Are Mining Pools the downfall of the Bitcoin

[daveb]

I am new to mining. I have several S3's and an S4 and have started mining today.

What I have noticed as a relative outsider is the following:

Whatever your hashrate, you will only earn money when your pool finds a block. So when all the pools that you are not with are finding blocks, your own pool is eating up electricity for nothing. I noticed in some pools that it took a massive 6 hours to find a block.

Have I got this wildly wrong or should all pools integrate into one big one?

[lihuajkl]

Every pools got the same chance to find a block based on your pool's hash rate. If your pool keeps mining, you will find block. Another thing is that in order to prevent 51% attack, the hash power of any single pool cannot reach to 51% , otherwise there will be threat imposing to the blockchain.

[raskul]

mine DGM, example is mmpool.org.
research the Double Geometric Method, it's the best way to mine.

[Elwar]

solo mine, show them all

[Flashman]

Smaller pools find less blocks on average, but miners there will get bigger shares of the block. So say you have a lot of hash at a 40% of network pool, you might get 0.1 bitcoins every hour, but at a 10% pool you might get 0.4 bitcoins every 4 hours, or a 1% pool 4 bitcoins every 40 hours for the same hashpower. Over a reasonable timeframe, to average out luck variances, you should end up with the same amount of coins over time.

[jdbtracker]

Id prefer it if they did begin using a p2p system for the mining that way people wouldn't have to eat dirt when luck isn't on their side... but it really cuts down on the profits... a guaranteed profit for everyone participating or... one big payout for the larger pools.

It's tough, you gotta be able to convince people to join p2p pools... it's better, more censorship resilience and you don't have to worry about centralized mining.
but... you try to convince people.

[odolvlobo]

Whatever your hashrate, you will only earn money when your pool finds a block. So when all the pools that you are not with are finding blocks, your own pool is eating up electricity for nothing. I noticed in some pools that it took a massive 6 hours to find a block.

Have I got this wildly wrong or should all pools integrate into one big one?

Integrating all the pools into one won't change anything because eliminating a pool does not reduce power usage. it is the miner, not the pool, that is using all the electricity.

Anyway one pool doing all the mining is bad for Bitcoin.

[1Referee]

solo mine, show them all

Show what? How much money you're waisting when solo mining without finding blocks?

What's the chance for some one to find a block as solo miner?

[daveb]

Ok so finding blocks is the problem, not solving them.

All the info on Internet like Coinwarz show profit if you find blocks immediately and doesn't allow for looking hours for blocks.

So 1 big pool please, the more pools we get the longer we search for blocks, the less we earn.

[odolvlobo]

Ok so finding blocks is the problem, not solving them.

All the info on Internet like Coinwarz show profit if you find blocks immediately and doesn't allow for looking hours for blocks.

So 1 big pool please, the more pools we get the longer we search for blocks, the less we earn.

None of what you wrote is correct.

"Finding" blocks is the same as "solving" blocks. Both words are simplifications of the description of actual process.

The number of pools has nothing to do with how quickly blocks are added or how much anyone earns. Blocks are added every 10 minutes on average, regardless of how many miners or pools are operating.

[Meuh6879]

I noticed in some pools that it took a massive 6 hours to find a block.

i don't have find any block in 8 month. 
deal with it (and help the network instead of try to compete the farms ... with pools). 

[scarsbergholden]

Smaller pools find less blocks on average, but miners there will get bigger shares of the block. So say you have a lot of hash at a 40% of network pool, you might get 0.1 bitcoins every hour, but at a 10% pool you might get 0.4 bitcoins every 4 hours, or a 1% pool 4 bitcoins every 40 hours for the same hashpower. Over a reasonable timeframe, to average out luck variances, you should end up with the same amount of coins over time.

This is technically true over the long run, however the short run the smaller pools will have a larger variance and could end up earning more or less over short periods of time. If the pool earns less over the 'first short period' that you start mining on the pool then you could potentially end up loosing a large portion of your total potential earnings from your miner

[TinaK]

it's quite speed to find a block within 6 hours

[MicroGuy]

I am new to mining. I have several S3's and an S4 and have started mining today.

