I was going to post this here, but it was a bit lengthy and may get lost/ignored/shouted down. Whatever. I blog as a hobby, sort of like aTriz and nearmiss run Hashco.ws, so I
wrote up my analysis of the recent performance. Bottom line: I'm not saying nearmiss/aTriz are doing anything shady, but either their coin selection algorithm is somehow busted or there's something else causing Hashco.ws to consistently choose under-performing coins. The pool is jumping around alt-coins like a jack rabbit on speed, and virtually none of the selected coins seem to be delivering the expected returns. That's not even mentioning the 42 Coin rounds that keep popping up (and keep failing to outperform LTC). Ugh.
The goal is (or should be IMO) profits that are better than mining LTC, and looking at Coinwarz/Coinchoose there seem to be many options that are hitting that mark. Or perhaps stated better: the goal is to mine the most profitable alt-coin, so something other than LTC or BTC, but again there are many candidates that have been consistently above LTC during the past month. So if that's true, why are the coins selected by Hashco.ws somehow getting us less than half the profits of mining LTC? Is Coinwarz lying about profitability and Hashco.ws is getting mislead, is Hashco.ws just getting (really!) unlucky, or is something wrong with the coin selection algorithm? Or maybe something else.
I'd love to see the problem fixed, because I'm lazy and all I want is better returns on my investment. Hashco.ws used to provide that pretty consistently; since the hack and rebuild, I'm not sure I've ever seen us match let alone clearly outperform LTC. That's bizarre...and Middlecoin hasn't been any better that I can see, which is equally bizarre.
I am with you on this Trog, thanks for your analysis. I had asked the devs/team for an idea of profitability and then I had lazily accepted the mindset that "things will get better soon" before seeing your blog. It was the final straw before I switched all my miners off of Hashcows, for now, and I have begun with multipool.us with auto-trading on Cryptsy. Hell, even straight Dogecoin has been more profitable.
It is somewhat sad as I started mining with Hashcows over a month ago and really wanted to stick with them thru the "hack". I also understand that Alts are generally down, and the effect of a massive pool dump can be catastrophic on coin mining. But this is no longer a reasonable excuse.
That being said, I have electric bills to pay and equipment to payoff. I can't stick around any longer on false hopes and loyalty. I really did like Hashcows and I will keep an active eye to this forum for the day when users feel that the pool has returned to a reasonable profitability. In the meantime, I will be searching for greener grass thru alternative methods.
***to avoid unnecessary flaming from the fanbois, note that I did mention that I actually LIKE Hashcows and WILL be returning again when it seems to make financial sense***