Here are some thoughts about pool payments:

We are all working hard, cracking blocks and we want to maximize our ROI. I get that.

1. The pool makes payments with every block and does not offer to set a payout threshold. I know - kano is not a bank. At the same time these numerous (often dusty) payments are being processed free of charge in our mined blocks, displacing payments which are actually offering to pay fees, reducing our payout. While the pool is not a bank, I believe a compromise could be found to reduce dusty payments to increase the available block space for paying transactions. The pool already holds the coins accumulated over 100 blocks. With some users setting a threshold, this would increase the "buffered" amount somewhat, but is it really such a large risk?

2. When spending these small amounts, the resulting transaction is bloated due to the larger numbers of UTXOs, requiring larger transaction fees when the coins are spent. Yes, this is from a user's perspective and irrelevant from the mining perspective, but most of us surely also actually use bitcoin. It just seems like an unnecessary inefficiency.

3. Even without the option of setting a payout threshold, there is some optimization potential in the payment code: Sometimes it happens that duplicate payments are made in the same block (same sender, same receiver, but two transactions in the same block). Obviously these payments originate from different found blocks, but it really seems redundant to send two transactions instead of just combining them into one.

4. I am also surprised that kano does not seem to payout any newly minted coins. This is one reason for some to mine in the first place.

Feedback welcome and encouraged!

Thanks.

You could always hack the firmware or run 2/3 boards for (roughly) 67% of the power consumption. I am certain you would find lots of takers for a single (working and new) hashboard, judging by the amount of boards that seem to be breaking.

This is simply not true! They run the autotune routine ONLY on first start or after a hard reset (possibly on other rare occasions), but definitely not after every restart be it clean or unclean.  There is a flag set in the filesystem that triggers the autotune routine. Maybe somebody could point out where it is exactly - cannot remember off the top of my head. Source: Operating S9-13.5TH/s miner.

It is my understanding that miner and pool need to support asicboost for it to work. Patents will only be valid in the countries they have been granted (generally). Reddit mentions that apparently the patent has not yet been granted (in the us)? Either way, a level playing field would be good. Some redditors say they are already using asicboost, but could be trolling... Does anyone have any first hand info?

Seems the version number needs to be changed in the bmminer.conf and the pool needs to support it (via the stratum protocol) to send the right sort of work.

Pointing my hashrate elsewhere until this is working again.

I doubt BM have control over the miner after this entry into the hosts file:


More interesting would be how to use the ASICBOOST feature in bitmains (s9) miners to level the paying field, reduce bitmain's advantage and increase our edge until this is patched. To enable the feature requires an entry into the bmminer config and a compatible pool.

Does kano or anyone else have aspirations & know-how to implement this into the pool software? Seems (fromn reddit) some private pools have started using this already.

Or the LARGER your losses

So it has emerged that Antpool S9 miners (and others) have ASICBOOST functionality built in. Does anyone know a pool that already supports it, other than antpool?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/63yo27/some_circumstantial_evidence_supporting_the_claim/

Until this is patched we should all be using it to level the paying field somewhat and as a way of maximizing revenue. According to some reddit users, it seems some miners have already started using this.

Essentially to have this working a change in /config/bmminer.conf is required and a pool with the required stratum support is required.

Does anybody have further info?

Of course the easiest would be to point the miners to antpool, but that may not be the best idea 

A hardreset will also trigger the autotune re-calibration as will a change in the controller file system (can't remember the file off the top of my head).

Truly wise words. Something every miner should consider, before blindly purchasing hardware.

Not only a computer and genie, but also a show off. It is probably safe to say that you will only see a fraction of those 11.6BTC again, especially with $0.10 p/kWh electricity (though not entirely clear which currency that is).

I am not yet entirely convinced that it averages itself out and am working on a calculation. I believe that there is a disadvantage for sporadic miners and newbies, anyone who has not filled the 5Nd window with a flatline hashrate. Once I have my results I will publish here.

Exactly the problem. I would point mine to eligius without delay with such stats. The longer this goes on the worse it gets (payout frequency).

Did anybody from the 20/Feb batch receive a coupon?

Come on now kids. Stop fighting 

Thanks for chiming in!
For clarity: Is a share not worth less after a diff increase, as more shares are now required to find a block? Or are you saying that that share is weighed according to the diff at the time it was submitted and thus worth the same amount of relative pool hash power irrespective of a what the current diff is as compared to the diff at the time of submission? Am I expressing myself clearly?

...Really I fail to see how your post is contributing.

Anyone willing to chime in on whether newbies starting out are disadvantaged compared to someone who has already "filled" the 5Nd window or not due to upcoming diff increases? Thanks.

It obviously depends on your hashrate and the difficulty at the time of mining:
www.coinwarz.com/calculators/bitcoin-mining-calculator/

Obviously it can vary greatly as it is a random process, but this will show you the odds and the odds are against you unless you have a huge hashrate. If you are willing to gamble, then you may aswell play red/black in a casino where the house only has a 2.7% advantage over the player (european version).

Random noise and statistics. There is no pattern no matter how much we would like to believe there is one