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

[gt_addict]

Chucking my 2 pence worth in. I have had no problems with this pool ever. Aslong as you stick with it instead of jumping on and off you won't have a problem. I've found DrHaribo to be both professional and willing to help whenever and wherever he can.

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[gt_addict]

Come on weve got to find a block soon my rental runs out tomorrow afternoon. *fingers crossed for a double whammy overnight*

[AriesIV10]

Chucking my 2 pence worth in. I have had no problems with this pool ever. Aslong as you stick with it instead of jumping on and off you won't have a problem. I've found DrHaribo to be both professional and willing to help whenever and wherever he can.

I have been doing a study on 3 pools Slush's, CKPool(kano.is) and Bitminter over the last 2 months. 

My number 1 rule over all is profitability with the most profitable pool being Bitminter of 3 pools studied. 

Slush's must be ruled out right away as a primary pool for profitability.  Granted, Slush's has the nicest Dashboard of them all with no exception.  With that said, I would always keep Slush's as the #2 on the miner GUI(control panel of the miner) because Slush's ramps up hasrate very quickly if the primary pool goes down.

The next 2 Pools - CKPool and Bitminter:

CKPool

Good: 
-pays out several times per day due to it's increasing in size
-very responsive pool moderators
-very knowledgeable other people in the pool that are willing to help you
-total fees for the pool are less than 1%

Bad:
-pool has to be reset every few days.  This may cause your miner to throw hash to your second position on the GUI and you may have to manually reboot your miner
-you have to use a second website to get critical information such as block notification, charting, low hash rates, or miner off-line
-ramp up to full payout is about 2 days but can only be realized after the fact when a block is found and the results show that you have attained full hashrate

Bitminter

Good: 
-payouts are the highest I have found on average over the last 2 months.
-responsive pool moderator
-very knowledgeable other people in the pool that are willing to help you
-unique dashboard

Bad:
-pay-outs may take days, although they are very lucrative
-ramp up to full payout is about 2 days
-the pool is not growing very quickly
-total fees for the pool are 1% plus you have to pay for features

Summary:  My main goal is profitability.  I have seen a 118% increase in profitability of Bitminter over CKPool on average over the last 2 months.  I have most of my miners hosted so, the responsiveness of the host may be an issue depending on the hour of day or day of the week to have a miner manually rebooted.  I must conclude that with the risk of miners loss in hashrate when the pool is reset and possible having to manually reboot the miner along with the profitably of Bitminter over CKPool----I have as of today brought all of my miners to Bitminter.  I am also renting hash and sending it to Bitminter.


Here is a profitability study over the last week, 4weeks, 26weeks and 52weeks: 
http://organofcorti.blogspot.ca/search/label/weeklypoolstatistics


Let me know your thoughts.

[Crispyato]

I would love to see this pool at 7-8PH.  I see the best speeds from my miners here. The diff has increased significantly since the pool reached the 3-4PH mark.  I love the small pool reward, but bitminter needs to grow with the network a bit.  I think we should all seek big miners, convince them to point some miner here, and leave them for a month.  Rental boosting is great, but some networking for growth would yield better results.  Nicehash is cool for snagging shares, but you don't know anything about the rigs/miners. You could have 100 miners with old firmware logging on and off for 5TH.  It won't cost anything to talk some solid miners into pointing at least a few miners here and it would be a solid move for making some coin.

[ATCkit]

Well Aires and Crispy, we've chatted before and I respect both of you a lot.

Yes- if the pool were larger, then there were would be a higher chance that a block would be found most of the time within the 10 shift period. I had been toying with moving all my rigs (~22 THS) here. For me, I simply have a hard time coping with losing shares after the 10 shifts expire. I'm just a small miner- but I think this is also why many big miners won't stay here when they see that happen.

I'd be more inclined to move my hash power here if the shares didn't expire at all...but at least not for 20- 30 shifts. I can't recall how BTCGuild's PPLNS worked. However, I don't remember losing shares when I mined there.

[Crispyato]

Well Aires and Crispy, we've chatted before and I respect both of you a lot.

Yes- if the pool were larger, then there were would be a higher chance that a block would be found most of the time within the 10 shift period. I had been toying with moving all my rigs (~22 THS) here. For me, I simply have a hard time coping with losing shares after the 10 shifts expire. I'm just a small miner- but I think this is also why many big miners won't stay here when they see that happen.

