Quote from: flound1129 on June 14, 2014, 11:50:38 AM

Quote from: Entropy-uc on June 14, 2014, 12:26:58 AM

Quote from: DrHaribo on June 13, 2014, 12:47:00 PM

We had some good luck and then some even luck. We haven't been having bad luck for some time. Look at the reward graphs at https://bitminter.com/stats/rewards

The slightly bad luck I was talking about was Multipool alone. With their mining alone it is slightly bad luck that they haven't found a block yet. Which is completely normal.

The pool as a whole is currently having even luck, though, because others are finding blocks. Some miners in the pool are having good luck while others have bad luck. The pool is evening this out. This is one of the nice things that pools do.

The reward model at Bitminter does not punish you for coming and going. You can mine part time at the pool and the pay is still fair. Mining more does not change the pay you are going to get for the mining you already did. Like Blackjack, the hands you already played are done, there is no way to influence the winnings any more for those hands. But unlike Blackjack, the winnings have not been revealed yet. If you mine 12 hours per day at Bitminter, then you will on average make 50% of what you would get for mining 24/7. I say on average because the luck during the 50% you mine may not be the same as the 50% you don't mine. But over time that will even out.

Bitminter is not vulnerable to pool hopping. That's a technique where you hop between pools, timing it so that you get paid more than your fair share. The reward model at Bitminter was chosen specifically to make this impossible. Whether you earn more or less at Bitminter when you jump in and out of the pool is completely random. There is no way to predict whether mining pay at Bitminter in the next few hours will be higher or lower than other pools. Pool hopping was a way that some miners earned a lot more bitcoins at vulnerable pools, at the cost of the miners who were not pool hopping. I believe there are still a couple pools that are vulnerable to pool hopping. But the art/scam of pool hopping seems to be forgotten - I don't think any miners are doing it anymore.

You could try to switch between pools based on religious or superstitious beliefs. Maybe you believe luck is not random but related to karma or sin. Or maybe you believe that past luck influences future luck (this is called Gambler's Fallacy, you can read about it on Wikipedia). Maybe you belong to a Cargo Cult (also on Wikipedia) - you saw someone restart his miner and then he found a block. Now you believe restarting the miner increases the chance of finding blocks. All those beliefs go against all logic and science. I have never heard of anyone who is able to earn more bitcoins this way. But if you want to try it, you can. Bitminter won't punish your earnings for mining part time in the pool.

Doc are you even paying attention?

BTCGuild and Eligius users have both been ripped off by large users that withheld blocks.

Being suspicious of an anonymous company that somehow claims to charge no fees mining BTC at your pool (guaranteeing themselves a 1% loss if they are honest) isn't being superstitious, it's being practical.

a) I'm not anonymous, I'm very un-anonymous actually. Multipool is a company registered as CryptoFish, LLC in California as it states in our footer. I've posted numerous articles online using my real name. Our thread here is 275 pages: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=167635.0

b) I don't lose anything by proxying our users' hash to Bitminter, the fees are passed through to the miners.

c) My fee is 1.5% on the altcoins that we mine when we're not on bitcoin. People also donate. Since we're on Bitcoin about 80% of the time, we need a stable pool we can proxy our hash to. Unfortunately in order to attract BTC hash, you cannot charge a fee. This is because the two of the three largest BTC pools do not charge a fee (cex and Eligius). So it's not a simple matter to attract hashrate if you charge a fee, especially if you're a 'new' pool. Many miners expect the pool to be free, which is not reasonable imo, but there it is.

d) We just moved to Bitminter a few days ago and I still haven't had time to change all the references to cex.io on the site. We are fully on Bitminter now, assuming we're on BTC and not on another coin.

We have never mined on BTC Guild.

Sorry if I'm slow here, but how can b and c both be true? Your members are charged a fee for mining BTC.