KanoPool since 2014 🐈 - PPLNS and Solo 0.5% fee - Worldwide - 2438 blocks

[xZork]

Now that's how you verify a block! 

[kano]

Now that's how you verify a block! 

Was hoping for 3
But 2 is OK also
The long block CDF was 0.888

[Digitalmocking]

I have a question maybe you guys can answer.  I'm thinking of setting up a 300 - 400 thash farm, what do people use to deliver power to that many systems?  I mean I have no real problem using 80 of the IBM 2880W PSUs if I have to, I was just wondering if there's a more efficient answer out there.

[dkaufman]

Hi CK Poolers (poolies?)

I've been curious about renting hash power for a while now so I just rented 100TH for 24 hours for 1 BTC -- nice, round numbers! -- and pointed them all at ckpool. 

I used WestHash (are there other, better rig rental markets?) and chose the "fixed" (rather than their "standard") order type so I actually paid an auto-calculated fraction ~more~ than the going rate to guarantee that the hash power I ordered will be delivered continuously for the next ~24 hours.  With the "standard" type orders, you offer a bid price/th/day and, if no miners are available but you've bid higher than current orders that are running, the "grid" will "pause" some of those orders to fill yours.  But with those standard bid-type orders you also run the risk that someone will outbid you and stop your orders, over the course of the day.  WestHash / NiceHash has a fascinating system with lots of hash power (but a finite amount, and plenty of demand, resulting in a very liquid market) and orders that are limited to 24 hours in duration.  It forces you to think about mining very differently, using new measurement vectors (btc/th/day) and bend your brain around mining in short bursts using the rented aggregate hashpower of others' physical rigs, instead of the longer-term ROI predictions and resale values we tend to obsess over when we're mining with hardware that we own.

It's exciting to be sitting on so much hash power, though the "market" is so frictionless over at WestHash / NiceHash  that, statistically, I shouldn't make any profit whatsoever.  The price per TH/day hovers right around whatever the current difficulty would predict you should earn.  So all I can really hope for is a nice lucky day here on CKPool since of course, at the end of the day (literally), its really just gambling.

And now I'm like chewing on the maths, wondering how much it would cost me to rent enough hash power that, when pointed at the SOLO ckpool, I could reasonably expect to mine one block all my own :-) -- I do suspect that number will be right at 25 BTC but the interesting part is proving it, and what the levers are, on which one might be able to pull...
 
Next I may rent out my own (far less spectacular 2 TH of) mining rigs instead of mining with them directly. Might make more that way, if its a day with more buyers that sellers, like if there is some positive BTC news, or price increase that stirs up the buy side a bit :-)

I see that I have now shamelessly stolen 5th place on the stats leaderboard from lgant (me=gigawatt).  But fear not, lgant. I will return it tomorrow.

thanks!

-dave
 

[kano]

Well with a short mining period, luck plays a bigger factor in how much payout you get.
We can hope for positive luck over the next few days after your day of mining

Just a minor note: since the pool has now mined almost 200 blocks, I've changed the ckpool addresses mined to.
After the next ckpool restart we'll be mining to a new address - it's linked on the Payments page already - but no blocks going there yet until the next ckpool restart.
I'd planned to do this about once every 100 blocks if I remember - but I forgot last time (100)

[Thub]

I have a question maybe you guys can answer.  I'm thinking of setting up a 300 - 400 thash farm, what do people use to deliver power to that many systems?  I mean I have no real problem using 80 of the IBM 2880W PSUs if I have to, I was just wondering if there's a more efficient answer out there.

Wow, this is a real serious project. If you do not understand anything about electricity, or, understand what I have highlighted below please seek professional help as this is not an amateur undertaking.

I am assuming a lot here, so here is my two pence worth, if it sounds a little condescending, my apologies. Your household supply is not designed to carry this load, this is a fairly serious amount of electricity and it is highly unlikely your power provider would upgrade your incoming supply.

I am also assuming your incoming power supply is 230V line to neutral, and that you will be drawing the full current on your 80 power supplies: -

1. You will be using an industrial building for this venture; I hope and not a garage?
2. You will need a three phase balanced power supply to cope with the 348 amps current draw. If your pF goes lower than the manufacturer's power supply stated 0.97 pF then you will end up by paying more for your electricity. Power factor correction capacitors are expensive but would pay for themselves in time. Industrial power rates will also work out cheaper than any household power rates anyway.
3. You will need a large distribution board with a main breaker and lots of MCCB's to split the load into safer current levels along with conduit, cabling buttress boxes and power sockets.
4. I hope you are in a really cold climate, as this current draw is like having over 140 - 2 kW heaters running all of the time.
5. You will need to make sure there is adequate separation between each unit to avoid overheating nearby units and steel racking to house them on.
6. You will need large extractor fans to remove the heat from the building and fans to draw cool air into the building.
7. You will require a huge A/C cooling unit if you are in a warm climate and that is seriously expensive to run.
8. You will need an industrial fire suppression system  - remember the recent Thailand incident. You could possibly have someone monitoring the system 24/7, at a pinch with industrial fire extinguishers, but human error is something you need to factor out.

