Re: [600 TH] p2pool: Decentralized, DoS-resistant, Hop-Proof pool
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We're pretty much at that point already - most operators have disabled all donations, and there's a partial vicious circle that's spawned from it (although I personally think the ship was sailing in this direction before donations started disappearing)
Yeah, I read some of that. I saw the rate of development had tailed off and the issues with some mining hardware. Hadn't realised how much of an issue that was though. Will be interesting to see how the p2pool community deals with the lack of development. Would be a huge shame if it collapses.
Actually I was really tempted to try to reimplement some of p2pool in a systems language like go. Both as a bit of a fun project and also to learn the protocol. I couldn't find any documentation on the protocol beyond the python source though and it doesn't look the easiest to follow.
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Me personally I now run my own node, because I thankfully have the resources to do so. I was on BTCGuild paying 2% before switching to p2pool (went to coincadence first, then built my own node), so quite honestly .5% was less than what I was getting dinged for so it would have been fine if that was the case. I just personally think it'll be a hard hump to get over since most are already used to seeing 0% nodes.
Windpath very graciously sent me a PM to advise that I was actually paying Forrestv 0.005% by accident instead of 0.5%. I need to see the config file to work out how I messed that up! But as it turns out it was a nil donation anyway - sorry about that
I think that for some people there isn't a net benefit to running a proper node. If they are running one at home then are probably hidden costs like less efficient mining and orphan shares which add up. For instance having ISP QOS filtering and firewalls or random middle of the night network maintenance downtime etc etc. Not to mention the potential security risks of opening up a home computer to the wider internet. You wouldn't believe how many Chinese hackers try to hack these servers every hour when I look at the firewall logs - scary stuff.
Where people give the service away for 0% fee like coincadence then that's going to be pretty hard to beat competitively but there will only be so many miners that can connect to that before the amount of money he's giving away will make it untenable. Good advertising for the excellent price ticker service though and a good way to support the community so I'm all for it.
In competitive spirit, seeing as the hashrate on my node is currently 0, I can offer a highly competitive fee reduction to 0.55% (by stiffing forrestv). I don't even have to change the config file!!
When I get a chance later today I'll set it to 0%. It's not really about the money so I'm happy to run the nodes for several months without any income. I don't like the way things are going with GHash etc and without p2pool being a credible alternative for larger miners it will die out.
It would be great to get some evidence that a stable and well connected node can pay for itself in improved mining revenue over a homebrew solution.
Cheers
Paul