P2POOL payout mystery.....

[bozo333]

I have 3+THs BTC mining power and tried out a P2POOL node yesterday for about 6 hours. For some reason all P2POOL sites I visited to not really explain well how the whole payout system works.

Anyway, after 6 hours I stopped mining and had 3 'shares' and it said I would get 0.009 BTC if a share was found now. Thats all, nothing else. Fast forward to this morning...I have a total of 4 deposits of 0.09 from mining that are taking forever to get confirmed. Why does it take so long in this case and why can't the P2POOL sites better let miners know how much is headed their way?

[roslinpl]

I have 3+THs BTC mining power and tried out a P2POOL node yesterday for about 6 hours. For some reason all P2POOL sites I visited to not really explain well how the whole payout system works.

Anyway, after 6 hours I stopped mining and had 3 'shares' and it said I would get 0.009 BTC if a share was found now. Thats all, nothing else. Fast forward to this morning...I have a total of 4 deposits of 0.09 from mining that are taking forever to get confirmed. Why does it take so long in this case and why can't the P2POOL sites better let miners know how much is headed their way?

Did they add a fee to transactions ? You can check that in the blockchain explorer.
If confirmation is taking "forever" seems like they forgot to pay a fee =)

No worries. It will be OK after few hours.

[bozo333]

I don't think its a fee issue, as there was a fee paid with each deposit:

Number of inputs?: 1 (Jump to inputs)
Total BTC in?: 25
Number of outputs: 499 (Jump to outputs)
Total BTC out?: 25.01616
Size?: 17.089 kilobytes
Fee?: -0.01616

Maybe it's because a transaction of type COINBASE is different?


What really interests me more is how long shares of P2POOL keep paying even after one has stopped mining...

[jonnybravo0311]

I have 3+THs BTC mining power and tried out a P2POOL node yesterday for about 6 hours. For some reason all P2POOL sites I visited to not really explain well how the whole payout system works.

Anyway, after 6 hours I stopped mining and had 3 'shares' and it said I would get 0.009 BTC if a share was found now. Thats all, nothing else. Fast forward to this morning...I have a total of 4 deposits of 0.09 from mining that are taking forever to get confirmed. Why does it take so long in this case and why can't the P2POOL sites better let miners know how much is headed their way?

I'll explain it for you.  Every share you find gets added to the share chain.  Each share is valued a certain amount of BTC.  You mined for 6 hours and found 3 shares.  Since then, p2pool found 4 blocks, so each time a block was found, you were paid for the shares you had on the chain.

The mined coins come from the generation transaction - so you have to wait 101 blocks for them to become available.  That's the way it is for every pool that pays in generated (i.e. newly minted) coins.  You picked a fantastic time to try p2pool since we've found 5 blocks in the past 24 hours.

[bozo333]

I'll explain it for you.  Every share you find gets added to the share chain.  Each share is valued a certain amount of BTC.  You mined for 6 hours and found 3 shares.  Since then, p2pool found 4 blocks, so each time a block was found, you were paid for the shares you had on the chain.

How long do I continue to get paid with those shares? Fixed amount of time or nobody knows in advance?
And should it have taken, lets say, 3 days to find the next block would have my shares 'expired'?

PS. P2POOL found 5 blocks in the last 24 hours (=5 payouts) ...guess I am having 'miners luck'...;-)

[jonnybravo0311]

I'll explain it for you.  Every share you find gets added to the share chain.  Each share is valued a certain amount of BTC.  You mined for 6 hours and found 3 shares.  Since then, p2pool found 4 blocks, so each time a block was found, you were paid for the shares you had on the chain.

How long do I continue to get paid with those shares? Fixed amount of time or nobody knows in advance?

Each payout transaction takes 8640 shares and pays them.  Basically it's about 3 days worth.

[Soros Shorts]

Did they add a fee to transactions ? You can check that in the blockchain explorer.
If confirmation is taking "forever" seems like they forgot to pay a fee =)

No worries. It will be OK after few hours.

With p2pool you get your rewards directly as a portion of the coinbase transaction which does not require a fee since it is created out of "nothing". However it needs 100 confirmations (instead of the usual 6) before you can use it.

[bozo333]

Another P2POOL question:

If I mine for, lets say, 3 hours without getting a share and then quit, is all work lost or do I still get a share (albeit with less payout) along the line?

[jonnybravo0311]

Another P2POOL question:

If I mine for, lets say, 3 hours without getting a share and then quit, is all work lost or do I still get a share (albeit with less payout) along the line?

You don't get anything.  To get paid on p2pool you must have a share on the chain when a block is found.

[fanboy4]

p2pools are pay little late when compared with pplns pools or otherpools. you need to keep mining,

[jonnybravo0311]

p2pools are pay little late when compared with pplns pools or otherpools. you need to keep mining,

What does this even mean?  P2pool payouts are exactly as I described them above.  When p2pool finds a block 8640 shares are paid as part of the generation transaction.  If you want to be paid you need to have at least 1 share on the chain.

