Hi all

I have set out to make the best public p2pool node network out there. It's a big task to convince miners that it's worth moving their hard earned GHash to a new node/pool but here are the reasons why I hope you will consider using my bitroute.io nodes:

1. Mining using p2pool will return the highest ROI for your GHash - possibly over 100% fair value on a long run basis if you have the right node. But given the thread you probably know that.

2. Supporting p2pool is in the long term interests of a decentralised and healthy bit coin network. Again, telling you something you already know.

3. You need access to the lowest latency between your miner and the p2pool network to achieve over 100% efficiency.

Bitroute has two permanently connected p2pool and bitcoin servers - one in Newark, NJ, and one in London, UK, with a 75ms RTT ping between them and virtually no latency variance. Each node (a Linode 4) has a 500Mbit otherwise unutilised network pipe, 4Gb of RAM and 4 core processor.

So the time between your miner finding a share and it being widely broadcast to the global p2pool network will be as low as possible so you can get more than your fair share of shares.

There is also another full bitcoin node in Tokyo permanently connected to London and Newark to make sure that any blocks mined are immediately propagated to miners in Asia as well as Europe and the US to minimize the risk of orphaned blocks and lost revenue.

4. You need absolutely reliable nodes to minimize downtime. Bitroute uses production quality Linode servers using a highly stable Linux distribution and a locked down firewall.

They run the latest release (0.9.2.1) of Bitcoin Core and the latest version of p2pool from Github. There are no fancy settings, altcoins, weird configuration files or other stuff being run on these machines to interfere with their reliability or performance. As far as possible with current Bitcoin software these should be rock solid.

In addition each machine checks once a minute that the bitcoind and p2pool nodes are running. Should either bitcoind or p2pool crash unexpectedly then the server will automatically restart them.

5. The nodes will pay 0.5% of returns to Forrest, the developer of p2pool, to ensure he can continue to support and develop the software we rely on.

6. The nodes run a stock bitcoin configuration. No abusive block sizes or non-standard relaying policies etc. The aim is to mine and benefit the bitcoin network rather than try to game the system for an extra satoshi or two.
 

The downsides:

7. Bitroute will collect a 0.5% fee from miners to pay for the service.

8. As with all PPNS/p2pool nodes you'll need to mine for about a day until your proportion of payouts starts to reach its full potential.


How:

If you're interested please point your miner (with long polling connections if possible) to whichever of these machines is closest to you (they respond to a ping so feel free to measure):

newark.bitroute.io:9332

london.bitroute.io:9332


You can also see their individual stats by pointing your web browser at the addresses above as usual.


If you have any concerns or suggestions on what would make this p2pool node more appealing just please let me know.


Thanks
Paul