So we are now well past the old epoch and into the new one. While I am always a bit uncertain about precise value from cryptothis, I think the overall picture is pretty clear:


As I interpret the numbers, it looks to me like we took about a 9.7% increase in difficulty. This is in line with the way it's been trending for days. As I read the difficulty number, it's also a new All Time High for difficulty. Unfortunately, the price BTC dropped winthin the last several hours since I last looked. It's now at: $39,113. Looks like Mr. Fuzzy and I are both underwater on our last trades.

I am hoping that somebody with more reliable skills on this (e.g. kano) will come along with an improvement or complete refutation of what I have stated. Overall, not a great day for many miners (big or small IMHO).

P.S. I will also add that I always chuckle when I see the difficulty number with FOURTEEN digits to the left of the decimal point, and two digits to the right of the decimal point. The term "significant digits" comes to mind and I don't understand why those two digits to the right could possibly matter. Perhaps somebody could educate me.

We are now well past the half way point of the current epoch:


So it's trending towards a noticeable increase at the end of the week.

Current BTC price: $42,964. Looks like Mr.s Fuzzy may be OK on his purchase after all.

I read an article on my phone that said that in Kazakhstan there was a shutdown of the internet because of political unrest there. Many miners had moved there from China because of geographic proximity and favorable coal fired electricity. As I recall, Internet access was restored, even though the political unrest continued. As we all know reliable Internet is every bit as important as Electricity. Another article mentioned that this disruption was handled quite by the current BTC network and praised it's resilience.

The price is still a bummer at $41,687.   

As we near the end on "ASIC efficiency improvements", there might well be a market for a longer life miner. Back when the S3 was king, it was very durable. It stopped being cost effective, and was replaced. I think manufacturers realized that there wasn't as much value in a "built like a tank" miner if it was going to be "economically obsolete" in 12-18 months. Maybe an extra 20% for a much longer life would be a reasonable value proposition in miners in 2023 (or when chip shortages are resolved).

We saw that Spndoolies seemed to invest more in engineering durable miners (The SP 3x series), but they just couldn't handle the pricing pressure that Bitmain could exert. That might change in a couple of years.

While it's possible that Bitmain does the kind of analysis and planning that you suggest, my bet is that they will essentially charge whatever the market will bear.  There are a variety of factors that fit into that, but competition usually matters as well. The semiconductor shortage has thrown a monkey wrench into every miner manufacturer's plans. We have seen Bitmain adjust pricing in response to competition in the past (e.g Spondoolies in particular).

BTC price and current trends in BTC uptake all factor into what folks are willing to pay. We have seen in the past a batch sell out in record time, and then the next batch is announced a few days later at a higher price. While I haven't paid close attention at an individual level, I don't expect that the practices of the past are ignored.

Just short of the 1/4 point for this epoch, and we are tracking towards a decrease.


Unfortunately BTC price isn't doing anyone favors at this time. I've see it break above $50K only to fall a day or so later.

Presently BTC price is: $47,560.

Just let us know if you think we need to make Phil "work" for it 2022. 

Have a Happy New Year in 2022 (including Phil too).   

While a bit off topic, I would be surprised if namecheap or godaddy has any way to distinguish or control what the registered domain name does. They are strictly the "cheap" registrar of the domain and is why they are used. Even the original Network Solutions exercised zero control of the names they registered. The service is to translate an alpha string to an IP address, and that's the extent of what they do. Anything more is well outside their purview.

Edit: BTC price is now back above $57K (Was in the $54K range earlier today).

That scary -50% number is strictly the result of it only having 7 blocks of history to make it's projection of the next 2000+ blocks for the epoch. Think of it like you get a coin and flip it 3 times in a row and it comes up heads. Does that mean it's a "loaded" coin and will always come up heads?

Until you get several hundred blocks in, the projections here are useless in terms of what's going to happen. We see wild variation in this projection for at least the first 200 blocks.

Has anyone actually seen where the price of electricity is denominated in Bitcoin (i.e. BTC/Kwh), or other crypto-currency? I am not trying to be disagreeable, I just haven't seen such a thing.  I understand that some folks use BTC to pay their electric bill, but the actual bill is priced in their local currency, and the payment service converts at the time you make the payment. I would think the volatility of BTC wouldn't work well for a utility pricing structure.

And the Bitcoin gods taketh away: BTC price has now fallen below $55,000

While a small increase is better than a large increase, BTC price has fallen now to less than $58K. Folks that have to sell BTC to pay the bills, won't like that.

At the moment, the increase has moderated a bit:


BTC price: $67,915. I saw a prices earlier of $67K (briefly). If you are little (or even tiny) guy like myself, it's all about the potential BTC price increase, and not if I am making 5 cents per day, or $2.50 per day (now). Regardless of your size, it kinda boils down to your appetite for risk, assuming you can tolerate little or no short term income.

I recently read an article about a shuttered coal power plant in Seneca Lake NY that was refurbished to use Natural Gas in 2017. In 2019, the owners decided that BTC mining was a good use for their power. The following link provides more details:

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/bitcoin-miners-resurrect-fossil-fuel-power-plant-drawing-backlash-from-environmentalists

Well past the half way point for this epoch and it's looking like a jump:


BTC price: $62,758

Minor note to @Fuzzy: Your good sell might have been just a bit more perfect if it had been $65536 (or $65535). Either way it's better than now!

While I may not have this quite right, I think Phil's point is that Bitmain can and will shift what kind of coins it mines (e.g. Etherium versus Bitcoin) to fit within a fixed power budget. If I am understanding and stating it correctly, they might well shut down profitable BTC miners if there is MORE profit in using the electricity to mine Etherium as an example. I can't do that nor do many folks on this forum have the necessary hardware to implement this kind of strategy. I'd swear that Phil mentioned recently that he had some L3 miners planned to arrive in November.

If I am correct, then specific BTC changes wouldn't necessarily change this kind of behavior.

We are now well past the 3/4 mark in this epoch. BTC price is: $61,808.


Looks like it will most likely be a SMALL increase. I haven't seen any big positive projections yet, nor any serious decreases either. BTC price has obviously improved quite a bit since the last adjustment. I don't think I've seen $62K yet today, but clearly we are well into $60K range. It' not hard to imagine a new ATH yet this month.  Good time if you have actual hardware to run.

Right now it's looking like a solid +4% increase is likely.


BTC price is better than recently at $48,631.

We are now well past the halfway point of the current epoch:


Since BTC price is currently $41,629 that doesn't seem to be any driving factor here. I think as North America cools down, we'll see some dormant miners come back to life for the winter.

We are now well past the halfway point in the current epoch.


BTC price: $47,035.

Looks to me like it's going to be an increase, though not be large (i.s. ~2% ).