I'd be more inclined to move my hash power here if the shares didn't expire at all...but at least not for 20- 30 shifts. I can't recall how BTCGuild's PPLNS worked. However, I don't remember losing shares when I mined there.

Thanks ATC.  I respect you too man.  Your the kind of miner I'm talking about. Update your firmware, give ample power, know when to reset.   Forget I said "big miners", lets say good miners.  Your never loosing shares.  Fact is your shares are only worth anything if they pull a block.  I like Kano pool for that very reason.  However I have "lost shares"  there.  How ? Watch the pool PH speed on your rewards page.  Its always higher than when the block is found.  I kept a steady 22TH through a dry spell.  Others bumped then pointed somewhere else.  Even though we were 24PH-27PH when we found blocks I took a 20 percent reward cut for a loss as the math was done at 30-32PH for my rewards. Its neat for rents, but I would loath it if I owned the 22TH.   While others did the pool no good what so ever and made a nice gain from little work at high speed. Smash and grab.  Not to mention I've had some 2-3 days dropping from 40TH-25TH with bad luck.  The first couple rewards were slightly larger, but in no way compensated me for bad luck.  I was never paid for more than 27TH.  Slow to rise.  Fast to fall.  Its a luck sir.  If your lucky just after you leave, yeah it can pay.  You left though, so a steady miner takes the cut.    Eased bad luck sting via community distro.  Sometimes it helps you, others not.  Just the luck of it.  If you keep a rig here you and leave it.  You'll probably make more money in a months time.  Your never loosing shares here or there.  Your shares only have the value of what they earn in the time frame based on luck.  I always turn mine from here, then I miss the luck.  Take a look at that report though its accurate.  If it would grow a bit it would come faster.  So jumpy miner like us won't switch to fast and lose out.  I'll still mine other places, but here there is the highest profit potential.  It just needs a couple PH more steady mining.   Plus the Doc says he can extend the time period if the pool grows, thus solving the problem of the length.  

PS  here=bitminter  there=Kano  These are the only 2 places worth mining if your under 200TH IMO

[DrHaribo]

I don't like the term ramp-up. It seems to suggest that there is a punishment for part-time mining. That you don't get paid properly before you have mined several hours or days.

In reality there is no ramp-up. Each proof of work ("share") is paid the same way. An hour of mining is paid the same fair way as all other hours mined, regardless of whether you mined before that or not.

Sure if you mine an hour on this pool and an hour on that pool, or if you split your hashrate between multiple pools, then you will receive several smaller payouts instead of one big one. But the end result is the same.

Why are the details of which hours you got paid for, or how big each payout was, important at all? You got the same amount of coins in the end.

[Crispyato]

I get the term ramp up in terms of slush pool only.  You hold a score there so you have to wait for it to build up then hold that score till you hit a block.  If you drop the score before a block it will quickly descend and you will lose your shares.  Slush is only good as a primary for that reason.  For failover you should add a secondary server of your primary pool. Your gonna lose hashrate on a load balance if your not talking failover IMO.   If your want a pool to make coin for the short time a pool goes down you should pick antpool or f2pool.  Where else would you be guaranteed fractional pennies  for the few minutes pools rarely ever go down? Like it matters.  If your putting "ramp up" in your analysis your probably switching lanes and overthinking it.  Been there.  The Doc is right though if you split up your hashrate you will most likely get the same coin.  Also...GUI has nothing to do with profitability and Bitminter has a pre perk fee you can activate for the fastest payout possible.  You even keep orphaned pay.  Worth it ? Oh hell yeah.  That report you linked is good analysis of the past, but won't tell the future.  You know whats important to me for profitability? My size in the pool.  Why ?  When the luck comes fast on a good day, I get more shares in between short blocks.  At least that's what I've experienced.  I'm not a dev though so somebody stop me if I'm wrong.

