Topic: What are the implications of pool hopping? (Read 1795 times)

@Askit2 try using some CR in you text, i'm getting dizzy every time i try reading your posts man

So Essentially the only way pool hopping makes money is by increasing the number of zero sum games. If I mine for one pool I have a reward of maximum 50 BTC where as a hopper may have 10 to 20 pools running at a time by putting in some shares and hoping for a lottery like payout. They don't get more per pool per block then anyone in that block per share. They do not increase the size of the pie so to speak but increase the number of pies they take a slice from. To me this says the problem isn't that it is a zero sum game but rather that hoppers play many concurrently. I still do not believe they make more per share per block. What I do believe is that they are increasing their odds of getting short blocks. I remember you mentioning it. That having been said I would assume my thought about multiple miners running one pool each should negate the penalty of having a really long block holding up all your miners. Granted as you pointed out PPLNS willdo the same in a different way by siphoning off money in the short rounds to repay in longer rounds. While I do not believe pool hopping ii for the greater good, I don't believe they steal from me specifically , and I do believe that they in a lottery like fashion while I work on a block for 3 das they can make money on several pools. I understand how it is more efficient for gathering coins and how people on long blocks are punished in a way for bad luck. I also understand that if a person kept at it rather then hopping that the prize wouldnt take 3 days but say less then one as the sway si well over 3 times hash power. I also understand that prudent diversification would help even out the really long blocks by leaving less power to each long block. The side effect is it should also leave the whole system far more balanced in hash power making one pool takeovers rather unlikely. I guess this makes my point I am in 1* zero sum game while hoppers are in N* zero sum game. The N is the reason they profit more not that I am being cheated.

All of your examples are flawed because the amount of work is fixed.(I never said static reoccouring bags of sand. The work is fixed in a way as are blocks. Solve the block the work on it is over.)  It isn't in mining.  It could be 1 share = 50 BTC or it could be 10 million shares = 50 BTC (like bags of sand. 1 bag for 1K is crazy over priced, 50 million would be silly under priced.)


This is a logical fallacy.  If pool hoppers make more then someone makes less.  Mining is a zero sum game.

This is false statement.  It has been proven mathematically.  (how in the calculation for bitclockers is any share worth more? They are calculated at the end of the block by one block at a time and valued for only one block on only one pool wth all shares being calclated the same way.)

The payout per share =  50 BTC /(# of shares in the round) (this  my point except any fees come off the top.)

For a fair pool:
avg # of shares per round = network difficulty

For a pool hopper (they put shares into shortest rounds) (as I understood it theey put in shares on all rounds and abandon after a number. If the didnt leave they wouldn't be hopping)
avg # of shares per round = < network difficulty (and anyone in that round robs someone?)

For a miner getting "hopped" (hoppers leave when round becomes longer than normal) (and their pay drops for every share beyond when they quit because their % of the pool drops)
avg # of shares per round = > network difficulty

The reward is static thus hoppers shares are worth more and the hopped on miners shares are worth less. (not really I belive the logic of this only applies in short rounds and would be negated in longer rounds automatically.)


This will be my last post.  If you feel hoppers don't gain more per share I don't care enough to convince you further.
Like I said, they are your hashes put them where you want.
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This is false statement.  It has been proven mathematically.

This is why all pools should switch to some form of PPS.

All of your examples are flawed because the amount of work is fixed.  It isn't in mining.  It could be 1 share = 50 BTC or it could be 10 million shares = 50 BTC


This is a logical fallacy.  If pool hoppers make more then someone makes less.  Mining is a zero sum game.

This is false statement.  It has been proven mathematically. 

The payout per share =  50 BTC /(# of shares in the round)

For a fair pool:
avg # of shares per round = network difficulty

For a pool hopper (they put shares into shortest rounds)
avg # of shares per round = < network difficulty

For a miner getting "hopped" (hoppers leave when round becomes longer than normal)
avg # of shares per round = > network difficulty

The reward is static thus hoppers shares are worth more and the hopped on miners shares are worth less.


This will be my last post.  If you feel hoppers don't gain more per share I don't care enough to convince you further.
Like I said, they are your hashes put them where you want.

over multiple pools Maybe. In bitclockers alone no. For each share (standard measurement) they make one share of the profit. They spend one share of the electricity assuming fixed price and efficiency.

Let me try a different way of describing it. A person pays workers to move sand bags to a truck. For every 5 bags they move they get 5$. So people that come in and work the morning get paid for their bags of sand moved when the project completes. Are people working all day being robbed by someone that work 3 hours before it gets hot? I think not. Does this describe mining no.

