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Topic: What exactly is pool hopping? (Read 770 times)

legendary
Activity: 1512
Merit: 1036
July 23, 2013, 04:48:33 AM
#2
The original paper: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/optimal-pool-abuse-strategy-proofs-and-countermeasures-3165

In the beginning, all pools were proportional - when a block was found, pools immediately paid out the block reward to miners based on their contribution since the start of block hunting. If a block was quickly found, then miners would get higher earnings per amount of work submitted. The strategy is to "hop" to a new pool as soon as they find a block and start a new round of block finding, hoping for an early block find, then abandoning that pool as soon as another pool starts a new round. By doing so, you are investing your mining work in pools only when there is an above-average reward potential.

It is bad because it reduces the income of full-time miners - they get less work submitted during the profitable times and are left mining alone on long blocks.
sr. member
Activity: 420
Merit: 250
July 20, 2013, 07:01:04 PM
#1
Why is it bad? What advantage does it give to the pool hopper?
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