I am beginning to wonder.  My estimated reward for this long-ass block keeps dropping, despite my constant hash rate.  What's to stop a pool owner from keeping a block for himself?

yeah XD

I have faith in you Auspician

 /ehug

Hej guys,

I feel like i'm letting you down, the first few days where like a roller coaster ride. 2 blocks, from 4 to 10ghash, then from 10 to 20, and only last night we where peaking above 70Ghs.

If only the blocks would keep coming in... I feel that now is the time, more then ever to stick to our cause. To grow and be the best pool ever.
I try to be clear in everything that we do, be 'fun' by doing incentives, and to be profitable by redistributing some of the income that we could get by taking a fee.

I can really understand that some of you are getting jumpy about this next block, but i am sure that it cannot be that far off ! I will keep motivating you guys buy doing plenty of actions, and by being here for you on the forum when you need me.

What started for me as a hobby, went way beyond that, i would even go as far as saying that we are now the triplemining family !

Hang in there ! Your patience will pay off.

MrSam,
Yours truly

Doesn't matter, IMO. A block's value is more than most small pool owners would ever make in fees during the lifespan of the site.

I've been in two small time pools that stole the first mined block & shut down their website. Not a big deal back then considering the block was worth just a few dozen bucks; Now the financial motive is $750 dollars for no work on your part beside hosting a half-assed site.

I'm not implying Sam is such a person, I'm saying the motivation is definitely there.
If not blatantly stealing & running away, then just taking the block & claiming you are undergoing an "unlucky round due to variance" and hoping the miners will just keep mining for you. You get 50 BTC and they'll never know about it.

Big site operators have zero motive for this because they'll make 50 BTC legit with their fees in the span of a normal operating day. They don't need foul play and will actually lose money in the long term if caught. Small pool ops have no reputation or business to lose. They'll make 2-5 BTC off pool fees in a few months if they're lucky.

Meni Rosenfeld or someone else on the forum came up with the idea of SMPPS, or Shared Maximum Pay Per Share system.

You should read up on it, it makes smaller pools practically scam-proof and gives incentive to keep mining even during bad luck streaks. Your share value doesn't depreciate the longer the round becomes, like in a proportional system.

Arsbitcoin and a few other medium sized pools already use the system. The idea of a share buffer means you get paid exactly for the amount of work you do, even if there isn't currently enough BTC to pay for it. In other words, it gives long term immunity against variance unless everyone suddenly stops mining.

Pure PPS is rare because it takes thousands of bitcoins from the pool op as a safety mechanism. I don't know of many sites besides deepbit that have it, and they take a 10% fee for the zero variance you get in return. Tycho can only afford it because his pool has 4-5000ghash/s.

I give up; I'm leaving.  The benefits of this pool aren't worthwhile.  If I wanted wild variance in my mining performance, I'd solo.  It's been fun.  Lates!

I'd suggest doing this right away.  It would earn our members trust and faith in the system.

Showing a transaction list for one address or an entire wallet doesn't mean anything.  That's the beauty (and beast) of the anonymity built into Bitcoins.  He could have half a million other addresses.

I'm not saying MrSam is dishonest.  I'm just saying it would be easy for him to be dishonest.  I can't accept that kind of risk while I'm trying to pay off my investment.  Maybe I'll come back when I'm in the black.

Truth, with some more hash power or maybe blocks that are, I don't know, sub 5 million shares, this pool could really blow up. Unfortunately you have to start small to get big and there is a mixture of fate and hate that is holding this pool back. It's hurting me too, so if something doesn't happen soon I may have to duck out, temporarily at least.