Payout Clock, Block Alerts and other refinements

[Steve Sokolowski]

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.

It should be possible to dominate both markets. If we could get SHA-256 hashrate to 50PH/s, then it would obviously make sense to cut fees in half. The problem we've always had is that announcing a permanent fee decrease might draw in a few customers who would then get really mad if hashrate didn't double. The system is not currently limited by performance and is expected to be able to support 150,000 workers, about 12 times the current number.

It would be pretty easy to add hundreds of ERC20 tokens. Would you personally choose any of those tokens for payout if they were added?

[CSZiggy]

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.

Can you explain or expand on this some. Your statement reads like it contradicts itself.
If you are mining coins you dont want to hold or setup wallets for than isnt the fact you can get paid in other coins instead the major reason?

[strugmo]

If you are mining coins you dont want to hold or setup wallets for than isnt the fact you can get paid in other coins instead the major reason?

I wouldn't care if I only got paid in one coin.

[strugmo]

It should be possible to dominate both markets. If we could get SHA-256 hashrate to 50PH/s, then it would obviously make sense to cut fees in half. The problem we've always had is that announcing a permanent fee decrease might draw in a few customers who would then get really mad if hashrate didn't double. The system is not currently limited by performance and is expected to be able to support 150,000 workers, about 12 times the current number.

It would be pretty easy to add hundreds of ERC20 tokens. Would you personally choose any of those tokens for payout if they were added?

I think a focus on the ease of solo mining at ProHashing would be a great selling point to bring up usage on the power user side of the equation. You certainly have the capacity to meet the "iTunes of mining" model I mentioned previously. What's the marketing situation? To get the kind of eyeballs you want, it's going to take more than CRM and technical magic.

As for ERC20 and, frankly, Ethereum in general we just aren't sold yet at our shop. We have a significant investment in ASICs right now, but we always re-evaluate when we replace hardware. At this point, you wouldn't get much business from me on ERC20, I am afraid.

My favorite ethereum quote:

"It requires no special mining hardware, and a shit ton of it."

[Steve Sokolowski]

It should be possible to dominate both markets. If we could get SHA-256 hashrate to 50PH/s, then it would obviously make sense to cut fees in half. The problem we've always had is that announcing a permanent fee decrease might draw in a few customers who would then get really mad if hashrate didn't double. The system is not currently limited by performance and is expected to be able to support 150,000 workers, about 12 times the current number.

It would be pretty easy to add hundreds of ERC20 tokens. Would you personally choose any of those tokens for payout if they were added?

I think a focus on the ease of solo mining at ProHashing would be a great selling point to bring up usage on the power user side of the equation. You certainly have the capacity to meet the "iTunes of mining" model I mentioned previously. What's the marketing situation? To get the kind of eyeballs you want, it's going to take more than CRM and technical magic.

As for ERC20 and, frankly, Ethereum in general we just aren't sold yet at our shop. We have a significant investment in ASICs right now, but we always re-evaluate when we replace hardware. At this point, you wouldn't get much business from me on ERC20, I am afraid.

My favorite ethereum quote:

"It requires no special mining hardware, and a shit ton of it."

This Tuesday through Thursday, we held a "summit" where everyone met in State College and we had a lengthy discussion about the priorities for the remainder of the year. The top priorities for the next three months were determined to be refactoring, automated deployments, and unit and integration tests. The idea is that one of the greatest costs right now are direct losses due to bugs, and lost customers due to poor experiences when bugs occur. These things will make it less likely that bugs are released in the future.

A secondary task was to add the top 20 market capitalization in payout coins, to add five more exchanges that accept US customers, and to add the "bitshares" exchange to increase the number of coins offered.

The final category of issues that came up was, as you just pointed out, marketing. The consensus was that we don't think that we're reached the point where every miner is aware of our existence, so there are some people out there who would join if they just knew the site existed. That said, we also determined that we don't know what can be done to spread the word. In ten years of working on various projects, I've never found any advertising method that has been successful. In every case, including so far with this project, the most successful method was simply putting effort into improving the product.

Advertising is greatly limited because on the one hand, you have companies like Google and Facebook that have indiscriminately banned all ads for this industry, so we can't just use Google AdWords. We also can't post threads in places like reddit or bitcointalk, or get a fair mention on sites like Cryptocoinsnews, because all bitcoin discussion is heavily dominated by Michael Marquadt and companies he owns or is associated with. He actively removes posts made by us, most likely because we mine bitcoin cash and bitcoin sv. The final limiting factor is that we project that I'll earn about $17,000 in salary this year, so that leaves me about $2,000 at most to advertise after living expenses during this bottom part of the cycle.

If you have ideas about what type of advertising you would find effective, please make some suggestions! I'm all out of ideas. The advertising method would have to be outside the control of Marquadt, Facebook, and Google.

[CSZiggy]

If you are mining coins you dont want to hold or setup wallets for than isnt the fact you can get paid in other coins instead the major reason?

I wouldn't care if I only got paid in one coin.

So having a range of other coins to choose from isnt the factor, but being able to mine 1 coin and still be paid in another more favorable one without having to exchange it at an exchange yourself is the benefit? Just curious, which coin you are selecting.

It would be pretty easy to add hundreds of ERC20 tokens. Would you personally choose any of those tokens for payout if they were added?

As for ERC20 and, frankly, Ethereum in general we just aren't sold yet at our shop. We have a significant investment in ASICs right now, but we always re-evaluate when we replace hardware. At this point, you wouldn't get much business from me on ERC20, I am afraid.

Replacing hardware seems to mean you took that as would you mine ERC20 coins if they added more. Just to clarify, Steve wasn't asking if you would mine ERC20 coins, but if adding them might make you try taking a payout in one of those coins instead of whichever coin you are using for payouts now. The mining of the coins you mine with your ASIC machines wouldn't change, just the coin you are selecting as payout.

Just wanted to be sure the answers match the questions that were asked so they have the right data to look at.

[strugmo]

Just to clarify, Steve wasn't asking if you

Is it common for you to answer for Steve? To clarify his comments? Are you with the company?

[strugmo]

Steve, I'll email you something. I think I have an idea you are gonna like.

[CSZiggy]

Just to clarify, Steve wasn't asking if you

Is it common for you to answer for Steve? To clarify his comments? Are you with the company?

I didn't answer for Steve, I wanted clarification for myself. You realize this is a public forum not a 2-person email PM message.

I have to clarify the questions and answers all the time, as a lot of the times they are unclear on both sides.

No I am not with the company, haven't mined seriously on this pool in over a year now, just enjoy the forums.

[strugmo]

Your direct quote is above. "Steve wasn't asking you". I am pretty sure he is grown and can speak for himself.