One-time balance forfeitures today

[Steve Sokolowski]

Hi,

This morning, Chris issued 102 one-time balance forfeitures to account for an issue with the mining server, which affect 1% of all miners. It turns out that the latest changes to the share inserter had inadvertently credited solo miners extra money, which averaged about 1.7 times live profitability. This issue went undetected due to a lack of manpower during the period when the mining server was experiencing performance issues last month, but now support tickets asking questions about how solo mining resulted in the balances they were credited brought the issue to light.

Between August 21 and September 13, $243,713.86 was paid in error to miners who were solo mining. Of that, Chris issued forfeitures for $58,134.11 to the 102 miners who were incorrectly paid, which was sold to dollars and will be stored in a checking account to reimburse the amount lost from the fund to pay potential future employees. While our stated policy is that miners are responsible to repay debt due to errors we make but receive a 15% credit, Chris limited the forfeitures so that nobody would end up with negative balances and owe money. At worst, affected miners will end up with zero balances and remain ahead by a significant amount.

There was also an additional 1 or 2 bitcoins that were paid in response to support tickets in early August to miners who stated that their solo mined blocks had not been credited. Chris corrected the issue and paid the blocks, but didn't recognize that the bug had caused those miners to already have been paid. We have not requested repayment from those miners.

To see what happened, check the proportions of shares submitted before last night and you'll see that the coin you were mining has a proportion of 100%, meaning that you earned full payment for that share. Remember that during solo mining, you should not receive credit for shares, only for found blocks. More recent shares will show a proportion of zero, meaning that you earned no payment for the share. Merge mining rewards will have various proportions and were not affected by the bug or the forfeitures.

While the issue might appear complex, I wanted to clarify that the $243,713 isn't money that actually exists. It represents the figure that was taken from personal accounts to pay miners for work they did not perform. Miners performed and were paid for work on the blocks they solo mined, and then the numbers in the database were increased again for work they did not perform. The forfeitures simply reduce the amount of this fake money owed by about 20%, while miners retain the remaining 80% as a token of our appreciation for dealing with the issue. While I understand some may be frustrated, and that the frustration will undoubtedly spill over to the forums, there is proof that a significant number of miners suddenly switched to solo mining to knowingly profit handsomely from the issue, so this is a generous deal that many people would argue they should not be entitled to.

We apologize for the inconvenience these forfeitures caused. Feel free to submit a support ticket if you have any questions. Chris can provide comprehensive spreadsheets detailing how many blocks you found, their precise value, how much merge mining money you earned, how much was credited in error, how much was reclaimed, how much extra you earned but was not reclaimed, and the dates involved. Now that the performance issues have been resolved at least temporarily, we are spending some time examining statistics to eliminate bugs, reduce confusion, and provide better customer service.

If you were not solo mining, then you can ignore this issue, since it does not affect you.

Thanks,

-Steve

[Morbiduzz]

Sorry Steve, I have solo mined on litecoin from around 19:00 to 24:00 ( GMT+1 ) of 09/13/17 I don't think I earned all that you have forfaited from my balance, if I remember at the 24:00 my balance was around 8$, its impossible that all 8$ where for wrong shares or wrong credit, probably only someone suffered of that problem and not all account, anyway it's not a big problem for me we are speaking of just 8$ only. hope you are able to compesate us with great and powerfull service in the future!

See yaa!

[Sunegg]

"At worst, affected miners will end up with zero balances and remain ahead by a significant amount."

That sounds good and all, but what about all the miners that did NOT solo mine?
Have we earned less than we were supposed to, because the solo miner have received a larger piece of the pie that they should?

[Steve Sokolowski]

Sorry Steve, I have solo mined on litecoin from around 19:00 to 24:00 ( GMT+1 ) of 09/13/17 I don't think I earned all that you have forfaited from my balance, if I remember at the 24:00 my balance was around 8$, its impossible that all 8$ where for wrong shares or wrong credit, probably only someone suffered of that problem and not all account, anyway it's not a big problem for me we are speaking of just 8$ only. hope you are able to compesate us with great and powerfull service in the future!

See yaa!

Were you solo mining during previous days?

The total of the forfeitures is about 40% of solo-mined blocks from August 27 to September 13, or your full balance, whichever is less. This brings solo mining in line with what was promised in the documentation and in the live balances.

It's possible that you were one of the customers who did most of his or her solo mining during previous days and owed a large debt. In that case, you only forfeited what you had on hand and don't owe anything else to the pool, so you can count yourself lucky.

[Steve Sokolowski]

"At worst, affected miners will end up with zero balances and remain ahead by a significant amount."

That sounds good and all, but what about all the miners that did NOT solo mine?
Have we earned less than we were supposed to, because the solo miner have received a larger piece of the pie that they should?

No. Miners who weren't solo mining were not affected by the issue at all, and therefore they received no forfeitures. The number of affected miners was only about 1%.

[Morbiduzz]

Sorry Steve, I have solo mined on litecoin from around 19:00 to 24:00 ( GMT+1 ) of 09/13/17 I don't think I earned all that you have forfaited from my balance, if I remember at the 24:00 my balance was around 8$, its impossible that all 8$ where for wrong shares or wrong credit, probably only someone suffered of that problem and not all account, anyway it's not a big problem for me we are speaking of just 8$ only. hope you are able to compesate us with great and powerfull service in the future!

See yaa!

Were you solo mining during previous days?

The total of the forfeitures is about 40% of solo-mined blocks from August 27 to September 13, or your full balance, whichever is greater. This brings solo mining in line with what was promised in the documentation and in the live balances.

It's possible that you were one of the customers who did most of his or her solo mining during previous days and owed a large debt. In that case, you only forfeited what you had on hand and don't owe anything else to the pool, so you can count yourself lucky.

No I doesn't do solo mining before.

[mycide]

40% only... you forfeited all i solo mined... for 2 days when i mined DGB. So these numbers are way off...

[UPSoft]

i was asking you about earns around 30.08 !!! viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2038
all said its ok.. now i spent all money to rent NH and you just took 13000$ to you self! Its your mistake ! Why i lost all my money ??!?!?
take that part you think was extra pay and gimme my blocks!

[Steve Sokolowski]

i was asking you about earns around 30.08 !!! viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2038
all said its ok.. now i spent all money to rent NH and you just took 13000$ to you self! Its your mistake ! Why i lost all my money ??!?!?
take that part you think was extra pay and gimme my blocks!

If it is true that we incorrectly told anyone that the bugged earnings were correct, then we'll reverse the forfeitures for those accounts. If you think that you received an erroneous promise, feel free to submit a support ticket with the proof that Chris or I made an incorrect promise and Chris will investigate it.

[Sunegg]

No. Miners who weren't solo mining were not affected by the issue at all, and therefore they received no forfeitures. The number of affected miners was only about 1%.[/quote]

Thanks for clarifying that, Steve.