[ATCkit]

I get the term ramp up in terms of slush pool only.  You hold a score there so you have to wait for it to build up then hold that score till you hit a block.  If you drop the score before a block it will quickly descend and you will lose your shares.  Slush is only good as a primary for that reason.  For failover you should add a secondary server of your primary pool. Your gonna lose hashrate on a load balance if your not talking failover IMO.   If your want a pool to make coin for the short time a pool goes down you should pick antpool or f2pool.  Where else would you be guaranteed fractional pennies  for the few minutes pools rarely ever go down? Like it matters.  If your putting "ramp up" in your analysis your probably switching lanes and overthinking it.  Been there.  The Doc is right though if you split up your hashrate you will most likely get the same coin.  Also...GUI has nothing to do with profitability and Bitminter has a pre perk fee you can activate for the fastest payout possible.  You even keep orphaned pay.  Worth it ? Oh hell yeah.  That report you linked is good analysis of the past, but won't tell the future.  You know whats important to me for profitability? My size in the pool.  Why ?  When the luck comes fast on a good day, I get more shares in between short blocks.  At least that's what I've experienced.  I'm not a dev though so somebody stop me if I'm wrong.

Yup- i know what you mean about Slush and their ramp up. Kano's ramp up is way better as you never lose the shares you submitted. At first it feels like you are getting underpaid but once you hit the 5ND, you are rolling along nicely and get sustained payouts for the earlier shares..ie: shift over shift for several shifts. If you happen to leave kano, you will still get payouts for awhile.

In many ways, bitminter is as good a pool or better than kano. Organofcorti's stats show it as being better much of the time. However, with the shorter period for the shares remaining valid for payout, it scares off miners who test it and see that happening. So it will be very hard for Bitminter to attract a ton of miners the same way that kano has over the past 3 months.
Remember these 2 pools were about the same sizer at one time. I coudln't decide which one to go with when i left the "big 3". I decided it based on which one gave me payouts for all my shares. I think that's why many chose kano over bitminter.
Then, as kano grew quickly, it would find blocks more frequently. This decreased the 5ND from 4+ days back in December to about 2 days now. In other words, the ramp up time to when you reached max payouts for all your hashing power deceased a lot. Also, with finding more blocks each day, the variance in payouts decreased a lot. Overall these 3 factors (shorter ramp up to payment for all shares, no shares lost, and lower variance) are giving kano and a strong edge over anyone else. Heck you can rent hash for a day and if the pool doesn't find a block, you will still get something for your submitted shares even a few days later. If you did that on Slush or Bitminter, you could lose all those shares after 2 days if a block isn't found. So kano is lower risk. Correct me if I'm seeing this the wrong way.

My point is that I see a good future for Bitminter...but it won't happen as the pool can't grow. Why? too many miners get a "bad taste in their mouth" during their testing period when they see the pool not find a block for 2 days or so and their shares become worthless after 10 shifts. So they don't stay here. Now in these times, all pools are having "hard luck". So it's not unreasonable for a smaller ppol to go a few days with no block finds. That's pretty much understood by anyone whose been mining for a long time. The problem is when you lose shares you submitted  after 10 shifts (~2 days) and the pool takes longer than that  to find a block. The longer it takes the more shares you lose. For me that hurts way too much.

I think that's how most miners see it too... and they just don't day anything verbally. They make their statement by not staying at Bitminer.

TLDR:  

In short, Bitminter has a world of potential and could become a significant player with at least 10% of the total network hash rate. However, it's reward system scares miners away before any potential growth can be attained. People don't like submitting work, then losing shares that are older than 10 shifts especially during a time when it's harder for any pool to find blocks. No-I'm not a psychologist. I'm just old and have seen how little it takes to upset people. Not getting paid for work is one of those that pushes peoples' buttons faster than anything else.

[AriesIV10]

I get the term ramp up in terms of slush pool only.  You hold a score there so you have to wait for it to build up then hold that score till you hit a block.  If you drop the score before a block it will quickly descend and you will lose your shares.  Slush is only good as a primary for that reason.  For failover you should add a secondary server of your primary pool. Your gonna lose hashrate on a load balance if your not talking failover IMO.   If your want a pool to make coin for the short time a pool goes down you should pick antpool or f2pool.  Where else would you be guaranteed fractional pennies  for the few minutes pools rarely ever go down? Like it matters.  If your putting "ramp up" in your analysis your probably switching lanes and overthinking it.  Been there.  The Doc is right though if you split up your hashrate you will most likely get the same coin.  Also...GUI has nothing to do with profitability and Bitminter has a pre perk fee you can activate for the fastest payout possible.  You even keep orphaned pay.  Worth it ? Oh hell yeah.  That report you linked is good analysis of the past, but won't tell the future.  You know whats important to me for profitability? My size in the pool.  Why ?  When the luck comes fast on a good day, I get more shares in between short blocks.  At least that's what I've experienced.  I'm not a dev though so somebody stop me if I'm wrong.

