Anything can happen in the future, I sincerely doubt that we will reach a consensus to touch dormant addresses, but even if that happened, the effect of burning or reusing 1M coins won't change the fact of "diminishing returns".

I am not making this up, it's in the chart:

Bitcoin went up from low to high as follows:

55617% (2010-2013)
12700%  (2014-2017)
1700%   (2018-2021)

For "diminishing returns" theory to be invalidated bitcoin will need to up with at least one of those cycles, meaning, it has to go to $16,000,000 this cycle to stay in line with the 2010-2013 cycle or at least goes to 400k to keep up with 2014-2017 cycle, the first one is out of the question, I hope that nobody expects bitcoin to go to 16M by the end of this cycle, you might debate the 400k is doable but I would bet the house against it, and then even it magically happened, for the next cycle it needs to be above 10M, I honestly don't think that its remotely possible by any means.

So as it stands right now based on the facts that we have before us, the price growth will slow down, the difficulty will also slow down but most likely go up, mining profitability, in the long run, is going to go down, I don't present to know the future, but this has been the case for 10 years and I see no reason as to why it has to change.



-----------------------


Ok, if the period I picked didn't work for you, how about 10 years' worth of data?  

10 years ago difficulty was 1.5M and the price was $14, 10 years later price is $64,000 and difficulty is 23T, to put that in number digits it's  23,000,000,000,000 now vs 1,500,000 then.

Price went up by 457,042% while difficulty went up by 1,533,333,233% , and thus difficulty outperformed price by 335,390%, you can make of that what you want.


No one, but I should ask you the same question, what will take bitcoin price 50x in the next 10 years?

The price peak was 64k and difficulty was 23T, right? so OP is talking about the difficulty of 46T and price of about 100k, so I think that is possible? very possible, and then in 2023, difficulty sits at 84T and price at 150k? also possible, do I think this can go on forever? of course not and I have said that I agree with your point, but because I know that bitcoin won't be putting 50% up every year, this difficulty doesn't have to put in 100% for OP's projection to be accurate.

If you look at the past data in the right way, I believe these numbers have actually been the case or very close, you can't look at 3k vs 60k and say oh well price went 2000%, the 60k was so brief, even the 19k and the 1.5k before it, you need to work with something like the average yearly price by taking the daily close of all candles within that year and divide it by the number of days in the year.

For example, the average yearly price for the 2017 peak was 2.8k and not 19k, the average of the previous year was 0.5k (( I used 365 daily moving average on trading view to get that), so realistically speaking, the gains of 2017 was merely 460%, you need to compare that against the average difficulty (can't find an easy way to get but it's doable if someone is willing to).

Of course, this can't go on forever, both price and difficulty growth will have to slow down, I can't tell for sure if it's going to be 50% vs 100% or any other ratio, but in the long run, the difficulty will outperform "profitability" assuming price here is somehow irrelevant when another halving hit the place because once the rewards are halved for the next 4 years, the difficulty doesn't need to go up by 100% to keep OP's numbers in check.

It does make sense, it makes sense for the price to go down 50% and difficulty to double, the difficulty will only go up as it has done for a decade, ignoring the china ban and what happened in the past a few weeks, you can easily look at the difficulty chart and see that it only goes up, it does cool down once in a while but noting like the price does.

on top of my head would be the 2017 peak, diff was 1.6 and price was 19.5k, a year later price was at 3.3k and difficulty was approaching 6T, that is -83% decline in price vs 275% gain for difficulty, you might think that was me cherry-picking periods, but if you spread those periods across the years, OP's projections won't sound as crazy as you may think.

I do agree with the bolded part you mention, but it isn't a direct coloration, you can't assume that if price doesn't go up so won't the difficulty, this theory has been proven to be wrong over the past decade, we have seen difficulty go up right after the halving and after major declines in price this is because the mining profitability has not gotten to it's max.

Think of miners as fishers who go to the lake to fish, you can't assume that because the number of fish is going down, less fishers will come to the lake, because for one you don't know how much fish will keep every fisher happy, and two, just because it costs you too much to get to the lake and you bought an expensive fishing rod so everyone is in the same boat, yes to you and to some other people if you can't bring home 10kg of fish a day you rather sit at home, to others, they will happy with a small fish once a week.