Second example: If a group pays 1K move a pile of sandbags and a group agrees to split the reward by the bags moved and a person carries bags for 3 hours while others work all day did the 3 hour employees steal money from those that worked all day? I do not belive so as the reward is devided by the work. Does this more adequately describe one pool of miners I think so.

Third example: Group in example number 2 are working and when the three hour employees leave they join a group with a smaller pile of sandbags for the same 1K. Did they cheat anyone? I think not. In real life if somone  took their pay for bags moved DOL would likely investigate and  and a suit would arise where workers demaded their share of the money for their share of the work as was contractually agreed to. Likely 3 hour workers would win and with current US laws on their side the sandbag pool operator may be liable for more then the stolen wages. Does this more adequately reflect bitcoin mining I belive so. Yes you would have to blind pool members to make it totally accurate but the prncipal is the same in my mind.

I am not saying hoppers won't make more money. What I am saying is that it isn't stealing from the pool. I gess it depnds on work etc. To me you have a job with a fixed payment. Contributors earn thier payment. Hoppers are not paid more per share by the pool. They are paid the same per share. Early shares are worth more on average maybe but constant miners recieve them too. When all shares are totaled and people are paid per share no one is actually paid more. Each share is worth 1 share of the booty.

Well you don't have to believe.  The math is solid and the empirical results speak for themselves.

It is your hashing power so if you believe that pool hoppers can't gain an advantage say on prop pools.

" I understand that they get paid per share same as I do per share. "

No they don't.  They get paid more per share on average and you get paid less per share on average.

Maybe I missed something I get that people hop out and the Ghash/s drops increadibly. I understand that they get paid per share same as I do per share. bitclockers pays essentially your shares/total shares *49.5 (they keep .5). Small round or long I get paid my fraction of the take. Longer I get more shares but maybe less take. Longer rounds I know hoppers make less because their shares stay static and the total increases effectively making their shares worth less with every additional share contributed. By my setup staying in the average I keep my shares increase in % of total slightly as I am a larger part of the total power of the pool. This isn't saying they do not get paid they do. For short rounds they get paid a lot more per share but so do I. I understand they put hashes in all over if they can. To me that is diversification. As I see it if you have 10 cards each mining a different pool you would have one card per pool on shot rounds making more then your average. This is not hopping because you do not throw your whole power into several pools. I guess my problem with the stealing your money statement is that I do not see it as true. From a strictly pool perspective every hash is paid equally because at the end the shares are totaled up. From a network wide perspective anyone on a shorter block then I am is essentially stealing from me by the hopping logic. I disagree and would perfer to say that they view each ticket as a lottery entry and that method may get more BTC per month. I wonder though if multipool mining wouldn't give most of the same advantages to a lesser degree maybe and let non hoppers get the rewards of averaging over a larger sample set like the hoppers try to do. I am not saying you are wrong in short rounds I get less shares then the hoppers I also do less work and because of that alone have a smaller piece of the pie so to speak. I guess to me in my pool short rounds are faster long rounds are slower and I get paid for each share I put in. I wouldn't say someone using cheap or free power is stealing from me. I wouldn't say someone turning off a miner in the late part of the round to game is stealing from me. I don't say someone who mines only a sliver is stealing from me either as they got paid only what I did per share. I also wouldn't say I was stealing from someone using a CPU miner just because they won't make enough to pay for it. As another point I wouldn't say FPGA miners with their crazy high efficiency per share are stealing from me. Like I said I view it on a per pool not per network perspective and hoppers still did work that to me they should be paid for.
I suppose short rounds are a reward for a small pool but even then by not being on constantly I get shares on a small block to.
If the small block is random then yeah they do not increase probability of getting one only take some hashes on it for themselves. This still doesn't mean they stole anything from me. Maybe my slice would be bigger on a short round without them but I get paid faster with them.

Thank you for the information on the payout systems I guess I just don't understand how PPLNS actually makes the pool money unless you get to earn the short block reward durig the long blocks. I may not believe they are stealing from me but I do knowthey will make more per hour then I will granted so does anyone with a higher hashrate. And yes per hashrate they will make more then I do likely. I just wonder if spreading things out wouldn't make me more money eventually.

In fact even 300 is a bit fishy to my maths that doesn't tie up very well with the block history http://bitclockers.com/blockhistory

If you want to see a nice graph of pool hopping in action head over to https://bitclockers.com/statistics and look at their statistics page, in the first hour or so of the current block they hit 1000 Gh/s not back down to 300, it's the same pattern every block and why I quickly moved on from that pool.

Sorry it was "how to hop"
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/how-to-hop-has-moved-47411

On why # of shares / hashes varies
The number of shares to solve a block varies because it is like a lottery.
Each hash is like a ticket.  It either wins (solves the block) or it doesn't (worthless hash).

