Payout Clock, Block Alerts and other refinements

[strugmo]

I am a huge fan of Prohashing. Full stop. These are just some observations from someone who uses the site everyday.

It is clear that some coins can't be paid on time, and likely through no fault of the company. Putting a 24 hour payout clock on these coins is misleading, and may cause someone to make decisions based on that information. While most coins are paid on time in my experience, some sit for days or even a week or more, above the payout threshold and unpaid. Get rid of the clock, or indicate somehow that certain coins may not pay in a timely fashion. You have created an expectation that, under certain circumstances, cannot be met. I understand that some of the coins I mine are total shit. Not everyone will have that same understanding.

Is it possible to filter the "found blocks" box on the charts page? We are an algo-centric shop mining only SHA256 coins, so it would be really helpful from a research and observational perspective if we didn't necessarily HAVE to look at blocks found in every other algo.

If I set an alert in settings for found blocks and define a target range, on my dashboard it still tells me when I find small blocks that aren't in that range. I am not sure why. I set the range between $3 and $6, and it tells me when I mine a block worth $ 0.006. :/

Just my two very unsolicited cents. I love it here. I talk about your company with everyone. Keep up the good work. It really is a pleasure to use the site.

[Steve Sokolowski]

I am a huge fan of Prohashing. Full stop. These are just some observations from someone who uses the site everyday.

It is clear that some coins can't be paid on time, and likely through no fault of the company. Putting a 24 hour payout clock on these coins is misleading, and may cause someone to make decisions based on that information. While most coins are paid on time in my experience, some sit for days or even a week or more, above the payout threshold and unpaid. Get rid of the clock, or indicate somehow that certain coins may not pay in a timely fashion. You have created an expectation that, under certain circumstances, cannot be met. I understand that some of the coins I mine are total shit. Not everyone will have that same understanding.

Is it possible to filter the "found blocks" box on the charts page? We are an algo-centric shop mining only SHA256 coins, so it would be really helpful from a research and observational perspective if we didn't necessarily HAVE to look at blocks found in every other algo.

If I set an alert in settings for found blocks and define a target range, on my dashboard it still tells me when I find small blocks that aren't in that range. I am not sure why. I set the range between $3 and $6, and it tells me when I mine a block worth $ 0.006. :/

Just my two very unsolicited cents. I love it here. I talk about your company with everyone. Keep up the good work. It really is a pleasure to use the site.

Thanks for these suggestions. I'm going to inform Constance of the last problem. She'll work on them tomorrow and will post an update here when she knows more about what's causing it.

In regards to the coins, could you give an example of the specific coins that are causing problems? We're only aware of three coins at the moment that constantly have recurring problems. There are always random payout problems caused by exchanges, so I don't think we can get this down to zero. But if there are specific coins that we're not aware of, Chris can investigate them to see if they can be permanently fixed.

With the "found blocks," Constance can see how difficult it is to add that feature in and will include it in her reply.

Thanks again for the comments! We'll reply tomorrow once we have more info.

[strugmo]

Well, I see Bitraam is about to drop off of TradeSatoshi, so I guess that solves that problem. LOL
TEA and TIT are the two I have right now. TEA I kind of understand. That's the one with loads of bad inputs. TIT has been there for days, and never really had that problem before.

I don't think anyone expects you to get the rate of failed payouts down to zero. I was thinking of a sort of temporary notice on the coin box, like "Payments for this coin may be delayed" or something.

Thanks for listening. I really appreciate it!

[Steve Sokolowski]

Well, I see Bitraam is about to drop off of TradeSatoshi, so I guess that solves that problem. LOL
TEA and TIT are the two I have right now. TEA I kind of understand. That's the one with loads of bad inputs. TIT has been there for days, and never really had that problem before.

I don't think anyone expects you to get the rate of failed payouts down to zero. I was thinking of a sort of temporary notice on the coin box, like "Payments for this coin may be delayed" or something.

Thanks for listening. I really appreciate it!

While Constance is working to resolve these issues, I was hoping that you might be able to shed some light on why SHA-256 hashrate seems to be declining so much lately, when the bitcoin network's hashrate is rising and we increased profitability by 2%. As a SHA-256 miner, do you have any insight?

[CSZiggy]

Are the SHA-256 miners that have stopped mining using AUTOpool or cherry picking using static mining a specific coin or were they solo mining?

Identifying the password set the miners who left were using may shed some additional light on the situation.

[strugmo]

IMHO, the list of available SHA-256 coins is smaller. Much smaller, in fact, than it used to be. I originally came here to use the solo mining feature. So I was looking for coins in the mid diff/market cap range. There just aren't a lot of those left. There are low grade coins like TEA and CF, then there are a lot of large market cap coins like PPC and BTC, but there isn't a lot in the middle. Some mid level coins aren't really effectively mineable, like DEM (every block I find is lost).

I understand the smaller list is due to Cryptopia going down and taking a lot of popular coins with them. I don't know. Some people are coin-centric.

