Pool luck?

[mkesling]

I'm new and have been using btcguild and ghash.io. I am seeing accusations of stealing from miners being aimed at both pools. I have been trying to keep track of both by using the formula below to come up with $ per day per miner on average. Using S1s overclocked to 200.

(total mined) / (number hours) * 24 / (all miners hashrate) * (individual miner hashrate)

Then I add the results for each day and divide by the number of days.

For the last 10 days
btcguild = 2.32
ghash.io = 2.35

Not much difference.

btcguild seems to be having some very bad luck yesterday and today. ghash.io seemed to be having very bad luck a few weeks ago.

Are there any pools that come with verifiable honest dealings with miners?
Any good ideas on how to monitor things that aren't to intensive?

:-P

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[jonnybravo0311]

Pretty much every online calculator will provide you with expected earnings per day.  You can calculate it on your own with the following formula:

Code:

25 / (Difficulty * 2^32 / hash rate / 86400)

You can see how close you get by comparing the result of that to what your pool actually mined for you.  Trying to predict luck is a fool's errand.  The very nature of the mining process is luck.  Even the formula I provided is only a probability of what you should earn in a 24 hour period.

Typically the bigger the pool, the less of an effect variance will have on you.  If you're looking for control, run your own pool and try to get other miners to join it, or you could always run your own p2pool node.

[os2sam]

I'm new and have been using btcguild and ghash.io. I am seeing accusations of stealing from miners being aimed at both pools.

...Snip...

Are there any pools that come with verifiable honest dealings with miners?

You will be hard pressed to find a more reputable and responsive pool operator then Eleuthria at BTC Guild.  I have NEVER heard of BTC Guild "stealing" from miners.  Whoever told you that either knows something I don't or is a bald faced liar!

[fire000]

I'm new and have been using btcguild and ghash.io. I am seeing accusations of stealing from miners being aimed at both pools. I have been trying to keep track of both by using the formula below to come up with $ per day per miner on average. Using S1s overclocked to 200.

(total mined) / (number hours) * 24 / (all miners hashrate) * (individual miner hashrate)

Then I add the results for each day and divide by the number of days.

For the last 10 days
btcguild = 2.32
ghash.io = 2.35

Not much difference.

btcguild seems to be having some very bad luck yesterday and today. ghash.io seemed to be having very bad luck a few weeks ago.

Are there any pools that come with verifiable honest dealings with miners?
Any good ideas on how to monitor things that aren't to intensive?

:-P

Hi there to start off with to find ya expected days earn on your rig  I suggest this site it a very basic site all ya do is put your hash rate in and it will spit out the expect earn on the current diff  

https://alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator


Now to the second part may I suggest a pool here it is a newer pool but it pays a PPS to your expected rigs earn for the day so there no waiting to hit blocks etc no day where it earns under it expected if you do not blocks/shares etc ...    <<<<< also this pool admin is also paying a 12.5 bounus to top of the expect rigs earn to help build his hash rate for long term plans as can be read in their forum as well etc up.. There is currently 9 different servers the pool uses around the world so should be easy to find a close one to you reason for so many different server again part of his longer term plans..   The pool current runs at about 1.3 - 1.6 ph  and the admin is very active and helpfully to his miners

Pool is https://mining.bitcoinaffiliatenetwork.com/

And their forum is here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=722202.0


Also further to the bounus listed above he also giving his miners a chance to win a s3 miner every day for this current month (aug) more in the thread above

[mkesling]

You will be hard pressed to find a more reputable and responsive pool operator then Eleuthria at BTC Guild.  I have NEVER heard of BTC Guild "stealing" from miners.  Whoever told you that either knows something I don't or is a bald faced liar!

Haven't figured out how to insert quotes yet.
Answer to above:
I googled "btcguild bad luck" today after no blocks were found for about 7 hours. Accusations showed up. Noticed ghash.io considered evil by many as well. Not sure what to think about this.

[jonnybravo0311]

You will be hard pressed to find a more reputable and responsive pool operator then Eleuthria at BTC Guild.  I have NEVER heard of BTC Guild "stealing" from miners.  Whoever told you that either knows something I don't or is a bald faced liar!

Haven't figured out how to insert quotes yet.
Answer to above:
I googled "btcguild bad luck" today after no blocks were found for about 7 hours. Accusations showed up. Noticed ghash.io considered evil by many as well. Not sure what to think about this.

GHash has done a number of dubious things, and continues to do so.  That is why so many people hammer them.  The only thing I know of from BTCGuild was they were victims of a block withholding attack, which Eleuthria discovered and acted upon.

By the way, just hit the "quote" button to insert quotes.  Or, if you hit the "Reply" button, look down and you'll see each post has an "Insert Quote" link.

[TookDk]

I'm new and have been using btcguild and ghash.io. I am seeing accusations of stealing from miners being aimed at both pools.

...Snip...

Are there any pools that come with verifiable honest dealings with miners?

