http://www.pyramining.com/ - Discussion thread (no advertising here)

[Minor]

Does the ~10 month break even estimate take into account the reward halving? The expected increase in difficulty?

Can you describe the assumptions that were made to get to that estimate. E.g.:
- What is the assumed pyramining hashing power growth over those 10 months?
- What is the assumed difficulty growth?
- What is the assumed number/ratio of referrals of the account?
- What is the assumed growth of the  fee per block?
- What is the assumed growth of the cost of electricity?
- Any other assumptions?

Sorry if this has already been asked, I haven't gone through the 32 pages of the thread yet.
This information should be in the FAQ anyways as it is all a potential investor has to base his decision on.
10% profit in ~11 months is reasonably acceptable but if that estimate is based on unrealistic assumptions, I'd like to know before sending my coins.

I also find it a bit worrisome that the announced ASICs are just being discounted as be vaporware.
It seems to me that given the game changing nature of the ASICs when (not if) they come out, it would be prudent to dedicate a fraction of the investments into pre-ordering some of the announced ASICs as they are expected to come out within the next couple of months.

[pyramining]

I like the new idea too.

I'm wondering though... I don't see any contact information. Is there a reason for this? Am I just missing something? I have only deposited a small amount because of this concern.

There are several reasons for this:

- this is a less than 0.5% margin operation, my earnings come from the "savings" that I obtain for my own personal equipment. I keep 0.5% on payouts (I use it to cover bitcoin network transaction costs, even for who invested 0.00001 coins and some other minor things).

- I own a business (not bitcoin related) which absorbs me a lot of time. Pyramining should take me the less time possible, and by my point of view, it should be in a "poll" fashion and not "push". This way I can optimize all the time necessary to manage it. Therefore I wouldn't like to have (as an example) my cell phone ringing at any time of the day weekend included! :-)

- Sadly I live in the same country as Bitscalper (and I am not proud of it). However I never heard/know of him before starting Pyramining. He didn't lie, here laws are really weird and not precise at all. It's not clear whether bitcoin economy is legit or not. Even consultants don't know exactly and adviced me to not publicly advertise this business until there will be either a new regulamentation or (hopefully) someone else who sets the first case, and see what it will happen to him.

At the same time I am not completely anonymous, if you dig through all details you can find out my identity. Also some of you already managed to come and see the mining infrastructure personally.

Upon request I showed also pictures of the mining equipment and the photovoltaic stuff.

If you really need to know more about me (personally), PM me with your reasons and maybe I can disclose everything.

For people who don't trust me enough because of the little transparency about my identity, there are third party initiatives, like the rock trading who offers insurance on the deposits by using them as a referral or GERBITIN.PYRA on GLBSE.

[pyramining]

Does the ~10 month break even estimate take into account the reward halving? The expected increase in difficulty?

This is just an estimate (it's also written in the notes). It takes in consideration several parameters but it's just an estimate. I can't foresee the future. It takes in account reward halving and the completion of older accounts, leaving their infrastructure for the remaining active ones. Moreover, new infrastructure gets cheaper and cheaper so the hashing power dedicated to each account increases with time.

Reward halving seems that it will happen some weeks before expectations, so there is really a chance that things may slow down a bit.

Can you describe the assumptions that were made to get to that estimate. E.g.:
- What is the assumed pyramining hashing power growth over those 10 months?

it depends on new deposits and the availability of new hardware devices (ASICs for example).

- What is the assumed difficulty growth?

It's like asking me which Powerball lottery combination will win the next time!

- What is the assumed number/ratio of referrals of the account?

Here there is no assumption. The more referral deposits you get, the shorter your breakeven will be. There are accounts which completed in 3 months.

- What is the assumed growth of the  fee per block?

It's not taken into calculation yet. Too little.

- What is the assumed growth of the cost of electricity?

I hope it will not grow. Besides there is also a photovoltaic plant that should prevent/reduce the effect of an eventual electricity cost increase.

- Any other assumptions?

