Bitcoin Forum

If the load on the network remains the same (Thashes/s), will the difficulty continue to grow at the same rate or will it be slower?

Because for example the next difficulty will hit in around a week with an approximate increase of another 200,000. At this rate the difficulty would hit 3,000,000 in like 3 months or less.

So:

1- Will it increase at this rate or will the next difficulty come around slower if the thashes/s remain around the same.
2- Is it possible for the difficulty to Decrease? if so, how?


Would appreciate any help.

1) It will remain quite stable at current difficulty if the hashrate remains stable at the current hashrate.
2) If it takes longer than 14 days to mine 2016 blocks, difficulty will go down to compensate for this. So yes, it can go down (and has already done so in the past once).

As I understand it, if the # of hashes stay the same, the difficulty will approximately stay the same (only change a minor amount depending on how lucky everyone was the previous difficulty's blocks).

If the number of hashes goes down (it takes longer than expected to find blocks) difficulty will also go down.

The difficulty level is linearly proportional to the hashing power of the network.  It's like converting between feet and meters.  See the y-axes here for an example of what I mean:  http://bitcoin.sipa.be/speed-lin.png

If you are in profit already then it's pretty simple:

When cost of mining 1 BTC outweighs cost of electricity, drop out of network. Unless you trust BTC enough to 'invest in it' by paying now and expecting price increases later.

Before that happens, there is nothing to lose even if difficulty keeps increasing. So far price has too.

how much do u expect the difficulty to increas in ~1 month

If the trend continues difficulty will be about twice the current level in a month, if I have to guesstimate it.

The fact of the matter is, we haven't seen a difficulty decrease -- or even a leveling off -- yet. As far as we can tell, it's going to keep going until we get some concrete figures showing otherwise.

People can theorize all they want -- but so far there's no evidence that the difficulty is going to level off anytime soon.

And we don't know how many more $$$ are waiting in the wings to invest in Bitcoin -- at least assuming Bitcoin remains a mostly miner/speculator phenomenon.

If Bitcoins became easy to spend on STUFF and even easier to exchange for dollars -- then watch out! They could go much higher.

But I'm saying that there's no guarantee that the price will continue to rise even as difficulty goes up. They could stagnate around $25 or even go further down, even after future difficulty increases. Mining will simply become less profitable.

Matthew