Prohashing's role in altcoin networks
Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2015 8:44 am
There are a number of queries that should be made publicly available on the charts page, but for which there never seems to be a way to justify the time adding new graphs. Every feature we add needs to be able to pass two tests. First, will it earn more money than it will cost to maintain, or, will it earn more money through attracting new customers than it costs to maintain? Second, will it earn more than would something else that we could have implemented in that same amount of time? It's rare that a website feature can pass these two questions, which is why most of our efforts are concentrated on the mining and trading systems.
Rather than let these queries rot in Subversion source control indefinitely, it's nice to run them occasionally, because sometimes the data changes and the changes can enlighten us to the behavior of some aspects of this complicated system. Chris likes to joke, truthfuly, that our system has grown so complex that he can't understand even 1% of the decisions it is making. Coin selection involves so many factors that one of the few ways to figure out whether the system is working properly is to simply review the results and see whether the system's choices are sensible. To that end, we thought it might be interesting to determine what proportion of each coin's network our pool is mining.
For us, this query is important because it shows us how large we can possibly grow. For example, you'll see that we currenly mine 0.38% of the litecoin network's blocks. Since many pools in the past have reached 10% market share, and Discus Fish currently has 49% LTC market share, that means that we should be able to grow our profit 10-100x what it currently is, even if we didn't mine other algorithms or expand into other services. To us, this potential is more than enough to justify Chris's continuation as a full-time employee. This also explains why we are not pushing towards mining other algorithms immediately; firms that expand too quickly before mastering their core business often fail.
Here is the full list:
This list is sorted where the networks on which we have the greatest influence are on top, and the networks upon which we have the least influence are at the bottom. Only scrypt networks are listed. The figures are valid from the first block we mined after October 11 up to the most recent block mined, or November 16, whichever is earlier. In some cases, such as on fast networks that were only profitable to mine for a short period, our influence was overstated, so we have limited the results only to coins that we mined for a period of at least one day. About 70% of this hashrate is used to mine the dogecoin network, but obtaining the exact proportion of the dogecoin network for which we are responsible is too CPU-intensive. I estimate the Dogecoin proportion is probably 1.5-2%.
The query reveals some interesting statistics. One conclusion that stands out is that we are responsible for a significant proportion of many networks' hashrate, but we only exceed 50% for 20 of the 165 coins we mine. That's because we limit the number of miners assigned to a coin at once. Besides being mean, destroying coin networks is not in our best interest and limiting huge spikes in difficulty benefits everyone.
Second, with the obvious exception of some networks like Litecoin, the hashrate of a network seems to be a less significant factor in determining a coin's profitability. Instead, the mining stability of a coin depends on the number of exchanges at which it is listed. The coins for which we can mine the most blocks are listed on multiple exchanges. Coins listed on just one exchange are unstable, have continuous and large variations in price and difficulty, and are at risk of becoming worthless at any time if their exchange wallets are locked.
I'd be interested if the owners of these coins would register and share their thoughts. We want to work with altcoin developers to make networks more stable and successful, and feedback is welcome.
In a future post, I plan to examine the relationship between our trades and coin prices.
Rather than let these queries rot in Subversion source control indefinitely, it's nice to run them occasionally, because sometimes the data changes and the changes can enlighten us to the behavior of some aspects of this complicated system. Chris likes to joke, truthfuly, that our system has grown so complex that he can't understand even 1% of the decisions it is making. Coin selection involves so many factors that one of the few ways to figure out whether the system is working properly is to simply review the results and see whether the system's choices are sensible. To that end, we thought it might be interesting to determine what proportion of each coin's network our pool is mining.
For us, this query is important because it shows us how large we can possibly grow. For example, you'll see that we currenly mine 0.38% of the litecoin network's blocks. Since many pools in the past have reached 10% market share, and Discus Fish currently has 49% LTC market share, that means that we should be able to grow our profit 10-100x what it currently is, even if we didn't mine other algorithms or expand into other services. To us, this potential is more than enough to justify Chris's continuation as a full-time employee. This also explains why we are not pushing towards mining other algorithms immediately; firms that expand too quickly before mastering their core business often fail.
