I asked about a month ago if anyone had data on different payout structures (TIDES vs FPPS Payouts) but no one got back to me so about a week ago (2025.06.02) I started a payouts experiment at home with an S9 to build a dataset for myself on which pool payout type is best for home miners.
Some quick parameters: Machine: 1x S9 running BraiinsOS Why an S9?: It’s what I have on hand and I know a lot of plebs use them for space heaters. Hashrate: Hashrate is split 50/50 using Braiins Pool Groups. Half to OCEAN with my own DATUM gateway and half to Braiins. Why Braiins?: I’m aware there are cheaper FPPS pools out there, but Braiins has lightning payout which is essential for this little amount of hashrate. Run time: I have a stupid time of use plan with my utility where electricity rates double or triple from 1300-1900 on weekdays so the miner is shut off then, on all other times (thanks Home Assistant automations). Wattage: 800-1000w depending on how hot my garage is getting.
Is it the best experiment? Probably not but it’s what I came up with. I think it reflects my actual usage during the heating season.
Please let me know if you have any questions. I’ll post updates on this thread.
Some interesting notes:
OCEAN has had terrible luck finding blocks since I started this. I think at one point it went 85-ish hours between blocks. My OCEAN account has 1933 sats in the share window, so if OCEAN goes on a tear finding blocks it should catch up and/or surpass Braiins.
Initial takeaways:
If you’re mining in the short term, FPPS is seemingly more profitable. If you’re running long term (ie heating season), I expect to see OCEAN be more profitable but that’s dependent on how often they’re finding blocks which is dependent on the overall hashrate of the pool.
We’re just over the two month mark, and we’re still holding pretty tightly. OCEAN had pulled ahead a bit, but Braiins caught up and slightly surpassed.
Had to turn off my miner due to travels. Still have shares in the OCEAN window though. Will be interesting to see how OCEAN competes if the pool finds blocks in the next fours days (approx current window timeframe) before my shares in the window run out. Miner will be back online on Thursday.
Miner is back online. Got a whopping 18 sats from OCEAN while it was offline . I will likely be ending this experiment soon. The juice is not worth the squeeze from a utility bill perspective. I’ll probably continue until 2025.09.02 plus the last couple of days until my shares are pushed out of the share log window.
FPPS is leading TIDES by ~3.3% since 2025.06.02 when I started this. If that’s the cost to building your own block templates and using pooled mining, I think it’s a worthwhile tradeoff.
You’re right. I started collecting data at a very inopportune time. But looking at the bright side, OCEAN is only off by about 3-4% in one of their lowest block earning periods. Imagine how the data would have compared if I started a month earlier. I’m going to keep running the experiment for a bit and see how the rest of my time period shakes out.
Cool, so the totals of OCEAN: 13332 and Braiins 13905 are not the final payout totals. I guess in a day or so when your payment window is empty we will have the final results
Yeah, but I turned the S9 back on because I’m not ready to be done yet haha
the data collection continues! Will be interesting to see how the influx of Nicehash’s hashrate will impact things; more blocks but smaller rewards.
I have been comparing Ocean vs. Luxor Hashprice over several months (the missing months are because I forgot to download the data from Ocean).
My approach is to compare the daily average hashrate and the rewards on Ocean against the estimated rewards that the same hashrate would have earned on that day based on the Hashprice. Then I sum up all the rewards for both over the month and compare the results.
The hashrate is not constant, as it depends on electricity market prices and solar production. Have been mining with Ocean since 2023, so there is “starting effect” in Feb.2025.
. I will likely be ending this experiment soon. The juice is not worth the squeeze from a utility bill perspective. I’ll probably continue until 2025.09.02 plus the last couple of days until my shares are pushed out of the share log window.
