BITMAIN announces Antpool

[clubsofsteel]

all these pools too many to choose from, how do i kno which ones are the good ones?

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[mdude77]

all these pools too many to choose from, how do i kno which ones are the good ones?

Most of the big ones are good ones.  Most of the small ones are small for a reason.

M

[MissouriMiner]

all these pools too many to choose from, how do i kno which ones are the good ones?

Most of the big ones are good ones.  Most of the small ones are small for a reason.

M

I agree.  You can check here to see the hashrate distribution.  https://blockchain.info/pool

[Borpf]

I tried the p2p for about 24 hours.
I used two Antminer S3 and the workers and hashrate showed are OK.
But I earned no 1 Satoshi in this 24 hours!

Then I switched to the solo Pool and my earnings began.
But I am missing any statistiks like hashrate per block or earnings per block.
I can´t find anything.

can anyone tell me something about this (issue)? 

[MissouriMiner]

I tried the p2p for about 24 hours.
I used two Antminer S3 and the workers and hashrate showed are OK.
But I earned no 1 Satoshi in this 24 hours!

Then I switched to the solo Pool and my earnings began.
But I am missing any statistiks like hashrate per block or earnings per block.
I can´t find anything.

can anyone tell me something about this (issue)? 

I don't think P2P is ready yet, but I am not sure.  The communication on P2P is confusing.  I am waiting to hear from Bitmain that the P2P code is finished and ready.  The main announcement on this thread still has "All p2pool code will be open sourced and uploaded on BITMAIN’s Github link in the near future".  The first announcement said within a week.  Now it says in the near future.

As far as Solo pool payment statistics, that is under Account, Payment History, PPLNS History.

[kano]

AntPool - empty block - no transactions:

https://blockchain.info/block-index/506296/000000000000000009f46825313be327d2fdb1f2f634dbdbbb48f08f41f5a9fd

[warrensgun]

AntPool - empty block - no transactions:

https://blockchain.info/block-index/506296/000000000000000009f46825313be327d2fdb1f2f634dbdbbb48f08f41f5a9fd

Not familiar if that is normal - but it seems to have happened here as well
https://blockchain.info/block-index/0000000000000000075fa560760b08957cc2663c45d1374533b8fdca789e46bd
https://blockchain.info/block-index/00000000000000000131267d37409cfca6a2930b85dade8badae421b8bad6b20
https://blockchain.info/block-index/00000000000000000395d99b204762fb42916a2c0a4cdaa150048da2f0802e16

[kano]

AntPool - empty block - no transactions:

https://blockchain.info/block-index/506296/000000000000000009f46825313be327d2fdb1f2f634dbdbbb48f08f41f5a9fd

Not familiar if that is normal - but it seems to have happened here as well
https://blockchain.info/block-index/0000000000000000075fa560760b08957cc2663c45d1374533b8fdca789e46bd
https://blockchain.info/block-index/00000000000000000131267d37409cfca6a2930b85dade8badae421b8bad6b20
https://blockchain.info/block-index/00000000000000000395d99b204762fb42916a2c0a4cdaa150048da2f0802e16

Yeah there's certain other (despicable) pools that do that also ...

[warrensgun]

They are easy to find here - https://www.antpool.com/poolStats.htm - just by looking for the ones that are only 25 BTC and no change.  a bunch of orphan ones as well.  so how do you mine a block with no transactions.

[windpath]

They are easy to find here - https://www.antpool.com/poolStats.htm - just by looking for the ones that are only 25 BTC and no change.  a bunch of orphan ones as well.  so how do you mine a block with no transactions.

It is not hard to do, you simply do not include them.

It is just plain bad for bitcoin, all around.

The worst part is any benefit of including 0 transactions is miniscule, by not including transactions your found block is smaller which results in hundredths of a second faster block propagation time and perhaps a 0.0001% better chance your block does not get orphaned.

It's selfish and slows down transaction processing for everyone.

As bad as the centralization the discus fish and ghash create is, at least they mine big fat blocks with many transactions...

[mdude77]

They are easy to find here - https://www.antpool.com/poolStats.htm - just by looking for the ones that are only 25 BTC and no change.  a bunch of orphan ones as well.  so how do you mine a block with no transactions.

It is not hard to do, you simply do not include them.

It is just plain bad for bitcoin, all around.

The worst part is any benefit of including 0 transactions is miniscule, by not including transactions your found block is smaller which results in hundredths of a second faster block propagation time and perhaps a 0.0001% better chance your block does not get orphaned.

It's selfish and slows down transaction processing for everyone.

As bad as the centralization the discus fish and ghash create is, at least they mine big fat blocks with many transactions...

+1

If Bitcoin survives as it is currently designed, the day will come when transaction fees HAVE to be the large part of the block reward, as the block reward will continue to diminish in size.  For those that haven't been around, blocks started out at 50BTC.  Now they are at 25BTC, and the time isn't too far off when it'll halve again to 12.5BTC.  Any pool that purposes puts out blocks without transaction fees is hurting Bitcoin.

