Pools page, fees post

_data/pool-payouts.yml

@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+ - payout: PPS
+   desc: "The Pay-per-Share (PPS) approach offers an instant, guaranteed payout for each share that is solved by a miner. Miners are paid out from the pools existing balance and can withdraw their payout immediately. This model allows for the least possible variance in payment for miners while also transferring much of the risk to the pool's operator."
+
+ - payout: PROP
+   desc: The Proportional approach offers a proportional distribution of the reward when a block is found amongst all workers, based off of the number of shares they have each found.
+
+ - payout: PPLNS
+   desc: The Pay Per Last N Shares (PPLN) approach is similar to the proportional method, but instead of counting the number of shares in the round, it instead looks at the last N shares, no matter the boundaries of the round.
+
+ - payout: DGM
+   desc: The Double Geometric Method (DGM) is a hybrid approach that enables the operator to absorb some of the risk. The operator receives a portion of payouts during short rounds and returns it during longer rounds to normalize payments.
+
+ - payout: SMPPS 
+   desc: The Shared Maximum Pay Per Share (SMPPS) uses a similar approach to PPS but never pays more than the Bitcoin mining pool has earned.
+
+ - payout: ESMPPS
+   desc: The Equalized Shared Maximum Pay Per Share (ESMPPS) is similar to SMPPS, but distributes payments equally among all miners in the Bitcoin mining pool.
+
+ - payout: RSMPPS
+   desc: The Recent Shared Maximum Pay Per Share (RSMPPS) is also similar to SMPPS, but the system prioritizes the most recent Bitcoin miners first.
+
+ - payout: CPPSRB
+   desc: The Capped Pay Per Share with Recent Backpay uses a Maximum Pay Per Share (MPPS) reward system that will pay Bitcoin miners as much as possible using the income from finding blocks, but will never go bankrupt.
+
+ - payout: BPM
+   desc: Bitcoin Pooled mining (BPM), also known as "Slush's pool", uses a system where older shares from the beginning of a block round are given less weight than more recent shares. This reduces the ability to cheat the mining pool system by switching pools during a round.
+
+ - payout: POT
+   desc: The Pay on Target (POT) approach is a high variance PPS that pays out in accordance with the difficulty of work returned to the pool by a miner, rather than the difficulty of work done by the pool itself.   
+
+ - payout: SCORE
+   desc: The SCORE based approach uses a system whereby a proportional reward is distributed and weighed by the time the work was submitted. This process makes later shares worth more than earlier shares and scored by time, thus rewards are calculated in proportion to the scores and not shares submitted.
+
+ - payout: ELIGIUS
+   desc: Eligius was designed by Luke Jr., creator of BFGMiner, to incorporate the strengths of PPS and BPM pools, as <a href="/what-is-proof-of-work/">miners submit proofs-of-work</a> to earn shares and the pool pays out immediately. When the block rewards are distributed, they are divided equally among all shares since the last valid block and the shares contributed to stale blocks are cycled into the next block's shares. Rewards are only paid out if a miner earns at least. 67108864 and if the amount owed is less than that it will be rolled over to the next block until the limit is achieved. However, if a Bitcoin miner does not submit a share for over a period of a week, then the pool will send any remaining balance, regardless of its size.
+
+ - payout: Triplemining
+   desc: Triplemining brings together medium-sized pools with no fees and redistributes 1% of every block found, which allows your share to grow faster than any other Bitcoin mining pool approach. The administrators of these Bitcoin mining pools use some of the Bitcoins generated when a block is found to add to a jackpot that is triggered and paid out to the member of the pool who found the block. In this way, everyone in the pool has a better chance to make additional Bitcoins, regardless of their processing power.         

_data/pools.yml

@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+ - pool: BTCC
+   url: https://pool.btcc.com/
+   desc: BTCC is a Bitcoin exchange, wallet, and mining pool located in China. Its mining pool currently controls around 15% of the network hash rate.
+   img: btcc.png
+
+ - pool: Slush Pool
+   url: https://slushpool.com/home/
+   desc: Slush Pool is run by <a href="http://satoshilabs.com/">Satoshi Labs</a>, a Bitcoin company based in the Czech Republic. Slush Pool was the first mining pool and maintains around 7% of the network hash rate.
+   img: slush.png
+
+ - pool: Antpool
+   url: https://antpool.com/home.htm
+   desc: <a href="https://www.bitmaintech.com/product.htm">Bitmain</a>, one of China's largest Bitcoin companies, operates Antpool. It is currently the largest Bitcoin pool and has around 30% of the network's hash rate under its control.
+   img: bitmain.jpg
+
+ - pool: Eligius
+   url: http://eligius.st/~gateway/
+   desc: Eligius was one of the first Bitcoin mining pools and was founded by <a href="https://www.weusecoins.com/luke-dashjr/">Luke Dashjr</a>, a Bitcoin Core developer. Today, the pool controls just under 1% of the network hash rate.
+   img: eligius.png
+
+ - pool: BitMinter
+   url: https://bitminter.com/
+   desc: BitMinter, once one of the largest Bitcoin mining pools, now controls less than 1% of the network hash rate.
+   img: bitminter.png   
+
+ - pool: Kano CKPool
+   url: http://www.kano.is/
+   desc: Kano CKPool was founded in 2014 and currently has around 3% of the network hash rate under its control.
+   img: eligius.png
+
+ - pool: F2Pool
+   url: https://www.f2pool.com/
+   desc:  F2Pool is the second largest Bitcoin mining pool, with around 25% of the network hash rate. Its user interface is in Chinese, making it difficult for English speakers to join.  
+   img: f2pool.png
+
+ - pool: BW Pool
+   url: https://www.bw.com/pool/i
+   desc: BW Pool controls around 7% of the network hash rate. Like F2Pool, its user interface is in Chinese, making it difficult for English speakers to join.
+   img: bw.png
+
+ - pool: Bitfury
+   url: http://bitfury.com/
+   desc: Although seen publically in block explorers and hash rate charts, BitFury is a private mining pool and cannot be joined. 
+   img: bitfury.jpg  

