What you probably don't know about MinerGate and Unconfirmed Balance

I tried out Minergate some time ago, looking for a good pool to utilize on Linux. My draw dropped when I found they had an RPM and allowed me to mine several coins via a GUI, with auto algo switching. I knew Nicehash provided this but I didn't find anything of the sort for Linux.  At the time, I was looking for something quick to get up and going while I did the research to learn more about the various miners/pools/etc and better understand what I should use.

I ran Minergate's software on two of my desktops and a laptop because, why not. Their smart algo switcher always mined Monero which I found interesting. For days I ran it, and for days it mined Monero. One day, I decided to switch to another algorithm so I did so. I mined it for a while and moved on to another out of curiosity of which coin can I mine more of, in a shorter amount of time.

I selected PPLNS as the reward method. I'm a patient guy and according to their FAQ, it could take quite a way to get paid which was fine with me, if I get to keep more of the profit.

As I did my research, I started to find out about the various questionable things that Minergate may be involved in -- do a quick Google search for Minergate trust or something along those lines to find out more. I quickly lost faith in them and decided to move on. I found much better pools who were smaller, less fees and much more transparent. I compiled several mining software and am very happy now to be away from them.

I've now been waiting for several weeks for my unconfirmed balances to become confirmed (when you mine, mining pools wait until a block is confirmed before distributing payout). Curious, I did a Google search and stumbled on this page in their FAQ.

Unconfirmed balance is the amount of mined coins that are waiting for confirmation from our servers. It happens automatically, no actions are required from the miner.

The time of confirmation depends on the miner’s hashrate; the higher it is, the sooner your balance will be confirmed. It may vary from a couple of minutes to a couple of days.

It also depends on the version of the miner you are using. Desktop application normally gives a miner the most profit compared to mobile version or web miner.

Please consider the number of cores you are using if you are mining several coins simultaneously. The total amount of cores that you set shouldn’t be higher than the actual number of cores you have. If you set more cores than their physical number on your PC, the hashrate will decrease significantly.

In addition, the balance will become confirmed only if you are actively mining a coin; if you stop the process, it will stay frozen until you re-enable the mining.

To this, I can only say... "what the...????" So I've spent my electricity and used my hardware to mine coins that you are now holding ransom -- and won't give them to me unless I continue to mine??? This is beyond the fees they charge or the seemingly inaccurate hashrates they report. All around, Minergate looks like shady business in every angle. Please, if you are doing business with them, be very careful. I've only seen this whole holding your profits ransom and confirming only if you continue mining business from them. I've tried a dozen other pools and nobody else does this.