I assume that this service doesn't give more warranties than investing in your own mining equipment.
There are however some advantages investing here instead on your own hardware:
- If you buy hardware yourself you would get less hashing power. I am doing really a lot of efforts to buy infrastructure hardware at the best prices possible. These efforts included to produce our own FPGA boards (on license), and R&D and partnering with other companies for future ASICs.
- New deposits raise the average MH/s for every account.
- You don't need to care about maintaining/operating the service, the noise of the fans, the heath generated, space occupied, and so on. I'll do it for you in a professional way (this part shares something with my main job, so I think I am suited to do it very well).

If you invest anytime in your own equipment it's unlikely to be better than investing it here.

Should mining become not profitable one day, even Pyramining won't be. Here we do mining, not magic. :-)

Sorry if this has already been asked, I haven't gone through the 32 pages of the thread yet.
This information should be in the FAQ anyways as it is all a potential investor has to base his decision on.

I'll try to update F.A.Q. in the next days.

10% profit in ~11 months is reasonably acceptable but if that estimate is based on unrealistic assumptions, I'd like to know before sending my coins.

You should invest into Pyramining if you want to invest in Bitcoin Mining yourself and want to take all the advantages offered.

I also find it a bit worrisome that the announced ASICs are just being discounted as be vaporware.

I won't consider ASICs until I will see one working. As I stated, we're also working to get an ASIC solution, but it will not be anytime soon. If Butterfly Labs will really ship ASIC things on October, I will buy BFL until something better will be available.

It seems to me that given the game changing nature of the ASICs when (not if) they come out, it would be prudent to dedicate a fraction of the investments into pre-ordering some of the announced ASICs as they are expected to come out within the next couple of months.

I don't want to invest (your) money into something that does not exist. If they run with the money or if they release a faulty product, you will complain about my bad decisions. I invest all deposits in what I consider the best solution available in that moment. If you want to invest in ASICs, hold your funds until they will be available, I can't hold them on your behalf.

I hope that everything is clear enough... should you have any other questions or if you want to discuss any point, feel free to do it.

[Minor]

Thanks for your candid and thorough responses to my queries pyramining.

Only this answer was not satisfactory:

- What is the assumed difficulty growth?

It's like asking me which Powerball lottery combination will win the next time!

Surely you must have made some assumption on the growth of difficulty, otherwise no time estimation is possible.
Did you assume it to stay about the same over the next year? Double? Multiply by ten?

But I do get your point that if someone wants to invest in mining,  investing in your operation is probably one of the best ways of doing it.

Although if the ASIC mining rigs do actually come out soon, it might be more profitable for new miners to invest in a new ASIC-based mining operation that doesn't have the burden of repaying the investment in what would then be obsolete FPGA (and GPU?) technology.
(You might need to start a second ASIC-based mining operation which doesn't share the hashing power with pyramining, because if you don't, someone else will (and they might set it up somewhere where the cost of electricity and cooling is lower (anybody in Iceland listening?))

A couple more question: how come pyramining doesn't show up on http://blockchain.info/pools?timespan=4days ?
At 93GH/s pyramining should represent almost 0.5% of the networks hashing power and you should have found a couple of blocks in the last four days. (Or did I get my numbers wrong?)
Where can we see the list of blocks that pyramining has found so far?

[Raoul Duke]

Pyramining mines at p2pool and other pools. I think he should solo mine. I may be wrong...

[pyramining]

Only this answer was not satisfactory:

- What is the assumed difficulty growth?

Surely you must have made some assumption on the growth of difficulty, otherwise no time estimation is possible.
Did you assume it to stay about the same over the next year? Double? Multiply by ten?

I really can't say. There are too many variables. In my opinion it will continue to grow. If bitcoin value drops, the growth will be slow and little. Maybe it will double in 1 year or a bit less. If bitcoin value rises, it will grow 3x or 4x. If ASIC miners really show up, probably it will go 50x within 1 year, more if the bitcoin value increases, probably up to 70x. I can't really say what will happens, the increase span can be from 2x to 70x... I think when it can vary so much it's useless to try to make predictions.

Although if the ASIC mining rigs do actually come out soon, it might be more profitable for new miners to invest in a new ASIC-based mining operation that doesn't have the burden of repaying the investment in what would then be obsolete FPGA (and GPU?) technology.
(You might need to start a second ASIC-based mining operation which doesn't share the hashing power with pyramining, because if you don't, someone else will (and they might set it up somewhere where the cost of electricity and cooling is lower (anybody in Iceland listening?))

