I figured I would use Deepbit because... well... I used them 2 years ago when I used to mine so why not? Actually... what happened to deepbit? They were the biggest of the big! What made them fall... should I consider a different pool for my beautiful new babies? Also is anyone considering solomining? Sure I may never get a coin... but I may also get 25 coins!
The main thing that happened to Deepbit, as far as I can tell, is that they didn't change and got left behind. Other pools continued to advance and add new features and capabilities, and deepbit didn't. For example, it's still a prop pool even though pretty much everyone agrees that prop pools are a bad idea. And it doesn't support stratum or variable difficulty mining (which matters for higher hashrate ASICs, but not really for the AMU) and so most of the recent ASIC miners that were responsible for the dramatic increase in network hashrate are hashing elsewhere.
I still use deepbit & their Pay Per Share payout. I am only hashing 2Gh.
from their page:
Our advantages
We notify your bitcoin miner about new block with the help of long polling. This allows to minimize the number of stale shares. (extra 0.5%-1.5%)
We pay you for every solved block, even if it later becomes invalid (0.5%-1.2% extra)
We provide e-mail notifications on worker failure
You can take your reward at ANY moment, just press "Instant payout" button
You can choose between two payment modes
Pay Per Share: You get a fixed amount for every share submitted. This method has zero variance but slightly higher fee (because pool takes the risk). Recommended if you like steady payouts.
Proportional: You get a portion of every solved block proportional to your part in pool's hashing power. This payment method has a noticeable variance: some days you can get less, some days you can get more. This is due to randomness of searching for proof-of-work.
We pay a competitive price:
Pay per share: 0.00000185133199938 BTC per every submitted share
Proportional: your part of every solved block less 3% fee
We credit your balance instantly, without 120 blocks delay
We have open and free registration and do not limit the number of connections or users
