I like the idea very much. 10% sounds ok for me, mostly not because of risk associated with variance, but because this pool is going to be used rather by slower miners, so higher server maintenance cost compared to income (many getworks, not so many blocks). Also using bitcoin address as login is very clever.

Hi, could you explain how you calculated these times?

Sorry, I meant I get 620,000khash/s on my 5970.

I'm considering pooled mining since I have to constantly reboot my machine and don't like the "luck" aspect.

Can anyone tell me if it's be more profitous for me to use Slush', or this mining pool, given the "heavy hitter" mining I'm doing?

I'm fairly certain you will get more money from Slush's pool or mining on your own. Here are the benefits of each method, as I see them.

Solo mining
Pros
Simplest method. Complete transparency, fewer possible technical issues. You keep all the money.
Cons
Lots of variability, completely dependent on luck. For CPUs, it's not really worthwhile. Must wait for 100(?) blocks before your generated coin is available.

Slush-like pool
Pros
Less variability, since you only have to find a solution with a difficulty of 1 in order to get a share. Smaller, but more frequent payouts. Should work out to be roughly the same payout over time as solo mining.
Cons
Not as transparent, there a risk that the pool operator is not honest. Other miners gaming the pool could also negatively impact your reward. Must wait for 100(?) blocks before the generated coin is available. More possibility for technical issues.

BitPenny-like pool
Pros
Extremely low variability, since you are getting paid a fixed amount per share, and shares are relatively easy to find. Immediate payout. Transparency is not (I don't think) an issue since you know up front how much per share you should receive, and can keep track of your shares.
Cons
Payouts will by design be lower over time compared to other mining methods. The same possibility for technical issues as other pools.

See this thread: http://bt.irlbtc.com/view/3165.0.  I don't think the threat is realistic at this point, especially since slush has taken measures to reduce the likelihood of this happening.


Slush pays his workers according to the number of shares contributed.  A share is a solution of a low-difficulty hash.  This payout only occurs once a block is generated, however.  BitPenny pays out regardless, under the assumption that the pool will generate a block at some point.  Statistically, the payout should be very close, especially considering the size of slush's pool.  Actually, the payout should be lower from BitPenny's pool since the commission is higher (slush charges 0-6%, your choice).

I could see BitPenny's pool being useful if your CPU is so slow that you have a hard time even solving slush's smaller targets.  Then again, if that's the case, you probably shouldn't be wasting the electricity.  I'd love to see slush implement variable-sized targets.  You could start each worker with an easy target and then gradually increase the difficulty until it reaches some optimal value (for a given hash rate, network latency, etc.).  Or, let the user select individual difficulties for each worker.

minerd, from here: http://bt.irlbtc.com/view/1925.0 seems to work fine with BitPenny:

./minerd -a4way -t8 --url http://bitpenny.dyndns.biz:8332 --userpass 1AaLK8yCgaqUhtmHEkmgfMhWLFSt9MhTLB:xyzzy

(on an 8-cpu Mac Pro. Use the right -t value for your computer.)

Pls separate away the "withdraw to your account" button from "check your balance" one.  :-)

Alright, mining away with dual 5870s and a 5770, I've made about the same amount in 24 hours using bitpenny as I did in slush's pool (going by the 7 day average).

So given that I can withdraw instantly with Bitpenny, I'm gonna stay here. Here's hoping I can acquire some shiny graphs to look at and gloat about how much I'm making daily!

Oh, like a recipient in your address book? Did you just donate 27 bitcoin to someone?

The current payout rate (0.00173091 BTC) is extremely low!