Good luck.

[ZACHM]

This is for those of you using ckpoolmonitor.zachmonroe.com

As before with the restart that Kano did your apikey or BTC address has been wiped from the ckpoolmonitor. The reasoning for this is that initially there was a problem that if a user had an invalid api key it would keep triggering errors on the CKPool server and so Kano asked me to fix it which I did. I fixed it by having the system remove the bad api key value. The problem with this is when Kano did a restart and the ckpoolmonitor ran the api calls when the system was down it would get bad returns on all of the users and erase everyone's api key thinking they were bad. I have now implemented a "3 strikes your out" rule into the code. the code runs every five minutes, so if you get 3 bad returns in 15 minutes your api key is removed. This should eliminate it erasing the api keys during a restart. So everyone will need to login and fix your api key and/or BTC address to start graphing your hashing rate again.

If anyone has any questions, comments or ideas let me know.

Thanks,
Zach

[Digitalmocking]

I have a question maybe you guys can answer.  I'm thinking of setting up a 300 - 400 thash farm, what do people use to deliver power to that many systems?  I mean I have no real problem using 80 of the IBM 2880W PSUs if I have to, I was just wondering if there's a more efficient answer out there.

Wow, this is a real serious project. If you do not understand anything about electricity, or, understand what I have highlighted below please seek professional help as this is not an amateur undertaking.

I am assuming a lot here, so here is my two pence worth, if it sounds a little condescending, my apologies. Your household supply is not designed to carry this load, this is a fairly serious amount of electricity and it is highly unlikely your power provider would upgrade your incoming supply.

I am also assuming your incoming power supply is 230V line to neutral, and that you will be drawing the full current on your 80 power supplies: -

1. You will be using an industrial building for this venture; I hope and not a garage?
2. You will need a three phase balanced power supply to cope with the 348 amps current draw. If your pF goes lower than the manufacturer's power supply stated 0.97 pF then you will end up by paying more for your electricity. Power factor correction capacitors are expensive but would pay for themselves in time. Industrial power rates will also work out cheaper than any household power rates anyway.
3. You will need a large distribution board with a main breaker and lots of MCCB's to split the load into safer current levels along with conduit, cabling buttress boxes and power sockets.
4. I hope you are in a really cold climate, as this current draw is like having over 140 - 2 kW heaters running all of the time.
5. You will need to make sure there is adequate separation between each unit to avoid overheating nearby units and steel racking to house them on.
6. You will need large extractor fans to remove the heat from the building and fans to draw cool air into the building.
7. You will require a huge A/C cooling unit if you are in a warm climate and that is seriously expensive to run.
8. You will need an industrial fire suppression system  - remember the recent Thailand incident. You could possibly have someone monitoring the system 24/7, at a pinch with industrial fire extinguishers, but human error is something you need to factor out.

Good luck.

Thank you Thub, I appreciate the breakdown and I've thought of all of those things.  In a previous life in the Navy I worked as an electrician for a couple of years while waiting for my C school to open up, so dealing with the wiring and distribution isn't a big deal, and I've already got a local contractor lined up once I finalize the building I'm going into.

From everything I've looked at however, it seems like individual PSUs are going to be what I wind up running with for a project of this size.  Industrial DC voltage systems don't seem to be either the right voltage or are too expensive to be worthwhile compared to using the 2880W IBM PSUs.

Where I'm putting this, electrical cost isn't really an issue, but I'm not planning on active cooling, just going with more space (cheap) and big ass fans (also cheap).  I may wind up underclocking during the couple of hot summer months (july/august) depending on operating temperatures and the space.

Fire is the biggest concern I have, I've designed a simple relay system to cut power to all the systems if a fire alarm goes off, but an installation of this size can't afford to staff it 24/7.  I'll have to rely on environmental monitoring, being able to cut the power and the local fire department during off hours.

