Bitminter bitcoin mining pool - shutdown mining 2020-07-01 website 2021-06-01

[tgikal]

I don't think that is possible as we don't know where 100% is.

Well, we're certainly working on finding it...

[1714467446]

1714467446

[1714467446]

1714467446

[junkspam]

32 wasted shifts, and counting...

[cenicsoft]

Not sure how much longer people will wait around to solve a block. It's been three weeks. At such a low overall pool hash rate, the volatility in time between blocks will continue to be an issue. I have to imagine that some of the big hashers will start to pack up for bigger pools.

It's too bad because Bitminter is a great pool. I hate to see it slowly die.

[gt_addict]

Its been through worse and always bounced back

[pondule]

Am I correct in assuming that *on average* there will be one 99% CDF block every 100 blocks we mine and that the universe will collapse before we reach a CDF of 100%? If so there still seems little reason to jump to another pool as the same applies to all of them.

[cenicsoft]

I don't think the issue is with getting to 99% CDF, since it's bound to happen. It's that the pool has become so small compared to the overall network hash rate that it takes 3 weeks to get to 99% CDF. In the long run, it averages out to the same payout. Some miners may prefer more frequent payouts as opposed to waiting a potential 3 weeks or more between payouts even though they would be much bigger here.

You can see just how much the pool has been affected by this lack of block solving by the 20% drop in hash rate. At the start of the month, the hash rate was around 3,000Thps and now it's only around 2,300Thps. If the pool isn't growing, it's dying.

[in2tactics]

I will say that I have always loved BitMinter. It was my first bitcoin pool. However, the pool luck has been really bad these last 6 months. It is my opinion that this bad luck has had a significant impact on the hashrate overall. I really want to see the pool succeed and grow, but as of a few weeks ago, I am only using BitMinter as my backup.

[Bigsky]

You get bad luck and you get good luck?

At present we are in a very bad luck run, from the halving I worked
out that we were getting a little over 70% of the earnings that we should
have got, and that was before this block, which will probably take us under
60%...so be it..unfortunately.

I have also solo mined small alt coins and know that lady luck works in mysterious
ways in mining and that over time things tend to even out, but in small pools
(like this pool now in the whole scheme of things), where bad luck can and does
often run for many, many months, and more people jump off, making it worse
and take longer for those left mining, but as night follows day, good luck will
return.

My issue and concern is, because of the small size of the pool now, when the luck does turn
we will see hired hash or megahash jump onboard, and our work during the bad luck
just be taken advantage of, in a big pool this doesnt happen, but in a small pool
you have the luxury of time to see what is going on and switch pools, the current
shift system IMO just doesnt act as a disincentive to stop or slow this from happening.

The present shift system worked when we were a much greater % of the total pool,
is there any merit in looking at lengthening the shifts or having more of them, maybe
increasing them five or tenfold even, someone could hire 10pet pretty easily and the
whole 10 shifts could be worked through in under a day under the present system.

I am a fan of this pool, but want the pain that we are all feeling now, to be followed
by the euthoria of some really good luck, but I want the same percentage of the
good luck as I am having of the bad luck....that is all

cheers grant
   

[DrHaribo]

You don't have to worry about big miners abusing the pool when good luck returns. The reward system is completely safe from pool hoppers, because you never know in advance how much you will get for your work. Your payouts depend on future luck. You can't come and go based on what the future luck will be, because you cannot know what it will be. The luck yesterday does not in any way influence luck tomorrow.

More about pool hopping: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/5072/what-is-pool-hopping

If you mine in the pool 24/7 then the size of the shifts don't really affect your payouts. With 1% of the hashrate you get 1% of the coins that are paid out.

For those who mine here part time longer shifts would even out the variance in their payouts. But on the other hand it could take a month from you do some work until it is fully paid. That's not good. But yes, if we had more hashpower so the shifts wouldn't take so long then I would increase the shift size to even out payouts for part-time miners.

[Bigsky]

Thanks Doc,

I am not talking about pool hoping for the next block, which is what your link
was mainly about, i am talking about pool hoping for runs of luck, over weeks
or months.  
I agree, no one will know what the next block will be, this one could be solved in
another minute or (god help us) another month.


The best description that I have heard for bitcoin mining is a room full of people
yelling out numbers at the host, who has a number in his head, awarding the block
to the first person who correctly yells the number in his head, or a bit like reverse bingo.

My anecdotal evidence of mining alts and btc in small pools or solo, is that
luck is not random, you get runs of luck, you can go for long periods without
luck, then get six blocks in as many days.  What basically always happens is that
over time everything does even out.

