Bitcoin Forum

The last difficulty peak was around August 2011, below 2,000,000.

The difficulty is now 2,036,671, clearly exceeding that peak.

Thoughts ?

Look at the price, its only going to go up more.

uhhhh, more mining power?

Batten up the hatches

Looks like it's time for me to look into FPGAs for present demands (as it looks like BFL won't be able to meet my needs due to really long pre-order list for the ASICs/plus their famous delays too) as well as look into suppliers of mining equipment (GPUs/FPGAs/ASICs) who are reputable (I'm sticking to UK suppliers for tax reasons plus legal protections if something goes wrong,like non delivery/faulty product).

I think I've reached the limit for my current equipment (as they can't be pushed any further on the MBP and PC with HD6950 under current conditions) so I'll have to think carefully where I thread from now on (either consider further expansion of mining capability or plan for a phased withdrawal if suppliers in UK are unable to meet my needs for equipment plus I can't trust overseas suppliers due to tax/buyer protection issues.In UK buying abroad means paying tax at customs to 'release' the shipment at customs and this can take time).

I'm also diversifying my portfolio for which crypto currencies to mine with (currently consists of BTC and LTC since SC is no longer meeting my needs-big delays in Microcash transition is putting me off further investment until things are on a more solid footing with SC/MK) so for now this'll help me in the short term.

Anyway thats,that for the strategy part. I do think that when more people get annoyed at very high difficulty,they'll simply drop out of mining (as it's unprofitable for them) and the difficulty will drop and cycle will repeat itself thus business as usual.

I'm afraid people are already dropping out while the difficulty is rising. I assume a much steeper increase of the network rate would have occurred otherwise. It may have an influence again in December when even gpu miners with free electricity may decide to drop out. Again, I doubt they will drop out for good but get specialized equipment as well.

We'll be over 2.1 million soon :)

Kind of suprised the difficulty isn't rising faster than it has been to be honest. We must be losing some gpu miners.

Agreed.  I feel like it should be skyrocketing, but I think a lot of people may be holding off on expanding their farm as they wait to see if the BFL asic really materializes.  Also, a lot of miners may have realized they could make more by selling their gear and putting the coin into a pirate pass-through if they are ok with the risk.

When's the next difficulty change?

<gribble> Current Blocks: 192840 | Current Difficulty: 2036671.0886933 | Next Difficulty At Block: 193535 | Next Difficulty In: 695 blocks | Next Difficulty In About: 4 days, 13 hours, 39 minutes, and 20 seconds | Next Difficulty Estimate: 2116395.25971438 | Estimated Percent Change: 3.91443524994

wow our network hash has gone up almost 4 percent since last increase?

Why would GPU miners be shutting down?
Due to the price increase I'm getting paid more per megahash (in $ terms) than I was a month ago, or a month before that.
Therefore, my GPUs are more profitable than ever  ;)

yep
ppl are still starting mining on gpus, fpga that were ordered months ago are being delivered etc, I expect the trend to continue
and of course $10+ per coin makes a lot of ppl viable that werent at say $7 :)

I was hoping for a few good final months before ASICs arrived, because I expected people to ditch their GPU farms while they still can get a decent price for them. I mean, good luck selling your GPUs in november or whenever these asics hit.

Unfortunately, the sharp BTC price increase has pretty much killed that hope, and everyone seems to be doing what Im doing: mining on their gpu's till the bitter end, even if it means selling the gpu's later at far lower prices.

That's the thing - I can always stick my 7970s on ebay later and be at a profit.
The people I feel a touch sorry for are those with mining FPGA clusters - people who've dropped $10000 on Ztex boards and the like which can't really be used for too much outside mining.

And in my country 5830s sell at about 160$ used, so I'm even profiting by buying used hardware and reselling.

which country

He's in Venezuela  ;D

I may be retiring there or somewhere in South America,good to know there's some Bitcoin folks there  8)

Can't believe there can be 2-4 th/s added in vid cards & FPGA's in 2 months.I think someone is testing out ASIC's  :o

Now,who could it be ???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6v6fmb2kpE
     ;D   :D   ;D   :D   8)

I doubt they're testing ASICs.