I don't think it's a good idea for several reasons: when ASICs miners comes out many accounts will be completed or near to be. And sharing abundand ASICs' hashing power will benefit everyone. If ASIC operations would start on their own, it means that who invested in FPGA units now will not have any chance to get their revenue in a reasonable time. I expect that it will take 5 to 6 months from ASICs appearance to when FPGA can be shut off, so the migration path between technologies will be gradual enough to not hoard new investors with old accounts/hardware and to prevent old accounts from losing profitability.

I also have my own capital, that's not related to Pyramining deposits, and I could invest part of it to ease the migration process, buying some hardware in advance at my expenses and using it for Pyramining until things stabilize.

A couple more question: how come pyramining doesn't show up on http://blockchain.info/pools?timespan=4days ?
At 93GH/s pyramining should represent almost 0.5% of the networks hashing power and you should have found a couple of blocks in the last four days. (Or did I get my numbers wrong?)
Where can we see the list of blocks that pyramining has found so far?

Actually hashing power is spread over a few mining pools. I didn't configure a solo-mining set up because at 100GH/s variance is still too high... I tried to switch all the power on p2pool around half of august (see p2pool graph/statistics) and when rewards are not spread regularly enough, people start complaining/worrying that something doesn't work and so on...
At current conditions variance could even let us mine 2 days without results. However in the long term it should be the most profitable solution.

I am ready to switch to solo mining, I have all the software already configured, but I think I will do it only when the hashing power/difficulty ratio will be double than now or more.

[BobbyJo]

Many thanks for the response.  You have answered all the questions I had (and some I didnt know I had).

[gnpeer]

If there is a poll, I'd vote for solo mining with info about variance in FAQ.

[Akka]

I'm _VERY_ high in the pyramid and it's clever to choose one of my links =)

Even thats not true, that reveals point to a 12th level account.

Liar!

A small tip for all who consider joining:

When you enter the pyramining page with a reveal you can view into the sponsor account by clicking on Sponsor in the upper right corner.

You now can click into his sponsor, etc.

Preview your sponsor before joining.

If you dig a little around in this forum you even find reveals pointing to top level accounts.

Kind Regards

[Flow]

There is no financial incentive to getting a sponsor at the top of the pyramid.  You will not recieve a higher bonus.  You will recieve your payouts slightly faster though.

If I get my reward faster then there is a financial incentive from finding a sponsor at the top of the pyramid.

[pyramining]

If I get my reward faster then there is a financial incentive from finding a sponsor at the top of the pyramid.

Only first level is a bit faster, second and third aren't that much. And first levels got only 5% bonus, that's balancing it. You could achieve much faster rewards recruiting referrals. There are accounts that have been completed in 3 months and obtained extremely high bonuses.

[Raoul Duke]

Dudes, stop with the link spamming. FFS.

[JayCoin]

No rewards for the 9/9/12? 

Something wrong?

[btharper]

No rewards for the 9/9/12? 

Something wrong?

Hopefully just delayed stats or switching more onto P2Pool (which has a slightly higher variance). Or there may have been a glitch in which case Pyramining will be gone for a while fixing it. Here's hoping it's the former (which means a larger payout later =D )

[symbot]

Maybe he has tried experimenting with solo mining for a few days like was suggested a few pages back in this thread?

[pyramining]

The reason of no payouts:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=33586.msg1175455#msg1175455

You should expect bigger payouts in the next few days.

[platti]

I think, you splt the mining power to different miningfarms? what is whith the other?

[Monkey1]

Good to know.  Have you made any decision about solo mining?

[pyramining]

Actually ~ 80% of the hashing power is directed to abcpool, the 20% remaining is split between p2pool, ozcoin and btcguild.

Regarding solo mining I am planning to do it, but I am not convinced to point miners directly to bitcoind. There are almost no info about the progress and it would be harder to check if something is going wrong. I'm planning to install a backend (like pushpoold) and use it for mining. I am doing some tests in these days, when it will be ready I will announce it here. Any advice is welcome.

[Monkey1]

Looking forward to solo mining.  Less regular payouts but less fees, so should be better in the long run. Pyramiding isn't really set up for regular payments anyway so I don't see a downside.