Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Mining => Topic started by: marcus_of_augustus on February 18, 2011, 08:58:44 AM



Title: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: marcus_of_augustus on February 18, 2011, 08:58:44 AM

from 258 GHash/s to 360ish Hash/s.

anybody know what's up? A  cluster waiting for the difficulty jump before coming on-line or something else?


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: Grinder on February 18, 2011, 09:14:26 AM
It's a combination of the fact that mining with high end cards is currently very profitable, which has made a lot of people buy more GPUs, and the Slashdot effect.


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: marcus_of_augustus on February 18, 2011, 09:18:41 AM
Quote
It's a combination of the fact that mining with high end cards is currently very profitable, which has made a lot of people buy more GPUs, and the Slashdot effect.

Yeah, but in the space of 6 hours some slashdotters bought on-line another 100 HD 5970's?

Something big (bitcoin-wise) happened.


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: mpkomara on February 18, 2011, 09:24:52 AM
network power is estimated based off of blocks generated since the last change in difficulty.  You won't get a very accurate number for a couple days after difficulty switches.


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: marcus_of_augustus on February 18, 2011, 09:31:54 AM

Thanks, that explains a lot....


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: Binford 6100 on February 18, 2011, 09:52:44 AM
Quote
... some slashdotters bought on-line another 100 HD 5970's?

i briefly mentioned bitcoin to colleagues a week ago (they do not read slashdot) and today they were discussing who's cellar will host their mining pc (setting up a mining coop, they are mid 40ties, never heard of bitcoin before afaik)


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: Pieter Wuille on February 18, 2011, 10:29:07 AM
network power is estimated based off of blocks generated since the last change in difficulty.  You won't get a very accurate number for a couple days after difficulty switches.

Still, there has really been a sudden increase:

http://bitcoin.sipa.be/speed-small-lin.png

(this graph is generated from the precise timings blocks were found, and not just the number of blocks since difficulty increase)


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: Nefario on February 18, 2011, 10:44:27 AM
NSA!!!


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: asdf on February 18, 2011, 10:46:19 AM
network power is estimated based off of blocks generated since the last change in difficulty.  You won't get a very accurate number for a couple days after difficulty switches.

Still, there has really been a sudden increase:
(graph here)

Just looks like exponential growth to me.

Quote
Exponential growth (including exponential decay) occurs when the growth rate of a mathematical function is proportional to the function's current value.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth

the more people that know about bitcoin, the more people will find out about bitcoin => exponential growth. expect more.




Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: Raulo on February 18, 2011, 10:48:48 AM
Still, there has really been a sudden increase:
It's not unprecedented. There were >40% jumps last year frequently. Of course it was easier back then where a single 5970 meant a few percent of the global hashspeed but today as long as everybody increases its mining capacity by 40%, we have such a jump. Or everybody keeps the same but there are 40% more miners. Or a little of both.

Mining was extremely profitable recently, the $/hash was at the November level where the jumps were large.
http://bitcoin.atspace.com/income.png
http://bitcoin.atspace.com/income.html

There will still be significant jumps in difficulty as long as mining is so profitable. A crash in BTC/$ market can only stop it short term. If the BTC price stays the same, we will probably see a few 30%-ish increases in difficulty and it will gradually slow to 10-20% increases like in January.

edit: proper page linked


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: Pieter Wuille on February 18, 2011, 10:59:38 AM
network power is estimated based off of blocks generated since the last change in difficulty.  You won't get a very accurate number for a couple days after difficulty switches.

Still, there has really been a sudden increase:
(graph here)

Just looks like exponential growth to me.

Absolutely, it is exponential growth. But nonetheless there was a sudden (though not very large) increase recently.

Originally i made the graphs on an exponential scale but people seem to like the linear ones more (maybe they look more dramatic?):

http://bitcoin.sipa.be/speed-small.png


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: gusti on February 18, 2011, 01:43:15 PM
Does anybody have a graphic showing correlation between BTC Market Price vs. Difficult ?


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: Raulo on February 18, 2011, 02:07:19 PM
Does anybody have a graphic showing correlation between BTC Market Price vs. Difficult ?

The graph presented above
http://bitcoin.atspace.com/income.png
http://bitcoin.atspace.com/income.html
shows exactly the correlation between BTC price and difficulty but in more tangible units. It's BTC price divided by difficulty times a factor for converting it into dollars per 100MH/s.


