Newbie: contracts and pool hopping

[bit_stacker]

I'll be trying contract mining soon, I've chosen the Slush pool but while I'm experimenting with various shorter contracts, am I going to be seen as a pool hopper? Will I be penalised for this?

[1714064123]

1714064123

[1714064123]

1714064123

[1714064123]

1714064123

[xstr8guy]

Pools are no longer concerned with pool hoppers because all pools are now "hop-proof". It's ancient history. And most pools reward you fairly for your submitted shares. Some pool have charge-up periods where you won't get paid out until the shifts mature but you continue to get paid after you leave.

[-ck]

Not entirely true. Slush remains the only hoppable bitcoin mining pool based on its score based payment scheme still actively maintained but the amount to gain by hopping it is small compared to the proportional pools of old. All modern pools have moved to hop proof pay schemes.

[Billbags]

@ ckolivas
That's true, but Slush's Pool does take a lot of time to build up to your full hash rate and if you leave at the wrong time your current round shares dwendle down and disappear unless they are already being confirmed in a block, so when you try to hop between a pplns and a score based pool, you still loose. By the way, been meaning to send you a donation. I'll look for your wallet address right now. Thanks for the great work you are continually doing with cgminer and in the Bitcoin community. Is this still a good Btc address:

148KkS2vgVi4VzUi4JcKzM2PMaMVPi3nnq


@ OP
Mining is not a get Ritch quick thing. You need a lot of time to mine due to difficulty and varience. Luck also plays a factor with all this also. The term luck is used just to get the amount of bitcoin you have calculated for that time period(a certain amount of blocks for a certain pool to mine in a day = 100% luck) type of thing. Anyway, contract mining is not the best way especially if it's your only means of mining. You need varience. Varience is where you mine 2 or 3 different pools at the same time so if one pool has bad luck and you don't get a payout, you still problably get one from the other pool. I mostly mine from my house, but I do have some miners contracted(hosted) out. I pay 0.017 kWh per month for the hosted miners. But remember, most of the time a person contracts their miners out for alot more than the miner makes in bitcoin. The links below are some info on pools and profit comparisons over several months and a couple of miners I would reccomend. I have bought from both of those suppliers before so they are legit.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=416933.0

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_5_6_a

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=486121

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1976.0

http://minersource.net/collections/frontpage/products/bitmain-antminer-s3-available-july-26th

http://m.ebay.com/itm/151390967478?nav=SEARCH