PPS/FPPS is not BITCOIN MINING. \ stacker news ~bitcoin

1828 sats \ 20 comments \ @fedelang 14 Aug 2023 bitcoin

There is this idea about deserving to be paid just because you are pumping hashrate to a pool regardless if the pool finds a block or not.

That is not mining, that is selling your hashrate at a NET payment term depending on a minimum threshold that can start somewhere near 10 through 100 milis and in some cases a tx fee sits on top. You risk getting paid well below your proof of work or even worse being rug pulled.

PEGA today joined a long list of mining pools that defaulted on miners, they say they will pay in full but as many others.. that is yet to bee seen.

PEGA business model was FPPS and 0% fee all wrapped with a woke "eco" mining BS narrative. Not long ago SBI another pool that was running on 0% fee ended up hiking fees some months ago in order to sustain their business model, also FPPS.

Free lunches in the bitcoin mining space do not exist. Most cases PPS and FPPS in order to be sustainable will give you 10-20% less than what a PPLNS pool pays.

Proof of work doesn't mean hashing, proof of work means you need to hash long enough until you find a block and if you don't you try it again over and over and over and over... and over.

Hope in time more and more figure this out so pools that support PPLNS like Braiins/Slush can get more hashrate.

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145 sats \ 2 replies \ @BITC0IN 14 Aug 2023

not your pool, not your hash

4 sats \ 1 reply \ @fedelang OP 14 Aug 2023

well.. you are damn right. problem is, you need mining capabilities in the exahash realm, getting to 1 eh/s .. you need 20MW infra + state of the art mining HW. With luck and no downtime you may get one block per weekish?

I would say its not affordable by plebs won't you agree?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BITC0IN 15 Aug 2023

stratum v2

72 sats \ 0 replies \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 14 Aug 2023

Great write up. I run on Braiins pool myself. I landed there for a few reasons, but I like this extra justification!

ETA: I imagine most mining companies prefer the stable income over the risk associated with PPLNS, but they probably aren’t in it for principle anyway

14 sats \ 6 replies \ @AllCatsAreEvil 14 Aug 2023

PPS was common as anything 10 years ago and lead to people dumping huge hash in a pool then going away knowing that they'd likely get a huge chunk of the next block. PPLNS always made more sense in terms of keeping people on the pool as it provides a good incentive not to just jump from one pool to the next. I'm surprised anyone is still using PPS.

2 sats \ 5 replies \ @nullama 15 Aug 2023

I don't understand this logic.

With PPS you get paid for every share, independent of the discovery of a block. You might even have provided a share that found a block, it doesn't matter, you still get paid the same per each share. If you leave the PPS pool, then no more payments are made, independent if the PPS pool finds a block or not.

If you switch to a PPLNS, then basically the same applies, but you only get paid for your last N shares if the pool finds a block. If your pool doesn't find a block in a year, you will be paid 0 in a PPLNS, whereas with a PPS you will be paid for every single share you made that year.

Basically, in the long term most types of pool reward distribution end up being similar, you just have the option to get paid uniformly a small amount every time (PPS), get 0 or the full block amount when you found one block(Solo), or PPLNS(and others) which are in between those two extremes.

2 sats \ 4 replies \ @AllCatsAreEvil 15 Aug 2023

In PPS you could offer up 100 shares about the same as everyone else in your pool...you're up to 1000 shares. Big guy come in, dumps another thousand on you, moments before you find a block. He can do that, he's got more power than you lot combined. He hasn't been there, mining with you, he hasn't stuck it out, he just dumped hash and is suddenly getting half your block reward.

Now, try doing that in PPLNS. You've been there for hours, you've put in 1000 shares for the last 5 epochs, Billy Big Bollocks comes along and dumps his 1k shares...and you find a block...but Billy's share is only what he contributed in that block. Not the last 5. You win.

It was designed to keep power consistent when big miners used to switch rapidly between pools and it works. Unfortunately it might work a little too well, given the current state of mining distribution between pools - there's a definite economic disincentive to switch pools when you've been piling in the hashes.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @nullama 15 Aug 2023

Maybe we are talking about different things, but with PPS you get paid for each share, and if a block is found, nothing changes, the pool keeps it.

You seem to be implying that in PPS you get paid when a block is found based on the number of shares you sent until that block was found, which is not the case. You get paid in every share, immediately, even if no block is found.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @AllCatsAreEvil 15 Aug 2023

No, that's something different again. In a system where you get paid regardless of if a block is found that's the pool incentivising you to stick around without using PPLNS or some other system beyond PPS. PPS is paid per share, when the block is found the reward is split based on the amount of work provided, which is why large miners could quickly switch pools and gain disproportionate rewards.

14 sats \ 1 reply \ @nullama 15 Aug 2023

Yeah, I'm using nicehash definition of PPS, but they are a hash rental company really, not a pool, so there might be a difference.

Yeah, if a pool pays you for your shares only after a block is found, then yes, that could be abused as you described. But from memory I think pools usually credit you for your shares immediately, so in theory you could get paid in PPS without the pool finding any block.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @AllCatsAreEvil 15 Aug 2023

Yeah, that's it there - with nicehash you're selling your work to a buyer, who pays you per share. When you're on a pool directly, you need the blocks to come in

12 sats \ 2 replies \ @EthnTuttle 14 Aug 2023

Any good resources on what PPLNS vs the others?

168 sats \ 1 reply \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 14 Aug 2023

You might find this article helpful: https://medium.com/luxor/mining-pool-payment-methods-pps-vs-pplns-ac699f44149f

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @fedelang OP 14 Aug 2023

If you want more insight on Luxor's business model and you are fluent in spanish listen to this podcast interview to Guzman Pintos, co-founder of Luxor.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @nerd2ninja 14 Aug 2023

Go go Stratum V2!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @bitentrepreneur 17 Nov 2023

gotta love all the pool guys in the comments, lol

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Arceris 15 Aug 2023

OP got Bugle'd: #225747

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @fedelang OP 15 Aug 2023

LOL. Any Luxor strings?

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @nullama 15 Aug 2023

Pay Per Last N Share or commonly known as PPLNS is another popular payment method, which offers payment to miners as a % of shares they contribute to the total shares (N).

PPLNS is basically a similar concept to PPS/FPPS, just applied in a different way. I mean, at a PPLNS pool you can still get paid while not finding a block yourself.

Therefore the logical conclusion from your argument would be that PPLNS is not Bitcoin mining, based on your own reasons. Maybe you get paid more, but the same principle applies.

If you want to actually solo mine and get 0 when you don't find a block, then you can try something like ckpool solo, where you only pay a 2% fee when you find a block. This is a great "pool" that was created and is operated by Con Kolivas, the person who created cgminer, one of the most popular and important miners in the open source world.

On the other side of the spectrum, if you have a tiny miner, you might want to do PPS at a pool with lightning withdrawals, like nicehash for example where the minimum lightning withdrawals are 2k sats.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @fedelang OP 15 Aug 2023

Slush Pool, AKA Braiins now has been around since 2010. My post is making reference to the definition of PPLNS of Braiins and not NiceHash.