You will be hard pressed to find a more reputable and responsive pool operator then Eleuthria at BTC Guild.  I have NEVER heard of BTC Guild "stealing" from miners.  Whoever told you that either knows something I don't or is a bald faced liar!

+1

Agreed.

When I was mining last year, BTCGuild was my choice.

And I have the deepest respect for Eleuthria / BTCGuild for the initiatives they did when the pool reached ~40% in spring 2013.

[mkesling]

...Snip...

You will be hard pressed to find a more reputable and responsive pool operator then Eleuthria at BTC Guild.  I have NEVER heard of BTC Guild "stealing" from miners.  Whoever told you that either knows something I don't or is a bald faced liar!

+1

Agreed.

When I was mining last year, BTCGuild was my choice.

And I have the deepest respect for Eleuthria / BTCGuild for the initiatives they did when the pool reached ~40% in spring 2013.

[/quote]

It's reassuring that btcguild has supporters. ghash.io seems to be lacking same.
If btcguild makes a good primary pool, any suggestions for backup pools. I haven't really experienced any significant downtime.

[elebit]

Luck is just that... luck.

Don't be tempted to think that just because one pool has had a lucky streak that its luck has run out. It doesn't work like that. It's just as likely their streak will continue, and just as likely it won't.

Tricky thing, randomness.

[jdany]

It's possible to spin black 42 times in a row. 
It's the green that will fuckin' kill you.

[os2sam]

It's reassuring that btcguild has supporters. ghash.io seems to be lacking same.
If btcguild makes a good primary pool, any suggestions for backup pools. I haven't really experienced any significant downtime.

Ozcoin seems to be getting back on it's feet.  I think that pool would make a good failover or primary, variance would be higher since it's hash rate is kind of low, though it's been rising lately.

I would also recommend running your Bitcoin client in server mode and having that set as your last failover, so if all your pools go down then your still solo mining.

[Benjamin Furmich]

Probably not

[DrHaribo]

And I have the deepest respect for Eleuthria / BTCGuild for the initiatives they did when the pool reached ~40% in spring 2013.

More miners need to care about things like this.

[Bitsaurus]

Ask any pool OP and they will tell you they probably get at least 10 people every day accusing them of stealing.  I remember when Bitminter was accused of something shady because they had bad luck and OoC had to come out and do an analysis.  At the time BTC Guild was having really good luck and nobody said anything about that.

The fingers have been pointing since pools were first formed.  I remember the accusations flying about people cheating and impossible luck even back in 2011 with people accusing Deepbit and BTC Guild of cheating.

Judge people by their real actions.

Somebody once had a fat finger episode and included about 100BTC of fees accidentally on a transaction.  BTC Guild processed that transaction and Eleuthria took the fees away from his own pool and gave it back to the user.  Yes you could see that as stealing from the the miners, but it is generally regarded by most as the right thing to do.

[TookDk]

Somebody once had a fat finger episode and included about 100BTC of fees accidentally on a transaction.  BTC Guild processed that transaction and Eleuthria took the fees away from his own pool and gave it back to the user.  Yes you could see that as stealing from the the miners, but it is generally regarded by most as the right thing to do.

The miners did not "loose" anything by this act.
Eleuthria did the right thing (imo)

[TookDk]

And I have the deepest respect for Eleuthria / BTCGuild for the initiatives they did when the pool reached ~40% in spring 2013.

More miners need to care about things like this.

It is scary that so many miners just point they rigs blindly towards a pool with more than 30% hashpower.

It's is equivalent to sitting in a tree and start sawing in the branch you are actually sitting on.

[squashpile]

I got your luck (miner luck).. after a real long unlucky streak.
0.21275023 mined since the 16th @ 1-1.1TH/s on P2pool.
It's been crazy.

[bitcoinbearhk]

Yes Pool Luck is an interesting topic.  As far as I know, all the well know and large pool are "persistently" haveing 5~25% below 100% luck.

Almost never do they get over 100% for a reasonable period average...... I do remember the days when BTCGuild have a persistent 105% luck.


I was wondering, since most pool nowadays have below 100% luck (and that luck of everybody average out must equal to 100%), it must be either:

(i) pool stealing, by diverting part of the pool mining power to another private pool; or
(ii) some other secret miners / pools / hubs, were able to mine with a more efficient implementations, thus having some kind of statistical edge over the other major pools; or
(iii) miscalculation of some kind?; or
(iv) act of god ... really ... everybody is bad luck ....


I also recall to have read from the news that a professor published a paper, suggesting that the larger the pool, the more feasible for it to implement a kind of mining strategy where after it has mined the block, it withhold broadcasting it while working on the next block, and only boradcast it sometime later, so as to give itself some kind of head start with the next block, because without being broadcast, other miners will keeps on stupidly mine on the same block where indeed the block was already taken by the stealthy pool .... pool luck has become suspecious and all pool's luck drop soon after that news.  Coincident?

