Content deleted Content added
Citation bot (talk | contribs) m Alter: isbn, first. Removed URL that duplicated unique identifier. | You can use this bot yourself. Report bugs here. | Activated by User:Grimes2 | via #UCB_webform |
m →top: HTTP to HTTPS for Cornell University |
||
| (140 intermediate revisions by 92 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{Short description|Pooled resources for cryptocurrency mining}}
{{Multiple issues|
{{more citations needed|date=June 2014}}
{{mos|date=April 2021}}
In the context of [[cryptocurrency mining]], a '''mining pool''' is the pooling of resources by miners, who share their [[computer performance|processing power]] over a network, to split the reward equally, according to the amount of work they contributed to the probability of finding a [[blockchain (database)|block]]. A "share" is awarded to members of the mining pool who present a valid partial [[proof-of-work]]. Mining in pools began when the [[Bitcoin network#Difficulty|difficulty]] for mining increased to the point where it could take centuries for slower miners to generate a block. The solution to this problem was for miners to pool their resources so they could generate blocks more quickly and therefore receive a portion of the block reward on a consistent basis, rather than randomly once every few years.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://pandacoinpnd.org/individual-mining-and-mining-pools/ |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150321102332/http://pandacoinpnd.org/individual-mining-and-mining-pools/ |archive-date=21 March 2015|title=Individual mining vs mining pool |date=2014-08-30}}</ref><ref>Ittay Eyal with Emin Gün Sirer:"[http://www.cs.cornell.edu/~ie53/publications/btcProcFC.pdf Majority is not Enough: Bitcoin Mining is Vulnerable] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161203222953/http://www.cs.cornell.edu/%7Eie53/publications/btcProcFC.pdf |date=2016-12-03 }}" in the 18th International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security(FC).2014</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Eyal|first1=Ittay|title=The Miner's Dilemma|url=https://www.cs.cornell.edu/~ie53/publications/btcPoolsSP15.pdf|publisher=Cornel University|accessdate=2017-05-23|url-status=live|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20170809213507/http://www.cs.cornell.edu/%7Eie53/publications/btcPoolsSP15.pdf|archivedate=2017-08-09}}, In the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Oakland), 2015.</ref>▼
}}
▲In the context of [[cryptocurrency mining]], a '''mining pool''' is the pooling of resources by miners, who share their [[computer performance|processing power]] over a network, to split the reward equally, according to the amount of work they contributed to the probability of finding a [[blockchain (database)|block]]. A "share" is awarded to members of the mining pool who present a valid partial [[proof-of-work]]. Mining in pools began when the [[Bitcoin network#Difficulty|difficulty]] for mining increased to the point where it could take centuries for slower miners to generate a block. The solution to this problem was for miners to pool their resources so they could generate blocks more quickly and therefore receive a portion of the block reward on a consistent basis, rather than randomly once every few years.
==History==
{{unreferenced section|date=September 2020}}
* '''November 2010: ''' Slush launched in 2010 and is the first mining pool.
* '''2011–2013: ''' The era of [[deepbit]], which at its peak held up to 45% of the network [[hashrate]].{{cn|date=February 2021}}
* '''2013–2014: ''' Since the introduction of [[Application-specific integrated circuit|ASIC]], and when deepbit failed to support the newer stratum protocol, [[Ghash.io|GHash.IO]] replaced deepbit and became the largest.
* '''2014–2015: ''' [[F2Pool]], which launched in May 2013, overtook GHash.IO and became then the largest mining pool.
* '''2016–2018: ''' Rise of [[Bitmain]] and its [[AntPool]]. [[Bitmain]] also controls a few other smaller pools like BTC.com and ViaBTC.
* '''2019–2020: ''' The launch of [[Poolin]]. Poolin and F2Pool each held about 15% of the network hashrate at this time period, with smaller pools following.{{cn|date=February 2021}}
* '''2020: ''' [[Binance]] launches a mining pool, following [[Huobi]] and [[OKEx|OKex]]. [[Luxor]] launches a US-based mining pool.{{cn|date=February 2021}}.
