(finished) Mint Race Weekend (16 BTC prizes)

[DrHaribo]

BitMinter arranged a mint race for the weekend. The finest quality minting work (best hash) will win.

Start: friday 25.05.2012 at 20:00 UTC
Finish: sunday 27.05.2012 at 20:00 UTC

Prizes:
1st place: 10 BTC
2nd place: 4 BTC
3rd place: 2 BTC
You will also get a gold/silver/bronze medal in the upcoming achievement system, similar to Stack Overflow and various gaming systems.

Win conditions:
Just like your hash must beat the difficulty to produce a block, it must beat the other miners to win. The best (lowest) 3 hashes during the race will win.
As long as your work is accepted by the server it is valid for the race, even if it ends up "stale" or "orphaned" in the block list.

Verifiability:
Hopefully your mining software will show if you have created a block (the BitMinter miner does). Your block will show with your user name in the block list at http://bitminter.com/blocks. You can click the height number for the block (left most column) to see details. There is a link there to block explorer where you can see the hash value of the block both on the page and in the URL. The lowest hash value wins. Hash values are shown in hexadecimal. 0-9 is lower than A-F. A is lower than B. Pretty simple.

If this is popular we will have more mint races later and a page showing current standings in the race.

Final results: (updated 27.05.2012 at 20:03 UTC)

Place	Name	Hash (lower is better)
1, 10BTC	malavita26	000000000000062B2F28D5AA47F9C7EE05DCA83AD9EC16C5D72DA2DCF4D79ACE
2, 4BTC	zerogravity	00000000000007BE233BD1BEA218B02FBBECA9A07EF7C3DF08F5D34C411F3776
3, 2BTC	jeffklause	00000000000008F37FB201315AD4061ECC1034D5E662C7425A15EE51945B47BB
4	jakob	0000000000000A9015D5057863097B4E1AB7902B83690A1E35B9FE76161301ED
5	dextryn	0000000000000C0D835681B6D4B92B12757440A34C40E28F4BC115A2AAC96483
6	Fefox	0000000000000CC2560351C6724BF13B4E69AE4750246E61B741C1CC16F72EAB
7	hartmining	0000000000000E7EE05945C12801A6CC13A897C3575CB33C02E07DD6D4674019
8	jeffklause	0000000000000F753C5D5F175C085BBC7762627E9522FA534570DBFB89D246BA
9	dobo79	00000000000013B28A0894EF93EF8D28FE8D7461B4B049B1A7D4C40829C815E4
10	mqpickens	0000000000001643957EC35EE0115B24F5363CAF12695EA0A442A6DCEDC22DC3

[1714053598]

1714053598

[1714053598]

1714053598

[P4man]

What happens if no block is found?

[organofcorti]

I don't think that matters. As long as it beats all other miners, it wins, It doesn't have to be less than difficulty.

[DrHaribo]

Yeah, if no block is found I'll have to write a little program to go through all the proofs of work and find the best 3.

[SgtSpike]

Digging it!  I have almost a 2% chance of winning 1st place, but hey, it COULD happen!

Of course, knowing my luck, I won't be even close... the only block I've found for BitMinter was orphaned! 

[Turbor]

I'll be there !

[martychubbs]

I am going to enter my 2gh Moped! WREEee.. 

[SaltySpitoon]

I am going to enter my 2gh Moped! WREEee.. 

Your Moped gets 2gh? Is it a vespa? And what kind of gh would you get with a motorcycle?

[Graet]

I am going to enter my 2gh Moped! WREEee.. 

Your Moped gets 2gh? Is it a vespa? And what kind of gh would you get with a motorcycle?

my motorbike give 57dozenhundred Jigahash - no known pool can handle the POWAH!!!

Good luck for your weekend DrHaribo

[martychubbs]

I am going to enter my 2gh Moped! WREEee.. 

Your Moped gets 2gh? Is it a vespa? And what kind of gh would you get with a motorcycle?

my motorbike give 57dozenhundred Jigahash - no known pool can handle the POWAH!!!

Good luck for your weekend DrHaribo

That was an awesome description! Kinda makes my Moped...tad wimpy?

[DrHaribo]

Good luck for your weekend DrHaribo

Thanks, mate

With 1 hour and 30 minutes to go before start we see several miners pushing their hardware beyond their usual rates. Most obvious is flowklem running at 22-23 GH/s, about 10 higher than his usual. Those who have been watching could see him revving his engines to over 40 GH/s earlier. Below him we see some of the miners have moved up several places on the top 50 list in preparation for the race. Other miners again are less conspicuous, not wanting to give away what they are bringing before the race actually starts.

With many miners living in countries where summer has recently brought much higher temperatures they will have considerable problems keeping their rigs from overheating. Can their hardware deliver top performance for the full 48 hours of the race, or will we see some miners drop off as the heat forces their machines to shut down?

Watch the action live at https://bitminter.com/livestats/big

Update: With 90 minutes to go Isokivi makes a sudden move positioning him second on the top 50, just below flowklem and above Fefox on third. I don't know what he's doing to achieve this kind of performance, but you have to ask yourself, can his machines take the strain?

[SgtSpike]

Well, I'm 12th, that's not THAT bad! 

[DrHaribo]

Well, I'm 12th, that's not THAT bad! 

With everyone pushing their hash rates that's pretty decent.

Currently we see flowklem and Isokivi knifing for pole position and the race hasn't even started yet. Isokivi hit a block but it was 82 minutes before start.

We just received a report that one of Fefox' rigs caught on fire. That burned out husk of a machine is not going anywhere this race. Still he is packing some serious hashing power even without this rig and Slipbye on fourth still has a long way up to Fefox on third.

45 minutes till start.

Update: Isokivi is pulling away, getting a small lead on flowklem.

[rjk]

Aha perfect, the announcer warming up the crowd before the race.

[DrHaribo]

Aaaaand they're off!

Surprisingly Isokivi has fallen back just as the race starts. flowklem is also greatly reduced. The only thing keeping Fefox from catching up with flowklem is his burned out miner. How the next 48 hours will go is anybody's guess.

[DrHaribo]

malavita26 takes the lead with hash 000000000000062b2f28d5aa47f9c7ee05dca83ad9ec16c5d72da2dcf4d79ace

Will it stand to the end of the race or can someone get a lower one?

[DrHaribo]

dextryn pushes up to 7th place on the top 50 list, taking 2nd position in the race with a namecoin block. That's unlikely to stand for long however, as any bitcoin block will beat it.

[Isokivi]

Aaaaand they're off!

Surprisingly Isokivi has fallen back just as the race starts. flowklem is also greatly reduced. The only thing keeping Fefox from catching up with flowklem is his burned out miner. How the next 48 hours will go is anybody's guess.

That hashrate you saw off me was gpumax, I made some trials with strategicly timed purchases. My hardware can at most push out a 4Ghs, but that would require sub-zero temeperatures and it's summer here now. Sadly I did not break even off my purchases, but Im happy to report that I seem to get 5-10% more accepted shares that Im paying for, each buy. So in theory during this race I might be able to justify getting a +/-o ev off gpumax.

[DrHaribo]

Interesting. I wonder if we will see some more GPUmax runs before the race is over.

The biggest miners are having no luck at all. malavita26's bitcoin block is still the finest minting of the race so far. After him we see jakob's namecoin block has taken up second place, pushing other contestants down on the list. Original post updated with current standings.

[SgtMoth]

i purchased some shares too, just a couple hours after we started, they havent gone through yet.