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: gusti on February 18, 2011, 03:38:21 PM
Does anybody have a graphic showing correlation between BTC Market Price vs. Difficult ?

The graph presented above
http://bitcoin.atspace.com/income.png
shows exactly the correlation between BTC price and difficulty but in more tangible units. It's BTC price divided by difficulty times a factor for converting it into dollars per 100MH/s.

Your link is redirecting to another webpage.


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: ribuck on February 18, 2011, 04:30:28 PM
The high returns last year are a bit misleading, because most people were mining with CPUs and it was not possible to achieve anything near 100 MHash/s.


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: Raulo on February 18, 2011, 04:42:25 PM
Here is a full page that downloads properly:
http://bitcoin.atspace.com/income.html


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: Raulo on February 18, 2011, 04:45:52 PM
The high returns last year are a bit misleading, because most people were mining with CPUs and it was not possible to achieve anything near 100 MHash/s.

Well, yes but the unit is for just today's mining capabilities. One can divide by 100 and get a daily income per 1Mh/s which was achievable back then.


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: marcus_of_augustus on February 18, 2011, 07:48:24 PM

Well if I was going to bring a rack-mounted GPU cluster, or similarly expensive GPU rental, etc, on-line I would schedule delivery, installation timing to have it coming on-stream immediately after a difficulty increase. You get a temporary leg up over the existing competition until the next difficulty increase.


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: Raulo on February 18, 2011, 08:01:33 PM

Well if I was going to bring a rack-mounted GPU cluster, or similarly expensive GPU rental, etc, on-line I would schedule delivery, installation timing to have it coming on-stream immediately after a difficulty increase. You get a temporary leg up over the existing competition until the next difficulty increase.

It does absolutely not make sense timing bringing up capacity online. The most optimal strategy is to mine as soon as possible. A mined block is worth more than the loss resulting from difficulty increase of one's mining in the next round.


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: Cryptoman on February 18, 2011, 08:30:08 PM
The graph presented above
http://bitcoin.atspace.com/income.png
http://bitcoin.atspace.com/income.html
shows exactly the correlation between BTC price and difficulty but in more tangible units. It's BTC price divided by difficulty times a factor for converting it into dollars per 100MH/s.

Hey, this is excellent.  Thanks!


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: Dude65535 on February 19, 2011, 01:17:25 AM
It does absolutely not make sense timing bringing up capacity online. The most optimal strategy is to mine as soon as possible. A mined block is worth more than the loss resulting from difficulty increase of one's mining in the next round.

That would depend on how much computing power you were going to bring online and how long till the next difficulty increase.


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: marcus_of_augustus on February 19, 2011, 04:33:33 AM

Precisely.


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: Raulo on February 19, 2011, 09:38:19 AM
It does absolutely not make sense timing bringing up capacity online. The most optimal strategy is to mine as soon as possible. A mined block is worth more than the loss resulting from difficulty increase of one's mining in the next round.

That would depend on how much computing power you were going to bring online and how long till the next difficulty increase.

No, it's not unless we are talking about some crazy scenarios that someone increases the difficulty by so much (say 20-fold) that next round mining brings less income than electricity.

Each block you mine in the round n will lower your mining output by 1/2016*(your_hash_speed_next_round/global_hash_speed_next_round)*2016=(your_hash_speed_next_round/global_hash_speed_next_round) in round n+1 due to difficulty increase resulting from getting this particular block sooner. And this number is always less than 1 because your hash speed is lower than the global hash speed. So it is always (without taking into account electricity costs) worth mining a block without worrying about the next difficulty increase.

In a less abstract example, suppose, you have 10% of the total capacity. You bring it online just after the difficulty increase. You mine 10% of 2016  = 201.6 blocks.Suppose you could have entered online sooner, at 80% of the previous round where you had 13% of the capacity. You mine 0.13*0.2*2016=52.4 blocks. It increases the difficulty by extra 2016/(2016-52.4)=2.7%. You mine next round 201.6/1.027=196.3 instead of 201.6. Net gain of 52.4-(201.6-196.3)=47.1 blocks.


Title: Re: Huge jump in network hash power
Post by: John1357 on September 07, 2013, 04:28:03 PM
excellent