==Mining pool share==
Share is the principal concept of the mining pool operation. Share is a potential block solution. So it may be a block solution, but it is not necessarily so. For example, suppose a block solution is a number that ends with 10 zeros and, a share may be a number with 5 zeros at the end. Sooner or later one of the shares will have not only 5, but 10 zeros at the end, and this will be the block solution.
Mining pools need shares to estimate the miner's contribution to the work performed by the pool to find a block. There are numerous miner reward systems: [[#Pay-per-Share|PPS]], [[#Proportional|PROP]], [[#Pay-per-last-N-shares|PPLNS]], PPLNT, and many more.
==Mining pool methods==
Mining pools may contain hundreds or thousands of miners using specialized protocols.<ref name=t12>{{cite book | author = Antonopoulos, Andreas M. | date = 2014 | title = Mastering Bitcoin. Unlocking Digital Cryptocurrencies | ___location = Sebastopol, CA | publisher = O'Reilly Media | isbn = 978-1449374037 | page = 210 | url = http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1234000001802/ch01.html | access-date = 7 January 2017 | url-status =
===Pay-per-Share===
The Pay-per-Share (PPS) approach offers an instant, guaranteed payout
Each share costs exactly the expected value of each hash attempt <math>R = B \cdot p</math>.
Line 13 ⟶ 32:
===Proportional===
Miners earn shares until the pool finds a block (the end of the mining round). After that each user gets reward <math>R = B \cdot \frac{n}{N}</math>, where <math>n</math> is amount of
===
===Pay-per-last-N-shares===
Pay-per-last-N-shares (PPLNS) method is similar to '''Proportional''', but the miner's reward is calculated on a basis of N last shares, instead of all shares for the last round. It means that when a block is found, the reward of each miner is calculated based on the miner contribution to the last N pool shares. Therefore, if the round was short enough all miners get more profit
===
Peer-to-peer mining pool (P2Pool) decentralizes the responsibilities of a pool server, removing the chance of the pool operator cheating or the server being a [[single point of failure]]. Miners work on a side blockchain called a share chain, mining at a lower difficulty at a rate of one share block per 30 seconds. Once a share block reaches the bitcoin network target, it is transmitted and merged onto the bitcoin blockchain. Miners are rewarded when this occurs proportional to the shares submitted prior to the target block. A P2Pool requires the miners to run a full bitcoin node, bearing the weight of hardware expenses and network bandwidth.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite book|title=Mastering Bitcoin: Programming the Open Blockchain|last=Antonopoulos|first=Andreas|publisher=O' Reilly Media|year=2017|isbn=978-1491954386|___location=|pages=}}</ref>▼
Solo pools operate the same way as usual pools, with the only difference being that block reward is not distributed among all miners. The entire reward in a solo pool goes to the miner who finds the block.
===Peer-to-Peer Mining Pool===
▲[[Peer-to-peer]] mining pool (P2Pool) decentralizes the responsibilities of a pool server, removing the chance of the pool operator cheating or the server being a [[single point of failure]]. Miners work on a side blockchain called a share chain, mining at a lower difficulty at a rate of one share block per 30 seconds. Once a share block reaches the
===Geometric method===
Geometric Method (GM) was invented by Meni Rosenfeld.<ref name="pools">{{cite book|last1=Rosenfeld|first1=Meni|title=Analysis of Bitcoin Pooled Mining Reward Systems|date=November 17, 2011|arxiv=1112.4980|bibcode=2011arXiv1112.4980R}}</ref> It is based on the same "score" idea, as Slush's method: the score granted for every new share, relatively to already existing score and the score of future shares, is always the same, thus there is no advantage to mining early or late in the round.
The method goes as follows:
* Choose parameters <math>f</math> and <math>c</math> (fixed and variable fee).
