I’m going to try and coordinate a Q&A session with Bram and Gene in the next few weeks about pools support for Chia, so ahead of that, I wanted to ask the community here to submit questions about the upcoming capability so we can try and tackle them all comprehensively.
Ask away in this thread!
Chia Pools Q&A
Just for final confirmation: Any plots created before pool plots will only ever be usable for Solo Farming?
The Pools in Chia article mentions that creating the singleton coin for the plots to point at requires a transaction, and thus probably fees. And IIRC each coin also needs at least one mojo of value. If so, where does the mojo amount and transaction fees come from for new farmers who have no XCH?
Can we still farm solo while we are plotting for pools?
Will we be able to farm solo and in a pool simultaneously? What will the GUI show if I have some solo plots, and some pool plots?
Do pool plots always have to be in a pool to be farmed? Or can I farm them solo in between having them in a pool? Will there ever be a reason to NOT make pool plots only?
Will a plot file have an internal signature indicating it is “pool ready”? i.e. Can I identify plots that can not be added to a pool so I can delete and replace them? Or do I need to manually track the files?
Why can’t we just have a payout system that works without pools? Or that earns us small rewards for our plots at least passing the filter? (Instead of the lottery based system)
How does the pool split the reward between the participants? Let’s say between someone who has 600 plots connected to the pool and someone who has only 10 plots connected?
Will it ever be possible to transfer ownership of a plot? Not plotting on behalf of a farmer/pool key, but literally signing over a plot to another set of keys
What will the process of setting up a pool be like? Will it be managed in the GUI?
What will the actual process of joining a pool look like? What will members of a pool be able to “see” about the pool in terms of overall stats, their stats vs the total pool, etc?
Rights and responsibilities of the person running the pool and the members? Will pool operators have the ability to charge a fee for members of their pool via Chia software?
Is there any lockup period to start the new plots for the pool, moving between pools, or leaving a pool?
What specific rules are you considering for pool creation and operation? For example, it was discussed that pools can’t start with the word Chia, can you clarify/expand on this?
When will we be able to start creating pool plots?
When do you plan to launch pools officially?
Is there any options to create some kind of a treasury inside the pool and going forward to be the base for the future staking or delegating? It will be nice to have this in the future and a goal to stay and contribute whatever size of plots everyone creates so the whole pool will benefit with the enormous size of the network. Being able to have some staking is going only to increase the value, stability and price of Chia.
Will there be any update to the UI with regards to “estimated time to win” for when you are in a pool. Perhaps something along the lines of “pool’s estimated time to win” and “expected amount to earn from a pool win”?
How do I know it’s fair? What if someone is intentionally trying to cheat? What if someone has 10k plots that are too slow to respond to challenges? Will I get short-changed?
What stops me from running two full nodes farming the same set of plots and double collecting shared rewards?
What stops me from writing custom software that claims I’m farming more space than I am and collecting a share of the rewards without actually having any plots with a chance of winning?
What about a variation of the above where I lie about my farm size, but have 10% of that size in real plots so I can just pretend I’m unlucky rather than cheating?
For the puzzle methods / switchable pools:
The blog post said joining a pool like that would necessitate transaction fees. Where do those come from if I’m starting with 0 XCH?
Why is there a delay needed to switch pools?
For things never mentioned:
Would there be a way to set up pooling that would allow the rapid re-assignment, and possibly obfuscation of, block rewards? IE: The farmer has no expectation of winning (ever) and simply wants to allocate their farming rewards to someone else.
Two full nodes is still one identity (same keys). You can’t create a double of yourself on the blockchain. You only have one wallet. The reward would go the wallet. You can’t double your wallet.
me thinks you cant do that, since it would seemingly double your capacity…
as far as i understood, you can do either pool mining, pool hopping or switch backto solo mining, based on having plotted to smart contracts instead of a specific pool, please somebody correct me…
My question would be:
Why can’t we just have a payout system that works without pools?
As in similar to how a pool works, but then without the need to actually operate pools.
I am not sure how the mathematics of it works, but it might be possible to just pay out a percentage to everyone who has a proof. Depending on the number of proofs in the network depends on the payout percentage received, this would be more like a standard lotto where multiple winners share the jackpot.
I think the issue is though, many people will be running their rigs for months and perhaps never see a proof. A small payout for passing a filter would ensure that almost everyone is rewarded daily.
An alternative would be automatic pooling using our solo plots. Perhaps there is just a toggle on/off switch that determines whether we want to forgo some reward for a more even distribution of the payouts.
The issue appears to be that people do not feel they are being justly rewarded and pooling is seen as the answer. However, alternatives do exist, but it is a question of whether the network actually needs these smalls farms or not, if it does, then people should be rewarded for having active plots irrespective of passing filters/proof checks
It also comes down to the work required on the blockchain to support this, it is highly likely that pooling is easier to implement than some of the alternatives?
How does the pool split the reward between the participants? Let’s say between someone who have 600 plots connected to the pool and someone who have only 10 plots connected?
There’s a fundamental thing you need to understand: The amount of netspace you own (plots you have) determines how much XCH you can earn over time. Whether you’re in a pool or not the expected value of farming ends up the same.
I think they were probably asking for non-lotto style rewards. Ex: Prove you farmed .0001% of the netspace for the day, get .0001% of the rewards.
I’ve had 300-400 plots for 2 weeks with 0 XCH. It feels awful because, as the netspace grows, I know there’s a chance I may never win again. Since I don’t have any more space, I’ll never recapture the expected value I missed out on. I estimated my expected value as 6 XCH over that period, but the actual value has been 0.
Everyone on the unlucky side hates it. Everyone on the lucky side loves it. Lol.
The Pools in Chia article mentions that creating the singleton coin for the plots to point at requires a transaction, and thus probably fees. And IIRC each coin also needs at least one mojo of value. If so, where does the mojo amount and transaction fees come from for new farmers who have no XCH? I can think of ways it might work fine, but I’m interested to know the official plan.
I feel like the wording in the GUI makes it feel like this is what you’re owed. But it’s a lotto, straight up. And I feel like pushing expected value over time to match is… a bit disingenuous? Chances are so low as a solo that even over time, joining a pool seems like a better move? Though, this is from the point of wanting to earn XCH, not much for what it represents. But everyone wants to have some guarantee of ROI at the heart of it.
With that said, I’ll let these solo plots rock it out until I can slowly replot them with pool-ables. Assuming I can still solo farm the plots until pools are active.