While pooling isn’t launched yet (it’s looking like at least May 2021, if not later in the year, that it will actually go live), I figured it would be interesting to start coordinating the ChiaForum.com pool here so we can hit the ground running when pooling officially launches.
Bram covers the basics of pooling here: Pools in Chia
Two big key points in the article:
We’ll need to create new plots specifically for the pool (can’t repurpose old ones)
This bit on rewards: “fixed block rewards are set to go 7/8 to the pool and 1/8 to the farmer”
The main advantage to pools is that it should, at scale, help smooth out reward frequency. We won’t necessarily be getting more rewards than plotting individually, but they should be coming in much more regularly. Given how much the network is expanding currently, it makes sense to try and build out a pool to try and more affordable keep up.
Now obviously a lot is unknown right now on the economic viability of the coin. We’ll see what transaction launch day brings. But regardless, I, and many others, are very bullish on this coin, so I’m committed to investing in it for a while.
And to kick it off, I’ll start by pledging ~48tb of plots to the ChiaForum.com pool when the option for pools becomes available. My current rig can plot about 0.9TiB a day, so in just over a month and a half I can get that all filled. Depending on how promising things look after transactions and pools launch, I’ll continue to invest into the pool over time.
I think from a technical perspective it is feasible, the challenge becomes the cost of storage over time, cost of EC2 instances to plot, and any potentially bandwidth costs if you want to eventually retrieve the plots to store elsewhere/locally.
Judging by the speed of netspace growth I believe I’m going to be joining a pool. I freed up all the space I can effort and I’m up to 64TB. I can generate around 1TB/day so after I’ve joined a pool I will be able to generate plots for about 2 months.
There are some questions in my mind about pooling though. I understand 7/8 of the rewards go to pool.
How are these going to be distributed among the pool members?
Also how does one create a pool?
I’m guessing it will be a feature of the Chia software but I don’t know if there is going to be pool-specific fees. If there are fees it will be a seller’s market though because of the re-plotting requirement. For example if my pool raised their fees, I’d have to spend another 2 months to re-plot if I wanted to leave so that would be a huge deterrent to switching pools.
If there are no extra fees or benefits to start a pool then it all comes down to the number of members. In a large pool you will earn steadily but less than a smaller pool. So I guess I might wanna wait a little bit after the pools have been introduced to see how it’s shaping.
Regarding the 7/8 distribution: I know that Chia has an equivalent to a Satoshi (they call it a Mojo), so you can split up a Chia to a very small amount. That being said, I don’t know if distribution of the 7/8 will simply divided by total members of the pool, or if it will be proportional to your stake in the pool (I assume it will be the latter, but not sure yet).
Your point about the economic factors of the pools is great too. I do believe they’re going to introduce a way to plot that allows the plots to be moved around better from various pools to exactly help with what you’re calling out, which is if a pool goes evil or off the rails, you don’t want your potentially large amount of plots held hostage or have to replot.
I have no idea how they will be actually literally ran, we’ll just have to wait and see. Maybe we can get Gene and Bram over here to give us a preview soon…
For this Forum’s pool, I’m undecided on a fee, nor do I even know if the software will assist with that concept. I will be actively participating in the pool, so it’s in my best interest to grow it given that, and I think with the traction we’re developing here on the forum, by the time pools are ready, we’ll be able to launch a decent sized one and hopefully counteract the net space growth a bit.
How do you plan to replot such an amount? I mean from practical point of. I am using 14 TB drives for example so I would have probably have to get extra drive where I would first move plots from the drive so they can be part of the farm, create new plots and then delete the temp farm.
I am curious about basics economics of a running a pool. Seems like it’s race to the bottom, you need to get as big as possible with lowest fees possible and you have to support tons of people which will be headache.
My personal plan is to not replot my ~50tb of plots I have as a solo farmer, and just add another external enclosure and plot another 50tb for the pool since I already have the plotter ready to rock.
Now, should I have already bought all those externals before the prices skyrocketed? Yes. Did I actually buy all the drives I need? No. Is that going to stop me from buying them though? No
Fair question, a lot of this depends on how they implement pools and how simple they make it. I think it would be really great to have Gene and Bram do an AMA on the subject when it gets closer to the launch of pools, I’ll try and get that to happen.
Pools will be way better for small farmers like myself with a couple of TB. I would join a pool and ditch (BK) all my plots to generate new ones.
Still a lot has to be discussed regarding the mechanics of all this.
I’m in.
it all depends on how they do the rewards. I was hoping a sub 100TB farmers pool would come up I feel like I’d have a better chance there, lol. I thought I’d be cool with 40-50TB but netspace shot up extremely fast. Fast enough to have me sitting here wondering if throwing in another 14TB is worth it or not, lol
I’d be down to join also if it means an excuse to build another farming rig for new plots. It could be cool to get some sort of user flair in the forums for how much you’ve contributed to the pool.