Yup- i know what you mean about Slush and their ramp up. Kano's ramp up is way better as you never lose the shares you submitted. At first it feels like you are getting underpaid but once you hit the 5ND, you are rolling along nicely and get sustained payouts for the earlier shares..ie: shift over shift for several shifts. If you happen to leave kano, you will still get payouts for awhile.

In many ways, bitminter is as good a pool or better than kano. Organofcorti's stats show it as being better much of the time. However, with the shorter period for the shares remaining valid for payout, it scares off miners who test it and see that happening. So it will be very hard for Bitminter to attract a ton of miners the same way that kano has over the past 3 months.
Remember these 2 pools were about the same sizer at one time. I coudln't decide which one to go with when i left the "big 3". I decided it based on which one gave me payouts for all my shares. I think that's why many chose kano over bitminter.
Then, as kano grew quickly, it would find blocks more frequently. This decreased the 5ND from 4+ days back in December to about 2 days now. In other words, the ramp up time to when you reached max payouts for all your hashing power deceased a lot. Also, with finding more blocks each day, the variance in payouts decreased a lot. Overall these 3 factors (shorter ramp up to payment for all shares, no shares lost, and lower variance) are giving kano and a strong edge over anyone else. Heck you can rent hash for a day and if the pool doesn't find a block, you will still get something for your submitted shares even a few days later. If you did that on Slush or Bitminter, you could lose all those shares after 2 days if a block isn't found. So kano is lower risk. Correct me if I'm seeing this the wrong way.

My point is that I see a good future for Bitminter...but it won't happen as the pool can't grow. Why? too many miners get a "bad taste in their mouth" during their testing period when they see the pool not find a block for 2 days or so and their shares become worthless after 10 shifts. So they don't stay here. Now in these times, all pools are having "hard luck". So it's not unreasonable for a smaller ppol to go a few days with no block finds. That's pretty much understood by anyone whose been mining for a long time. The problem is when you lose shares you submitted  after 10 shifts (~2 days) and the pool takes longer than that  to find a block. The longer it takes the more shares you lose. For me that hurts way too much.

I think that's how most miners see it too... and they just don't day anything verbally. They make their statement by not staying at Bitminer.

TLDR: 

In short, Bitminter has a world of potential and could become a significant player with at least 10% of the total network hash rate. However, it's reward system scares miners away before any potential growth can be attained. People don't like submitting work, then losing shares that are older than 10 shifts especially during a time when it's harder for any pool to find blocks. No-I'm not a psychologist. I'm just old and have seen how little it takes to upset people. Not getting paid for work is one of those that pushes peoples' buttons faster than anything else.

In Slush's you run 10THs for 10min:  if you do not hit a block in that 10min you loose everything.

The one good thing about PPLNSG Pools (Bitminter and CKPool) is that if you run 10THs for 10min you will get something for 10THs for 10min for the next couple of days if you hit a block in that period.

Bitminter has GREAT potential to grow!  We as the Miners can make it grow with the proof of PROFIT and our own experiences.  Tell a Friend and Invite others.

[gt_addict]

It is a great pool and I'm enjoying mining with him/them and the miners as a whole. I just hope we crack this block (whichever one it is) as my rental runs out in 3.5hours lol. A double bubble would be great, it would give me a nice comparison on payments and hopefully earn me a bit of profit aswell.

[wmabern]

Glad I could help.
Just remember that your rentals need to cover at least 24 hours, if not more, as each shift is 1/10 of your work, and is approx 6 hours each at the current time.
Its better to rent smaller for more hours, than to send 1pt for 6 hours..
Ex.( 1 pth would be 33% aprrox of pool, but 33/10 when your rental runs out and you get all 0's for the remaning shifts would equal only 3.3% of the 25 btc reward = 0.825 btc.
I can run 150 th for 24 hours for around .5btc, and get all shifts around 4%, therefore 25 x 4 %  = 1 btc, and if we hit two in a 24 hour period, well that's 2 btc, a 150% profit.

