However... The delay to payout has gotten MUCH worse since Multipool was added on 3/7/14. I understand and appreciate that every gigahash added to the pool (or terahash in this case) makes for bigger payouts for everyone, or it wouldn't be worth doing pools. But, it doesn't do us any good if we don't get the payouts. Isn't there something that can be done to get payouts quicker under these new conditions?
The gigahash added to the pool doenst increase payout for anybody. It does, however, reduce the variability in the payouts. In other words, you get smaller, but more frequent rewards.
Over the last two weeks, my wait has gone from one day to two days then, after Multipool was added, I'm on my sixth day and there is still 23 blocks ahead of me.
The queue is not due to the incresase of the hashrate per se, but because of the failsafe mode in which the pool does not send rewards to miners, so the queue grows. When wizkid will a manual payment with the coins that were mined during the failsafe, the queue will shrink back to 2-3 blocks.
That being said, maybe the increase of hashrate makes the pool more unstable and has increased the likelyhood of triggering the failsafe. I don't know.
And, unless I'm mistaken, it also looks like the blocks ahead of me goes up sometimes. It's hard to keep track across several days. It's not a queue if one can get bumped backward.
The queue is always ordered by how long it has been when you recieved your last payment, so thant one that has not been payed the longest gets payed first. But miners are not added to the queue unless they are to be payed a minimum amount. Small miners cross their payment treshold only about once a week, whereas big miners may cross their treshold multiple times a day. So when a small miner crosses his treshold, he bumbs back a fast miner to be payed in priority. But in the end everybody gets their money.
Lastly, with all the concerns about hot wallet security lately, I'd like to have my BTC in >MY< cold wallet sooner than later.
Eligius DOES NOT have a hot wallet. It's one of it's main security feature. Miners are payed directly from the generation transaction, so the pool never handles any money directly. So even if the pool is compromised, the hacker cannot steal any money. The worst they could do is (potentially) divert the newly mined coins elsewhere, but it would be easily spotted by miners since payout would stop, and they would divert their hashpowerelsewhere until the problem is fixed.
That being said, if the failsafe is triggered, the coins are sent to the COLD WALLET instead, from which wizkid will manually initiate a payout like I said earlier. So the coins are never in a hot wallet, so they are safe. But I understand your desire to hold them the earliest you can, it should be done soon enough. As I said in my precedent post, I trust wizkid he will not steal the money. But that's me.
P. S. What are orphan blocks why/how do they occur?
If two different pools find a block at the same time, both are equally valid for the blockchain. But when a block will be found over one of those two blocks, then that chain becomes the main chain, and the other block is said to be orphaned. The reward that was in that block is lost forever/cannot be used for any payment, it's like it had never been sent. So when an Eligius block is orphaned, Eligius credits back the reward to those who were payed out in that block, because it doens't exist in the blockchain anymore. It happens occasionally, it is normal and expected behavior of the blockchain.
can anything be done about this payout delay, even a little?
), this is the best pool I've used. Yes it has problems occasionally, but I always get my BTC in the end.