Let me out it another way.  Each time you find a valid share that gets added to the chain, you are paid for that share every time the pool finds a block until such time that that share falls off the chain.  This is approximately 3 days.  So, if you just started on p2pool yesterday and found a share before 18:30 EDT, you would have been paid 6 times since then because p2pool has found 6 blocks.

[bozo333]

p2pools are pay little late when compared with pplns pools or otherpools. you need to keep mining,

So, if you just started on p2pool yesterday and found a share before 18:30 EDT, you would have been paid 6 times since then because p2pool has found 6 blocks.

Ah....one answer results in 10 new questions... 

So what if you have 3 shares...I got paid six times like you said but not clear how much each share pays or whatever...?

And just to make it clear...I mined for several hours today and got no new shares, so that work was good for nothing?

[jonnybravo0311]

p2pools are pay little late when compared with pplns pools or otherpools. you need to keep mining,

So, if you just started on p2pool yesterday and found a share before 18:30 EDT, you would have been paid 6 times since then because p2pool has found 6 blocks.

Ah....one answer results in 10 new questions... 

So what if you have 3 shares...I got paid six times like you said but not clear how much each share pays or whatever...?

And just to make it clear...I mined for several hours today and got no new shares, so that work was good for nothing?

Shares are not worth a static value.  Each share is given a weight when you find it.  When the block is found, you're paid for that share's weight.  That's why if you look at some of the front ends (like mine, windpath's, etc) you'll see your expected payout constantly changing because your shares' weights are constantly being evaluated and calculated should a block be found right then.

For your second question, that's subjective.  It's the way it works.  To be paid, you need shares.  Your mining rigs are constantly working and submitting work to the node.  The node evaluates that work and determines whether or not it satisfies the difficulty to become a share on the chain.  If it does not, it is ignored.  If it does, a share is added to the chain and broadcast to the rest of the p2pool network.  So, just because you didn't find a share doesn't mean you're wasting work.  It just means you haven't yet found one that would be added to the chain.

[realproject]

if your miner stopped, so your calculated hashing stopped too. 

[jonnybravo0311]

if your miner stopped, so your calculated hashing stopped too. 

I'm not sure what you're implying here.  If you stop your miners, you still get payouts until your final share falls off the chain.  Obviously if you've stopped mining, you don't have any hash rate.

[bozo333]

And another question for JonnyBravo0311  

Let say I mine for a while and get 3 shares and stop mining. The pool does not find a block for 3 days. Those shares have fallen off the chain and thus no moolah, right?

I am beginning to see that different pools are good for different scenarios...

for example I have a couple hours where I believe my favorite PPS has had a bunch of luck and thus will probably not find any soon. In this case best to go to a site like Ghash.io where I will get shares that will pay something, rather than pointing the miners to a P2POOL (unless you have serious hash power where you will get shares in a short time)

Am I missing something?

[jonnybravo0311]

And another question for JonnyBravo0311  

Let say I mine for a while and get 3 shares and stop mining. The pool does not find a block for 3 days. Those shares have fallen off the chain and thus no moolah, right?

I am beginning to see that different pools are good for different scenarios...

for example I have a couple hours where I believe my favorite PPS has had a bunch of luck and thus will probably not find any soon. In this case best to go to a site like Ghash.io where I will get shares that will pay something, rather than pointing the miners to a P2POOL (unless you have serious hash power where you will get shares in a short time)

Am I missing something?

Answer to your first question is yes.  The pool only pays the previous 8640 shares.  That's the way PPLNS payout systems work - N in p2pool's case happens to be 8640.  If you don't have a share in that set, then you don't get any coin.

If you're trying to predict luck... well... good luck with that.  It's called luck precisely because it is unpredictable.  You cannot state that something's been lucky, so therefore it must now become unlucky.  That's a fallacy.

Anyway, more on topic of the underlying question you asked in that paragraph: any PPLNS system discourages you from pool hopping.  For example, you should mine on p2pool for at least 3 days to get a good distribution of your shares on the chain.  Mining there for a few hours is pointless.  If you want to hop around from pool to pool, PPS pools are your friend.

[Atomar]

Let's say, I DO hopp from one P2Pool to another. What about the Shares from the first pool ??
Do I los them ?? Even if I use the same BTC address on the other pool ?? The shares are not bind tho the address ? But to the pool ?

[jonnybravo0311]

Let's say, I DO hopp from one P2Pool to another. What about the Shares from the first pool ??
Do I los them ?? Even if I use the same BTC address on the other pool ?? The shares are not bind tho the address ? But to the pool ?

Hopping from p2pool node to p2pool node is perfectly fine.  This is because the share chain is shared amongst all nodes that make up p2pool.  You don't lose anything at all.  What I was mentioning earlier was hopping from pool to pool.  In other words, from Eligius to p2pool to Slush, to BTCGuild, back to Eligius, etc.  That is a bad idea.  However, hopping from my node, to windpath's node, to norgz node, back to my own node is no problem at all.  Everything carries with you because the share chain on my node, on windpath's on norgz is the same.

[Atomar]

Cool!! Thanks for the Explanation! Then I will try some other p2pools that are closer to my Location to see, if that makes any difference in speed and payment.