At current difficulty the every single hash has the exact same chance to "win":
1 in 5371963585403730

So we know on AVERAGE it will take 5,371,963,585,403,730 (roughly 5 quadrillion) hashes you could solve a block in a single hash.  Hash one time and if it is below difficulty target you solved it.  Total hash count 1.  On the other hand you could hash 80 quadrillion hashes and "lose" on every single one.

Thus in a proportional pool the reward is always the same ~50 BTC.  However the value of each share declines as more shares (which are worthless) are found in the round.  Hoppers put their shares into smaller rounds and thus gain an above average value for each share.


If you have a low hashrate you can still use other methods.  PPLNS for example payouts "proportionally" but instead of once per block it is once per set # of shares.  Since the # of shares and the reward are always fixed it can't be hopped.

PPS pools simply pay you a set rate per share.  turn in 1 share get x.  turn in another get another x.  You payout is perfectly fixed (the pool takes all the variance risk).

"learn to hop" gives me nothing I swore that is how you forced the whole string to be your query but I am sure it is not here. Again it is likely something simple. learn to hop gives me two posts both buried in a hopping software thread.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bithopper-python-pool-hopper-proxy-26866
and
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/experimental-poclbm-autohop-yet-another-automatic-pool-hopper-33123
the first is 203 pages the second is only 4. Since both are about the software for hopping I am not sure this is what you ment. I was lookin in the software sub forum under miners. Myabe that is the wrong place.
So why does the block vary in work so much? I had assumed that the block was a fixed set of nonces and a pool with mre shares simply had less nonces per share to check. Given that seems to be false I suppose I see how by exploiting this a person can get more reward per hour by hopping but the pool still seems to me like for given block everyone gets paid. I will think on that a bit more. I actualy am in a proportional pool as my hardware is super slow and unprofitable I still get paid for the portion I solve. I will likely with current hardware never solve enough shares that newer systems would seem to pay less for early shares and as slow as I am that is all I turn in. I do know statistcally I can make the same in theory with newer systems but I expect that I would be staled as someone faster would get the share that pays and actually hash it faster.

It is far too complex and mathematically intensive topic to cover completely in a newbie thread but the reason good miners are "robbed" is because the pool hoppers exploit variance factor.

IF every block was 100 shares then yes there would be no issue w/ pool hopping.

However the simplest way to explain it is each share added to a pool becomes increasingly less valuable.

If a pool has 1000 shares and you add one share you have the potential for 1/1000th of a block.
If a pool has 10 million shares and you add one share AT BEST you have the potential to earn 1/10,000,000th of a block.

So in a long block miners get paid little.  In a short block miners get paid a lot.  Now if you choose your pools (and thus next block) randomly this random variance evens out. 

However a pool hopper isn't choosing the block randomly.  He is always looking (via scanning software) for the pool which has the smallest block.  Thus on average his block size is smaller than normal and his reward is larger than normal.

I likely won't convince you in a newbie thread in 2 or 3 posts.  This topic has been covered by thousands of post across dozens of threads and involving complex mathematical proofs, statistical analysis, and computer simulation.  It would be like asking to prove the nuclear fission in possible in 2 form posts.

A practical example:
9 months ago when most pools were stupidly prop based and easily exploited I pool hopped.  I pool hopped for roughly 3 months and submitted a total of ~12 million shares (thats 54,000 terrahashes).  My revenue over that time period was 28% higher than solo mining.  Remember mining is a zero sum game.  There is no way to increase the size of the pie, only steal a larger share.  Now you may say "mining has variance" and that is true BUT 28% variance above the mean over 54,000 terrahashes is outside realistic range for luck/variance.   It is 4 standard deviations from the norm.  (less than 1 in 2000 chance of happening randomly).  There are many other hoppers with similar stats.  

I don't hop anymore because my main reason for hopping was pools continued to use the fatally flawed proportional method even after evidence of hopping.  When pool hopping first came out many pool operators denied pool hopping as flawed math, gambler fallacy, or people seeing what they wanted in variance.   Today far fewer pools use prop any more.   Over the last year tens of thousands of bitcoins in wealth were transfered from "fair miners" to "pool hoppers" before the community learned the lesson.

If you want more detailed info, simulations, and examples then check out the mining software subforum.  Search for a thread called "learn to hop" it is a series of articles.  There is also a document called "comparison of pool mining reward systems which is very detailed and includes a section on the "pool hopping exploit". If after that you still don't believe then join a proportional pool.