Just making it easier to understand for everyone.  Your not competing against the User hash-rate roster, just the total pool hash-rate.

Hello, Newbie here.
I have been reading this thread, especially this latest part about renting hash, with much interest.
I am just a very small miner and only have two S7's and less than 10 BTC in my wallet. Over the last few days since this post from iegservers, I have registered with Nicehash and checked out the prices, speed and duration of what I could rent.
The best I have been able to come up with was approximately 138TH for .5 BTC for a duration of one day. ( This was before the major price drop of last night EST) I haven't checked today.

I started thinking and looking at the past 10 or so blocks found on Bitminter. ( I know past doesn't = future)
If we found a block in 24 hours, that would be great. I'm not sure what my percentage would be. I'm guessing I would have my ~9TH from my miners plus the 138 rented for ~147TH.
But as the blocks take longer and longer to create, I fear that this strategy would be a money hole for me.

For example, we are coming close to almost 4 days since a block was found. If I were to tray and stay in the game with the rented hash, it would cost me 2 BTC for 4 days for maybe close to 4% to get 1 coin back as a reward.

Of course there is the remote possibility I could find a block. But it seems that unless we could find a block within the 10 shifts (2 days) (costing approximately 1BTC and returning ~1BTC), it would be a losing proposition for me.
A few blocks back, we had that one block that took over 5 days. That would be at a cost of 2.5 BTC for rented hash. My return in that case would be ~1BTC for a cost of 2.5 BTC.

It seemed like a great idea until I started thinking it through and looking at the possibilities.

Please, someone with more experience and a clearer mind tell me if my logic is flawed. I certainly would like to be up there with close to 150TH, but I'm worried it's a losing proposition in the long run for me. (Of course if we get lucky and find a block quickly it will pay off, but anything over two days seems like a loss.

Am I close to being correct, or am I off base by a wide margin?
Thanks for any input from those with more experience!

-whirledps

[DrHaribo]

I decided it based on which one gave me payouts for all my shares. I think that's why many chose kano over bitminter.

This is the wrong approach. Instead of asking "what is a place where the Bad Thing never happens?" you should ask "where do I get a good end result after good and bad are added up?"

However, you are right, this is one of the reasons some miners leave the pool. The issue is caused by Negativity Bias. It is a problem of all human brains (including mine) and people struggle with it.

the ramp up time to when you reached max payouts for all your hashing power deceased a lot

Ramp up and ramp down has zero effect on your bottom line. This is part of the confusion caused by looking at how much you get paid per block. Seeing things from the perspective of blocks is also confusing when someone puts a big rental on the pool which decreases your payout per block. In reality it's not hurting your earnings, but it looks that way.

A much less confusing way of seeing the world is from the perspective of work/shifts and how much you got paid for it. That's why the shifts page shows "Pay/Hour at 1 TH/s". Even then there is of course the problem of negativity bias causing people to notice only the bad and not paying attention to the good.

If you did that on Slush or Bitminter, you could lose all those shares after 2 days if a block isn't found. So kano is lower risk. Correct me if I'm seeing this the wrong way.

Bitminter uses PPLNS with shifts, which is the same as Kano, and is the same that BTCGuild used. I came up with the "shift" part myself, as a way to simplify PPLNS and make it easier to reason about and audit for miners. Bitminter was the first pool to use this reward method.

In all PPLNS pools (BTCGuild, Kano, Bitminter) it can happen that there is unpaid work. In pools with long shifts the chance is lower. But note that unpaid work doesn't matter. What matters is your bottom line.

"Today I got 2 bitcoins instead of the usual 1. But some of the work I did was unpaid, so I have this really bad feeling." This is negativity bias. It will make you feel bad when you're winning, feel good when you're losing, and cause you to make very bad decisions. The way to avoid it is to focus on the bottom line, the end result, and not got hung up in one insignificant bad detail.

But hey, I get it. I've been explaining these things to people for over 4 years now, almost 5. It's not helping. Having some confusing data and giving people a long complex explanation while their own brain tries to trick them with cognitive biases we humans have had since before the stone age. That's not the way to success.

