Well, we can start to see the changes they're making. Bitmain's github p2pool repository has been updated with AntPool stuff. Check it out here:
https://github.com/bitmaintech/p2pool.gitI haven't gone through their contributions yet, nor will I have time to prior to next weekend. Who wants to do a comparison between forrest's and this fork? For example, the very first thing I noticed was a new directory called dbservice, which contains an __init__.py and sql.py. It looks to me like they're doing exactly what I speculated they were - throwing a traditional type pool on top of the p2pool backbone.
This certainly allows them to control payouts, including the non-payment of transaction fees to workers. Let's take an example. Somebody puts this pool into play and there are a bunch of workers attached to it, totaling 100TH/s. For the sake of argument, let's say that this 100TH/s earns 1.1
BTC per block. I'm making up numbers, and I do realize that it would not be static as I have described, but for this example, look past that
.
The pool's hot wallet now has 1.1
BTC. Let's say that the 0.1 is set aside as transaction fees. Now, there's 1
BTC available to payout the workers. Your typical PPLNS payment algorithms come into play, and the miners are all assigned some portion of the 1
BTC. This is very similar to a traditional pool. There's a database involved storing workers, their hash rate, the number of shares, etc.
Yes, I realize I have left out a ton of details, but I think you can get the gist of it. What I'm really interested in, and unfortunately don't have the time to investigate, is how Bitmain's changes to the p2pool code will play out. Will they be enough to force a fork? Does this become a competitor to the original p2pool, or a complement to it?
The advantage I've thought of with this setup is that pool operators now don't need to get enough hashing power together to be able to solve a block on their own, but rather can use the p2pool backbone and contribute there. In this way, I can see decreased variance to the smaller miners, and if I squint my eyes and hold my breath while looking at it upside down, I can see the decentralization, too
.