The same goes for mining, many people have access to free power or super cheap power sources, those can just keep adding inefficient cheap gears to infinity, they will squeeze every bit of the profit and cause the difficulty to go up regardless of the price.

You should also not forget the fact that not every miner is going to profit, many people mine at a loss because they don't know what they are doing, if every miner was a smart person who does the math, the difficulty wouldn't be going up as it does, but remember that many people paid 15k for an S19 pro, they will most likely lose money in the long run but they will keep the difficulty up, and once those go broke other losers will join along and cause the difficulty to go up, and this is where the confusion comes in, assuming that all miners are making profit leads you to the idea that " if profits aren't great, the difficulty will go down or at least not go up", but that isn't the case, sadly.

I personally know a few folks who mine at a loss as I type, their thesis is that bitcoin will go up in price so they will just hodl the mined bitcoin and sell it when it hits 100k or 200k or whatever everyone's target is, I am sure we all know a person or two that does that.

One thing to mention is that price decline or price not going up does slow down the difficulty growth, but it does not stop it, on the other hand, the larger the difficulty is the harder for it to go up, and this has been my theory forever, it's why in our past predictions I have always mentioned that doubling the hashrate by year-end was not possible even if the China ban didn't occur, sometimes prices go up way to fast, the difficulty can't keep up with it, it's a simple fact, but in the long run, the difficulty will go up and price won't keep up with it.

I should also mention that the increase in price will also slow down, "diminishing returns" is real, the evidence is all over the chart, those who think bitcoin will go above 100k and will stay above it forever or even for a few months will be very disappointed.


 

I am sorry I couldn't reply to your PM earlier, I also hardly watch the altcoin board.

Based on the kernel log you posted I can easily narrow down the problem to one of two.

1- The pool you use has some issues.

2- Your internet connection/ISP has some issues.

If I had to bet, I would bet on the pool, you need to try a different pool, Ideally, you want to use something like StatrumPing tool to make sure that your router has a clear route to the pool server, but it would be easier to just switch the pool on the miner and test it there.

I don't mine Zec anymore (I did for a very short period of time years ago) so I can't recommend a stable pool for that, you will need to search google for that, try using 3 different pools (don't use f2pool for this test) and report back.

You have to either quote my post or mention my name to notify me about any update you may have, I'll get a notification on Loycve's bot which I check more often than my inbox.

Could not agree more, I do feel bad for not replying to some PMs I get (despite the fact that I try and do respond to most of them), but people should understand that we have many things aside from the forum to attend to, also, it is always in everybody's best interest that all questions remain public (unless there is a very private aspect you need to hide), I don't mind answering a question sent via PM, but it would be a lot better answering it publicly so that other folks that have the same question could potentially find it in one of the search engines they use.

So, OP, if your question is not "secret" just ask here.

There is no evidence that suggests that the above is correct, for all we know, it could be more miners use custom firmware than not, we don't know, despite the fact that if I had to guess I'd guess that most use the OEM firmware, but that is irrelevant, just because the majority of miners use firmware that violate the license it does not make them better than the minority that uses a different firmware.

With that in mind, what if it was the other way around? imagine 90% of miners run custom firmware, based on your theory it would be okay to allow them to mine to the pool and block the stock firmware instead?



It's funny because kano said:


So, the theory is:

Stock firmware violate: we can't do shit about it, most people use it, fighting that is stupid, let's pretend it's okay for them to do that and move on.
Custom firmware: it's just a bunch of small devs, not so many people use it, let's sacrifice those as long as they remain a minority.

Honestly, I don't think what he is doing is necessarily a bad thing, but almost most of his posts are "defending the GPLv3 license", you would expect from someone who does that to actually fight against all parties that don't distribute the source code and that includes Bitmain and the other major manufacturers, if he won't do that, he should at least not bug every thread with these comments about the license which he himself isn't honoring by allowing the stock firmware to use his pool.

performing a 51% attack on bitcoin will only be done to hurt bitcoin, the network is too large for someone to benefit from a double spend or anything else, so ideally, we should be worried about someone who has a lot of money and wants to spend a huge chunk it for the sole purpose of damaging the blockchain, in that case, they would want to do it as silently as possible, not buy announcing on public media like how things are now in China.

