I just feel the need to point out that the
stats I calculated (at a MtRed miner's request) about MtRed showed that, as of not long ago, they would have had about a 1500 BTC buffer at that time. MtRed luck has not been bad enough to drain a 1500 BTC buffer at the difficulties we've been at lately. And there were only a few (6?) orphaned blocks in that time period.
To me, it seems more likely that the pool cashed out while the USD price was high, no? Hell of a coincidence that the pool closes the day the price reaches an all time high? Either that or cashed out a while back and didn't have a buffer anymore. No way to know, since that data isn't really public.
But, all and all, I hope people don't give too much praise here. Feel free to run the numbers yourself.
-wk
Did you maybe include NMC blocks?
Edit:
FWIW, taking out NMC and accounting for orphans, I get a positive buffer of ~ 295btc.
Did rr pay server fees himself? or did it come out of the BTC?
I remember selling BTC at $5 (50 of them one time to pay a $250 bill, day before yesterday 1BTC would have covered that bill) to help pay my server fees..... if you don't factor that stuff in the "stats I calculated" don't really mean much imo...
Pool op is only supposed to use his own money and donations/fees to pay server costs, not the buffer.
Saying the pool is bankrupt when there's supposed to be a positive buffer is either:
1. A poor explanation if redditorrex actually meant that *he* had run out of donation money to run the pool servers;
2. redditorrex was using buffer money to cover server costs with intention of paying back later.
Either way, this is why we don't find more zero fee pps pools.
Edit Sorry graet, sounded a bit harsher than I wanted it to. But although I feel for redditorrex and I think he's a standup guy, this could all have been avoided if he'd charged a fee - better yet, a fee and split the pool like Ozcoin.
I get a bit pissed at miners using a 0% PPS pool and then getting all whiney when it goes bankrupt. I and lots of others (you included) have been warning all and sundry about the dangers of zero fee pools in general, let alone a zero fee PPS pool, for a good while.
Edit 2: I'll have to redo my stats anyway - I was counting from when the pool started, not when it changed to PPS.