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

[Mikestang]

Which is the real advantage of setting the minimum difficulty? Will it result in a lower rejected proof of works? Will it lower also the accepted proofs of works because of their higher difficulty? That's a thing that I never worried about but I'm wondering if should I be setting something to have better performance in some ways.
Thanks in advance to anyone that will explain me that.

It has no effect on performance, only the feedback you receive from the pool e.g. your hash rate.

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[Haterson915]

Can I just vent?

I asked for a miner for Xmas. I got it.

Plugged it in to Bitminter on 12/22.

Found a block on 12/26 which paid me about 2 shifts worth.

Ever since... Crickets.

Actually, not crickets... It sounds like a nonstop vacuum cleaner in the next room.

Sigh.

Long live Satoshi Nakamoto.

[bigolin]

Can I just vent?

I asked for a miner for Xmas. I got it.

Plugged it in to Bitminter on 12/22.

Found a block on 12/26 which paid me about 2 shifts worth.

Ever since... Crickets.

Actually, not crickets... It sounds like a nonstop vacuum cleaner in the next room.

Sigh.

Long live Satoshi Nakamoto.

Hang in there. I started my miners up on January 5th, so I didn't even get the luxury of the 2 shifts worth. Once we pop this one we'll move on and start rolling in the luck. If we're lucky 

[johnPalli]

Which is the real advantage of setting the minimum difficulty? Will it result in a lower rejected proof of works? Will it lower also the accepted proofs of works because of their higher difficulty? That's a thing that I never worried about but I'm wondering if should I be setting something to have better performance in some ways.
Thanks in advance to anyone that will explain me that.

It has no effect on performance, only the feedback you receive from the pool e.g. your hash rate.

I see, thanks for the info Mikestang.

[RobertNykanen]

I know, I know, but it is still a brutal block.

[MrZipster]

Well, it's 2am in the good old UK.

And I predict this block will fall on its arse by 6am my time.

Last 4 hours, here we go!! 

[johnPalli]

This block is getting ridicolous. It serms that a few people just gave up. The total hash rate has dropped a bit.

[tredos1]

I don't know if this has been brought up before or not, but these long gaps between blocks are likely to get more frequent i would think unless the pool grows rapidly enough to keep up with the increasing difficulty. Given that possibility, would it be possible to look at paying out the fees every ten shifts or so? That way we get a little bit back every now and then no matter what.  I honestly have no clue what that would amount to.

[bigolin]

I don't know if this has been brought up before or not, but these long gaps between blocks are likely to get more frequent i would think unless the pool grows rapidly enough to keep up with the increasing difficulty. Given that possibility, would it be possible to look at paying out the fees every ten shifts or so? That way we get a little bit back every now and then no matter what.  I honestly have no clue what that would amount to.

The problem is, with PPLNSG, only the LAST 10 shifts get paid...so in this case the many shifts which were completed before the last 10 will receive nothing in exchange for their work. The only way to provide a payment to EVERYONE is to treat this like a completely different pool, which I don't believe is the goal. Many people are here because they prefer the PPLNSG Format, and in addition, believe in supporting smaller pools so that we remain decentralized. If more users come, then of course we will theoretically find blocks faster, but users will receive less BTC for their share due to having to spread the love to all the workers.

I guess I might be misunderstanding your question or thought, but it sounds like you are looking for more of a PPS pool which pays you per share no matter the luck of the pool. The biggest downside to these other than the obvious centralization issue, would be the higher fees that are charged to maintain that type of pool. Pool operators of PPS must pay the reward per share and to cover the times of bad luck, they charge higher fees. It's just the nature of the beast.

[tredos1]

Hi again,

I'm happy with the payout system for blocks, I've been happy with it forever. Just cause it says newbie here doesn't mean I'm a newbie to mining or to the pool. I was just thinking about the income from the transaction fees could be distributed a little more frequently than once every block is found now that that blocks will start coming more slowly. That was my comment. I don't know if that is any interesting amount of bitcoin or not. I would say to use the say last 10 shifts format for this kind of payout scheme as well. I don't know, maybe I'm advocating uncoupling the payout of the transaction fees and the blocks from each other. Both should still be PPLNS though.

[Biffa]

You only get the fees if you find a block, there are no fees to distribute if a block is not found.