The same goes for any pool that grants all transaction fees to the block winner.  That can't continue.

M

[jonnybravo0311]

They are easy to find here - https://www.antpool.com/poolStats.htm - just by looking for the ones that are only 25 BTC and no change.  a bunch of orphan ones as well.  so how do you mine a block with no transactions.

It is not hard to do, you simply do not include them.

It is just plain bad for bitcoin, all around.

The worst part is any benefit of including 0 transactions is miniscule, by not including transactions your found block is smaller which results in hundredths of a second faster block propagation time and perhaps a 0.0001% better chance your block does not get orphaned.

It's selfish and slows down transaction processing for everyone.

As bad as the centralization the discus fish and ghash create is, at least they mine big fat blocks with many transactions...

+1

If Bitcoin survives as it is currently designed, the day will come when transaction fees HAVE to be the large part of the block reward, as the block reward will continue to diminish in size.  For those that haven't been around, blocks started out at 50BTC.  Now they are at 25BTC, and the time isn't too far off when it'll halve again to 12.5BTC.  Any pool that purposes puts out blocks without transaction fees is hurting Bitcoin.

The same goes for any pool that grants all transaction fees to the block winner.  That can't continue.

M

A ton of pools are going to be put out of business when transaction fees become the main source of revenue for mining blocks.  Many others are going to have to rewrite their code to distribute those fees out to miners in addition to the block rewards.

Honestly I don't even understand why a no transaction block should be allowed in the first place.  It has no purpose on the block chain since it isn't recording any transactions.

[mdude77]

They are easy to find here - https://www.antpool.com/poolStats.htm - just by looking for the ones that are only 25 BTC and no change.  a bunch of orphan ones as well.  so how do you mine a block with no transactions.

It is not hard to do, you simply do not include them.

It is just plain bad for bitcoin, all around.

The worst part is any benefit of including 0 transactions is miniscule, by not including transactions your found block is smaller which results in hundredths of a second faster block propagation time and perhaps a 0.0001% better chance your block does not get orphaned.

It's selfish and slows down transaction processing for everyone.

As bad as the centralization the discus fish and ghash create is, at least they mine big fat blocks with many transactions...

+1

If Bitcoin survives as it is currently designed, the day will come when transaction fees HAVE to be the large part of the block reward, as the block reward will continue to diminish in size.  For those that haven't been around, blocks started out at 50BTC.  Now they are at 25BTC, and the time isn't too far off when it'll halve again to 12.5BTC.  Any pool that purposes puts out blocks without transaction fees is hurting Bitcoin.

The same goes for any pool that grants all transaction fees to the block winner.  That can't continue.

M

A ton of pools are going to be put out of business when transaction fees become the main source of revenue for mining blocks.  Many others are going to have to rewrite their code to distribute those fees out to miners in addition to the block rewards.

Honestly I don't even understand why a no transaction block should be allowed in the first place.  It has no purpose on the block chain since it isn't recording any transactions.

Pools are nothing without the miners.  The miners need to do their part by only mining at pools that are good for the community.

M

[kano]

They are easy to find here - https://www.antpool.com/poolStats.htm - just by looking for the ones that are only 25 BTC and no change.  a bunch of orphan ones as well.  so how do you mine a block with no transactions.

It is not hard to do, you simply do not include them.

It is just plain bad for bitcoin, all around.

The worst part is any benefit of including 0 transactions is miniscule, by not including transactions your found block is smaller which results in hundredths of a second faster block propagation time and perhaps a 0.0001% better chance your block does not get orphaned.

It's selfish and slows down transaction processing for everyone.

As bad as the centralization the discus fish and ghash create is, at least they mine big fat blocks with many transactions...

+1

If Bitcoin survives as it is currently designed, the day will come when transaction fees HAVE to be the large part of the block reward, as the block reward will continue to diminish in size.  For those that haven't been around, blocks started out at 50BTC.  Now they are at 25BTC, and the time isn't too far off when it'll halve again to 12.5BTC.  Any pool that purposes puts out blocks without transaction fees is hurting Bitcoin.

The same goes for any pool that grants all transaction fees to the block winner.  That can't continue.

M

A ton of pools are going to be put out of business when transaction fees become the main source of revenue for mining blocks.  Many others are going to have to rewrite their code to distribute those fees out to miners in addition to the block rewards.

Honestly I don't even understand why a no transaction block should be allowed in the first place.  It has no purpose on the block chain since it isn't recording any transactions.

They have to be allowed, of course, in case there were no new transactions between two blocks and the first of the two blocks included all available transactions.
This will rarely if ever happen, but it certainly cannot be disallowed.