I have some cool stuff in the pipeline. But in the mean time:

Would it be better to double the shift length? This would halve the chance of unpaid shifts but also double the ramp-up and ramp-down times.

[jonnybravo0311]

That's how a PPLNS pool works.  The block finding luck plays a significant factor in how much you make.  If the pool is lucky and finds more blocks than expected, you win.  If, on the other hand, the pool finds fewer blocks than expected, you lose.  Over time, things expect to converge near the 100% mark, meaning you should make near 100% of expected earnings.

Thinking about it short term is akin to gambling.  You rent your hash and hope the pool does better than expectations during the time you shares are still in the payout list so that you make extra coin.  If you're overpaying for your rented hash, you're at a disadvantage right out of the gate.  Just remember, when you are renting on NH/WH, you pay 3% right off the top as a fee, so unless you happen to get the rental for 3% or more under expected earnings you're starting off at a loss.

The harsh reality is that renting for profit is typically a losing proposition - just like gambling.  Can you strike it rich?  Sure.  You can also get burned.

So, if you've got the coin to spend and want to try your luck, then go for it .

[DrHaribo]

I have been reading this thread, especially this latest part about renting hash, with much interest.

It's pretty simple. Google "bitcoin mining calculator". Put the hashrate you want to rent into the calculator and see what you'd earn in 24 hours with average luck. Now compare to the price for the rental.

You will see that the rental costs more than the average return you'd get on it. Sometimes a lot more.

So why would anyone rent? The answer is that it's gambling.

Now imagine you send the rented hashpower to a big pool. You get an average return. That means a small loss. Renting in a big pool means you get a small loss most of the time.

What about renting in a small pool? You can get a very big win or very big loss. Now we're in casino land.

You can further vary the variance by how long you rent for. Rent for 1 hour: huge variance. 1 day: medium variance. 1 week: low variance. This works the same as in a casino where they have high stakes tables (win big or lose big) and penny slots (win small or lose small). The way the rentals are priced higher than their average return is also like a casino; the odds are in favor of the house.

Rented mining beats SatoshiDice any day of the week!

[jonnybravo0311]

LOL Doc... looks like we were both thinking about the casinos

[wmabern]

Thanks for the replies.

Yes, your explanations makes perfect sense to me. It is gambling that your rented hash is going to either a) hit a block (not extremely likely), or b) come close to breaking even, or c) all of your rented hash is wasted.

I may try it sometime in the near future for at the most 2 days just to see what happens. I'm not very lucky in gambling. But I may risk 1BTC on it.

Maybe if just by adding some extra hash to the pool for those two days will bring some added luck.

Again, thanks for the replies.

-wp

[DrHaribo]

LOL Doc... looks like we were both thinking about the casinos

Hehe, yep

It is gambling that your rented hash is going to either a) hit a block (not extremely likely), or b) come close to breaking even, or c) all of your rented hash is wasted.

You don't have to hit a block, you get paid if others in the pool find one too. But yeah, it's all about the odds.

[wmabern]

LOL Doc... looks like we were both thinking about the casinos

Hehe, yep

It is gambling that your rented hash is going to either a) hit a block (not extremely likely), or b) come close to breaking even, or c) all of your rented hash is wasted.

You don't have to hit a block, you get paid if others in the pool find one too. But yeah, it's all about the odds.

Yes, I understand completely. Thanks.

[Crispyato]

 I agree with you ATC.  You got it Doc.  Bitminter is my Casino.  Kano is my steady.  The funny thing is I won't go in a casino, um I don't gamble.  I mine gamble.  I mamble.  I need a low price and above advertised average hashrate.  Still its a gamble.   I hope we hit something soon for you Newbie.  Hell I'm starting to worry about my 720 hour rentals here.  It used to be safe with a one week. Seems bitminter always gets the 3-4 a week or so  it needs to be profitable.  Doc you are voice of reason. I'm a miner though, gotta mine.  I'm not buying a new rig with a 6-9month roi and fighting a power bill before the halving.  So I turn my old rigs on a couple days and rent while I research solar.  I'm super cereal right now you guys, grow the pool and lengthen shift the time.