[500 GH/s]HHTT -Selected Diff/Stratum/PPLNS/Paid Stales/High Availability/Tor

[Richy_T]

i believe around the 18th or 19th at one point it was "only" about -250

I don't understand why payouts aren't made from profits and thus no deficit should ensue.

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[Lethos]

I understand the issue at hand, the current pay out structure is quiet standard, payout per share submitted * difficulty;Simple.
It has it's downside, paying out what you don't have can occur (debt), just like the reverse can. But it is fair and quiet normal for a lot of pools.

There really is not that many miners (and bad luck) at this pool compared to others of it's size, so variance is kicking us harshly; for the most part just a handful of very powerful miners and most of them had a long string of bad luck.
The pool has some large miners (not placing blame), that have mined a lot, paid a lot, but not actually found that many blocks.
So the balance is not counteracted by those in the position were they found more blocks than they got paid for.

Technically I'm part of the problem. I found 1 block after the change to 25Btc block pay out, but paid around 43Btc in total over about the last 6 months, way before it became as popular as it is today, so I did feel some relief when I finally found a block.
The problem can correct it self, with a string of good luck and/or more miners so that variance is less of a fickle bitch to the pool.

[zvs]

i believe around the 18th or 19th at one point it was "only" about -250

I don't understand why payouts aren't made from profits and thus no deficit should ensue.

It's PPS, so people get paid whether a block is found or not..  the pool operator takes on the risk.

It's had some particularly horrid luck, except for about a week there in mid-march.

maybe a business partner is needed

[Richy_T]

I figured that was per share of the eventually mined block. I guess there's room for both types but it seems odd for me for the pool organizer to be taking all the risk. I was on the Slush thread and I see their pot got emptied soon so it seems like this is not an uncommon problem.

[JWU42]

Again - the hole was dug during the days of a 50BTC reward.  Trying to get that back with a 25 BTC reward is like "pissing up a rope"  

And yes - about 232 BTC negative here (9*50 + 3*25) in blocks found versus 293 paid.  I am glad I was able to help the pool but sure wish I had an extra 230 BTC right now.  I can find something to do with $20,000

[Richy_T]

True. But there is a saying about being in a hole...

I'm not quite sure why big miners would be in a pool anyway. I understand it smooths out variance but if I was at the level where I was mining a block about every month or so, I'd probably solo. As it is, I'm such a small miner that there's a good chance I'd *never* mine a block so it makes more sense to throw in with others.

[doublec]

I figured that was per share of the eventually mined block. I guess there's room for both types but it seems odd for me for the pool organizer to be taking all the risk. I was on the Slush thread and I see their pot got emptied soon so it seems like this is not an uncommon problem.

Slush's pool doesn't do PPS so there's less risk. They pay out a proportion of that produced by the block based on the shares you've found (using a formula to reduce hopping). PPS pays out for every share submitted. So in periods of bad luck the pool pays out and hopes to catch up on the periods of good luck. Profit margins are so small on pools that 'paying out of profits' isn't much of an option during the bad periods. A 2% fee is only 0.5 btc per block. So to cover for one block's worth of bad luck, or one single orphan, will take 50 blocks for the pool operator to recover from in fees.

[doublec]

There's a good analysis of the reserves needed for a PPS pool in Meni Rosenfeld's paper on pool payout schemes. Using that formula, at 25BTC per block and 2% fee, allowing for a 1 in 1000 chance of going bankrupt, the pool needs a reserve of 4,300 BTC. If the pool tries to get by with a reserve of 1,000 BTC then it has a 20% chance of going bankrupt. Variance is a killer. There was a website that plotted pool balance variance over time based on fee but I can't locate it at the moment.

[techwtf]

@fireduck: urgent, please shutdown the iad instance for further investigation ASAP.

What was this about?

bitcoind on that machine crashed, as fireduck says.

[JWU42]

@fireduck: urgent, please shutdown the iad instance for further investigation ASAP.

What was this about?

bitcoind on that machine crashed, as fireduck says.

Missed that - thanks...

[zvs]

i realize payouts are being done as blocks mature, but what is the formula being used to do so?

i have 2 days worth of BTC listed as owed, while ppl with the single ASICs are currently about 4 hours behind

this is also true for 19yRn7nT4wV67xtpC7wuySBKg1p1kAxMj2, though it looks like he stopped after the last 0.03 payment

(ed: there is also someone at 1200mhash that has about 5 days owed..  essentially, the lower your hashrate, the more screwed you are with current system)

[Lethos]

I'd take a guess, it's trying to do proportional payouts, based upon available funds and how much each is owed.
So yes larger miners will appear to get more paid out.

So with my relatively timid miners 1.7Gh/s the last time I got a regular payout (0.25 Btc every day or 2) was on the 26th.
I've got trickle payments ever since, so I've got 5 or 6 days worth still owed (0.72 Btc).

