Post
Topic
Board Pools
Re: Created a pool, need some opinions on config
by
oceancucumber
on 09/01/2015, 11:57:38 UTC
The main advice I'd give is that picking PPS for the payment method is a bit risky. This means you'll be paying miners out of pocket until you find a block. You are taking the risk of variance. There's a paper around somewhere that shows a formula for computing what sort of buffer you need, in bitcoins, to run a PPS pool with a low risk of ruin (ie. running out of money to pay miners). It's large - you'll be need a few hundred thousand dollars of bitcoins if I recall correctly.

The other downside of PPS is you are open to block withholding attacks. A miner mines with you but withholds all solutions that would solve a bitcoin block. You are still paying them PPS so they lose nothing. The pool loses a lot.

Interesting...  Seems like PPS isn't ideal for a new pool starting out.  Would it be better to start with something else until blocks are found, then switch to PPS?