I think it's silly to expect folks to have definitive answers to your questions, when they largely involve human behavior. While all the math of crypto currencies is largely beyond me, there are several items surrounding Bitcoin that are completely driven by human behavior and expectations. The human element is most decidedly NON MATHEMATICAL in nature. For example:

- The price of BTC is a major contributor to everything that most folks do here. If the price rises, the supply increases, because folks are more willing to sell their BTC at $1000 than they are at $200. Don't just assume that BTC rewards are the primary "supply" of BTC. I have absolutely know idea what drives the demand for BTC. Right now I expect that demand is mostly a function of what folks expect for a future price.

- Some folks that are mining now, may well give up sometime after the halving because they can't afford to continue mining. That MIGHT drop the difficulty, though if they sell their equipment, nothing really changes.

- There is newer more efficient equipment likely to arrive within the next 60 days. That will shake things as well.

The lack of certainty you hear is that folks that are "knowledgeable"  already understand this and are unwilling to give you an answer that is more than speculation. Anyone that is "certain" is fooling you (and themselves).

Besides the R1 and "U series (i.e. USB centric)" miners, has Bitmain ever produced a miner that was 1Kg? I agree that seems really light. I'll bet it's just a "place holder" for now.

Of course, maybe the S9 is just a "Cloud Mining" certificate!!! 

Yes, while a 14TH speed is interesting, without a date, price, or power consumption figure it an utterly useless number. There's nothing that says the 14TH figure won't change before it becomes "real". Whoever started to fill in that web page probably could have had some fun by putting in a 25TH figure and really get a buzz going..... 

I expect the S9 will sell for a "premium" at the outset. I don't know if that is $3500 or $4000. It doesn't really matter because they just look at the demand (i.e. how quickly they sell), and adjust the price after 10 days or so. Once the details of the machine are done, the price is the easiest thing to change. Sell S9's to all those that will pay $4000, and then see who will pay $3500. They did this with the S7 and they'll do it again. If they actually have some competition, then they'll adjust price down sooner.

Rinse and repeat......

I don't expect any significant shipment s for at least a month. If they ship it in a week, that only further depresses the value of the used S7's they are selling.

If some other manufacturer produces something real, that might change their timing.

It will be interesting to watch, kind of, but I am unlikely to buy one. 

So what is your proposed response by anybody? One of the long vaunted virtues of Bitcoin is it's "lack of central control" and it's long term goal of being a "currency". The "industry" you mention is unlike any other that I am familiar with.

What would this cartel think to do to manipulate Bitcoin? Presumably you are thinking of Bitcoin as an asset. It doesn't however completely match the model , since it doesn't have any alternative use, like a precious metal might. Since it only exists as ones and zeros, and it's value exists only to the extent that folks believe it does, it's hard to see exactly what folks would would try and do to their advantage.

I will also add that in the grand scheme of economics, Bitcoin is a fairly small blip. BTC could could go to zero tomorrow, and that would be about the same impact as the one bad JP Morgan trade last year for 6 Billion dollars. 99% of the population has essentially zero interest in BTC, and wouldn't care if it went "poof" overnight.

I just can't get excited about a "BTC Cartel".

I thought I heard that Innosilicon was actually doing TWO chips (i.e. an A3 and A4). One was Scrypt, and the other SHA256. It sounded ambitious to me, but I am 99% sure they are doing a BTC centric chip as well. As for it's actual status, that's a different question.......

Does Bitmain ever ship anything for FREE?

Looks to me like a fatal flaw in an otherwise plausible scam...... 

For what it's worth, the posted link doesn't seem to go anywhere useful at all. While not in the market for an S9, I though it would be interesting to look.

http://ob//17144de3790b134b05a0fca102ff8b8887d08e27/listing/c6bbb66fd2041bde823ad70df9bdb757600aafee

The URL looks a little malformed to me........

Looks likely you will win that bet, possibly even by JUNE 1st.

So where is it coming from? Bitmain S9 or something else?

While I am not questioning the accuracy of this, how did you come to find this out? It's entirely consistent with other bits of information and the very recent hashrate "acceleration".

My bet right now is that  all the guesses (this thread) may well prove to be too LOW. My un-scientific look at the graph lines on bitcoinwisdom, show nearly vertical Gray and Blue lines.

Bitcoin Difficulty:    194,254,820,283
Estimated Next Difficulty:    200,878,704,237 (+3.41%)
Adjust time:    After 172 Blocks, About 1.1 days
Hashrate(?):    1,659,188,046 GH/s
Block Generation Time(?):    
1 block: 9.3 minutes
3 blocks: 28.1 minutes
6 blocks: 56.1 minutes
   
Updated:    11:5 (2.4 minutes ago)

Looks like we'll know in about 24-25 hours.

So in short, you would be best off to solo mine, as long as you hit a block in the next 7 weeks. If that is NOT true it makes more sense to pool mine until after the halving.

So the fundamental question is: Are you feeling lucky enough in the next 7 weeks to go solo???

Depending on you hashrate, you might actually be able to not hit a block until after the next halving in 2020.

I almost expect that the halving may reduce solo mining by individuals. My thinking is that since solo mining is more or less a "lottery" (i.e. luck) scenario, folks might be less interested.

If somebody is going to buy a lottery ticket (an actual one), do they play the $10 million one, or the $100 million one? Even if the odd are 20 times worse for the $100 million lottery, the outsize number motivates folks to the bigger possible payout, even if they are less likely to win.

While this might be an interesting or fun project, it's clearly in the "Can I make it work" category, kinda like that guy that implemented the SHA256 algorithm on a late 1950's IBM system (i.e. the 1401 CPU). It's important to understand the realities of such an effort.

For a moment, let's assume you could make a single Arduino do 1 MILLION hashes in a second. Sounds like a lot doesn't it? To put it in perspective though, the $25 Compac USB stick from sidehack does 8 BILLION hashes in one second. So to match the Compac hashrate you'll need 8 THOUSAND Arduino gadgets.

Just something to consider.

Bankruptcy and Liquidation don't last forever. Unless Guy is on the verge of retirement or something like that, he certainly could go on to do something else. I too wish him well in that future.

No trolling or sarcasm here.

+0.4 = alh

We are currently at:

Bitcoin Difficulty:    194,254,820,283
Estimated Next Difficulty:    197,606,830,283 (+1.73%)
Adjust time:    After 745 Blocks, About 5.2 days
Hashrate(?):    1,368,446,767 GH/s
Block Generation Time(?):    
1 block: 10.1 minutes
3 blocks: 30.2 minutes
6 blocks: 1.0 hours
   
Updated:    0:40 (6.5 minutes ago)

While I am not going to bid on anything, are the restrictions just on the IP they are selling? I'd be surprised if you had to keep confident the sale of actual existing hardware.

This sounds like we might never know if there was an SP50 sold off or it's actual details.

I think it closes when there are 716 blocks to go. Phil shifted the window a bit. Try looking at the 1st page, I expect it's there.

I admire your positive viewpoint on all this.

One small cautionary note about using your laptop to mine. In general, laptops aren't designed to long term compute intensive work. They just don't have a good cooling solution, as the usual laptop usage model is "99% idle with short bursts of computation". It's quite likely that doing long term mining on your laptop will shorten it's life to a few months. The internal fan will wear out sooner, and/or internal parts may "cook". Putting aside the electricity costs and such, will you be unhappy if you find your laptop isn't usable in 6 months?

I tried doing SETI work on a laptop, and it really doesn't work well.

Just something to consider.