What is the best pool?

[santamarko]

Hello, i began to mine like 2 months ago, i have already tested multipool, ghash pool, and a little of btcguild.

I have 860 gh/s with 2 antminers s1's and half oh antminer s2 and soon i will have 1.3 th/s with my antminer s3, so i really wanna know what is the best pool to mine with my hashrate and explain me why please.

Multipool isn't bad but many times breaks and i go to my second pool to mine.

Ghash i think is good but with so many people mining i can't get good profits.

And btcguild i have to test better.

I heard about p2pool but i dont know any and i don't know very well the concept of p2pool, so i would like to know if p2pool is a good choice and why aswell.

So just give me your opinion and why, thank you in advance.

[jonnybravo0311]

Hello, i began to mine like 2 months ago, i have already tested multipool, ghash pool, and a little of btcguild.

I have 860 gh/s with 2 antminers s1's and half oh antminer s2 and soon i will have 1.3 th/s with my antminer s3, so i really wanna know what is the best pool to mine with my hashrate and explain me why please.

Multipool isn't bad but many times breaks and i go to my second pool to mine.

Ghash i think is good but with so many people mining i can't get good profits.

And btcguild i have to test better.

I heard about p2pool but i dont know any and i don't know very well the concept of p2pool, so i would like to know if p2pool is a good choice and why aswell.

So just give me your opinion and why, thank you in advance.

First, let me correct your understanding.  Your statement of:

Ghash i think is good but with so many people mining i can't get good profits.

Is absolutely incorrect.  No matter which pool you choose, your expected earnings will be pretty close.  Some pools might do marginally better than others, but simply stating that the size of the pool determines profits is wrong.  For example, assuming everything else is constant, a pool with 0% fees will be better than a pool with 3% fees.

If you're thinking that switching pools will somehow translate into a substantially larger profit margin for you, think again.  Unless the pool you're currently on is either stealing or charging outlandish fees or has some kind of bug, you're not going to move to another pool and suddenly think, "Eureka!  I'm making 100% more here!"

As for personal preference, I mine on p2pool.  I suggest you take a look at the p2pool thread to get some more info on how it works and see if it is a fit for you.  It is for me, and here's why:

1) I like to have control.  I don't want some other entity to hold my coins, or have to deal with payout thresholds, or withdrawal fees, or any of that.  When a block is found, I get newly minted coins.
2) Decentralization.  Unlike other pools where you've got everything controlled under one banner, with p2pool, anybody anywhere can fire up a node and be part of the network.
3) Payouts.  I mentioned this in my first point, and wanted to state it again.  I like the fact that as soon as a block is found, I get those nice, shiny, newly minted coins in my wallet.
4) No punishment for hopping around.  In p2pool, it doesn't matter if I mine on my node or anyone else's.  Every share I find goes onto the share chain, which every other node uses.

[xstr8guy]

BTCGuild, Slush and Eligius have great, reliable, honest pools. BitMinter is nice too but because of its small share of the network, it has more peaks and troughs than larger pools.

[nottm28]

slush

[williamj2543]

I like ghash.io, there probably the largest and most trustworthy.

[nottm28]

I like ghash.io, there probably the largest and most trustworthy.

lol

[xstr8guy]

I like ghash.io, there probably the largest and most trustworthy.

Largest yes. Trustworthy NO.

[williamj2543]

How are they not trustworthy?

[nottm28]

How are they not trustworthy?

catch up

[xstr8guy]

How are they not trustworthy?

catch up

I think we should all suggest 50btc to him since he doesn't want to do his own research. 

[nottm28]

How are they not trustworthy?

catch up

I think we should all suggest 50btc to him since he doesn't want to do his own research. 

75btc is the best pool

[kgb2mining]

We have tried:

Ghash - nice interface, but did not like what I researched about them or their policies and did not want to continue doing business there.  Stayed about 12 hours, then switched.
Slush's pool - had some connectivity issues every so often, would switch to backups every so often, but fine otherwise.  Smaller pool hashrate meant bigger swings in block times.
Bitminter - same as slush's pool.
BTCGuild - nice interface, liked mining there, no real issues if you want a decent sized proprietary pool to join.  Mined the longest there so far (about a month), but recently switched to P2Pool.

We're currently running in P2Pool for almost a week, and I think we will stay with that.  Looking into setting up our own node as well within the next month to participate in the network.

With the larger pools you get smaller payouts, more consistently, since they can usually find blocks quicker but they have so many people hashing.  With the smaller pools you can go a day or more and find no blocks, then find 2 or three.  It's a roller coaster ride.

With P2Pool you find and connect to a local node which is part of the larger network.  It is decentralized, and I think more true to the spirit of bitcoin, where everyone is contributing to the network and you have no central authority controlling the pool.  Fees are usually nil or very very low (.5% or less).  Right now the pool hashrate is about 1Ph/s, which is small and recently we went almost 2 days without a solved block.  Then, three in the past day.  But, so far the payouts are no worse than BTCGuild over the week, and possibly better by a little on average.  Also like the instant (well, after all confirmations clear) payout right to your address.  No one else is holding our BTC, which could become an issue for the larger pools if the proposed NY State legislation goes through as-is.

My suggestion would be to mine with one of the larger pools (but NOT ghash) for right now to get a feel for mining.  Do some research, know what your payouts will end up being over some time, and then possibly look into P2Pool.  Read up around the P2Pool thread, lots of good info over there.

[byt411]

How are they not trustworthy?

