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The upside to something like the S5 (or SP20) is that it should be economically viable for a longer period of time when difficulty starts rising. The S3 will drop into "not paying the electric bill" sooner. My sense is that the last few months of "small to no" difficulty increases will end in the next couple months, and we'll see another ratcheting up of difficulty. I hope not like the brutal days of 10-20% increases every two weeks.
As always it depends on your definition of "best". None of the suggestions are obviously "perfect".
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Some thoughts. In mid 2016, when the block reward halves, I suspect the difficulty is likely to fall by about 25%.
Logically the fall must by less than 50%. If the difficulty fall was 50% then blocks would be found at twice the current rate meaning no-one would turn off their miners.
So we can assume a fall in difficulty of between say 20% to 30% as mining hardware with the most expensive running costs will be turned off.
Mining revue for the remaining miners will fall by about a third, rather than halve, as the difficulty will have fallen by say 25%.
Everyone knows a halving is coming so I would expect mining farms to act rationally and to have planned to maximize revenue before and after the change. The miners who will be most affected are those with higher electricity costs.
In general, I agree with some of this. The wildcard however is the price of Bitcoin. If it rises "enough" between now and the halving, then there won't be much reduction in hashrate and hence no reduction in difficulty. I agree that if the Bitcoin price remains steady, then there will be a drop off in hash rate after the halving, and then a reduction in difficulty. We also don't know how much the hash rate will increase between now and then due to things like: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1072474.0 |
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I saw the following, and thought a link here would be interesting: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1072474.0I think we'll see the impact of this in the near future, which will mean a positive increase in difficulty.  @Phil: You might to amend the title to say picks are closed. |
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You know how the ASICMiner had that little blinking LED? This one can really put that to shame! I can just see a room filled with these, all blinking randomly.....  |
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So does it still mine, even after I turn off the switch? Besides being a crazy stunt, what does it cost, what's the hashrate, and what's it's power draw? Have the guys talked to 21 Inc.? Maybe they can get a $116 million cash infusion from a bunch of VC firms! |
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You should seriously rethink your plans for "mining at college", particularly in the hopes of "free electricity" to improve your finances. Unless you are going to live in a warehouse, you'll almost certainly find your living quarters to be entirely unsuitable for anything but "casual mining". The S2 you mentioned is a 1000W beast that is likely to be way too loud and way to hot for a dorm room, particularly if you have a room mate. Besides the Internet access issues, you will almost certainly find that there is a significant limit to the amount of "free electricity" you can actually use. College kids think that electricity is "free" only because they aren't getting separate bill for it. Your living quarters almost certainly have an expected electrical usage that does NOT contemplate running a Bitcoin miner.
If you are lucky, you'll be allowed to just turn off your miner during the first few weeks of school. If you aren't you may be back at Mom and Dad's house after having been expelled.
Electricity isn't free, and I am pretty sure the college administration knows that and will make you aware of it as well.
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Something tells me that Comcast won't be real keen on the idea of forgoing my $60+ per month tribute to them for Internet. Of course maybe 21e6 will just send them a check for $59 a month? As for the mining light bulb, I'll just walk on by at Home Depot and get the 8.5W LED bulb that runs cooler..... Is there a sub-forum for "Absurd Mining Discussions"? |
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It all matters on what nation you're in and where in that nation. A quick google showed this for the US : In the U.S., hydropower is produced for an average of 0.85 cents per kilowatt-hour
I am in the US..... $.85 is way too high for any sort of power. I think you might have your decimal in the wrong place. I have seen $.03 - $.06 for a range. What I was hoping to get is what miners are really paying. He may well have it right at .85 CENTS per KWh. It wouldn't surprise me if that is close to the marginal cost of a Hydro plant Kwh. That of course isn't what a customer pays to have it delivered to their house, with some money being put away when it's time to actually do a major overhaul at the plant. I expect some research on Washington State will get when you are looking for. |
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When you go to 20nm process technology?
TSMC is taking orders at affordable prices since 2014.
I expect you'll get the answer to this question then Bitmain announces a new generation of ASIC, not just a repackaging like the S4+. You might find that Bitmain has a different view of what constitutes "affordable" than you do. |
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The times they are a changing jimmothy !
As the fiat value of bitcoin converges on the cost of production profitability will trend to zero and people who might consider mining will find more profitable use for their assets. Additionally, as block rewards halve and halve, its unlikely that the transaction fees will cover mining costs. Finally, a successful mass deployment by 21 inc. of micro mining will destroy the profitability of dedicated large scale mining operations virtually overnight.
