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Unfair advantage for pools with massive hashrate #145

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RustyBlock opened this issue Jan 8, 2018 · 80 comments
Closed

Unfair advantage for pools with massive hashrate #145

RustyBlock opened this issue Jan 8, 2018 · 80 comments

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@RustyBlock
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RustyBlock commented Jan 8, 2018

Hi Electroneum Team, thanks for the great work you are doing. Looking forward to ETN taking over the World soon :)

We are running a small pool at https://www.etn.rustylock.club that was doing quite well until network hash-rate increased and, more importantly, most of the hashing power became concentrated on few pools like Nanopool (https://etn.nanopool.org/) or Spacepools (https://etn.spacepools.org/). Spacepools is much slower now but it was running 100 MH+ before Nanopool started.

Since network speed went significantly up, we observe efficiency of all pools going down, even the big ones report a lot of extra effort (e.g. quite a few high effort %s here https://etn.spacepools.org/#pool_blocks). Even whattomine has a notice about negative luck on ETN mining. I think this is happening because replication of new blocks is taking about the same time it takes to find a new block so network is in constant update mode. Add rebuild operations (caused by forks) to the picture and you can see it looks quite grim. If pool manages to attract about half of the network hashing power or more, this is less of the problem for them because they start with new block immediately after they found the last one and chances are high they get the new one too so other pools have nothing to do but just refresh their daemons without making even one attempt at finding the next block.

Is it possible (or did you even consider this) to make an arbitrary increase of the difficulty to bring block detection time above 5 minutes so all pools have chances to find a new block but not only the ones that occupy 50% of the network hash-rate.

Hope this makes sense and other pool owners will join me in this request.

Kind regards
RustyLock Team

@ghost
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ghost commented Jan 9, 2018

I second this.

1 similar comment
@bet0x
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bet0x commented Jan 10, 2018

I second this.

@cooltaby
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agree our pool died just because not getting any block even with hashing with 150 khs for 48 hours , thats sucks, all moved to mine another coin, too many orphan blocks

@RatusNatus
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"Is it possible (or did you even consider this) to make an arbitrary increase of the difficulty to bring block detection time above 5 minutes so all pools have chances to find a new block but not only the ones that occupy 50% of the network hash-rate."

I think this is a good idea to all starting coins when something like this happens.

@bobbieltd
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Young and small pools are in danger. We need to do something.

@phil2cr
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phil2cr commented Jan 16, 2018

You are right and you can see that also clearly on AEON.

It is true that if the situation continue like that, our pool will also move to others coins !

@phil2cr
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phil2cr commented Jan 16, 2018

I would like to add that:

It is even not in the interest of the big pools to kill littles ones because:

The coin will look 'controled' and centralized so it will loose is value.

And more pools will go to others currencies, more the coin will look centralized. So it is a loose - loose situation.

@phil2cr
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phil2cr commented Jan 16, 2018

@RustyBlock
"Is it possible (or did you even consider this) to make an arbitrary increase of the difficulty to bring block detection time above 5 minutes" How do you think this could be implemented ?

@RustyBlock
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I didn't check the code yet, but there has to be the place where we calculate difficulty, just up it there. How to make sure everyone upgrades to the new version is a real question. Would be a soft fork situation with ETN guys needing to coordinate the upgrade. E.g. nodes upgrade and start "signaling" the new version support but still use old settings. Then when most of the nodes upgraded, switch network to new rules and old nodes stop to function.

@ghost
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ghost commented Jan 16, 2018

This does seem to be a cumbersome task, especially for Electroneum company that is already overwhelmed.
However, it seems either this, or leave everything as is leading to a potential 51% attack. Which could be huge since we are sitting on a $800mln market cap.

Do you think we should submit this to HackerOne as a potential vulnerability?

BTW, has anyone noticed that the link at the bottom of nanopool.org homepage links to website for the Chinese government? If this is indeed related to the Chinese government, we could really be looking at an attempt of 51% attack.

@cooltaby
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we have small pool www.asiaetnpool.com due to many days with 80 khs no block found all moved out now we broke and willing to close or sell it out :( its very hard to hit block

@bet0x bet0x mentioned this issue Jan 16, 2018
@RustyBlock
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@aboljamajem, I don't think there's conspiracy against Electroneum. Currency isn't doing anything yet and it will never be if people learn it was taken over by 51% attack. Link to the government website is just their company registration details, we can relax about 51% issue, however we can see the cases of market abuse by the big players that using the difficulty setting issue.

