Topic: Why are people drawn to GHash.io, and how can we reverse it? - page 2. (Read 5004 times)

That isn't what I said.  Merely pointing out that anyone with deep pockets who could profit off the destruction of bitcoin has likely realized an avenue to compromise bitcoin.  Create something bright and shiny for the miners, use their ignorance to turn them against the bitcoin network.

the biggest incentive (I see) for using CEX.io/Ghash.io is one major thing, a lot of pool owners have said no to...

auto-payouts with splits by percentage

Which makes it tons easier when I have a friend that wants to throw some money down on a miner and have me toss in the rest + host it, then I just have to put in an address and what % he gets, what % I get... and nothing else. No more screwing around with spreadsheets, no more bullshit.

Awhile back I asked several 'group buy leaders' in PM how they did the split %'s on shares in miners, the answer I always got back was 'spreadsheet'. Seriously, a spreadsheet... I was debating on making something to handle the splitting for myself in PHP or some other language, however CEX.io/Ghash.io came along, 0% pool fee, splits everything easily, bam, sold.

Not to mention when people ask me why I use it, I tell them that and... then they start using it for the same reason. Obviously a feature a lot of people overlooked, plus merged mining in IXC, DVC, NMC is also a damn good perk.

EDIT: Yes, I did copy/paste this from my post in the other thread. I would like to add in the fact, Ghash.io continually is updating their interface and services, something not seen much from pool owners these days, not of this speed anyway.

From a miner's perspective the main draws to ghash.io (if you own your own equip) are:

1) 0% pool fee (but orphans are not included)
2) merged mining
3) good user interface with alerts for individual miners, and the ability to track detailed stats
4) stability of payout - when the pool is larger like ghash.io, there is less variance in your daily payout due to bad luck of the pool

With the small margins on mining gear, even with the run up in BTC/USD, all of the above adds up, and every extra % helps.

I suspect miners would love to point their gear at other pools, but no other pool I have seen has everything else listed above.  It is an attractive combination.

NOTE TO POOL OPERATORS: you want to compete with ghash.io, the above is what you need.

Right ok, you won. Miners have the real power...

More like the City

And where do pool operators get all their profits from? Miners. Doh.

LOL Why are we talking about miners?
Pools operators have the real power, miners are only sending data.
What are you talking about?

So Wall St owns ghash.io is what you are saying?

[Tinfoilhat] And what a better way would there be to destroy Bitcoin, than by its own users? What a proof that decretilized and unregulated currencies can't work. [/Tinfoilhat]

Not that I believe that, but the irony if something malicious happens, that was only possible thanks to the endless greed of Bitcoiners (WOW, I make a Satoshi more a Week there!), would be priceless. Actually, there may even be a lessen to be learned here and better now Bitcoin gets a big hit from this than in a few years.

Not true miners obviously have incentive to destroy the bitcoin network.  This doesn't mean they are doing it intentionally.  What I have learned at this point is that if wall street wants to destroy bitcoin one of the ways is creating a slick, easy to use pool with great payouts and lots of incentives.   Miners will jump to them for easy "profit" and once the network gets 50%+ it's game over.  You think wall street would have a problem dumping billions of dollars they would never see again into destroying bitcoin?  They would do it without thinking and the billions lost creating a slick miner friendly ticking time bomb would be like you losing a dime in the couch cushions.

Except that miners have zero incentive to destroy the bitcoin network. Its like cutting off your own head.

This issue has been already pointed out during last year bitcoin conference.
That's what you get with proof of work and ASICwith an "high" entry barrier.
Core developers should seriously start to think about a way to mitigate 51%

cex.io is part of ghash.io
The ghashes people trade on cex.io are hashing for ghash.io

Don't confuse cex.io with ghash.io. These are two separate issues.

I personally use cex because it is easy to use and you can reinvest the BTC into more ghash easily. If you don't own a miner then it is useful. I use other pool though and when I have enough on cex I usually buy into GB. Cex is just very useful but yes expensive.

Do people actually make money at cex.io? If so, hard to argue against market forces. If not, what the heck are people doing???

I think the damage has been done. cex.io has a lot of money to expand their farm which comes from selling really overpriced hashrate and people still keeps throwing their btc at cex.io. Right now, we can only tell people to avoid it and educate people about the importance of keeping bitcoin decentralized. Even moving to btcguild is a good idea right now.

I have mentioned about how mining manufacturers can help in keeping bitcoin secure and decentralized in this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=399313.20
I hope manufacturers are aware of the situation we are in and get their effort to improve it.

Many are seeing bitcoin as a way of making money, profits etc and it is hard to move forward if things stay this way. Bitcoin is more than that and I hope more people realize this and put more interest in keeping bitcoin secure. Please visit this thread and give your support in the effort for bitcoin decentralization https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/p2pool-advancement-of-decentralized-mining-vital-to-bitcoin-network-security-329860

I actually am not familiar with the different pools, I would find this information useful and might allocate some resources accordingly.

People are drawn to Ghash.IO primarily because it has a high hash rate which provides quick results (people like instant gratification). The website is slick with the automatically updating stats. It merge mines several coins (perceived value, even if some of those coins are not worth much). There is zero fee. It allows someone to automatically split up the mining proceeds by percentage, for example, for a group buy. There is also the gambling / trading aspect of cex.io which has its own lure. Additionally, and perhaps most hurtful of all is the marketing aspect that incentivises people to advertise for them.

I agree that it is a big threat, and there is no way to know for certain that cex/ghash do not have additional hashpower running on other "unknown" private pools. Knowing that they will hurt themselves if they dump too much into cex.io at once. It is also unknown just what the ratio of their own hash power to individual's personal hash power pointed at that pool is. The other threat is that there is no representative (that I have seen anyway) that interacts with the community. They do not seem to be publicly interested in cleaning up their name in many of the threads about their past with double spending, for example. Ask yourself for a moment - how do they make any money themselves? They charge no fees for trading, minimum fees for withdrawing, very minimal fees for their own hash rate rentals. There is something else going on there, and this puts them in a class by their own.

I do not agree that something "needs to be done" about BTC Guild. The pool admin seems a very standup guy who is himself interested in the health of the community. I think that if it ever did come down to short term personal gain or the community, he would do the right thing for the community, and ultimately his own long-term personal gain as well. The vast majority of the hash power there is voluntary - meaning that people could pull their miners en masse and the pool could instantly be smaller. The pool has also not had the same bursting growth rate as ghash.io, and right now is also the biggest weapon the community has in fighting cex.io if it attempted to run a 51% attack. When bringing up new mining equipment, putting it on any pool other than those two is probably the best thing any of us can do individually, but it doesn't help that (from my testing) the most profitable pool is BTC Guild - in spite of its fees. If I'm in a group buy or trying to get a full return on a piece of hardware, it is silly to mine on a pool that I know will return a lower profit over enough time that I know variance isn't the cause.

Anyway - my 2 cents. I think what the rest of the pools need (other than the top 2) is very clear so I won't spell it out unless someone actually wants me to.