PPC is lower difficulty but I don't think it will be (much) more profitable than mining BTC at a BTC-pool. If I may suggest NastyFans Mining could join one of the best pools there is: kano.is. Kano has a good vision on Bitcoin and mining, he runs his pool very good and with transparant and open communication. The pool is also very stable and rather small which keeps decentralized in a way. For more info about his pool check his thread: https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/789369.0

kano is a for-profit pool operator.  I don't think it aligns with our principles to mine that way.

I have admittedly not researched what other pools are doing in quite some time.  There are many other factors than just operator fee, but I would like to think that 0% fee pools still exist.  Is ELIGIUS still 0% fee?

I feel like that would be a bad bet.  I did decide to do some testing with the Avalon6.  I pointed it at a PPC pool for a bit to see how that process would work (resulting in this donation) and it is currently pointed at Eligius.

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UPDATE:

The first gold highlighted Minted Seat has been shipped. 

I have successfully engraved the first silver 2oz Minted Seat.

The 2oz .9999 Gold Minted Seats have sold out.  This will result in a $5,000 donation to NastyFans.

I would also like to explore the issue with member accounts on suspension.  It appears as though there are members who have been on suspension indefinitely.  I think we should explore enforcement of the termination policy.  However, I feel that the current policy is too harsh.  I would like to motion for a poll to extend the term of each probation/suspension/termination period in the NastyFans policy from 90 days to 1 year.  Thoughts?

I wouldn't say I've "decided" on Eligius.  I've done very little besides check out the interface and point a miner there.  I am testing it out to see how the experience is.  Coins are currently being mined to: 1NFovp71B2b1e4DTvLAeN7WXETrJ6u1PdA and 100% will be donated to NastyFans.



Agreed.



Agreed.  I'm sure there will be a poll in the future for this.



There are 2 reasons why the split is currently 75/25.  One is that the donated coins aren't exclusively from mining.  Recently, silver sales have played a much larger role in the distributions.  I believe silver sales should largely be paid out to the seats, so the 75/25 split represents that belief.  The other reason is that I pay 100% of the electricity costs out of my own pocket.  We could spend 100% of the coins on expanding the mining operation and even do funding rounds to get us up to 1PH/s.  However, without first securing something like solar energy to pay for said expansion, I would go bankrupt from electricity costs and it would be game over.  I have been toying with the idea of selling off a large portion of my personal holdings in order to pay for a solar array, as this has been my wish from day 1 and would benefit the organization as a whole in many ways from decentralizing ownership to giving us a responsible "green" reputation.  I'm just not sure the best way to go about doing so.  I think an 85 BTC investment would put NastyMining in a position where we could have room to expand and be able to take advantage of older cheaper equipment.  Perhaps that is something I will put more effort into exploring once the gold coins have been produced.  If there is anyone out there looking to make a large investment (5+ BTC only), please let me know and I will keep you in the loop if a funding opportunity does become available.  Currently, an 85 BTC purchase on the auction is a bit unrealistic due to the result it would have on the seat price, so large potential NastyFans seat owners have been discouraged from entering the market.  This could be a good opportunity to hop in without that concern.  This organization can grow as large as we'd like it to be, but it must be done correctly to ensure that it is sustainable long term.  I do not want to be put in the position where a personal financial hardship or profitability concerns result in scaling back current operations.  I believe solar is the best way to address those concerns and feel there is no better organization to carry this long term responsibility.

I believe there are a few good options out there to switch mining to besides P2pool.  I understand the appeal of decentralized mining, but unfortunately the hashrate doesn't seem quite high enough to lend enough support to that idea.  I think we could be really well off supporting one of the pools that does a lot of good for the community such as Kano's or Bitminters, as opposed to f2pool and antpool that don't fill blocks regularly.  I understand that this might be against what the group stands for, but options are getting thin.  I also don't support mining lottery style for solo blocks.  Using Nicehash is also a good way to get higher mining rewards than currently being paid, something to think about.

I think that expanding mining operations would be a good route to go.  It seems like silver sales are the main drivers behind distributions currently, and current mining gear will only continue to mine less as time goes on.  By beefing up mining capacity, I think the group would overall benefit from higher distributions, more being put back into mining gear, and more silver and seat sales.  Going about this may be tough though, I know I could offer my entire basement as housing for units, but I would need compensation for electricity (around 8 cents per kwh).  There may need to be some creative conclusions to get there, but my belief is mining should expand.

Other business units may be a good investment as well.  Investing in the creation of a faucet or small payout game could help profits.  There are numerous other possibilities as well where expansion could occur.

I think the login period should be extended, I don't think I will remember to login every 3 months to "renew" my seat.  I personally believe you should never lose your seats and should always get distributions, but perhaps say after a year or so those donations are considered donations back to the group if you don't login, but you keep your seats.

These are a couple of my thoughts, there isn't quite enough money to procure large discounts from major equipment manufacturer's, but there are always deals on these forums if you look hard enough.

I have no problem with switching over to a larger pool to up consistency.  I think we certainly did our part to make it as viable as possible, but as with most things it takes a lot of the people in the community to make waves that are needed.  I'd prefer to stick with mining bitcoins too, but that's just my two satoshi.

As for suspension/termination of members, I'm comfortable with us proceeding in the direction proposed.  In reviewing the policy the tl;dr is as follows:

1) You must login every 90 days to remain active to remain active
2) If you go past 90 days you're in probation (donations go to temp account)
3) If you go another 90 days you're in suspension (no voting and donations disabled)
4) Another 90 days you're terminated ( account closed, group determines what to do )

So you're giving people 270 days before their account is terminated, which seems reasonable to me considering there's some effort at attempting to reach members.  While we don't want to lose members, inactive members doesn't exactly help either. 

As for my vote on the terminated seats?  I'd nullify them and if we're under 25,000 - take that difference and hold on to them for a round of fund raising or use in bartering for equipment. 

https://nastyfans.org/mint.json may be bugged as all minted coins have 0 holding value.

 

They also have public stats and 105% PPS namecoin payouts, which I'm a fan of.

I mined with them for a while. I got mediocre luck, but it happens to the best of us.