So in the example of the 100 share pool  if you have 99 pool members and one hopper everyone does 1/100th the work and recieves 1/100th the pay I am not sure I follow how the pool is being robbed. Everye did .5BTC work and got paid .5BTC. I guess I see Paid for last N shares as being a potential for robbing people. As an example. I start a pool with 100 shares per block and mine 99 of them a pool hopper mines 1. Proportionally I get 99/100ths of the block or 49.5 BTC the hopper gets 1/100 or .05 BTC 100% of the time. Pay for last 5 shares I make 4/5ths of the take or 40BTC and the hopper  that gets the last share gets 1/5 or 10BTC This means that the hopper would have a 5% chance of taking 20% of the block. Proportionaly I get paid more as I get more shares  PPL5S I get paid less providing I do not take all 5 shares and only at 5 do I do better. It seems more likely to me that PPLNS rewards people disproportionately for their contributions by making faster hardware likely the only way to get one of the last shares. Yes any share can solve but I do see how mining on 100 would help your chances of being paid. Again I am sure I am missing something as even in proportional every share (work) gets and equal reward (BTC). So even by grabbing the last share the hopper would only get paid for one portion. so 50*.1*1.00 =.5BTC proportional 50*.2*.05 =.5BTC meaning that statistically hopping pays as well on either scheme. Like I said I must be missing something and these are exceedingly simple examples but I am still not seeing it.

Pool hopping generally refers to INTENTIONALLY changing pools to maximize rewards.  There are various pieces of software which monitor multiple pools and parasitically will change your pool (pool hop) so you are always gaining the highest reward.

Remember mining is a zero sum game so if a pool hopper is making an extra 20% to 30% then guess where it is coming from?  Thats right the non-hoppers are losing 20%-30%.

There are more detailed explanations on how pool hopping works, the mathematical proofs, and simulations which show its effectiveness.

Lets pretend you "know" your next hash will solve a block.  There are two proportional pools to choose from.

Pool A has 100 shares in the current round.
Pool B has 50 million shares in the current round.

So if you contribute a share to pool A your reward is 50/100 = 0.5 BTC.
If you contribute a share to pool B your reward is 50/50,000,000 = 0.00001 BTC

Which would you pick?

Now you may say "you will never know that your next share solves a block".  Of course not but it is simpler to think that way.  Since each share has an equal chance of solving a block the same math holds true.  In proportional pools the value of the NEXT SHARE declines as the number of shares already contributed decreases.  Hoppers exploit that fact by always putting shares into the pool w/ smallest number of shares in the round.   Thus on average they gain a higher than expected return and that revenue is "stolen" from non-hoppers.

Note:  PPLNS, SMPPS, PPS pools can't be hopped.  Only proportional pools are hoppable so any miner stupid enough to still be mining in a flawed proportional pool deserves to loose whatever they do to hoppers.  Hoppers have forced most pools to abandon proportional reward splits and use algorithms which are "hop proof".

TLDR. If you are just changing pools randomly, or mining intermittently most people would not consider that pool hopping.  Pool hopping generally refers to automatically switching pools based on algorithms which exploit other mines and boosts ones own reward.

I am new and maybe I am missing the problem with it. I will say I do not hop pools actually with my limited power I do not even bother with a backup pool. That having been said I am sure I am missing something because a lot of people seem upset over hopping.
As I see it and undoubtedly myopically if somone contributes small amounts of work to several pools (hopping) they are hoping that one of the pools solves the block and they will get paid for what they put in. Yes total hahing for the block drops off when hoppers hop out but let me play devils advocate here for a moment. There is no garuntee they would mine for the pool in question. If the pool pays equally for each share of the block when the hoppers hop off they get some shares (less then if they stayed) and the pool gets them to hash even for a short time. This means everyone in the pool gets more shares hashed then if the hoppers did not hop in. I know I am missing something and with the weighted systems where late shares are worth far more it encourages people to get in for the last few % of a block. Are the end weighted pools the issue or is the transient hashing (extra potentially) actually a bad thing?
Again I know I am new and I do not know as much as I would want about this. I am sure there is a very simple reason this is bad but I truely do not see it myself. Hope somone can enlighten me as to why.

Last time I pool hoped this really big angry looking dude came knocking at my door.  I can't say for sure if it was related as I just hid in my house until he went away.

They are talking about Pool Hoping in hope of gaining extra rewards from blocks with little shares... Not simply changing pools occasionally.

Yeah I didnt think that it would be an issue but just thought i'd ask, because I keep reading here and there about "pool hopping" and usually people who talk about it, seem to do so in a way that makes it seem like its not a good thing to do. But I just figured its like having 2 email addresses - not really an issue.

They really wouldn't know. To their individual perspective, you could be turning off your miner to play a video game or watch a movie. They really wouldn't have any visibility into it.

On top of that, I think they don't care if its an open system. If it's an invite pool, they might get pissed if they found out.