@dyablohunter
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I agree.

@bobbieltd
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We need a solution for small pools. I suggest a certification system formed by well known devs. They will check if the pool is sincere with the codes so miners are not worried when they want to mine with small pools. Avoiding scam pools too.

@ra-dave
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ra-dave commented Jan 16, 2018

You want to slow down everyone's transactions so that your little pool can gain an advantage (which it wouldn't anyway). Brilliant.

@bet0x
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bet0x commented Jan 16, 2018

No, we want to avoid big pools taking everything, simple as that.

@RustyBlock
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RustyBlock commented Jan 16, 2018

There is no such thing as "big pool", any pool can become big if they throw lot of money at nicehash or somehow attract a lot of mining power elsewhere, not important. It's not a problem, it's ok to have big pools (not more than 51% though). More of them is better for the currecny - it gets stable hashrate. The problem is the mismatch between network's time to find a block and network's time to sync up. Now it's almost the same or network sync time is even longer so all miners get affetced - big and small but big are "less affected" or even have advantage since they can build new blocks on top of their own so network sync delay doesn't matter for them.

@bobbieltd
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I know that Grimm2017 points to block time and network difficulty but it doesn’t matter here. The principal issue is that small pools are dying.

@RustyBlock
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RustyBlock commented Jan 16, 2018

Yes, my suggestion is to slow everyone to the network rate. What's the point in finding blocks faster than we can get them synced around all blockchain? Also creates lot of issues for users of the blockchain who can get their transactions included in the chain that gets killed due to the softforks caused by this crazy speed that network can't handle. It's a mess now.

@phil2cr
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phil2cr commented Jan 17, 2018

@RustyBlock or make a fork or an other currency with quality in mind.

@oliverw
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oliverw commented Jan 17, 2018

We endorse this proposal as well. This has become a problem with many coins lately, not just this one.

https://coinfoundry.org/pool/etn

@ch-ill
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ch-ill commented Jan 17, 2018

Honestly what is the incentive to start a pool yourself after seeing something like this?

@phil2cr
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phil2cr commented Jan 17, 2018

Yes, and there is more. Lot's of little pool decrease the fees. but without gaining more H/s.

One more easy solution could be pooling for new crypto, that way, making the currency less credible for a time. Is it is well explained to miner they could follow. Little pools could recommand new cryptos and if miner are confident it is good for every body.
As peer electroneum, the communication seems, how to say ? Ambigous at least.

@ghost
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ghost commented Jan 17, 2018

@phil2cr I actually did start a pool for GRAFT(GRF) graftmine.net while keeping electromine.net running on 0% fees and no blocks since 10 days.

Once Electroneum fix this issue, I will recommend for users to jump back in.

@phil2cr
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phil2cr commented Jan 17, 2018

In my opinion ETN was launched too quickly. Could be a good value in some years.
and yes you are right, i will also go to other crypto.

@Zer0dn
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Zer0dn commented Jan 18, 2018

Let me get this straight.
You complain that you want the creators of the coin to control how it is mined and how it pays out?
That is a centralized problem which defeats the purpose of blockchain at its very core.
If you had read the technical white papers the entirety of your blockchain solution and payout equations are in there. As for the pools that have the most you are correct however it is an inevitable issue where a site will have a problem and the miners will bail to another pool. That is how SpacePools grew so large because the early pools had issues and they were the only ones not having it and they had a low pool fee.
That said I run my own pool as well. In a few months this argument will however become irrelevant as the startup pools that could not wait with no miners will have become impatient and quit.
I have developed my own strategies to make my pool valuable to the coin. Do the same for yours if you want it to remain alive. It takes marketing, innovating, and above all good operations.

@ghost
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ghost commented Jan 18, 2018

No, we ask the developers to implement safety features that prevents/discourages transforming the decentralized solution to a centralized one

@Pinto85
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Pinto85 commented Feb 5, 2018

I saw this pool http://poolmining.network/etn/, how is it possible that it took so many blocks with a hashrate so low?
I would just like to understand better, thanks

@RustyBlock
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@Pinto85, see all payments made to one miner and number of hashes submitted is quite high despite the current speed and number of miners connected. Most likely this guy is using nicehash to buy bursts of very high speed so blocks are found quickly. Anyone can do it but you can also check and calculate his real profits which is likely negative so he is doing it for making long term gains while suffering short term losses.