What I have noticed as a relative outsider is the following:

Whatever your hashrate, you will only earn money when your pool finds a block. So when all the pools that you are not with are finding blocks, your own pool is eating up electricity for nothing. I noticed in some pools that it took a massive 6 hours to find a block.

Have I got this wildly wrong or should all pools integrate into one big one?

You are correct. The entire Bitcoin network could be operated on a single machine. The amount of electricity being wasted in ungodly.

Maybe Satoshi was a computer programmer for a power company.

[fryarminer]

Hahaha! So I'm reading the OP and comments and I'm constantly checking the dates when this was written. Was this really written today, as in mining today? Finding a block in 6 hours is pretty good if you ask me.

Sorry, I've been out of mining since mining became impossible.

[odolvlobo]

You are correct. The entire Bitcoin network could be operated on a single machine. The amount of electricity being wasted in ungodly.

People waste more electricity watching cat videos on youtube than is spent on mining bitcoin.

[franky1]

lets say that 20,000 people solo mined. and lets hypothetically say everyone had the exact same hashrate to make it a fair chance to all

1 person will get a block every 10 minutes.

meaning you could be waiting upto 19 weeks just to get 25btc.

now work out that on todays hashrate each of those people would need an equal 15 terrahash running for them 19 weeks to get the reward.

knowing that the difficulty jumps every 2 weeks that is nearly 10 jumps before your possible reward, and that would mean to keep within your 19 week predicted win you wold need to change something, either increase your hashrate or join a pool to increase chances.

so would you rather solo mine, knowing every two weeks the chance of getting reward gets further and further away as difficulty rises (due to more people joining) or join a pool and atleast know that each day you are getting small percentages.

there is no point arguing that solo mining is better, because if it financially was.. people would be doing it.

just be happy you are not waiting 20 weeks+(due to difficulty jumps) whilst spending X amount of electric to run 15T/hash unit.

[Soros Shorts]

So 1 big pool please, the more pools we get the longer we search for blocks, the less we earn.

You really don't want one centralized pool. You'll soon enough find out why if you stuck around here a little longer.

[piike2323]

I am new to mining. I have several S3's and an S4 and have started mining today.

What I have noticed as a relative outsider is the following:

Whatever your hashrate, you will only earn money when your pool finds a block. So when all the pools that you are not with are finding blocks, your own pool is eating up electricity for nothing. I noticed in some pools that it took a massive 6 hours to find a block.

Have I got this wildly wrong or should all pools integrate into one big one?

I think the same as you do. Pools have done some damage to the bitcoin system because they came in too early and there where too many different payout systems. but because mining bitcoins is like a lottery solo mining at this point would be devastating to most people even if there where no pools. What would happen is that at current hashing power for home miners and current difficulty you would be waiting five to 10 years to win a block or just as easily, never.  Having an official pool could salve the problem but a single pool can bring in other issues such as vulnerability to attacks and bandwidth issues. To mitigate network problems there should be 3 to 5 official pools to chose from.

I define an official pool as pools that are mandatory for mining coins. this means that an agency needs to be set up to govern the rules and license to these pools and any one who wants to mine coins are required to chose between one of those pools. any pool not officially licence to mine coins should be rejected (Known and private pools). to prevent the 51% issue each pool must be required to close new account signups or the addition of miners when approaching a high percentage of hashing power until other pools can catch up. Cloud mining sites could just simply link to official pools.

[raskul]

So 1 big pool please, the more pools we get the longer we search for blocks, the less we earn.

You really don't want one centralized pool. You'll soon enough find out why if you stuck around here a little longer.

i'm just letting my thoughts wander here... is there any way that the bitcoin protocol could be changed to only permit solo mining?
not that it would be a desirable scenario, as there are too many large farms who would have owners rubbing their hands thinking they could 'own' bitcoin.
but, is it possible? i'm no coder so i wouldn't have the first clue about this... just pondering...