[tredos1]

Thanks Biffa, I didn't know that. I thought that some fraction of our hashes were actually being used for generate transaction fees on the network and we would be getting those paid to the pool. I was unaware that we only earned transaction fees upon the creation of a block. Thanks again.

[rifleman74]

Thanks Biffa, I didn't know that. I thought that some fraction of our hashes were actually being used for generate transaction fees on the network and we would be getting those paid to the pool. I was unaware that we only earned transaction fees upon the creation of a block. Thanks again.

That's the way it works for any and all pools.  You have to find a block first.

[tredos1]

Hi Rifleman,

I got myself confused between 'pays TxFees' and the idea that we were somehow going to get income from hashing transactions that occur on the network and we could collect income just from processing the normal transactional behavior of the network. Someone collects all those little .00002 bitcoin fees from each transaction on the web and I was thinking that these coins would go to the people doing the hashing. So even though we weren't finding a block, we would be doing useful work for the network and there would be the possibility of deriving some income from it. I thought that was what the 'pays TxFees' meant in the description of the pool. I can see now that I was mistaken and did not understand things properly. I'm fully cognizant that other pools only pay when the blocks get found. I just thought we were special in some way in that we shared in this other kind of income as well, it was a misunderstanding of how things work.

[DrHaribo]

Yeah, those transaction fees, we get them when we mine a block. There's noone on the web collecting them. And noone is earning them in between blocks. When we create a block we put transactions in the block. We earn the new coins created in the block, plus the transaction fees for the transactions we put in the block.

[DrHaribo]

This long round is getting rather annoying and several people have been trying to end it by renting extra hashpower, but had problems getting that to work.

Mining servers have been updated today to make rentals run more smoothly on Bitminter:

• Default worker difficulty is now 4096
• Auto detect Nicehash worker and use minimum difficulty 1 million
• Minor tweaks to difficulty auto adjustment algorithm

[Haterson915]

Yeah, those transaction fees, we get them when we mine a block. There's noone on the web collecting them. And noone is earning them in between blocks. When we create a block we put transactions in the block. We earn the new coins created in the block, plus the transaction fees for the transactions we put in the block.

I guess I misunderstood too... So you're saying we aren't accumulating transaction fees since December.  The only transaction fees that are paid out are those that are part of the block that is found by us.   Is that right?

Is there some explanation other than a long run of bad luck for why this is taking so long? Has difficulty jumped that much higher? Other variables?

[Biffa]

Yeah, those transaction fees, we get them when we mine a block. There's noone on the web collecting them. And noone is earning them in between blocks. When we create a block we put transactions in the block. We earn the new coins created in the block, plus the transaction fees for the transactions we put in the block.

I guess I misunderstood too... So you're saying we aren't accumulating transaction fees since December.  The only transaction fees that are paid out are those that are part of the block that is found by us.   Is that right?

Is there some explanation other than a long run of bad luck for why this is taking so long? Has difficulty jumped that much higher? Other variables?

Only variables that affects block finding is luck. Hashrate of the pool and difficulty play a big part in expected luck but not actual luck. In reality of course the ratio between hashrate and difficulty is the main driver of a pools efficacy.

Bottom line difficulty is going through the roof. It's doubled since the beginning of December. A pool needs to have doubled it's hashrate to keep up even with average (100%) luck. It also needs to be large enough to get its expected number of blocks within each difficulty change.

Bad luck will affect smaller pools over short time periods, but all pools no matter what size suffer from it. If a pool can maintain its Hash to difficulty ratio then over the long term given average luck, then Fees will play a part in how much is earned.

[DrHaribo]

I guess I misunderstood too... So you're saying we aren't accumulating transaction fees since December.  The only transaction fees that are paid out are those that are part of the block that is found by us.   Is that right?

Yes, the only way to get any income with mining is to find/create new blocks. The income from mining a block is the combination of new coins that are created with the block, and the transaction fees of all the transactions in the block.

When you create a new transaction because you want to pay someone, it just floats around on the bitcoin peer-to-peer network. It is not part of the permanent ledger that is the blockchain. To anyone observing the transaction it is merely an intention to pay, which may take place in the future. Another transaction sending the same coins somewhere else might become part of the blockchain instead. This transaction is considered unconfirmed. You might trust it to pay a cup of coffee, but not a car (certainly not a Lambo).