[Steve Sokolowski]

IMHO, the list of available SHA-256 coins is smaller. Much smaller, in fact, than it used to be. I originally came here to use the solo mining feature. So I was looking for coins in the mid diff/market cap range. There just aren't a lot of those left. There are low grade coins like TEA and CF, then there are a lot of large market cap coins like PPC and BTC, but there isn't a lot in the middle. Some mid level coins aren't really effectively mineable, like DEM (every block I find is lost).

I understand the smaller list is due to Cryptopia going down and taking a lot of popular coins with them. I don't know. Some people are coin-centric.

Thanks for the feedback. The biggest problem we face is that there are many coins traded only on exchanges that do not accept US customers. Novaexchange, for example, could allow us to double the number of coins we offer. We're currently examining a technology called "bitshares" which is supposedly some sort of decentralized exchange, but we don't know much about it yet because we haven't yet performed the research.

Have you experienced any bugs or technical issues that have detracted from the user experience?

[strugmo]

I have not experienced any bugs or issues, and I don't say that lightly.

I find it to be the most user friendly pool experience that I have seen. The reliability, considering the sheer scope of what it accomplishes, is incredible. When I was new, it was easy to figure out. As I became more experienced with the site, fine-tuning was a breeze, The documentation is very clear, and one of the reasons I often send new people to this site.

But maybe more telling is what your site does NOT do that really separates it from the pack. For example, you are not an exchange. You are not a wallet. You aren't involved in investment-type mechanisms like staking or interest wallets. There are no faucets. There are no coin drop announcements or pump rallies. There are no coin flips or dice on your site. In other words, it's actually clear that you are serious about sticking to your guns on "core business".

Just the simple fact that you are having this conversation with me separates ProHashing from 90% of the competition.

I agree that the issue of exchanges available to US residents is an issue. Is it all about regulation? If I put an exchange in Vanuatu, how is that a problem? There are some newer exchanges popping up that accept US business, but they probably aren't ready for prime time yet, and for site this size, committing to an exchange has to be an agonizing decision.

[Steve Sokolowski]

I have not experienced any bugs or issues, and I don't say that lightly.

I find it to be the most user friendly pool experience that I have seen. The reliability, considering the sheer scope of what it accomplishes, is incredible. When I was new, it was easy to figure out. As I became more experienced with the site, fine-tuning was a breeze, The documentation is very clear, and one of the reasons I often send new people to this site.

But maybe more telling is what your site does NOT do that really separates it from the pack. For example, you are not an exchange. You are not a wallet. You aren't involved in investment-type mechanisms like staking or interest wallets. There are no faucets. There are no coin drop announcements or pump rallies. There are no coin flips or dice on your site. In other words, it's actually clear that you are serious about sticking to your guns on "core business".

Just the simple fact that you are having this conversation with me separates ProHashing from 90% of the competition.

I agree that the issue of exchanges available to US residents is an issue. Is it all about regulation? If I put an exchange in Vanuatu, how is that a problem? There are some newer exchanges popping up that accept US business, but they probably aren't ready for prime time yet, and for site this size, committing to an exchange has to be an agonizing decision.

Committing to an exchange isn't that big of a deal. It probably costs about $1,000 to add a new exchange.

The problem with exchanges is not that they are hackable or untrustworthy. There are exchanges that exhibit those characteristics, but we've only ever lost $2,600 in five years due to exchange hacks. Most exchanges recognize that they need to be perceived as trustworthy in order to remain in business.

The real problem with exchanges is that they will not commit to a common API. They all have the same functions, but instead of picking a common API definition, like Bittrex's, they implement different calls with different parameters. For example, some exchanges return the orderbook for a coin with both buy and sell orders, and some require a "buy" or "sell" parameter with two calls to get both. A further common problem is that some exchanges don't provide the block number of their current daemon or whether the wallet is "locked." There's no reason for this and it's why we can't just trade at all exchanges.

What is your experience with fees? Are you willing to pay higher fees at a pool to support the continuous development we are doing, or do you think that most people are fine with fly-by-night sites that use open-source software?

[strugmo]

I see ProHashing as the pool choice for Windows & Mac wallet holders. Please don't take it the wrong way. It's a massive slice of the market since - let's be real - crypto wouldn't be where it is today if every customer had to build every wallet on Ubuntu. Dominate that slice of the market, and you're the iTunes of mining. They are going to be willing to make the same trade-offs in mining that they make on their other technological choices ... ease of use, high degree of support availability and engagement, detailed product knowledge, a large and diverse user base, and so on.

The linux geeks are going to do what they always do... exercise as much maniacal control over every aspect of their world as they can, resulting in the inverse of the feature list above, but they get to decide on and micromanage builds, fees, tweaks and so on.

For me, fees are just baked into my daily decision making. Sometimes I mine elsewhere. It just really depends on our daily profit targets and how the numbers are playing. But the fees are part of the decision process. The real value proposition for me isn't that you pay in any coin, but that I can deliberately mine coins I don't want to hold or for which I don't want to set up a wallet.