Now, the question with bitcoin mining is, is this number truly random or psuedo-random,
does whatever creates this number that everyone is guessing have some preference or
bias coded in to even out those correct guesses over a long period of time.

If it does, and what I have experienced over the years leads me to believe that it does,
then luck is not 100% random, whilst I may not know what the next one will be, I an pretty
sure that bad luck will be followed by good luck, to even things out, and in small pools
the luck takes longer in time to change and is much more viariable.

That is why I think your 10 shift system is not going to stop 'pool switchers' when the
luck turns, and those mining now, earning less in the good luck times than we should.

Your shift system worked well when difficulty was much lower and your percentage of
the total pool much higher, but as I said, you can hire 10pet pretty cheaply and easily
and the current 10 shifts would be over in a day.

I dont have a doctorate in maths, but I have a reasonable understanding of it.

I would be happy to wait several weeks to get paid out, if it meant a fairer playing field

cheers grant  

    

[DrHaribo]

Mining luck is completely random.

When something is random there will be runs of the same sometimes - that is just how randomness is. If you couldn't have runs of the same luck, then it wouldn't be random, would it?

You can't predict tomorrow's luck based on today's luck. That is gambler's fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy

But over time the randomness evens out. See the law of large numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers

That said, some miners believe they can predict completely random events in the future. We have had such people try to pool hop Bitminter. When you come and go in a pool that is safe from pool hopping, it is completely random whether you get good or bad results. Of course if they got good results then they took that as evidence that they could indeed predict the future. No. If you play roulette, put your money on black and win, that doesn't mean you have magical powers. You were just lucky.

So there will be people coming back to the pool after the next block is found, thinking they are able to predict that "the luck must turn now". And maybe they will get lucky. But that doesn't mean they are people with magical abilities who are abusing the pool. It just means they were lucky. The thing is, with our reward system, when you do some work there is no way to know how well that work will be paid until later. Also, all work is treated the same, whether you are a 24/7 miner or part-time miner. So the reality is that they were just helping to search for a block, and their work is paid the same way as everyone else's.

[Amahastpl]

Someone, please!

Solve this damned thing already...

25 days...?

[Mikestang]

And the pool is down to almost 2PH.  Let's knock this one out before 100% CDF!

[styleruk]

And the pool is down to almost 2PH.  Let's knock this one out before 100% CDF!

This is terrible...someone with a big rig please help!  (ps, don't think we will get to 100%....that's not quite possible).  The trouble is (as previsously discussed), the pool is shrinking now which makes things worse....
And whilst the last difficulty went down slightly, the next one looks like it's going up in 3 days!

Please...anyone with a monster rig...step in and help.

[gt_addict]

So who fancies sorting this block out then? Because quite frankly I've had enough of it 

Seriously though what does happen if it hits 100%? Is it going to be like the "millennium bug"?

[styleruk]

So who fancies sorting this block out then? Because quite frankly I've had enough of it 

Seriously though what does happen if it hits 100%? Is it going to be like the "millennium bug"?

It is insane, but I don't think it'll ever get to 100%, I'm sure I'll be corrected here, but it's a distribution so 100% is not actually there, it might get to 99.99, they will add another dp if it does 😁 then 99.991.  but like going the speed of light, in theory can only get to 99.9999999 etc... Unless someone wants to talk about quantum theories!
When found though, you'll get more as less people mine, this is a worry though, very close to dropping below 2000TB!

[jonnybravo0311]

It's not insane... the value can never reach 100%.  Just like dividing by 2 can never reach 0.  Sure, you'll get awfully close, but you'll never hit that line.

[DrHaribo]

CDF is the chance that you would have found a block with a certain amount of work at a certain difficulty.

With bitcoin you are never 100% certain to find a block with any amount of work.

As the amount of work approaches infinity the chance you would find a block approaches 100%

Work never actually reaches infinity. You can never do an infinite amount of work. So no matter how much work you do you are never certain to find a block. But with huge amounts of work you can get very close to 100%

Currently we've done 1547 billion work and difficulty is 253 billion. So we're over 6x difficulty. The worst we have seen in the pool was 11x difficulty. We had a larger share of the global hashpower though, so that amount of work took less time back then.

Thankfully these events are very rare.

[styleruk]

It's not insane... the value can never reach 100%.  Just like dividing by 2 can never reach 0.  Sure, you'll get awfully close, but you'll never hit that line.

Agreed, but I meant the situation is insane.  Many people abandoning now...which is a shame.

[gt_addict]

Well I never thought I would see the pool this low, but still I bet there a block on the horizon soon. I can feel it 

COME ON BLOCK!!!!!!!