Many people have video cards, and there is a large growing interest in bitcoin, leading to more mining in times of high profitability.

Earlier miners or new miners have come into the scene as soon as it became profitable is the most likely explanation.

Bfl finishing up their old orders would bring diff up. Newer radeon vid card series brought things up. Other fpga stuff coming online. Higher btc price added some old users back into mining with what they have. Etc..

radeon 7000's?

yes. a 7970 can do what? 550-700 mh/s depending on who you ask, what model, over clocking, etc...
So that is like bringing online two 5830s at once. Nothing to sneeze at really. Just multiply it by your guess
how many were bought by forum members and gamers who know about bitcoins... and you can consider it
a nice chunk of mining power.

Also every other gamer turned miner who had access to a 7xxx model worth mining some btc with.
Sure I know they are not the best card to mine with compared to older models but they are not slouches
either.

Every little bit adds up when people notice the price rises and wants in. Even if only .2 BTC per day.

*cough* 5970 is 740mhash easy. cheaper price

I knew a response like this was coming ;-)

We could go back and forth on how to get the most bang for your buck now days but lets not.
A lot of people are buying 7xxx series because they know a 300 dollar 5970 card will more then likely lose
it's value quicker then a 7970 will. Sure it is a trade of mh/s wise.. but I think the 7xxx series uses less power too.
So better to buy a card, make some profit, and still have a good chunk of its resale value left in 2013.

By then gamers will not want a card that can get smoked by a 6950 in gaming. Let alone a 7970 which smokes a 6950.

Until the VRMs explode 8 months later  ;) that's a consideration too

hey 8 months i should have got the money out of them back! what do you estimate my clock speeds and core/vrm temps for that?

I bought a 5970 off ebay used and it was defective. at least one of the gpus were.
thankfully the defect showed its ugly face before my return policy expired.
sent it back, got my money, and decided the high failure rate of these cards, based on research,
was a poor choice to make and I never bought another.

i bought 3 refurb cards, no problem with mine

I'll take a 7970 new please. It's the best hedge for the near future uncertainty. 6 months down the road the landscape will have decided the GPU miners fate, and pretty much any path will be better for the owners of 7970 cards.

great point. wish i could upgrade now but would take some liquidity

Why do you feel the used GPU market will suddenly crash? There are a LOT more gamers out there than there are miners. I would be surprised if there was more than 1-4 people GPU mining in a given city of 100k or so. I could be wrong though, but i'd be surprised if I was.

If we assume that there's ~15Thash/s of GPU mining online currently (I suspect it's probably lower than that given how much hardware BFL and the other FPGA manufacturers have shipped) that would be:

~50,000 ATI 5830s
Or
~25,000 7970s
Or
~20,000 5970s

So it's not an inconsiderable amount of GPUs either way.

How I picture the rise of difficulty and how some miners must feel! http://imgur.com/rJMhw

when's next difficulty change? sep 21?

exactly my feeling!

I WISH it was ONLY 2m right now instead of this 2.8 and rising insanity.

with winter around the corner i will probably be firing the rig back up to help keep the house warm.

"the rig" ?

Well, looks like 3m+ is coming the next adjustment.... grr

Already getting cold here and it's been good to not have to stick the heating on  :D

no, hardly more than now: http://dot-bit.org/tools/nextDifficulty.php

I think its going to spike hardcore from asics being distributed. Doubling by the 20th.

http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=704 (http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=704)

Are you the sole agree? I'd bet the house on disagree

In fact, there's a better one with more cross belief (just pulled that phrase out of my ass)
http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=709

Edit i see it uses aug 27 value, not so certain. Today's value, I dont think it will double from here in such a short time

The difficulty will probably rise 7-15 times the current difficulty with first shipments.

what are they're estimated levels of how many units first shipped