* At the start of every round, set <math>s = 1</math>. For every worker <math>k</math>, let <math>S_k</math> be the
* Set <math>r=1-p+\frac{p}{c}</math>, where <math>p = 1/D</math>. If the difficulty changes during the round, <math>r</math> needs to be updated.
* When worker <math>k</math> submits a share, set <math>S_k = S_k + spB</math>, and then <math>s = sr</math>.
Line 41 ⟶ 63:
* Choose parameters <math>f</math>, <math>c</math>, and <math>o</math>.
* When the pool first starts running, initialize <math>s = 1</math>. For every worker <math>k</math>, let <math>S_k</math> be the
* Set <math>r = 1 + \frac{1}{c}p(1 - c)(1 - o)</math>. If at any point the difficulty or the parameters change, <math>r</math> should be recalculated.
* When worker <math>k</math> submits a share, set <math>S_k = S_k + (1 - f)(1 - c)spB</math> (where <math>B</math> is the block reward at the time it was submitted), and then <math>s = sr</math>.
* If the share is a valid block, then also do the following for each worker <math>k</math>: Give him a payout of <math>\frac{1}{c_s}(1 - o)S_k</math>, and then set <math>S_k = S_k \cdot o</math>.
==Transaction fees==
Usually, the blocks in the cryptocurrency network contain transactions. Transaction fees are paid to the miner (mining pool). Different mining pools could share these fees between their miners or not. Pay-per-last-N-shares (PPLNS), Pay-Per-Share Plus (PPS+) or Full Pay-Per-Share (FPPS) are the most fair methods where the payouts from the pool include not only the block subsidy but also the transaction fees.{{cn|date=February 2021}}
==Multipool mining==
Multipools switch between different [[altcoin]]s and constantly calculate which coin is at that moment the most profitable to mine. Two key factors are involved in the algorithm that calculates profitability, the block time, and the price on the exchanges. To avoid the need for many different wallets for all possible minable coins, multipools may automatically exchange the mined coin to a coin that is accepted in the mainstream (for example [[bitcoin]]).
Some companies that [[Cloud mining|sell hash power]] may do so by aggregating the work of many small miners (for example, [[NiceHash]]), paying them proportionally by share like a pool would. Some such companies operate their own pools. These can be considered multipools, because they usually employ a similar method of work switching, although the work they assign is determined by customer demand rather than "raw" profitability.
==PoC (Proof of Capacity) mining==
Similar to other mining technologies, the PoC, PoC+, PoS [[Proof of Space]] method allows the computing to be performed beforehand and all answers are stored on a miners hard drive, the heavy energy consumption for PoC is not required like it is for PoW mining and therefore PoC is almost always a more environmentally friendly blockchain choice. When mining happens the miner simply "looks" through the pre-stored answers and submits the best one found to the network, with minimal energy used to read the hard drives. Due to the low hardware specification requirements of the PoC mining process, this type of mining can be conducted on a regular PC still being used for other day-to-day tasks. The first PoC blockchain was brought online in 2014 and is known as [https://Signum.network Signum] today, with other PoC chains coming out much later, examples: Chia, Flax, and BitcoinHD. The network difficulty, as well as other network and mining status information, can be viewed on any of the public mining pool dashboards, example: [https://signapool.notallmine.net Mining Pool Dashboard] A list of current PoC, PoS, PoC+ type mining pools are also tracked by some third party "Mining Pool Stats" pages, an example of one is [https://miningpoolstats.stream/signa Mining Pool Stats].
==See also==
Line 55 ⟶ 86:
* [[Digital currency exchanger]]
* [[Electronic money]]
* [[OCEAN (Bitcoin mining pool)]]
==References==
Line 60 ⟶ 92:
==External links==
* [https://blockchain.info/pools An estimation of hashrate distribution amongst the largest mining pools]
Line 68 ⟶ 99:
{{Bitcoin}}
[[Category:Cryptocurrencies]]▼
[[Category:Bitcoin]]
▲[[Category:Cryptocurrencies]]
[[Category:Decentralization]]
| |||