[Thub]

Thank you Thub, I appreciate the breakdown and I've thought of all of those things.  In a previous life in the Navy I worked as an electrician for a couple of years while waiting for my C school to open up, so dealing with the wiring and distribution isn't a big deal, and I've already got a local contractor lined up once I finalize the building I'm going into.

From everything I've looked at however, it seems like individual PSUs are going to be what I wind up running with for a project of this size.  Industrial DC voltage systems don't seem to be either the right voltage or are too expensive to be worthwhile compared to using the 2880W IBM PSUs.

Where I'm putting this, electrical cost isn't really an issue, but I'm not planning on active cooling, just going with more space (cheap) and big ass fans (also cheap).  I may wind up underclocking during the couple of hot summer months (july/august) depending on operating temperatures and the space.

Fire is the biggest concern I have, I've designed a simple relay system to cut power to all the systems if a fire alarm goes off, but an installation of this size can't afford to staff it 24/7.  I'll have to rely on environmental monitoring, being able to cut the power and the local fire department during off hours.

Server grade individual power supplies are the best way forward and cheaper to replace than a single mega buck SCR power supply, especially when one craters which is why server farms use them. Better to have a few miners go off-line than the whole farm from a power supply failure.

[WBF1]

Hi Kano and friends.

I periodically check to see if kano.is pool is working with my AMTube miner because I'd love to move over from another pool.

It's still not working without proxy. I know it's not high on the priority list but I wanted to just pass that along.

[-ck]

Hi Kano and friends.

I periodically check to see if kano.is pool is working with my AMTube miner because I'd love to move over from another pool.

It's still not working without proxy. I know it's not high on the priority list but I wanted to just pass that along.

We can't fix this unless we had someone to debug it with us live, preferably via IRC, and we're currently swamped with other tasks so it's unlikely to happen any time soon.

[xZork]

Hi CK Poolers (poolies?)

I've been curious about renting hash power for a while now so I just rented 100TH for 24 hours for 1 BTC -- nice, round numbers! -- and pointed them all at ckpool.  

............
 

I rent hash off an on and due to the nature of PPLNS short burst of high speed don't seem that effective, I would say even worse now that the pool hashrate has dropped and payouts are based on N range of 116 hours where as before we were in the 60 hour range. I am still trying to figure out the best method. However this time I rented 7 TH for 120 some odd hours on Friday and yesterday threw another 9 TH at it for only 50 some odd hours.

I haven't spread the rental out like this here before and am curious how it is going to pan out. As of our last block this is my earnings and AVG speed:

348800   24.84319262   233.65G   116hr 6m 23s   2.40PHs   0.19%   449.86M   4.62THs   0.04783268

There was some down time because I didn't do a fixed price. I am curious what others might have for input on this. I am not going to pretend like I know the ins and outs of this. Just my experience with trial and error. Honestly I regret selling off my S4's and renting now, even though it is for less than average expected pay and I have 0 power and maintenance concerns for the rentals.

[sorry2xs]

with fixed price and limited ths they give you more  hashing power, imo to burn thru the coins  faster (sorry I am a bit of C.T.)or am i the only one that happens to

[dkaufman]

I've been curious about renting hash power for a while now so I just rented 100TH for 24 hours for 1 BTC -- nice, round numbers! -- and pointed them all at ckpool.  
............
 

I rent hash off an on and due to the nature of PPLNS short burst of high speed don't seem that effective, I would say even worse now that the pool hashrate has dropped and payouts are based on N range of 116 hours where as before we were in the 60 hour range. I am still trying to figure out the best method.

Tell me about it!  Looks like today was not the best day to bet on :-)  I hope I get some love tomorrow.  My hash power has wound down and I dont really have the grasp of PPLNS (or any other pool payment scheme!) I guess I should for this sort of gamblin' hehe.  

So how does it work? Now that I'm done, I will get some piece of the payout from blocks that are found by the pool for the next 92 (166 - 24) hours? How is that 116 worse than 60? Sorry I clearly have more dollars than sense in this area eh?  

However this time I rented 7 TH for 120 some odd hours on Friday and yesterday threw another 9 TH at it for only 50 some odd hours.