Here is the full list:
| Coin name | Our blocks | Total blocks | Fraction | Start date | End date | Length in days |
| Marscoin | 18468 | 20931 | 0.882327647986241 | 2015-10-07 19:51:42.092215-04 | 2015-11-16 18:17:00.639084-05 | 39 |
| LocalFamilyOwnedcoin | 4232 | 5157 | 0.820632150475082 | 2015-10-26 02:59:23.606638-04 | 2015-11-10 17:53:55.692678-05 | 15 |
| Guarany | 13220 | 16696 | 0.791806420699569 | 2015-10-08 09:54:44.281995-04 | 2015-11-15 11:02:44.445103-05 | 38 |
| Compucoin | 23752 | 30462 | 0.779725559713742 | 2015-10-23 00:20:56.295814-04 | 2015-11-16 21:54:32.295942-05 | 24 |
| Aliencoin | 2355 | 3175 | 0.741732283464567 | 2015-10-08 09:44:43.233822-04 | 2015-11-05 21:49:03.891703-05 | 28 |
| Nyancoin | 42496 | 57302 | 0.741614603329727 | 2015-10-07 19:45:31.834814-04 | 2015-11-16 22:21:26.30187-05 | 40 |
| Donationcoin | 22454 | 31410 | 0.714867876472461 | 2015-10-07 19:56:18.777138-04 | 2015-11-15 19:54:39.00179-05 | 39 |
| CryptoEscudo | 20387 | 28943 | 0.704384479839685 | 2015-10-07 19:36:57.553752-04 | 2015-11-16 21:14:40.524527-05 | 40 |
| NewYorkcoin | 78018 | 114514 | 0.681296610021482 | 2015-10-07 19:38:02.172861-04 | 2015-11-16 22:05:36.562123-05 | 40 |
| CryptographicAnomaly | 14176 | 22584 | 0.627701027275948 | 2015-10-07 19:35:04.745745-04 | 2015-11-16 20:10:55.190212-05 | 40 |
| Batcoin | 9843 | 16190 | 0.607967881408277 | 2015-10-08 07:16:30.516251-04 | 2015-11-09 03:43:29.895201-05 | 31 |
| Pakcoin | 8925 | 14976 | 0.595953525641026 | 2015-10-23 00:22:05.203107-04 | 2015-11-16 18:21:02.412762-05 | 24 |
| Polishcoin | 6965 | 12105 | 0.575382073523337 | 2015-10-23 00:21:18.809905-04 | 2015-11-11 15:25:31.401376-05 | 19 |
| Virtacoin | 4069 | 7159 | 0.568375471434558 | 2015-10-07 19:36:26.286025-04 | 2015-11-16 21:18:26.295915-05 | 40 |
| Casinocoin | 21293 | 38787 | 0.548972593910331 | 2015-10-07 19:36:45.679795-04 | 2015-11-09 03:48:23.102596-05 | 32 |
| Craftcoin | 14461 | 26718 | 0.541245602215735 | 2015-10-07 23:15:53.057994-04 | 2015-11-08 17:13:15.246626-05 | 31 |
| Trollcoin | 3919 | 7435 | 0.527101546738399 | 2015-10-07 20:22:02.3379-04 | 2015-11-16 19:54:12.824167-05 | 40 |
| Mooncoin | 17560 | 34464 | 0.509517177344475 | 2015-10-07 19:41:11.434491-04 | 2015-11-13 02:24:34.817696-05 | 36 |
| Auroracoin | 4756 | 9471 | 0.502164502164502 | 2015-10-07 20:23:49.055928-04 | 2015-11-09 03:49:39.475205-05 | 32 |
| YACcoin | 8144 | 16588 | 0.490957318543525 | 2015-10-23 19:01:52.60106-04 | 2015-11-15 12:52:41.182117-05 | 22 |
| USDe | 22508 | 46078 | 0.488476062329094 | 2015-10-07 19:35:11.21091-04 | 2015-11-09 02:43:08.680179-05 | 32 |
| Corgicoin | 8017 | 16415 | 0.48839476088943 | 2015-10-29 15:50:17.629912-04 | 2015-11-15 10:14:33.726287-05 | 16 |
| Bata | 17591 | 36172 | 0.486315382063475 | 2015-10-07 19:35:04.280808-04 | 2015-11-16 17:13:48.44732-05 | 39 |
| eGulden | 13243 | 27720 | 0.477741702741703 | 2015-10-07 20:18:55.85226-04 | 2015-11-16 22:21:54.515161-05 | 40 |
| RonPaulcoin | 7158 | 15378 | 0.465470152165431 | 2015-10-07 21:32:44.011421-04 | 2015-11-09 03:49:39.271188-05 | 32 |