One good sign is good luck has finally started occurring, 11 blocks found today already and it's only about half way through the day.
From the Calculator 12-14 Blocks is needed to maintain payouts at the pools hash rate.

[ShadesOfMarble]

i realize payouts are being done as blocks mature, but what is the formula being used to do so?

That's only because the pool wallet is almost always empty.
fireduck didn't fill the pool wallet, he also didn't say anything about this in this thread.

I'd recommend switchting pools for now, HHTT may go bankrupt soon. (Or already is...)

[Richy_T]

As long as he pays out fairly from what is found, I don't have much of an issue. I notice there are quite a few "immature" coins which presumably will be released when they're ready. Being "bankrupt" is not necessarily that much of an issue. I'm surprised anyone actually pays out before blocks are found anyway.

He probably could do with tweaking the reward a bit anyway. I'm surprised rewards aren't calculated dynamically to keep a level in the wallet anyway (given that work is paid for).

[zvs]

i realize payouts are being done as blocks mature, but what is the formula being used to do so?

That's only because the pool wallet is almost always empty.
fireduck didn't fill the pool wallet, he also didn't say anything about this in this thread.

I'd recommend switchting pools for now, HHTT may go bankrupt soon. (Or already is...)

it's not 'bankrupt' (it was about +175 last I checked)

i realize that the payments are delayed as it is waiting for blocks to get the 120 confirmations

My post was about the payout system being flawed (in this situation).  

To the poster above, it isn't proportional at all... if it was, I wouldn't have 1.13124051 owed at 7000mhash daily while everyone at ~65000mhash has ~2.5 owed.

But if you look down even further,

http://hhtt.1209k.com/user-details.php?user=1EFhXfX9uXsbXBF3LC69GiVfS3SHCsyMR1

1500mhash with 0.73378546 owed.

[ShadesOfMarble]

He is offering PPS. There is no way to calculate anything dynamically. PPS means high risk for the operator, low variance for the miners but also (usually) high fees. That's the way it is.

Of course he can change the payout scheme to something less risky for him. But while the pool is PPS and the wallet is empty, the pool is bankrupt because users are not/cannot be payed out according to the advertised payment scheme.

That IS an issue.

Edit:

@zvs - check again. Have a look at how many users with a balance >1 exist. There is even one user with 20 BTC balance. Pool wallet currently holds 7.7119317 BTC.

[zvs]

He is offering PPS. There is no way to calculate anything dynamically. PPS means high risk for the operator, low variance for the miners but also (usually) high fees. That's the way it is.

Of course he can change the payout scheme to something less risky for him. But while the pool is PPS and the wallet is empty, the pool is bankrupt because users are not/cannot be payed out according to the advertised payment scheme.

That IS an issue.

308BTC with ~100 owed is not bankrupt.

I'm curious as to where you're pulling this bizarre definition of bankruptcy from...  If I'm a week late on a credit card payment, I'm bankrupt?

ed:

The wallet has 7, with 301.37834078 BTC immature...  the wallet will grow by ~25.18 in about 5 more blocks.

ed2:

after looking more at the payout rules, I'm pretty sure it's due to the 'If the balance for an address is greater than 1.0 BTC, a payout is done.' rule...  so, yes, it is probably making proportional payments to anyone over 1.0 btc...  which essentially just screws everyone below 60000mhash

[ShadesOfMarble]

You do realize that by the time those 300 BTC are matured, a lot more shares will be submitted and the pool needs to pay out much more than those BTC *currently* owned?

Depends on the definition of "late". If the bank says you have to pay now and you are unable to do so, how do you call it?

[Richy_T]

By dynamic, what I mean is something like: "Aim to keep say 100BTC in the pot. If the amount drops below 100, decrease the amount per share paid proportional (or on an accelerating curve) to the difference. If there is more, increase the payout.". You can even dampen this somewhat if you think it leads to too much variance.

It just doesn't make much sense to me to try and stack a linear function against what is pretty much a random walk.

[ShadesOfMarble]

By dynamic, what I mean is something like: "Aim to keep say 100BTC in the pot. If the amount drops below 100, decrease the amount per share paid proportional (or on an accelerating curve) to the difference.

That's not PPS.
That's not PPS.
Ok?

It just doesn't make much sense to me to try and stack a linear function against what is pretty much a random walk.

That's PPS. If you don't like it, don't use it. (Either as miner or as pool op)

PPS itself isn't broken. No need to fix something that's not broken. What's "broken" is the "BTC buffer" of the pool. But again - that's PPS, it's the risk of the pool op. PPS is high risk for the pool op. There is nothing you can do about it, except for switchting to another payout scheme like DGM or PPLNS. Maybe fireduck should do so, if he doesn't want to keep putting more and more of his own BTC into the pool wallet.