Brief restart today or tomorrow
Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2015 9:01 am
We'll be issuing a 5-minute mining server restart this afternoon or tomorrow afternoon to improve our orphan rate calculations, which will improve profitability by better selecting coins to mine.
The problem to be corrected is that orphaned blocks are weighted evenly no matter how long ago they occurred, and then they drop off the queue after 28 days. That means that bad network conditions for a coin can raise its orphan rate so high that it is no longer profitable. Then, as good blocks are removed due to age, the orphan rate actually increases, meaning that such coins won't be mined again for 28 days.
Now, we will have a linear decline, so that orphaned and matured blocks count more the closer they are to the present.
The problem to be corrected is that orphaned blocks are weighted evenly no matter how long ago they occurred, and then they drop off the queue after 28 days. That means that bad network conditions for a coin can raise its orphan rate so high that it is no longer profitable. Then, as good blocks are removed due to age, the orphan rate actually increases, meaning that such coins won't be mined again for 28 days.
Now, we will have a linear decline, so that orphaned and matured blocks count more the closer they are to the present.