| Bellacoin | 10419 | 23034 | 0.452331336285491 | 2015-10-07 19:35:51.439009-04 | 2015-11-16 18:07:45.642062-05 | 39 |
| Omnicoin | 7791 | 17580 | 0.443174061433447 | 2015-10-07 19:46:58.989946-04 | 2015-11-16 19:33:32.469308-05 | 40 |
| Anoncoin | 6775 | 15532 | 0.436196240020603 | 2015-10-07 19:40:54.977138-04 | 2015-11-09 03:32:31.742825-05 | 32 |
| Vegascoin | 23642 | 55142 | 0.428747597112908 | 2015-10-23 00:21:40.362558-04 | 2015-11-16 22:22:30.408323-05 | 24 |
| Irishcoin | 211 | 496 | 0.425403225806452 | 2015-10-07 21:23:19.21766-04 | 2015-11-07 11:51:28.705268-05 | 30 |
| Paranoiacoin | 15150 | 35645 | 0.425024547622387 | 2015-10-08 05:11:22.103114-04 | 2015-11-16 12:40:06.191553-05 | 39 |
| Cagecoin | 18290 | 43684 | 0.418688764765131 | 2015-10-07 19:35:41.216953-04 | 2015-11-16 21:47:29.402731-05 | 40 |
| Stablecoin | 3112 | 7434 | 0.418617164379876 | 2015-10-07 21:07:28.994038-04 | 2015-11-16 22:14:35.983356-05 | 40 |
| HeisenbergHex | 32485 | 79230 | 0.410008835037233 | 2015-10-07 19:34:44.244946-04 | 2015-11-16 22:15:20.163439-05 | 40 |
| Cypherfunk | 6519 | 16469 | 0.395834598336268 | 2015-10-23 00:27:19.584857-04 | 2015-11-16 20:40:27.450614-05 | 24 |
| Peoplecoin | 11955 | 30370 | 0.393645044451762 | 2015-10-08 14:52:53.042747-04 | 2015-11-16 18:06:30.953157-05 | 39 |
| Spot | 14037 | 35879 | 0.391231639677806 | 2015-10-07 20:14:03.491139-04 | 2015-11-16 20:18:03.796374-05 | 40 |
| 1CRedit | 582 | 1544 | 0.376943005181347 | 2015-10-07 21:37:51.965618-04 | 2015-11-07 16:26:41.978326-05 | 30 |
| Extremecoin | 2144 | 5902 | 0.363266689257879 | 2015-10-23 11:04:03.473647-04 | 2015-11-16 21:42:28.587825-05 | 24 |
| Kittehcoin | 9826 | 28847 | 0.340624675009533 | 2015-10-07 19:35:03.963445-04 | 2015-11-08 13:16:15.964908-05 | 31 |
| CHNcoin | 11793 | 35506 | 0.332141046583676 | 2015-10-07 19:37:14.115533-04 | 2015-11-04 07:53:20.055484-05 | 27 |
| Florincoin | 20873 | 64750 | 0.322362934362934 | 2015-10-07 19:38:36.985714-04 | 2015-11-16 20:14:00.605244-05 | 40 |
| Ivugeocoin | 16633 | 52183 | 0.318743652147251 | 2015-10-08 00:53:04.512994-04 | 2015-11-16 22:23:51.543783-05 | 39 |
| Monetacoin | 576 | 1858 | 0.310010764262648 | 2015-11-15 12:58:44.166802-05 | 2015-11-16 21:27:10.066602-05 | 1 |
| Moneycoin | 17520 | 57607 | 0.304129706459284 | 2015-10-23 00:23:29.933451-04 | 2015-11-16 21:55:39.954963-05 | 24 |
| Sexcoin | 16840 | 57483 | 0.292956178348381 | 2015-10-07 19:34:57.720287-04 | 2015-11-16 20:23:53.234218-05 | 40 |
| Catcoin | 674 | 2313 | 0.291396454820579 | 2015-10-07 22:39:10.101812-04 | 2015-11-09 03:37:13.950529-05 | 32 |
| Gamerscoin | 5619 | 19719 | 0.28495359805264 | 2015-10-07 19:53:48.359906-04 | 2015-11-16 19:10:18.648697-05 | 40 |
| Coino | 22714 | 83863 | 0.270846499648236 | 2015-10-23 00:22:03.896839-04 | 2015-11-16 16:47:47.469435-05 | 24 |
| Dotcoin | 5893 | 23758 | 0.24804276454247 | 2015-10-23 00:40:25.725104-04 | 2015-11-16 19:59:26.392362-05 | 24 |
| Aricoin | 4260 | 17520 | 0.243150684931507 | 2015-10-07 19:41:27.523915-04 | 2015-11-16 20:06:16.93855-05 | 40 |
| Grandcoin | 4342 | 18147 | 0.23926819860032 | 2015-10-07 20:00:42.556036-04 | 2015-11-16 00:01:49.435539-05 | 39 |