One issue is that some pools base their code on the eloipool code, and that code is well known for how bad it is for the bitcoin network.
Eligius gives all users an empty block on a block change to speed up getting work to the miners, that is their excuse anyway - we find it is certainly not necessary with the ckpool code.
Also a while back, due to the problems with the eloipool code getting too many orphans, Eligius restricted all blocks to at most 32 transactions for about 5 months.

It's basically pools making decisions that are bad for bitcoin, rather than coding their pool better.

I've no idea what code Antpool is based on (the non p2pool version) but I do wonder ...

[jackbox]

If you look at the first 30,000++ blocks Sathoshi mined them all himself or herself with zero transactions. Just go to blockchain.info and enter "0" into the search and see the genesis block. Enter "1" to search for the next block and so on. Goes for about 35,000 or so blocks until there are transactions. Satoshi mined them all himself or herself and he or she controlled the private keys to the addresses that mined the blocks. So blocks with no transaction can still happen and that is part of bitcoin. No big deal. No issue. If a block is solved, it is solved regardless if there are transactions or not. And of course there is always one transaction, the one that mints the new coins.

[kano]

If you look at the first 30,000++ blocks Sathoshi mined them all himself or herself with zero transactions. Just go to blockchain.info and enter "0" into the search and see the genesis block. Enter "1" to search for the next block and so on. Goes for about 35,000 or so blocks until there are transactions. Satoshi mined them all himself or herself and he or she controlled the private keys to the addresses that mined the blocks. So blocks with no transaction can still happen and that is part of bitcoin. No big deal. No issue. If a block is solved, it is solved regardless if there are transactions or not. And of course there is always one transaction, the one that mints the new coins.

... coz there were no transactions ... D'oh

[Syke]

Honestly I don't even understand why a no transaction block should be allowed in the first place.  It has no purpose on the block chain since it isn't recording any transactions.

Prohibiting empty blocks is worse than pointless. If empty blocks were prohibited, fake transactions would be created and permanently bloat the blockchain to get around the limitation.

Each block, empty or not, increases the security of every previous transaction. Sounds like a good thing to me, don't you think?

[jonnybravo0311]

Honestly I don't even understand why a no transaction block should be allowed in the first place.  It has no purpose on the block chain since it isn't recording any transactions.

Prohibiting empty blocks is worse than pointless. If empty blocks were prohibited, fake transactions would be created and permanently bloat the blockchain to get around the limitation.

Each block, empty or not, increases the security of every previous transaction. Sounds like a good thing to me, don't you think?

I hear you, and certainly recognize how the addition of blocks onto the chain increases the security of the previous transactions.  All I meant by my statement was that from the standpoint of the blockchain it didn't make sense to record a blank because at its core, the blockchain is a record of transactions.  I also recognize that since there needs to be a way to bring coins into circulation, we need to have blocks constantly added to the chain to generate the coins.  If we truly want to keep the blockchain bloat free, prohibiting blocks empty of transactions as well as those containing "fake" transactions would prove useful.  However, I have no idea how you'd determine whether or not a transaction was "fake", or if such a thing is even a possibility.  Kano made a great point describing how pools are guilty of making bad decisions such as handing out empty blocks, for which a miner certainly could generate a successful solution.

Anyway, I think we've completely gone off topic here in this thread and should probably move it somewhere more appropriate if we're going to continue.  I can definitely understand the points both you and kano made and agree with you that the addition of empty blocks to the chain is a necessary evil in the current state of things.

[-ck]

I can definitely understand the points both you and kano made and agree with you that the addition of empty blocks to the chain is a necessary evil in the current state of things.

The issue wasn't whether it's okay to generate empty blocks or not. The issue is a pool creating empty blocks when there are transactions pending due to a pool's poor optimisation choices. P2pool by itself does not do anything to limit transactions as an optimisation, it just uses whatever it is given by the bitcoin daemon. That points the finger at the custom antpool implementation as being responsible.

[jonnybravo0311]

I can definitely understand the points both you and kano made and agree with you that the addition of empty blocks to the chain is a necessary evil in the current state of things.

The issue wasn't whether it's okay to generate empty blocks or not. The issue is a pool creating empty blocks when there are transactions pending due to a pool's poor optimisation choices. P2pool by itself does not do anything to limit transactions as an optimisation, it just uses whatever it is given by the bitcoin daemon. That points the finger at the custom antpool implementation as being responsible.

Yes, it does.  Just like the other example kano pointed out.  My initial statement was that I felt the addition of empty blocks to the blockchain just for the sake of adding a block seemed to be contrary to what the blockchain itself is: a record of transactions.  Both kano and syke provided very good reasons why they are allowed.  I accept their points as valid, which is why I stated the addition of the empty blocks is a necessary evil.

I also fully agree that some pool implementations are just plain bad coding decisions.  Again, as both you and kano point out, there are a number of pool options that do not make such choices (your pool and p2pool being two such examples).  And, just to stay on topic, AntPool is an example of poor implementation since it is producing those empty blocks in the first place.