@bobbieltd
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@Pinto85 : That pool is FAKE and SCAM. If you carefully look at blocks found, they are WEIRD and NOT CORRECT. Cheating newbie miners 🤪🤪🤪

@bobbieltd
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Does anyone have a solution for young small pool ? My semiPOOL can’t compete with big pools 😰😰😰. Only few miners. Situation is worsen because luck keeps bad.

@cl0ck3r
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cl0ck3r commented Feb 15, 2018

Electroneum is an shit coin!

@Pinto85
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Pinto85 commented Feb 26, 2018

I tested my pool for over 24 hours with 100Kh but no block found.
There is something wrong @electroneum

@bobbieltd
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@Pinto85 100 kH/s is too low to find a block in 24 hours. It’s normal.

@mounirrquiba
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mounirrquiba commented Mar 20, 2018

Hello @RustyBlock @aboljamajem @bet0x @cooltaby @RatusNatus @electroneumRepo i have do some tests after this issue posted results:

With 9.9MH/s for 24h -> 2 blocks
With 5 MHs fot 24H -> 1 block
With less -> no block

all blocks found at diff 7000 - 7200 ..

I have changed maxDiff from 2000 to 700000 but nothing happen better,
pool -> http://etncoin-pool.org

ps: lost a lot of coins for this test... +2BTC

Happy Mining!

@MrCoolLV
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@Pinto85 i agree with you, 120 pumped 120kh/s for 5 days and no block this all started happing "after" etn crash, soon after the rebuild no more blocks after the crash.. before the crash was fine block per day or other day

@reaperx7
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The pool I frequent, pool.hashusa.win has hit a heavy block for about a month now without a solve. It's getting worse. We were getting about 35kh/s and a block every 5-7 days. Since the big update, we have only gotten about 2kh/s and the block time has been over a month.

We can't compete against nicehash, and bigger pools hauling in hundreds of kh/s in power. Most of us have switched to the Android miner to get anything, but getting 10 ETN takes forever.

I don't want to say it but the block difficulty for larger pools needs to be adjusted so these pools averaging the rates they are getting get higher difficulty blocks while smaller pools get easier ones.

@reaperx7
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If anything, I'm mining GRF (graft) now. Its still cryptonote based so just some minor adjustments and I'm good to go.

@MrCoolLV
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I agree same issue with my pool, must of our miners now moved on because of the block issues from the big update

@reaperx7
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reaperx7 commented Mar 21, 2018 via email

@Pinto85
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Pinto85 commented Mar 23, 2018

i understand that @electroneum is only marketing

@mounirrquiba
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Ok, let's try good diff coins: https://bbscoin.xyz or https://stellite.cash/

Happy Mining ;)

@RustyBlock @aboljamajem @bet0x @cooltaby @RatusNatus @Panthro @perl5577 @Pinto85 @phil2cr @PhillipVoyle 👍

@mobias
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mobias commented May 1, 2018

@RustyBlock Please look at this electroneum/electroneum#197

@reaperx7
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reaperx7 commented May 1, 2018 via email

@mobias
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mobias commented May 1, 2018

We also close our pool because Nanopool has 51% hashing power.

@reaperx7
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reaperx7 commented May 1, 2018 via email

@oliverw
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oliverw commented May 1, 2018

By now it should be pretty obvious that the people behind this project don't give a damn about a healthy mining ecosystem.

@reaperx7
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reaperx7 commented May 1, 2018 via email

@MrCoolLV
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MrCoolLV commented May 1, 2018

Yup, and is ok I won't be coming back to ETN

@reaperx7
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reaperx7 commented May 1, 2018 via email

@RustyBlock
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In the new release (after 30th of May) we are getting 2 minutes for the block. Not 5, if course, but still good.
Mind that issie with block time is separate from asics problem. I started this request before aby asics arrived.
Block timing of 1 minute is not a good choice because it's almost equal to the time needed to propagate the block data to most of the nodes. This means big part of the hashing power goes wasted, working for a block that is gone already, or creating orphans.

New update introduces 2 minutes block time and revised block reward because now miners will be finding blocks less often.
Combined with anti-asic measures, it will be awesome for the community.

@reaperx7
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reaperx7 commented May 1, 2018 via email

@mobias
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mobias commented May 1, 2018

5 Minutes is a good choice.

@mobias
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mobias commented May 1, 2018

after 30 May ETN network hashrate equal to 100 MH/s then we need to change time to 5 mins.

@RustyBlock
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Issue is addressed in the v2 release. Thank you for listening!

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