| Klondikecoin | 620 | 2684 | 0.230998509687034 | 2015-10-08 08:50:23.81495-04 | 2015-11-04 18:56:27.571292-05 | 27 |
| AsianInvestmentBond | 3919 | 18251 | 0.214727960111775 | 2015-10-08 20:07:30.99559-04 | 2015-10-25 17:37:23.447119-04 | 16 |
| Ripoffcoin | 2839 | 13238 | 0.214458377398399 | 2015-10-09 20:02:24.371494-04 | 2015-11-03 02:22:04.176639-05 | 24 |
| Binarycoin | 19735 | 92456 | 0.21345288569698 | 2015-10-23 00:21:44.18821-04 | 2015-11-16 05:07:20.661942-05 | 24 |
| BitcoinHashCore | 488 | 2308 | 0.211438474870017 | 2015-10-17 03:32:48.002411-04 | 2015-10-29 02:56:51.477229-04 | 11 |
| Tittiecoin | 2957 | 14856 | 0.199044157242865 | 2015-10-08 05:41:11.676892-04 | 2015-11-16 17:46:25.565615-05 | 39 |
| Lycancoin | 2513 | 13336 | 0.188437312537492 | 2015-10-13 02:07:23.675011-04 | 2015-11-06 13:00:42.864357-05 | 24 |
| Popularcoin | 8158 | 49110 | 0.166116880472409 | 2015-10-07 19:52:19.164885-04 | 2015-11-08 23:02:16.950441-05 | 32 |
| Speccoin | 69 | 422 | 0.163507109004739 | 2015-10-15 14:27:37.507649-04 | 2015-11-10 08:12:56.858509-05 | 25 |
| WildBeastBitcoin | 8138 | 50467 | 0.161253888679731 | 2015-10-07 19:40:55.760702-04 | 2015-11-16 20:38:57.428912-05 | 40 |
| Emerald | 20065 | 127739 | 0.157078104572605 | 2015-10-07 19:36:49.331013-04 | 2015-11-09 03:32:49.130831-05 | 32 |
| Spartancoin | 2412 | 15647 | 0.15415095545472 | 2015-10-23 03:51:35.656843-04 | 2015-11-16 20:18:02.016025-05 | 24 |
| Gabencoin | 1672 | 11001 | 0.151986183074266 | 2015-10-24 17:28:59.956069-04 | 2015-11-02 22:04:44.23272-05 | 9 |
| Bongger | 4221 | 32760 | 0.128846153846154 | 2015-10-28 22:20:09.338785-04 | 2015-11-16 20:41:18.343397-05 | 18 |
| Parallelcoin | 625 | 5125 | 0.121951219512195 | 2015-10-23 00:20:44.264235-04 | 2015-11-16 02:10:23.711034-05 | 24 |
| Guldencoin | 1661 | 15662 | 0.106052866811391 | 2015-10-07 20:05:35.737898-04 | 2015-11-16 15:59:38.785616-05 | 39 |
| Fedoracoin | 4618 | 44031 | 0.10488065226772 | 2015-10-07 19:34:33.33847-04 | 2015-11-07 12:34:14.305749-05 | 30 |
| Earthcoin | 3769 | 38248 | 0.0985411001882451 | 2015-10-07 19:35:33.187758-04 | 2015-11-09 03:30:32.362001-05 | 32 |
| Penguincoin | 896 | 9480 | 0.0945147679324894 | 2015-10-23 00:24:39.04288-04 | 2015-11-15 11:02:26.146264-05 | 23 |
| Mincoin | 1280 | 13604 | 0.0940899735371949 | 2015-10-08 03:50:14.936088-04 | 2015-11-08 21:41:29.160638-05 | 31 |
| Blazecoin | 3644 | 52198 | 0.0698111038737116 | 2015-10-24 13:28:32.871494-04 | 2015-11-16 07:49:40.939856-05 | 22 |
| Megacoin | 759 | 11358 | 0.0668251452720549 | 2015-10-17 03:50:31.605604-04 | 2015-11-16 09:32:38.074939-05 | 30 |
| BitcoinScrypt | 196 | 2953 | 0.0663731798171351 | 2015-10-25 18:13:10.179103-04 | 2015-11-01 23:05:39.443777-05 | 7 |
| Quatloo | 588 | 10066 | 0.0584144645340751 | 2015-10-07 20:59:42.000492-04 | 2015-11-16 17:02:35.387687-05 | 39 |
| Globalcoin | 3007 | 69017 | 0.0435689757595955 | 2015-10-07 23:05:56.49555-04 | 2015-11-09 03:44:25.676817-05 | 32 |
| Galaxycoin | 5 | 142 | 0.0352112676056338 | 2015-10-27 10:22:10.704965-04 | 2015-11-05 17:23:08.849522-05 | 9 |
