 3 weeks ago, at the bequest of a business owner who wanted an easy way to donate to "decentralized miners". His catch cry was "1% for decentralization", hoping to inspire other business owners to donate 1% of their weekly profits to something like p2pool so there was more incentive to mine on it.

In my experience with p2pool (4-5 months), I've not seen a single donation. I don't know how much as gone through prior to that.

After presenting the tool, there was a flurry of donations totally about 2.5 btc so far (across 43 donations, to lots of miners), with the highest being 1.0 btc. Donations have died off somewhat the last week, but they still come in every now and then. I also posted the source on github, and noticed maybe half a dozen or so donations that didn't go through my tool. I'd estimate it was around 0.5 btc through those.

I do think that investors and businesses have a vested interest in regularly donating to p2pool mining...if the blockchain fails, all their assets fail with it. 1% for decentralization is a great idea, and if enough people start thinking about it, p2pool should far out pay any other pool, and that's all the real incentive miners need.

Thanks. Very interesting

That's kind of what I'm afraid of... individual donations coming in, but no sustained awareness yet that this should be a thing for everyone who holds a relevant stake in Bitcoin and ever wondered if 51% hashpower in the hands of one conventional pool is maybe not such a great idea.

(EDIT) One other remark: once p2pool gets big enough, variance should be less of an issue than it is now, so donations would be needed only to *sustain* miners staying in p2pool, while currently we need to give extra incentives to them in order for them to *join* the pool (because for reasons of high variance when mining with a low total hashrate, they would possibly better served to join a larger pool). Correct?


Donation drive / request for comments from investors still continuing :D My own pledge (1 btc) still stands.

[calian]

Personally i prefer Ghash because they offer a userfriendly website. I can automatically split the income between several wallets for example.

And most mining pools offer apps to check your hasrate on your phone or on a google chrome plugin. So you don't have to check all the time if your miner is still running.

If those things would be created for P2P to make P2P as userfriendly as Ghash than personally i would love to join P2P. But ight now it's just too much of a hassle.

How about listen to the actual miner who commented here? It sounds like money needs to be spent to making mining for P2Pool the easiest, slickest, smoothest way to go. That would suggest to me that donations would be better spent paying developers to implement the kind of interface that miners want. Something that reduces their headaches. It makes sense that large pools would have the resources to provide this kind of thing whereas P2P being a decentralized open source tool probably still requires the command line to get running. What we need is the Ubuntu (company) for P2Pool.

[Raystonn]

Personally i prefer Ghash because they offer a userfriendly website. I can automatically split the income between several wallets for example.

And most mining pools offer apps to check your hasrate on your phone or on a google chrome plugin. So you don't have to check all the time if your miner is still running.

If those things would be created for P2P to make P2P as userfriendly as Ghash than personally i would love to join P2P. But ight now it's just too much of a hassle.

How about listen to the actual miner who commented here? It sounds like money needs to be spent to making mining for P2Pool the easiest, slickest, smoothest way to go. That would suggest to me that donations would be better spent paying developers to implement the kind of interface that miners want. Something that reduces their headaches. It makes sense that large pools would have the resources to provide this kind of thing whereas P2P being a decentralized open source tool probably still requires the command line to get running. What we need is the Ubuntu (company) for P2Pool.

Presumably whoever created P2Pool had a motivation that also encompasses seeing miners actually adopt it.  If so, that motivation should translate into development on such features if they believe these features are needed to further adoption of P2Pool.

[xDan]

Personally i prefer Ghash because they offer a userfriendly website. I can automatically split the income between several wallets for example.

And most mining pools offer apps to check your hasrate on your phone or on a google chrome plugin. So you don't have to check all the time if your miner is still running.

If those things would be created for P2P to make P2P as userfriendly as Ghash than personally i would love to join P2P. But ight now it's just too much of a hassle.

How about listen to the actual miner who commented here? It sounds like money needs to be spent to making mining for P2Pool the easiest, slickest, smoothest way to go. That would suggest to me that donations would be better spent paying developers to implement the kind of interface that miners want. Something that reduces their headaches. It makes sense that large pools would have the resources to provide this kind of thing whereas P2P being a decentralized open source tool probably still requires the command line to get running. What we need is the Ubuntu (company) for P2Pool.

+1million, any donations should go to further development of this P2Pool.

I'm not a miner so no nothing about p2pool and have never used it but typically open source software is ass backwards as fuck to use compared to commercial... Would happily donate some small amount to concrete and well defined enhancement proposals for this p2pool.

This is the initiative that is needed.

- poll miners, why do they prefer GHash, whatever
- distil this into some concrete proposals for improving p2pool (or e.g. creation of additional services/apps for this "monitoring hashrate" or w/e)
- crowd fund these

[and also find some qualified bitcoin devs / community members who can say that P2Pool is actually the solution here, because I have no freaking idea!]

P.S., why isn't this in the main Bitcoin Discussion forum? It needs more attention.

[oda.krell]

Personally i prefer Ghash because they offer a userfriendly website. I can automatically split the income between several wallets for example.

And most mining pools offer apps to check your hasrate on your phone or on a google chrome plugin. So you don't have to check all the time if your miner is still running.

If those things would be created for P2P to make P2P as userfriendly as Ghash than personally i would love to join P2P. But ight now it's just too much of a hassle.

How about listen to the actual miner who commented here? It sounds like money needs to be spent to making mining for P2Pool the easiest, slickest, smoothest way to go. That would suggest to me that donations would be better spent paying developers to implement the kind of interface that miners want. Something that reduces their headaches. It makes sense that large pools would have the resources to provide this kind of thing whereas P2P being a decentralized open source tool probably still requires the command line to get running. What we need is the Ubuntu (company) for P2Pool.

+1million, any donations should go to further development of this P2Pool.

I'm not a miner so no nothing about p2pool and have never used it but typically open source software is ass backwards as fuck to use compared to commercial... Would happily donate some small amount to concrete and well defined enhancement proposals for this p2pool.

This is the initiative that is needed.

- poll miners, why do they prefer GHash, whatever
- distil this into some concrete proposals for improving p2pool (or e.g. creation of additional services/apps for this "monitoring hashrate" or w/e)
- crowd fund these

[and also find some qualified bitcoin devs / community members who can say that P2Pool is actually the solution here, because I have no freaking idea!]

P.S., why isn't this in the main Bitcoin Discussion forum? It needs more attention.

I'd welcome opening this discussion on the main discussion forum, but the speculation subforum is pretty big as well, and as I hinted at in the title, I'm especially interested in the opinion of larger stakeholders on this matter, i.e. those who hold large positions in BTC. The speculation forum seemed like a good place to get a reaction from them, only, so far nobody picked up that invitation.