Kano must have some weird explanation for why it's okay to allow stock firmware that violate the same license, he did mention it before, I just can't remember it, it probably didn't make any sense to me that's why I forgot, I would love to read the same excuse again.

The signal is interrupted at chip 109, so chances are chip number 110 is bad, it's either toasted or lost contact to the hash board, these asic chips are connected in series, the miner firmware is designed in a way that if it does not see all chips, it simply shut down that hash board.

You have two options:

1- Follow Phill advice and return it for warranty ( they will probably ask you to ship the whole miner)

2- If you do the math and think that wasting a few weeks/months of not mining isn't something you want to do, mine along with 2 hash boards, take out the dead board and send it for repair ( at your expense), of course, all of this depends on your location and budget.

On a side but related point, if you could convince Bitmain to send only the dead hash board and not the whole miner, it would be your best option.

I don't want to sound negative, but I can't find the "women" in this run, it's "Coinking" who is likely a male and his brother-in-law that is also likely to be a male  . with that in mind, I wish you guys the best of luck, let's get that 259th block.

A miner succeeds in mining faster than a pool can send, if you are using a PPS pool, every share you submit adds a tiny profit to your balance, the fees to send that is larger by a few orders of magnitude, this will not only cause " block congestion" it will probably cause the pool server to hang:-\, imagine having to send the rewards of a few thousands miners every second or so, it makes no sense what so ever.

Most pools have a daily payout at a specified time like 4 AM GMT, anyone who has a balance above the minimum threshold will receive their earnings, most PPS pools will not send you the freshly mined bitcoin, i.e, you don't need to wait for 101 blocks to send it, they use inputs from prior blocks which you can spend right after 1 block confirmation on most wallets.

That would be the least of his concerns, for now, setting up 60 gears that need close to 200kw isn't something easy by any means, and just for the record, AwesomeMiner is NOT free, you either pay for with hashrate by using their version of vnish firmware which has the "include license" option, or pay for each miner you want to monitor, the "free" version only allows you to monitor 1 miner.

That is an interesting theory, however, I would be more worried if hashrate stopped growing as opposed to dropping, imagine the devil or CCP or anyone for that matter was buying all the new gears and most of the used ones that are for sale without making any noise, wouldn't that be scary? but as it stands right now, we know for certain that those gears are not mining on a separate chain.

The proof is simple - if you have enough money to buy the gears that went offline, you can load them on the back of the ship in a few weeks, they are still there, a ton of them is for sale, I can personally arrange an order of a few EH worth of gears if someone is willing to buy  , this isn't a sort of a secret tiny object that someone can hide and work with, you are talking about a few hundred thousands of mining gears, this could be hard to digest if you are not watching the Chinese market closely, but as someone who does this on daily bases ( alongside with a few other members here), we know for certain that what you think is happening is not the case whatsoever.

With that being said, the 51% attack theory is still interesting, do I know for sure that it won't ever happen? nop, is it happening right now using the gears that went offline? most certainly not.

That is irrelevant, pool's luck has no memory, just because pool x was luckier than pool y the last month or even the last year, it does not mean it will be the case for next month or next year, the only thing you can calculate and actually take to the bank would be the fees, if pool x is PPS+ with lower fees than pool y which is also PPS+ then it will "likely" give you more rewards because of the lower fees, keep in mind that even PPS+ pools earning are subject to luck because most pools pay the block rewards based on PPLNS.

Long story short: you should look for a pool that has a good reputation, and a payment method you prefer, you should learn the difference between PPLNS, PPS and go with the one you prefer, ignoring "fees" and "luck" all pools (in the long run) will pay you the same regardless of their past performance.

Pressing the IP report for 15 seconds won't reset the miner, he needs to pre-press it before powering the miner on, and then keep pressing (don't let go) while powering on, hold for 5-10 seconds and then let go, that will reset the miner, however, it's extremely unlikely that it will fix any issues, I would recommend using Sdcard to flash the miner, and then trying a different firmware version.

The chips are in series, all of them need to be working, you seem to be having an issue with chip number 41, given the fact that this is a 17 model,  chances are the chip lost contact with the board, you will need some tools and skills to fix that, or send it somewhere for repair.

