Bitcoin Forum

srry for the noob question, i just wanted to know the exact month, im pretty sure its next year though right?

It's impossible to say, it depends on how much the difficulty increases.

It's every 210,000 blocks (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_inflation). The graph (linked) suggests 2012/2013, but as Grinder mentioned it depends on difficulty (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty). Difficulty adjusts to try and ensure that, on average, a block is generated every ten minutes. In practice, it may be that the network grows consistently faster than this, and difficulty increases lag behind - so more than six blocks per hour are generated over a long period, and we reach the 210,000th block faster than expected.

ahh so generally around next year... i might buy another rig this summer then..

thanks guys

So Bitcoin is ending in Dec. 2012?

No - the amount per mined block drops by 50% from 50BTC to 25BTC.  This happens again in another 210,000 blocks from 25 to 12.5 and so on...

Lol, sheeple.

210,000(when the change occurs) - 122,922(current block) = 87078(blocks left)

87078 / 7(average blocks per hour*) / 24(hours in a day) = 518(days till change)

518 / 30(days in a month) = 17.27(months left till change)

518 / 365(days in a year) = 1.419(years to change)

Here is a precise answer to your question assuming the average rate is seven blocks an hour from now(5-9-2011, lunchtime in USA)  till the change.

Hope this helped you :) !

*7 blocks an hour is an estimate, if you find a more informed prediction just plug it into the equation above for a more precise answer.   

"Flawless, Victory"

Difficulty will be 164 000 000 starting from a 216 000 difficulty,  (next estimate)

given 7 block/hrs, a 16% increase for 43 generation for 756 times the difficulty.

And network computation power will be >1000THash then? Probably not...

At this point all that can be done is extrapolation and guessing for difficulty jumps.  The probability of the network continues to grow at 20-40% every 10-14 days is very small.  Right now it can and will happen due to the small / new nature of BitCoin, but that kind of growth simply can't be sustained for a long period of time .  Eventually you'd hit the point where your rate of growth is faster than the speed at which new computing power is created on the assembly lines.

I think (and hope) that the network speed levels out to a gradual growth rate in a few more months (so probably around 500-600k difficulty), at which point the growth would likely be linear rather than exponential.

Fine!! Fine!!!! I said it was just an estimate.  Here is the equation at 6.5 blocks per hour. shesh  ;)

210,000(when the change occurs) - 123,203(current block) = 86797(blocks left)

86797 / 6.5(average blocks per hour*) / 24(hours in a day) = 556(days till change)

556 / 30(days in a month) = 18.55(months left till change)

556 / 365(days in a year) = 1.524(years to change)

Here is a precise answer to your question assuming the average rate is seven blocks an hour from now(5-10-2011, Bedtime for a normal person in the U.S..A)  till the change.

Hope this helped you   ;D !

*6.5 blocks an hour is an estimate, if you find a more informed prediction just plug it into the equation above along with the current block number for a more precise answer.