The first bitcoin mining pool launched in late 2010, but because the concept was difficult for less computer savvy users to “get their heads around”, Bitminter saw an opportunity. The idea was simple: Let’s offer a user-friendly alternative that makes it easier for individuals to pool their efforts in mining bitcoin and share in the profits. So began Bitminter in June 2011. And the market immediately began to heat up. At its peak, the company possessed 10 percent of global computing power for bitcoin mining, making it an attractive target for competitors and attackers alike. From its inception through May 2015, 325,000 people have registered and used Bitminter.
Due to its dependence on the Internet, Bitminter was an obvious target and has seen countless extortion threats and DDoS attacks since its founding. While attacks have rarely brought the company down for long periods of time, Bitminter is keenly aware that the key to keeping users from jumping ship is to keep the system up and running as much as possible. If the mining pool goes down, customers will quickly switch. As the CEO says, “downtime really kills a mining pool service”.
Whenever the service was downed, Bitminter noticed that users would hop off its mining pool almost instantly. And quite a few never came back. To stem the tide, Bitminter set up secondary or even tertiary mining pools in case one went down — a common practice for many bitcoin miners. But still, the DDoS attacks continued day after day. And to make matters worse, the data center where Bitminter was hosted was null-routing the company when attacks occurred — essentially taking the service offline. Bitminter soon found itself in a situation where users were leaving every time the mining pool was inaccessible. “I had to choose between using a dedicated DDoS service or getting shut down”, the founder recalls.
With unpredictable price fluctuations and lots of competition, bitcoin is a tough business. In essence, a bitcoin mining pool is basically a machine that makes money. And if the machine stops running, the guys running the machine stop making money. What’s more, since most service providers are undifferentiated, bitcoin miners are not a very brand loyal bunch. The one thing that consistently keeps existing miners in the fold and wins over new ones is maximum uptime. That’s where Nexusguard provides a big advantage.
Nexusguard’s DDoS+ Protection provides critical stability and absolute uptime for Bitminter and hundreds of other businesses worldwide. Uptime makes for predictable cash flow, and predictability is the key to ensuring profitability for a bitcoin mining pool like Bitminter. And for even more predictability, Nexusguard’s service makes it easy to plan a security budget with a transparent monthly fee structure and maximum caps that eliminate any unpleasant overage surprises if and when an attack does occur.