So you offer a transaction fee on your transaction, to incentivize miners to include it in a block. The miners mine a block with your transaction, they get paid and now your transaction is in a block. Your transaction is in the block at the top of the chain. It has 1 confirmation, which is the block it is in. It's somewhat more trustworthy. But what if there is a blockchain fork and the other side of the fork becomes the longest chain? Then this transaction may yet disappear. This becomes less likely as more blocks are added on top of the block with the transaction. Once there are 5 additional blocks the transaction is said to have 6 confirmations. This is often considered to be the point where you can assume it is a permanent part of the blockchain. The recipient can trust that the coins you sent them are now theirs. This is what you paid the miners for.

Is there some explanation other than a long run of bad luck for why this is taking so long? Has difficulty jumped that much higher? Other variables?

Currently the difficulty is almost 3.3 trillion (called billion in continental europe). This means it takes a tremendous amount of work to find a block. On average it takes 3.3 trillion (mining pool proofs of) work. If the difficulty goes up the average time to find a block goes up. If our hashpower goes up the average time to find a block goes down.

Compared to 3 months back, the difficulty is now 2.5x what it was. Our hashpower is 3.5x what it was. So our average time to find a block has gone down. Further increasing the hashpower will further reduce the time to find blocks. It makes all rounds (time between blocks) go by faster, but most importantly of course the long and unlucky ones.

Our amount of work since the last block is over 10.6 trillion. That's more than 3x the difficulty and is certainly bad luck. This is fairly rare.

The worst block we've had took an amount of work that was 11x the difficulty. This is the awful block of which we do not speak. Except I just did. Thankfully something like that is extremely rare.

[bigolin]

I guess I misunderstood too... So you're saying we aren't accumulating transaction fees since December.  The only transaction fees that are paid out are those that are part of the block that is found by us.   Is that right?

Yes, the only way to get any income with mining is to find/create new blocks. The income from mining a block is the combination of new coins that are created with the block, and the transaction fees of all the transactions in the block.

When you create a new transaction because you want to pay someone, it just floats around on the bitcoin peer-to-peer network. It is not part of the permanent ledger that is the blockchain. To anyone observing the transaction it is merely an intention to pay, which may take place in the future. Another transaction sending the same coins somewhere else might become part of the blockchain instead. This transaction is considered unconfirmed. You might trust it to pay a cup of coffee, but not a car (certainly not a Lambo).

So you offer a transaction fee on your transaction, to incentivize miners to include it in a block. The miners mine a block with your transaction, they get paid and now your transaction is in a block. Your transaction is in the block at the top of the chain. It has 1 confirmation, which is the block it is in. It's somewhat more trustworthy. But what if there is a blockchain fork and the other side of the fork becomes the longest chain? Then this transaction may yet disappear. This becomes less likely as more blocks are added on top of the block with the transaction. Once there are 5 additional blocks the transaction is said to have 6 confirmations. This is often considered to be the point where you can assume it is a permanent part of the blockchain. The recipient can trust that the coins you sent them are now theirs. This is what you paid the miners for.

Is there some explanation other than a long run of bad luck for why this is taking so long? Has difficulty jumped that much higher? Other variables?

Currently the difficulty is almost 3.3 trillion (called billion in continental europe). This means it takes a tremendous amount of work to find a block. On average it takes 3.3 trillion (mining pool proofs of) work. If the difficulty goes up the average time to find a block goes up. If our hashpower goes up the average time to find a block goes down.

Compared to 3 months back, the difficulty is now 2.5x what it was. Our hashpower is 3.5x what it was. So our average time to find a block has gone down. Further increasing the hashpower will further reduce the time to find blocks. It makes all rounds (time between blocks) go by faster, but most importantly of course the long and unlucky ones.

Our amount of work since the last block is over 10.6 trillion. That's more than 3x the difficulty and is certainly bad luck. This is fairly rare.

The worst block we've had took an amount of work that was 11x the difficulty. This is the awful block of which we do not speak. Except I just did. Thankfully something like that is extremely rare.

Excellent post Doc. Merit earned.

In the meantime, I would also like to add that I'm glad to see you are adjusting the servers to help prevent rental issues. I know I for one am not above renting hash and pointing it here since some other pools are not fans of the rentals and actually try to ban them. Not my pool, so they can do what they want. However, any rental hash I get gets pointed right here to Bitminter. Thank you for working on that.