_includes/pools-payouts.html

@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+<p class="mining-pool">
+<b>{{ pp.payout }}</b>: {{ pp.desc }}
+</p>

_includes/pools.html

@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+<p class="mining-pool">
+{% if pool.img %}
+<a href="{{ pool.url }}">
+<img src="/images/pools/{{ pool.img }}" />
+</a>
+{% endif %}
+<b><a href="{{ pool.url }}">{{ pool.pool }}</a></b>: {{ pool.desc }}
+</p>

_posts/2016-04-29-bitcoin-mining-fees.md

@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: How do Bitcoin Mining Fees Work?
+author: Jordan Tuwiner
+authorurl: https://www.jordantuwiner.com/
+published: true
+seotitle: How Bitcoin Mining Fees Work
+permalink: "/bitcoin-mining-fees/"
+---
+Miners provide an important service: network security. A large [network hash rate](/faq/#what-does-hashing-mean) keeps Bitcoin safe from attacks by bad actors. 
+
+Miners need an incentive to pay for electricity and hardware costs. ASIC mining hardware keeps Bitcoin secure through [proof of work](/what-is-proof-of-work/). Right now, miners are paid through a combination of Bitcoin's block reward and transaction fees.
+
+Bitcoin's block reward is still large and provides the majority of miners' earnings. The block reward started at 50 bitcoins per block. Currently, it is 25 bitcoins per block. In July 2016 it will drop to 12.5 bitcoins per block. 
+
+<img src="/images/bitcoinsupply.png" />
+
+## Transaction Fees
+
+Once the majority of bitcoins have been mined, the block reward will become an insignificant percentage of miners' overall earnings. Instead, mining fees--paid by users who transact on the network--will make up the majority of miners' earnings.
+
+Mining fees are paid each time a user sends a transaction on the network. In the example below, a user sent 0.21959311 BTC and included a 0.0001 BTC fee. 
+
+<img src="/images/fee.png" />
+
+Fees incentivize miners to include transactions in a block. Once a transaction has been included in a block it is _confirmed_. Unconfirmed transactions sit in something called the [_mempool_](https://kaiko.com/analytics/post/an-in-depth-guide-into-how-the-mempool-works) until they are confirmed. 
+
+Since miners want to maximize income, they will include transactions that include higher fees. 
+
+## Stuck Transaction? 
+Transactions sent with low fees may get stuck in the mempool. Posts about stuck transactions like the one below are published many times per day on Bitcoin message boards. 
+
+<img src="/images/stuck.png" />
+
+New users often don't know to include a sufficient fee in order to ensure quick confirmation. Transactions sent with proper fee amounts are confirmed in about 10 minutes. 
+
+21's [fee tool](https://bitcoinfees.21.co/) will help you include the right fee amount when sending your transaction.
+
+## Fee Collection by Miners
+
+The miner or [mining pool](/bitcoin-mining-pools-give-everyone-a-chance-to-be-involved-12/) that includes a transaction in a block collects the transaction fee. 
+
+<img src="/images/blockinfo.png" />
+
+In the example above, Antpool mined block #408450. This block included 185 transactions with a total of 0.05502059 BTC in transaction fees. 
+
+The total reward for this block is the block reward plus the total amount of transaction fees: 0.05502059 BTC + 25 BTC = 25.05502059 BTC. The transaction fees for this block were just 0.2% of the total reward. 
+
+The example block above is just one of many. It's clear, however, that in the future transaction fees must rise in order to compensate for the decreasing block reward.
+
+## Recap
+
+Bitcoin is sometimes advertised as a way to make cheap payments, which makes mining fees confusing at first. 
+
+In reality, mining fees are needed and incentivize miners to secure the network. Without miners, the network could be attacked and would be vulnerable to [51% attacks](http://www.dailydot.com/business/bitcoin-51-percent-attack/).
+
+Mining fees also represent users' willingness to pay to use Bitcoin. If someone is willing to pay $5 to send one Bitcoin transaction, it is clear that Bitcoin is providing a valuable service.