What I've always heard described was that Bitcoin "Transaction Processing" (aka Mining) would subsist on the "Transaction fees" contained within blocks. I never really believed that could possibly be true, but I can't argue it effectively one way or another until we actually "get there" in time. If your expectation is actually correct, then Bitcoin will just have to evaporate. Given Bitcoin's vaunted "decentralized no government control" then the idea of a "tax to support" the network is utterly silly. I noticed that you described the demise of "large scale mining operations". Why the "large scale" qualifier? Is there something about "small scale" that makes Bitcoin more feasible? Or is it your expectation that it will all be supported by this small electricity charge paid by folks that buy 21Inc based gadgets? Is that the "tax"? |
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I too am going to "manage for power" my single SP20. I am at about 540W (measured), that yields about 1080-1095GH. I expect to reduce that down further to less than 500W here in the next 2-3 weeks. I think I may be able to go as low as 450W and still keep it reliable and steady. Right now it's in the lowest level of my house (i.e. the basement), and the noise is completely unobtrusive now (fan at 30). This is a new experiment for me as I didn't have this much hashrate, or power draw, last summer. I'll be waiting for that fabled 21e6 "power meter" that produces 200GH at 10W..... |
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I must live in the wrong state (Minnesota) or the wrong country (USA). My electric company is doing numerous things to REDUCE power consumption, not add 10W per meter. They have so many other pressing matters to deal with (e.g. pollution, regulation distribution infrastructure, future plant builds), that adding on a "Bitcoin Meter" will look silly to them. You won't be able to dazzle them with Power Point slides once they figure out the actual costs involved and the impact to their operation. This is a complete non-starter for my electric company. Maybe your electric company is different.
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I'll take -1.76% ro -2.00% if picks are still open.
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how do they manage them? for example if i had 30 S5's. thats obviously not enough to solo mine. so how do you update the pools and settings on all of them at once? i dont have 30. i was justing using that number as an example.
While I expect it's valuable in terms of effort, I don't see why it would be absolutely critical to get everything changed at once on N miners. What happens if you do N/2 in the afternoon, and N/2 the next morning? I can't imagine the pools would care, nor would the S5 miners. If I had N (N>1) miners I would clearly consider spreading their hash rate across multiple pools. And I certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over the fact they might have different settings. They are all running at different speeds anyway, and using different amounts of power at some level. |
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I have a question that really isn't specific to this pool, but I'll ask here anyway:
What do pool operators expect to do as the result of a halving next year? While I am not a pool operator, I expect most of the operational costs are largely fixed, and paid for in the appropriate currency for your operation. It would seem like your income will get cut in half (as measured in BTC, not percentage) along with your mining "clients".
Any thoughts on this, or does this need to go to a different thread?
what happens to network diff. when it splits also I hope price of btc to double maybe The same thing that happened when block rewards went from 50 to 25. Fewer coins generated per block. We all hope the price of BTC rises to match, and maybe it will. As for network difficulty, there's nothing magical about it. The network will adjust according to how long it takes to find 2016 blocks as it always has. i was hoping it too would also halve The network difficulty is driven by the rate at which blocks are found, not how many Bitcoins are "contained" within the block. The only way difficulty falls, is if the hash rate falls. Only if miners disappear from the network will difficulty fall. Think of the halving has having your wage rate cut in half, not the number hours you work in the week. |
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Any thoughts on how long it will take to see which "vision" is the closest to reality? Will it take longer than 18 months to know if the VC guys were "super brilliant" or just "suckered in"? I can't believe it will take even 24 months to know.
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I have a question that really isn't specific to this pool, but I'll ask here anyway:
What do pool operators expect to do as the result of a halving next year? While I am not a pool operator, I expect most of the operational costs are largely fixed, and paid for in the appropriate currency for your operation. It would seem like your income will get cut in half (as measured in BTC, not percentage) along with your mining "clients".
Any thoughts on this, or does this need to go to a different thread?
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Just because I am curious, what's driving the rental price up these days on Westhash? Any insights to offer?
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Putting aside the solar, what is your power cost for a "cloudy day"? If that's more than about $.10 USD/KWh, then you need to rethink this project. Obviously there will be times when you consume more power than you deliver, and if that's too much you'll be on the losing side. Somebody suggested that you are in California, which isn't know for it's low electricity rates. Is "net metering" done over a month or what? Does it work to "spin the meter backwards" for short periods of time (e.g. daytime), and run it "forwards" at night or on a cloudy day?
You also need to consider the environmentals of you building. Most mining gear won't operate well if it's say 90F inside for very long (e.g. hours).
Interesting idea though!
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bitcoinwisdom is now back UP!
Bitcoin Difficulty: 48,807,487,245
Estimated Next Difficulty: 50,213,024,131 (+2.88%)
Adjust time: After 1485 Blocks, About 10.3 days
Hashrate(?): 339,634,452 GH/s
Block Generation Time(?):
1 block: 10.0 minutes
3 blocks: 29.9 minutes
6 blocks: 59.8 minutes
Updated: 23:50 (8.0 minutes ago)
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