1. Also might want to ask ck pool OP if he is merge mining Bitcoin Cash with your hashrate? Just wondering for a friend.
I am not defending anyone here, but this question is just wrong, it's technically not possible to merge mine BTC and BCH, even if this question was pointed to Antpool or any other pool, my answer would remain the same, BCH does not support merged mining, it can't be "merged" as a secondary blockchain in the main BTC blockchain, other coins like NMC, SYS and EMC are merge-capable, and any pool that mines those merged coins can't hide it, the block header of those coins will be recorded in the BTC block itself, publically available for anyone to see.
Now some people who know the above technical fact will automatically think you are asking if "CK is stealing hashrate to mine other coins" which is probably why you got some harsh comments, however, if he was to steal say half of the hashrate pointed to his pool he could just mine BTC on another pool, do we know for certain that CK or any other solo pool isn't stealing your hashrate? there is technically no guaranteed solution to tackle this issue, it's either you trust the pool operator or you don't.
This leads us to why I told you (or the other guy) who started a solo mining pool that it likely won't work, when mining to a solo pool you need to trust the operator 100%, or else, you are going to be risking both your hashrate and the block you find, so nobody in their right mind would leave trusted pool that paid a dozen of blocks before and join a new pool which we don't even know if it's technically able to find blocks, let alone the trust issue itself.
Thank you so much for make the correlations and educating everyone. Very wise words. You are 1000% there is no such thing as a trust-less mining pool. At any time a pool operator can change the source to do just about anything. Very clever coding can obscure a lot of thing people still thing are impossible. I had an idea of source lock to make the active mining pool source exposed read only so everyone could see that they are mining on a pool they know exactly what is running it. Problem is anything can be obscured with clever coding. Trust will always be required in many aspects of bitcoin. Pool mining is certainly one of them.
The only part of your statement I disagree with it BCH does not support merged mining. Not going to flat out say your wrong without showing proof but within the coming weeks things are really going to change in that regard. I am not claiming to be some genesis coder. I do however by proximity surround myself with them. Everyone has a different perspective. Tell now. No one had the right perspective or seen the problem from the Goldilocks vantage point merge mining BCH. The only thing that made a great innovation or discovery is the person seen the problem in a different way than anyone else. Hence the discovery.
Why did Nikola Tesla create AC the superior current to DC? Some would speculate that Edison was not as bright as Tesla. My feeling is Tesla was just younger and seen things differently than Edison. Times change. So does perspectives of technology. New generations rise up that see thing from a different vantage point. It is possible that people who have been developing for Bitcoin are just to close to it or stuck in their ways. None the less. My official stance on the subject it BCH and Bitcoin can and will be merged mined. Ushering an efficiency never before seen in the two chains.