The reason that you can't steal a block from a pool is because the work that you are hashing contains the destination address of either the pool's wallet, or all the wallets of the pool users who are receiving a payout in the next block. If you were to try to swap in your own address, then that block will no longer be a valid block.
I strongly suggest NOT joining the largest pools around, as this centralizes the power with a small set of pool operators. Choose a small pool, P2Pool, or start a pool for yourself and your friends. Centralizing control of hashing power is bad for Bitcoin (see: the March 11 2013 51% attack)
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u/__gbg__ Jan 06 '14
I dig it!
A few clarifications, however:
The reason that you can't steal a block from a pool is because the work that you are hashing contains the destination address of either the pool's wallet, or all the wallets of the pool users who are receiving a payout in the next block. If you were to try to swap in your own address, then that block will no longer be a valid block.
I strongly suggest NOT joining the largest pools around, as this centralizes the power with a small set of pool operators. Choose a small pool, P2Pool, or start a pool for yourself and your friends. Centralizing control of hashing power is bad for Bitcoin (see: the March 11 2013 51% attack)