Have you been living under a rock for the past couple of months, or are you just making retarded posts to bump up the post count for the signature campaign?
Seriously. Ghash.io and Cex.io is the worst pool/company ever, even worse than deepbit back in the old days. They want to do a 51% attack and double spend (In my opinion).

[williamj2543]

I honestly don't know anything bad about ghash.io and cex.io. I used to use them and they seemed fine, I liked their website, their support was good. Aren't they taking measures to stop a 51% attack? Aren't they telling some users to use other pools? What real bad things have they done, that can be proven. I'm not trying to advertise ghash.io or anything but I want to know why they are so bad?

[byt411]

I honestly don't know anything bad about ghash.io and cex.io. I used to use them and they seemed fine, I liked their website, their support was good. Aren't they taking measures to stop a 51% attack? Aren't they telling some users to use other pools? What real bad things have they done, that can be proven. I'm not trying to advertise ghash.io or anything but I want to know why they are so bad?

They double spent against BetCoin dice
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=327767.0

They basically did nothing to prevent 51% and they reached it. Their measure now is to spam messages all over the net telling miners to leave, but not taking any actual measures like preventing new connections or increasing fees.

[santamarko]

We have tried:

Ghash - nice interface, but did not like what I researched about them or their policies and did not want to continue doing business there.  Stayed about 12 hours, then switched.
Slush's pool - had some connectivity issues every so often, would switch to backups every so often, but fine otherwise.  Smaller pool hashrate meant bigger swings in block times.
Bitminter - same as slush's pool.
BTCGuild - nice interface, liked mining there, no real issues if you want a decent sized proprietary pool to join.  Mined the longest there so far (about a month), but recently switched to P2Pool.

We're currently running in P2Pool for almost a week, and I think we will stay with that.  Looking into setting up our own node as well within the next month to participate in the network.

With the larger pools you get smaller payouts, more consistently, since they can usually find blocks quicker but they have so many people hashing.  With the smaller pools you can go a day or more and find no blocks, then find 2 or three.  It's a roller coaster ride.

With P2Pool you find and connect to a local node which is part of the larger network.  It is decentralized, and I think more true to the spirit of bitcoin, where everyone is contributing to the network and you have no central authority controlling the pool.  Fees are usually nil or very very low (.5% or less).  Right now the pool hashrate is about 1Ph/s, which is small and recently we went almost 2 days without a solved block.  Then, three in the past day.  But, so far the payouts are no worse than BTCGuild over the week, and possibly better by a little on average.  Also like the instant (well, after all confirmations clear) payout right to your address.  No one else is holding our BTC, which could become an issue for the larger pools if the proposed NY State legislation goes through as-is.

My suggestion would be to mine with one of the larger pools (but NOT ghash) for right now to get a feel for mining.  Do some research, know what your payouts will end up being over some time, and then possibly look into P2Pool.  Read up around the P2Pool thread, lots of good info over there.

thanks for your answer but if i want to join in a p2pool how can i connect to one? is like the others pools, just use their server and putt them on the miner, or is harder than that? and do you think someday p2pool when she hits more hashrate, she will give better profits or is it proportional?

[williamj2543]

I honestly don't know anything bad about ghash.io and cex.io. I used to use them and they seemed fine, I liked their website, their support was good. Aren't they taking measures to stop a 51% attack? Aren't they telling some users to use other pools? What real bad things have they done, that can be proven. I'm not trying to advertise ghash.io or anything but I want to know why they are so bad?

They double spent against BetCoin dice
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=327767.0

They basically did nothing to prevent 51% and they reached it. Their measure now is to spam messages all over the net telling miners to leave, but not taking any actual measures like preventing new connections or increasing fees.

I've seen that betcoin thing before, I assume that was an employee acting on his own part. They are not exactly going to not let people still use their pool, why would they do that. They are discouraging people from joining, but really thats all they can do without forcing people to leave. I just don't see why everyone hates on them, other than being scared of the 51% attack.

[byt411]

I honestly don't know anything bad about ghash.io and cex.io. I used to use them and they seemed fine, I liked their website, their support was good. Aren't they taking measures to stop a 51% attack? Aren't they telling some users to use other pools? What real bad things have they done, that can be proven. I'm not trying to advertise ghash.io or anything but I want to know why they are so bad?

They double spent against BetCoin dice
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=327767.0

They basically did nothing to prevent 51% and they reached it. Their measure now is to spam messages all over the net telling miners to leave, but not taking any actual measures like preventing new connections or increasing fees.

I've seen that betcoin thing before, I assume that was an employee acting on his own part. They are not exactly going to not let people still use their pool, why would they do that. They are discouraging people from joining, but really thats all they can do without forcing people to leave. I just don't see why everyone hates on them, other than being scared of the 51% attack.

We're not scared. It's simply because they are a bunch of irresponsible and lazy crooks.
Yeah, it was an employee, according to them. They can say what they want.
No one said not let people use their pool, denying new connections is stop new miners from connecting. It's a simple method. They wouldn't be forcing people to leave.
Increasing fees is more of a way of discouraging people to use their pool, and not send out stupid messages. They can do something similar to BTCGuild.

[cloverme]

I've tried many a pool, I've had the best luck with ghash.io with the best payout. I've tried btc guild, slush, multipool.us, and p2pool.

[frigidformself]

If you have Antminer S3's; I think your best luck would be with finding your nearest P2Pool node and mining there.  I'm currently mining P2pool on Coincadence.  The operator is active on these boards if there are any issues.  The thing to remember about P2pool is that it takes a long time to start getting payouts to discourage pool hopping.

Otherwise, BTCguild seems good. 

I have my R-Boxes on f2pool for now to see how it does.