Back to the christhegoth bet-spreading discussion...
Everyone realizes that switching over to other pools is only going to exacerbate the variance problem, right? Honestly, the pigeon superstition is dangerous enough to sink a pool, especially one that's <1% of the network. Nearly a quarter of the pool's hashrate has fallen off in the past couple of days...
It's about paying the electricity dude. Some of us can't do these bad weeks.
Plus the price of BTC is dropping in the market, which piles the pressure on more. It's only £300 now, and it was £350 on Monday.
I don't like it, but bills is bills. I need a certain amount of my payments safe to make sure I get the cash to cover said bills. It's just how it is I'm afraid.
I'll also be honest:
This has always been a small pool ( with a great GUI and customer service ). Losing 1/4 oh the Hash still leaves it a small pool. What we really need is for a couple of the Petahash Icelandic DataCentres to come over. Trying to nab lots of small miners, who in my experience have the higher electricity bills, is not gonna work. You need people with low electricity bills so that they can genuinely tough these bad patches out.
People based near Solar and Wind farms are good ( Afirca? ), but the Icelandic mines are the obvious crowd to talk to. Even if they only divert 1/4 of their hash ( per business ) that's still some nice hash coming in. It's why Bitmine.ch are doing their hosting out that way.
The problem is how Bitcoin and Electricity cost. We're in a bit of a perfect storm at present by the looks of it.
http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/coinfloorGBP#rg120ztgTzm1g10zm2g25A bad week or two in the pool is one thing, but we've got a price drop coming in at the same time. It really does hit the small miners I'm afraid.
And what happens to the BTC price when everyone on the network migrates to the 2-3 biggest pools and we're back at the mining-collusion-scare hysteria again?
Market forces I know of:
- The Icelandic Crowd have cheap electricity. They are more likely to survive due to this, and also more likely to have large reserves of BTC they have not sold yet. They're also VERY big players.
- I don't know of anything in Africa yet, but with that much Solar Power going on it would not surprise me if people head that way soon.
- The brokers will have bought & sold BTC to make profit. They buy low and sell high. With the market now dipping they'll be buying. I doubt they'll be selling at a silly-low price. When the market bottoms you buy.
- Miners, over all, will make some to sell ( to pay the bills ) and then stash the rest. Such is life.
- Demand. If no-one wants to buy Bitcoin to use then demand will drop. And that WILL effect price.
So we have 2 possibles I know of:
1) Demand has dropped, so prices are dropping.
2) Someone is flooding the market with cheap Bitcoin to get people to buy it like they would invest in gold.
If you look at that graph you'll see we've had dips like this before, and then recovery. I don't think there's any reason to panic just yet. But...
If you have an electricity bill to pay you'll need to make Bitcoin at a good rate, and then sell it at a good rate. With Minter in a bad patch AND the market dipping that won't be easy. And, naturally, that will scare people into moving to the safer ( larger ) pools.
The only reason why GHash pays better at present is because Minter is having some bad luck ( after 3 months of good luck ). Minter has been winning in the past against GHash.
Small Pools feel the market a lot more. It's just how it is. The Wild Ride. And who can afford to live in a casino 24/7? Not many people in reality.