I haven't spread the rental out like this here before and am curious how it is going to pan out. As of our last block this is my earnings and AVG speed:

348800   24.84319262   233.65G   116hr 6m 23s   2.40PHs   0.19%   449.86M   4.62THs   0.04783268

There was some down time because I didn't do a fixed price. I am curious what others might have for input on this. I am not going to pretend like I know the ins and outs of this. Just my experience with trial and error. Honestly I regret selling off my S4's and renting now, even though it is for less than average expected pay and I have 0 power and maintenance concerns for the rentals.

arrgh! I just got a tiny slice of the two blocks this morning, having started about an hour earlier :-(

  Block   Miner Reward   N Diff    N Range         Pool N Avg    Your %   Your N Diff   Your N Avg   Your BTC
  348800  24.84319262    233.65G   116hr 6m 23s    2.40PHs       0.02%    45.55M        468.01GHs    0.00484288
  348799  24.81882980    234.60G   116hr 40m 33s   2.40PHs       0.01%    28.51M        291.53GHs    0.00301623

I sure hope I make some more of that 1btc back!  But if not, well... I guess I knew I was gambling :-)

thanks!

-dave

[dkaufman]

with fixed price and limited ths they give you more  hashing power, imo to burn thru the coins  faster (sorry I am a bit of C.T.)or am i the only one that happens to

Yeah it does seem like my next experiment should be less hashrate for a longer-term, eh?  It looked to me like you could only place 24-hour long orders.  Am I missing where you can rent for longer?  Or do you just have to go in every day and "re-up" before the order ends, to keep it runnng for, say, a week?

[kano]

with fixed price and limited ths they give you more  hashing power, imo to burn thru the coins  faster (sorry I am a bit of C.T.)or am i the only one that happens to

Yeah it does seem like my next experiment should be less hashrate for a longer-term, eh?  It looked to me like you could only place 24-hour long orders.  Am I missing where you can rent for longer?  Or do you just have to go in every day and "re-up" before the order ends, to keep it runnng for, say, a week?

Long or short has the same "expected" outcome.
Shorter means luck has "more" effect on the outcome.

[xZork]

with fixed price and limited ths they give you more  hashing power, imo to burn thru the coins  faster (sorry I am a bit of C.T.)or am i the only one that happens to

Yeah it does seem like my next experiment should be less hashrate for a longer-term, eh?  It looked to me like you could only place 24-hour long orders.  Am I missing where you can rent for longer?  Or do you just have to go in every day and "re-up" before the order ends, to keep it runnng for, say, a week?

Long or short has the same "expected" outcome.
Shorter means luck has "more" effect on the outcome.

There have been complaints about overage of power on NH and WH but that is uncontrollable really to a degree. I don't think there is a limit on time other than orders going stale. But as kano said, it all is the same with different risk. There is no way to trick mining... Shares are shares and their weight is their weight. Don't expect to ever see your N avg show 100 or even 50. Your shares will count as they should. I would stay away from fixed as it almost always shows paying higher than expected earnings. I never pay more than the expected break even and at times you don't break even.

You should read the gambler's fallacy post and comments a ways back in this thread. It's a good read.

[ATCkit]

with fixed price and limited ths they give you more  hashing power, imo to burn thru the coins  faster (sorry I am a bit of C.T.)or am i the only one that happens to

Yeah it does seem like my next experiment should be less hashrate for a longer-term, eh?  It looked to me like you could only place 24-hour long orders.  Am I missing where you can rent for longer?  Or do you just have to go in every day and "re-up" before the order ends, to keep it runnng for, say, a week?

You can choose the time and the type of rig you want to mine with on Mining Rigs Rental (MRR). However, you tend pay more on MRR than on NH. You can also compare prices for each rental service here:
http://cryp.today/current

[sloopy]

The 'nicehash bot' will let you top up, enter new orders, and basically keep going at whatever the rate is.
Check it out if you are serious about rentals.
I have been experimenting with westhash using the bot a little this week but in the past I have just added an order at 5TH (the lowest) at a mid-range value of say .0101 and it was on more than off. It seemed to me the weekends and during US 12: PM EST through 7 or 8:PM were the busiest and where you would be battling if you wanted to keep a miner up. 106 price range was pretty darn stable lately, but these prices are not making money, they were fun, learning tool, and I consider it just another part of the hobby and do not expect to make a mint at it, at least not right now anyway.

[xZork]

The 'nicehash bot' will let you top up, enter new orders, and basically keep going at whatever the rate is.
Check it out if you are serious about rentals.
I have been experimenting with westhash using the bot a little this week but in the past I have just added an order at 5TH (the lowest) at a mid-range value of say .0101 and it was on more than off. It seemed to me the weekends and during US 12: PM EST through 7 or 8:PM were the busiest and where you would be battling if you wanted to keep a miner up. 106 price range was pretty darn stable lately, but these prices are not making money, they were fun, learning tool, and I consider it just another part of the hobby and do not expect to make a mint at it, at least not right now anyway.

Interesting, I never knew they published and released their own bot.