I noted the following pattern since about 10 days :
step 1 :diff = 100X : at this time : very high --> slow block production because diff is high and hashrate is low since it is not profitable or not the most profitable coin : about 1 block per hour or worse
step 2 : 500 block later (a week or more) : diff is adjusted : 50X (half the previous one) --> about normal block production : hashrate increase since it is profitable, block time seems about normal, some farms and miners are back
step 3: 500 block later (two days) : diff is again adjusted (why?) : about 16X or 25X (half or less thant the previous one): fast block production with huge hashrate since it is the most profitable coin, private farms jumps with full power.
step 1 again : 500 block later (less than one day) : back to 100x step 1
As you may see we are locked in this circle. To my opinion, difficulty adjustement needs some tweaking for smoother block production : even a public pool may not be enough to fix this (but it will help).
It's a last resort, but if we continue to have huge problems with the mining difficulty, we'll switch up the algorithm. I have a new algorithm in mind that should be more stable in this coin-hopping-happy mining environment.
Is there a pool for SIA ?
Not yet
I hope someday P2Pool mining will be directly integrated into the wallet, let me enter in the P2Pool node address and push start.
There are alternatives to p2pool (such as payment-channel based mining pools) which provide as much control to miners as p2pool but have much less network overhead and are easier to implement. We'll be adding those types of pools at some point soon, I'm guessing p2pool will not be implemented on Sia because payment-channel pools are generally superior.
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I have an updated miner for linuxThis new miner should work, and should have a lower stale rate than the 0.3.3.3 miner. Right now I only have a version for linux. You'll need run the 'siad' that's in the download as well as use the miner that's in the download. I need help testing it to verify that the stale rate has actually improved, I don't have enough hashpower on my own to verify that.
http://pixeldra.in/u/07JeiNIf all seems to be working well, we'll do our best to get mac + windows binaries released before block 21,000.