| EZcoin | 53 | 1558 | 0.034017971758665 | 2015-10-23 03:28:39.924138-04 | 2015-11-09 00:47:00.029212-05 | 16 |
| Bunnycoin | 1212 | 39571 | 0.0306284905612696 | 2015-10-12 02:13:43.026927-04 | 2015-11-16 14:38:05.826586-05 | 35 |
| Genstake | 51 | 1854 | 0.0275080906148867 | 2015-11-15 14:31:17.180079-05 | 2015-11-16 21:56:05.468898-05 | 1 |
| Prospercoin | 264 | 12228 | 0.0215897939156035 | 2015-10-10 05:57:44.800156-04 | 2015-11-15 18:00:49.529705-05 | 36 |
| Digitalcoin | 930 | 70677 | 0.0131584532450444 | 2015-10-07 20:27:51.697823-04 | 2015-11-16 21:46:59.388257-05 | 40 |
| SJWcoin | 214 | 18900 | 0.0113227513227513 | 2015-10-26 09:20:15.858004-04 | 2015-11-16 11:59:07.082476-05 | 21 |
| Luckycoin | 183 | 35209 | 0.00519753472123605 | 2015-10-07 20:43:41.634509-04 | 2015-11-08 16:34:59.761188-05 | 31 |
| Nocturnacoin | 3 | 735 | 0.00408163265306122 | 2015-11-15 15:31:21.036471-05 | 2015-11-16 18:19:10.290027-05 | 1 |
| Litecoin | 77 | 21467 | 0.00358690082452136 | 2015-10-10 02:06:34.208788-04 | 2015-11-16 10:30:26.627211-05 | 37 |
| DNote | 39 | 40745 | 0.00095717265922199 | 2015-10-09 18:27:37.691205-04 | 2015-11-07 01:57:33.095859-05 | 28 |
| Joincoin | 36 | 53798 | 0.000669169857615525 | 2015-10-09 18:06:04.965951-04 | 2015-11-16 20:52:49.162573-05 | 38 |
| Infinitecoin | 36 | 102530 | 0.000351116746318151 | 2015-10-07 22:39:11.347893-04 | 2015-11-14 13:09:25.919543-05 | 37 |
| Goldcoin | 4 | 14020 | 0.000285306704707561 | 2015-10-13 15:12:51.882495-04 | 2015-11-07 17:44:42.386534-05 | 25 |
| Razorcoin | 2 | 7447 | 0.000268564522626561 | 2015-10-24 20:03:41.460723-04 | 2015-11-04 01:58:33.753253-05 | 10 |
| Worldcoin | 6 | 28711 | 0.000208979136916165 | 2015-10-17 00:27:42.211466-04 | 2015-10-29 17:52:12.336752-04 | 12 |
| Digibyte | 5 | 69892 | 7.15389458020947e-05 | 2015-10-19 19:36:40.443719-04 | 2015-11-13 02:47:04.760945-05 | 24 |
The query reveals some interesting statistics. One conclusion that stands out is that we are responsible for a significant proportion of many networks' hashrate, but we only exceed 50% for 20 of the 165 coins we mine. That's because we limit the number of miners assigned to a coin at once. Besides being mean, destroying coin networks is not in our best interest and limiting huge spikes in difficulty benefits everyone.
Second, with the obvious exception of some networks like Litecoin, the hashrate of a network seems to be a less significant factor in determining a coin's profitability. Instead, the mining stability of a coin depends on the number of exchanges at which it is listed. The coins for which we can mine the most blocks are listed on multiple exchanges. Coins listed on just one exchange are unstable, have continuous and large variations in price and difficulty, and are at risk of becoming worthless at any time if their exchange wallets are locked.
I'd be interested if the owners of these coins would register and share their thoughts. We want to work with altcoin developers to make networks more stable and successful, and feedback is welcome.
In a future post, I plan to examine the relationship between our trades and coin prices.
