Hey guys I've been mining at air.ctrlaltdefeated and this message just popped up so i figured i would let every one know about it. "Probably going to shut this pool down today instead of upgrading to the new wallet. If you guys would please start withdrawing your coins so that I don't need to manually pay everyone out it would be appreciated."
ffs seriously @ctrlaltdefeated ?
you suck!
Just signed up and started mining on Carbonshark and Cryptopool no problems and they have a lower hashrate so are good choices to spread the hash out more evenly.
I won't be using any ctrlaltdefeated pools again, it sounded like a hissy fit.
Wow thats a bit unwarranted. Both you guys have had 0 fee's for as long as the pool has been around. I've just started a second job and don't have time to maintain pools any longer. If one of the miners hadn't brought the wallet update to my attention I likely wouldn't have even known and we probably would have forked. Would you have preffered that happen instead? Air is the only one of my pools that has any hashrate at all and taking a look at my server cost it was fast becoming an expensive hobby. It should be noted that out of the 9 miners left on my pool only 5 of them are paying fee's and its been that way for weeks now. I'm not a bussiness and I cannot afford to run at a cost.
As far as a "mature" response goes, There's not a whole lot I can fit into that small message box that gets the point across and doesn't make me sound like an asshole.
Thanks for the appreciation though.
how is it expensive?.. firstly, i would have been happy to go 1% fee (which FYI i was donating for a while)
secondly, a pool this size being really expensive? i could run it off my spare laptop, let alone one of my PC's or rigs, easily....
and do you seriously not know you can put a full post on 'home' and say 'we're shutting down, read the post'
sad to hear you're having troubles though, i was really enjoying the general stability.. and you WERE a lot more active previously haha
As another pool op I can attest, yes, it is expensive, both in time and money.
In terms of horsepower required, yes, you can run a single, not-too-busy pool from a decent PC or laptop running Ubuntu. But this isn't really an option as most ISP's don't give you a dedicated IP address and generally aren't too keen on people hosting websites from their home internet connections. Some do allow this, yes, but the upload speeds are usually pretty crummy and home DSL/cable connections generally are not super reliable. Remember this isn't just some website with a few dozen visitors per day, this is a hosted service that people are expecting to be running 24/7.
So, the only real option to host mining pools is to rent a VPS or dedicated server somewhere. Unless you get a really lucky break, you'll never make enough $$ from just a single pool to cover server costs, so you end up running several. Some coins suck and are just a waste of server resources, no matter how many people are on the pool.
Your hosting provider only accepts $USD, not AIR or MEOW or whatever coin you're running on your pool, so you have to make withdrawals from your pool wallets regularly, exchange for BTC, then Coinbase it for $USD to pay your bills.
Then you have to answer support emails. And haunt the forums making sure you're not missing any required wallet upgrades because a lot of coin devs don't notify anyone other than posting in their ANN thread. And install those wallet upgrades. And deal with dudes who don't understand why their block erupters aren't getting any shares on the AIRcoin pool. And fix it when MPOS glitches out on autopayments. And unlock people who forgot their password. And unlock people who forgot their password. And unlock people who forgot their password. And unloc . . .
Anyway, rant over. It's a thankless job. I cannot blame ctrlaltdefeated if he wants to get out of the biz.