Firstly, I just wanted to give a big thanks to Fast-Pool and the admin for a great, reliable pool with prompt payouts, and for being an honest, stand-up guy unlike other admins on some pools (scrypools, I'm looking at you).

Quick question about the new stratum - What hashrates and lower will see an improvement? I'm at around 460Kh/s...should I be switching over to the new stratum?

I guess I will be mining elsewhere when that happens. I dislike a 2-tier system, especially for something like dogecoins with its roots in light heartedness, generosity and community. There are plenty of other pools out there that do not segregate miners based on their mining capabilities. Of course you are welcome to make an alternate pool for your VIP miners, but you are likely going to do so at the cost of ruining your current pool and good-will that you have with your regular miners.

I like this pool and you have worked hard to respond fast to any server issues which has been great to see. So I will be sad to look for a different pool but I am going to start evaluating other pools now as I really dislike the idea of separating the "rich" miners from the rest of us.

Thanks for the reply. I do understand quite well the advantages of a crypto coin, or any online digital currency and I think those merits are certainly admirable and nice to have. However, fundamentally, with all cryptocoins, you essentially require:

1) Widespread adoption by a critical mass of people before it can become worth anything. Your online wallet can tell you that you have millions of BTC or any other alt coin but it isn't worth a damn till you have buy in from a large number of people. That's why coins have to be marketed so aggressively and if I own a large amount of any alt coin, it is in my interest to have as many other people I know adopt the coin. This ends up being very much like a MLM/Pyramid scheme. To become rich, you need people below you to buy into the system.

2) The entire concept of mining using computational power seems pretty dumb imho, especially when combined with the fact that early adopters are the ones who stand to make out like bandits when it comes to any cryptocurrency. So someone with a 100+ GPUs chained together ends up becoming top dog and a "millionaire" just because he/she spent resources on a crazy rig that is of no other use than to mine coins, something that contributes zero to society as a whole. At least with "Ripple" there is a noble idea behind the concept...donating the computational power to science rather than wasting untold amounts of power and computational resources on pointless calculations.

3) Freemarket - That's a very very shaky argument when it comes to crypto currencies. Any currency that is seeing 50+% swings in value is really not very free market, and certainly all cryptocurrencies, including BTC are susceptible to a lot of shady tactics in the market place. And when you have reports like this - http://bitcoinexaminer.org/small-group-of-47-people-owns-almost-30-percent-of-all-bitcoins/, it is all the more concerning how any currency like BTC can be a great model, or considered to be operating under free market principles. In reality, it is at the mercy of a select few people and with the rise of ASIC mining and the threat of 51% attacks, it only makes the entire situation more concerning.

Cryptocurrencies are certainly intriguing and I like a lot of things about them, but points 1 & 2 are a massive concern for me. For all the proclamations of how anti-establishment cryptocurrencies are, they divide people even more into the rich and poor, where the rich are the blessed people with massive mining rigs who pointed their rigs at mining cryptocurrencies right when they were announced.... which is pretty ridiculous.

Why does the pool hash rate show 0 GH/s some times and other times it shows the correct hashrate? Is the pool down when the web front end is showing 0 GH/s?

I checked my earning stats from the last 24 hrs on fast-pool against the online calculator and they are pretty much spot on.

To help trouble shoot your situation, can you post the following info only after running for 8+ hours on fastpool (so stats have stabilized):

1) Hashrate 2) WU 3) SS (Stale Shares) 4) Reject rate (R/A * 100), 5) HW (Hardware Errors) 6) GF and RF values

All of these are important numbers. Hashrate isn't everything when it comes to mining.

Hi fast-pool. Wanted to say great job with the updates. I hope the server and stratum remains as stable and fast as it has been the last 24 hours. I have been comparing stats for long runs on a number of pools and fast-pool has been really great... very high WU, no Stale shares, and reject rate of 2%. I'm recommending fast-pool to all my friends!

Kinda sad that I joined the Doge party a bit late. Not mining all that many dogecoins lately with increased interest and number of miners .

Cheers

What's going on with this pool nod? I liked the pool and it's been my go to smaller pool but stratum has been down for 24 hours or more. Manual payout requests are also not being handled.

The site is still up but I'm not sure if stratum is being DDOS'd or something else is going on. Would appreciate updates from the pool owner somewhere. I understand that shit happens and that life gets in the way, but if there is no communication, then you're setting yourself up for failure because pools are a dime a dozen and no one is going to hang around too long for a pool to come back online if there isn't any communication at the very least.

It's a pity and I hope nod is back soon to restore the pool back up. I would love to be back on, mining away here.

Man, 4hrs & 20mins and still no new block. Someone needs to find one pronto!

lol

If so - What incentive is there for someone new to cryptocurrencies to get into something like BTC? Mining is pretty much hopeless unless you are willing to spend tons on highly specialized mining rigs. Given the volatility in BTC value, investing USD to buy BTC is a financially dumb and risky move and pretty much amounts to gambling. So why/how should Joe Schmo get into BTC at this stage and how is it going to be in his interest to do so? From the outside looking in, it looks like all the early adopters want Joe Schmo and all his buddies to adopt BTC and invest money into it, so they can cash out and make their money.

I personally think Dogecoin is pretty genius. I know I am in a big minority here, but I don't see Dogecoin as being any more of a joke than any other cryptocurrency. Every single Cryptocurrency essentially amounts to a big pyramid scheme where early adopters are the ones who stand to gain the most if their crypto currency becomes "successful".

And success as far as Cryptocurrencies go, has a lot to do with how many people adopt it, mine it and are willing to trade and sell it or exchange it for services. Just like Pyramid schemes, it's all about marketing and getting enough people to buy into the system. And in that, Dogecoin has excelled because it has gotten average, non-technical folk interested and adopting it. Mostly for the lols, but it really doesn't matter why they are adopting it. What matters is that there are tons of folks who would never give a shit about more "elite" cryptocurrencies, who are setting up wallets, participating in the Doge community and also getting into mining.

Every other serious alt cryptocurrency here would absolutely love the same amount of exposure and interest that Doge has, except they don't want it to be because of a stupid dog meme. It hits a raw nerve because in a sense, it is a perfect parody of the entire cryptocurrency system.

I'm still mining Dogecoins just for fun and to throw them around at others on Reddit and elsewhere. The community is a lot more laid back than any other crypto community and while it would be great if it actually took off to be of some monetary significance, plenty of people are just happy mining and exchanging Doge for fun and have no misguided notions of all the riches they might accrue with Dogecoins.

In the end Dogecoins are great for the cryptocurrency community because it will get a lot of newbies into Cryptocurrencies, and inevitably, many will diversify and end up adopting other cryptocurrencies.

However, fundamentally, I dislike the basic premise of Cryptocurrencies where early adopters and those with lots of money to burn on expensive and pointless mining rigs essentially "Get rich". For something that is supposed to be so anti-establishment, I would have hoped people would have adopted a system that would be less likely to divide people into the Haves and Have-nots

While Doge currency also has these same issues, the easy availability of Doge coins and the willingness of the community to share the wealth makes it a lot more fun and worthwhile for outsiders and those new to cryptocurrencies. The unfortunate reality for hardcore cryptocurrency folks is that a fun/stupid meme coupled to a digital currency is a lot more endearing and interesting to the average person than some uber elite crypto currency that no one has heard about.