This section of the forum is related to Bitcoin mining, in other words, mining at its base layer and not the added services on top, your topic is related to a service more so than to mining, which means, it has to be in service discussion board, you can move the topic using the "move topic" button.

On a side but related note, you should be careful where to send your miners to, most host services are scams, most of the rest are far from honest, and only a handful are actually trustworthy, Kaboom rack and Scott are good resellers in the U.S, they might be of some help, again, you want to be careful and do your research before sending your mining gears to someone you don't know.

It depends on the miner version, the most common would be the chips themselves, there is no exact reason as to why that happens, it just happens, and it happens more often on some gears than the others, it's also common for PSUs to die.


Unless your voltage is out of the specified range labeled on the miner's PSU which is usually (220-240) it makes no sense to add those, or at least, the cost outweighs the benifit.


Buy them online, from places like Alibaba or Zeusbtc, some are cheap some are expensive, but that should be the least of your concern, the question is, will you be able to fix it yourself? if it's just a matter of a dead PSU or a dead fan, anyone can replace those, if it's a bad chip then you will need a lot of skills and tools to fix it.



It depends on the model, Some S9s have been mining non-stop since 2017, some S17s died after 2 months, it all depends on the quality of the miner and pretty much your luck, of course, keeping them clean and cool will at least in theory give them a longer lifespan, but the things you can do to "extend" their lifespan are pretty limited to taking good care of them, there isn't something you can buy and install on them that will magically make them live longer.

No, it does not depend on what BTC price does, this is MINING BTC vs BUYING BTC, bitcoin miners generate BTC and not fiat, when you buy a mining gear you are simply betting on bitcoin price to go up, so the question becomes "Will these miners generate more than 2 BTC"? if the answer is No, then buying BTC is without a doubt better than buying mining gears.

If BTC drops to 8k, then his mining gears will also drop in value, the rewards will drop and the ROI will be extended, in fact, it could be risker than just holding bitcoin, if the price stays that low for 2-3 years, the gears will most likely die before generating 2 BTC, while if you store 2 BTC in a safe place like cold wallet - nothing can happen to them, your 2 BTC will still be 2 BTC and you can just wait for the price to go up, which isn't the case with mining where you have to worry about electric bills, operational cost and the lifespan of the mining gears.

OP, on the scale of probability, you are likely going to lose money mining, go back in time to say 5 months ago, folks paid 15k for the same gear and they visited the same website you did, and it told them they would ROI in 12 months and life will be so pretty, today, they are looking the same website and it still says 12 months (actually more), and many of their gears died anyways, things are far more complicated than these calculators show you, there are many things that could go wrong, I am certain that if I randomly pick 10 miners, at least 7 of them would have done a lot better if they just bought the coin.

Hardware errors are very normal to have, it's a waste of time to try and determine what number of errors is good and whatnot, the most important would be your accepted hashrate on the pool, it accounts for all hardware errors, stale and rejected shares if your daily accepted average is very close to the hash rate that shows on your miner status page, then probably everything is fine, if it's off, then you need to troubleshoot.

Generally speaking, hardware errors is directly related to the hash board frequency, the higher the frequency the more errors you get, if you think for example the middle hash board is getting too many HW, then you will need to lower the frequency for that board, not sure if the firmware you use allows that, if it doesn't, there is nothing you can do about it.

Also, please do yourself a favor and stop mining to Antpool.



You probably mean 1.6/1.7 ph or 1600/1700 th. 

You are looking at the wrong data, you want to look for the file system version on the system> overview page, something like this



Ideally, you can get the commit version from the kernel log (not available for all miners), or the build date which is available on all miners, here is an example of one of my gears




If you go to their website, you will see the name of the firmware has a date in it, this is how they reference the versions they release, if you want the latest one you just download the one that has the most recent date, if it says 20201225 and yours is, for example, Wed Dec 25 09:47:07 CST 2019 then it's not the latest version.


Finally and most importantly you want to always avoid flashing the latest firmware unless you really have to, the latest versions does nothing more than making it more difficult to flash different firmware, if your miner is running anything 2018 or newer then it has Asicboost enabled, which is probably the only improvement bitmain did since the first firmware for the S9.