[~1000 GH/sec] BTC Guild - 0% Fee Pool, LP, SSL, Full Precision, and More

[eleuthria]

BTC Guild - http://www.btcguild.com

Advantages

• Pure PPS - We pay a fixed rate per share, period.  There is no buffer, there is no limit based on good/bad luck.  If your share is valid, your account is credited for the value of that share within 10 seconds.
• Long-polling support, reducing the number of stale shares if your miner supports it.
• SSL security - Access the website via https://www.btcguild.com to protect your information from being sent in plaintext.
• Full precision payouts - Get all 8 decimals of your balance transferred when you request a payout.
• On-demand payouts.  Once a block has been confirmed, your reward can be paid out at any time by clicking the 'Pay Me Now' button on your account page (must be at least 0.10 balance).
• No invalid blocks - PPS Guild is Pure PPS.  You get paid a fixed rate per share, regardless of if the block itself is invalid.

BTC Guild is a Pure Pay-per-Share pool.  This means that every valid share you submit is always worth a fixed amount, based on the current bitcoin difficulty.  Each share is worth (1 / difficulty) * 47.5.  It is multiplied by 47.5 instead of 50 because we charge a 5% fee for Pure PPS.  This is because in a Pure PPS model, you assume no risk, and the only variance you will have is your luck on finding shares.  We assume all the risk of block finding variance, and will purchase additional BTC to meet our liabilities if we have not found enough blocks to make payouts.

The pool has been tested on poclbm. phoenix, and diablo miners.  To point your miner at the pool, you can use the following (example for poclbm):
poclbm.exe -d1 --host=btcguild.com --port=8332 --user=[username]_[workername] --pass=[anything]


Visit our IRC channel on FreeNode.net to chat with other members or the pool operator: #btcguild

[SteveB]

Signed up and mining now with my hd5770. So far it is working good.

Had some trouble registering. The sign-up form doesn't seem to like numbers in the username.

[eleuthria]

Signed up and mining now with my hd5770. So far it is working good.

Had some trouble registering. The sign-up form doesn't seem to like numbers in the username.

Thank you for the info, that problem has been fixed.  And for the few people who tried it earlier and got some idle/communication errors, that problem has been fixed.  The default pool software assumed worker passwords would be sent in the clear.  I added a few lines to hash the passwords to be compared to the database, which caused a bug when sending a blank password.  No crashes since.

[JohnDn]

I've registered too, sending 200Mhash/s 

But I'm getting a fair number of "job finished, miner is idle" errors :/
I assume that's what you've said is now fixed ? I'll see later if it gets better

[mewantsbitcoins]

Good to see more mining pools 

[eleuthria]

Good to see more mining pools 

I was actually inspired to make it when Deepbit crossed the 400 gH/sec mark (while Slush was still running).  While I trust Tycho and slush, it just didn't' feel right to see a single pool with such a massive amount of the network involved.  There's a few other small pools, but the interfaces seemed either too limited, or too...computer geeky (coming from a major programming nerd that is a compliment, I swear!).

But I'm getting a fair number of "job finished, miner is idle" errors :/
I assume that's what you've said is now fixed ? I'll see later if it gets better

After fixing the hashing password bug, I attached a debugger to the pool software to keep an eye on it in these first few hours of public use.  I want to be able to fix any problems quickly now while it's easy to pinpoint which user caused the problem.  Please keep an eye on the idle warnings, and send me a message or post again if they keep happening after another 2 hours.

[Nicksasa]

I'm going to let it run for tonight, 370Mhash/s. Maybe I'll switch from bitcoinpool to this

Will you add global stats ? Can't seem to find such an page anywhere on it.

[xenon481]

Proportional or Score?

[eleuthria]

I'm going to let it run for tonight, 370Mhash/s. Maybe I'll switch from bitcoinpool to this

Will you add global stats ? Can't seem to find such an page anywhere on it.

What stats do you have in mind, and what do you mean by global (pool as a whole, other pool comparison, network stats like bitcoincharts)?  I currently show at the top of the page total pool hash rate, worker count, share count, and round duration.

[eleuthria]

Proportional or Score?

The pool is currently operating on proportional:  Your Shares / Total Shares this round = Your % of the reward.  This could change if I am given a strong argument to switch to a score system.  If it does change, it will be at the start of a new round, to avoid any strange distribution percentages from the switch.

[Nicksasa]

Well something like a list of all the previous rounds on the main page with their duration, the person that solved it and some other data about the rounds.
Oh and maybe make the btcguild logo clickable so that you get redirected to the homepage or your account ?

[eleuthria]

Well something like a list of all the previous rounds on the main page with their duration, the person that solved it and some other data about the rounds.
Oh and maybe make the btcguild logo clickable so that you get redirected to the homepage or your account ?

Block Statistics contains the previous round information (duration, total shares, block number, confirmations), including a link to the block on block explorer.  I will add who found it to the list tonight.

BTC Guild logo is now clickable (can't believe I missed that).  Once I get home I will also be adding a privacy checkbox to the My Account page to hide your username from the Hall of Fame and previous round information.  If checked, it will show your user ID# instead of name.

[Inaba]

Giving you 2 GH... but I really need a way to reset the mining data of my miners.  An extra field for round shares that I can reset, in addition to the total would be good.  It's helpful to keep an eye on which miner(s) might be throttling for some reason.

[SteveB]

Proportional or Score?

The pool is currently operating on proportional:  Your Shares / Total Shares this round = Your % of the reward.  This could change if I am given a strong argument to switch to a score system.  If it does change, it will be at the start of a new round, to avoid any strange distribution percentages from the switch.

I hope you you stay on proportional (like deepbit). I don't like the score system.

[Miner-TE]

I'll join you for a few blocks and contribute 200 Mh/s.

I like your site.  Looks nice.

[eleuthria]

Giving you 2 GH... but I really need a way to reset the mining data of my miners.  An extra field for round shares that I can reset, in addition to the total would be good.  It's helpful to keep an eye on which miner(s) might be throttling for some reason.

Suggestion noted and implemented.  There is now a third column for shares & stales since reset.

I'll join you for a few blocks and contribute 200 Mh/s.

I like your site.  Looks nice.

Thank you very much.  My self esteem is now inflated regarding my poor graphic design skills .

[Inaba]

Nice, thanks and fast work!  

It would also be nice to have a total down at the bottom of the columns and a MH/s column added as well.  Email/SMS notification of a stuck miner would be a good addition as well.

[rezin777]

Email/SMS notification of a stuck miner would be a good addition as well.

This is a big reason why I use the pools I use. Email is fine, my phone can take care of the rest.

[allinvain]

Signed up. I like the site as it's very simple and fast so far. I hope you get more miners joining you.

Keep up the good work!

[eleuthria]

Email/SMS notification of a stuck miner would be a good addition as well.

This is a big reason why I use the pools I use. Email is fine, my phone can take care of the rest.

I will get that implemented this weekend.  I was avoiding collecting emails in registration since I know how paranoid some members of our community are .  I will add an email option for password recovery and also notifications of workers that haven't sent a share within a given time frame.  For SMS, I will have to do some research (I hate SMS personally, so I never experimented with web interfaces to SMS).