[jonnybravo0311]

Yes Pool Luck is an interesting topic.  As far as I know, all the well know and large pool are "persistently" haveing 5~25% below 100% luck.

Almost never do they get over 100% for a reasonable period average...... I do remember the days when BTCGuild have a persistent 105% luck.


I was wondering, since most pool nowadays have below 100% luck (and that luck of everybody average out must equal to 100%), it must be either:

(i) pool stealing, by diverting part of the pool mining power to another private pool; or
(ii) some other secret miners / pools / hubs, were able to mine with a more efficient implementations, thus having some kind of statistical edge over the other major pools; or
(iii) miscalculation of some kind?; or
(iv) act of god ... really ... everybody is bad luck ....


I also recall to have read from the news that a professor published a paper, suggesting that the larger the pool, the more feasible for it to implement a kind of mining strategy where after it has mined the block, it withhold broadcasting it while working on the next block, and only boradcast it sometime later, so as to give itself some kind of head start with the next block, because without being broadcast, other miners will keeps on stupidly mine on the same block where indeed the block was already taken by the stealthy pool .... pool luck has become suspecious and all pool's luck drop soon after that news.  Coincident?

Luck is luck.  It's neither good nor bad, it just is.

You are incorrect in your assumption that luck must average to 100%.  It most certainly does not.  Luck is simply a measure of how long a pool took to solve a block vs how long it is expected for them to solve that block.  The calculations are based on probability.  It's the same calculation used by online calculators to figure out what your ideal expected earnings are:

Code:

Difficulty * 2^32 / hash rate = expected number of seconds to solve a block

Because of the nature of mining, you may be over that time, or you may be under it.  It's not some super-secret organization or pool operator maliciously commandeering miner's hashing power for nefarious reasons.  It's not stealing, or diversion of resources, or miscalculations.  It is just luck.

If you truly feel so strongly that there is something going on out there in the pools, you're very welcome to start your own and mine on it.

[bitcoinbearhk]

Yes Pool Luck is an interesting topic.  As far as I know, all the well know and large pool are "persistently" haveing 5~25% below 100% luck.

Almost never do they get over 100% for a reasonable period average...... I do remember the days when BTCGuild have a persistent 105% luck.


I was wondering, since most pool nowadays have below 100% luck (and that luck of everybody average out must equal to 100%), it must be either:

(i) pool stealing, by diverting part of the pool mining power to another private pool; or
(ii) some other secret miners / pools / hubs, were able to mine with a more efficient implementations, thus having some kind of statistical edge over the other major pools; or
(iii) miscalculation of some kind?; or
(iv) act of god ... really ... everybody is bad luck ....


I also recall to have read from the news that a professor published a paper, suggesting that the larger the pool, the more feasible for it to implement a kind of mining strategy where after it has mined the block, it withhold broadcasting it while working on the next block, and only boradcast it sometime later, so as to give itself some kind of head start with the next block, because without being broadcast, other miners will keeps on stupidly mine on the same block where indeed the block was already taken by the stealthy pool .... pool luck has become suspecious and all pool's luck drop soon after that news.  Coincident?

Luck is luck.  It's neither good nor bad, it just is.

You are incorrect in your assumption that luck must average to 100%.  It most certainly does not.  Luck is simply a measure of how long a pool took to solve a block vs how long it is expected for them to solve that block.  The calculations are based on probability.  It's the same calculation used by online calculators to figure out what your ideal expected earnings are:

Code:

Difficulty * 2^32 / hash rate = expected number of seconds to solve a block

Because of the nature of mining, you may be over that time, or you may be under it.  It's not some super-secret organization or pool operator maliciously commandeering miner's hashing power for nefarious reasons.  It's not stealing, or diversion of resources, or miscalculations.  It is just luck.

If you truly feel so strongly that there is something going on out there in the pools, you're very welcome to start your own and mine on it.

Dear Johnny,

Sorry wasn't ment to be an accusation, just fair discussion and proposed possibility.

I understand that mining pools are out there suppose to do business, and they have to make a profit.  I always honor this point, that "you are open for business, and to have a profit is legit".

I don't mind paying fees.  I am only suspecious on how the 0% fee pools can operate.

So I just propose some "possibility".  You see, I also put "bad luck" as one of the possible reasons  


Just curious.  I am no IT expert, and have no idea whether this will work / was indeed in place.  

Can it be "technically" (I have to stress, I am not accusing any legit pool out there actually doing so) done that say:
1. 1000 miners point there miners towards "Axx-Pool" with say 1 TH/s each; thus total hashing power should be 1 PH/s on the pool;
2. The Axx-Pool then show 1 TH/s on each miner's dashboard and graph and all the fancy stuff;
3. The Axx-Pool somehow, say, mine with these 1 PH/s on a "load-balance" strategy, with say 95% towards the publicly known address of the Axx-Pool, and 5% to a secret "Private-Axx-Pool" and keep that part?

From my limited IT knowledge, I think this is technically possible.  Not sure if it is actually being done by any pool however.