While I thought it was unlikely, looks like @Fuzzy might well have gotten is $44K BTC order filled in the last 12 hours. Recent BTC prices is $42,487. Impossible to know how deep or long this "correction" on BTC price will last.

As usual, BTC never fails to disappoint in terms of excitement (both good and bad). 

Looks like we are down on BTC price: $50,923 (along with other crypto currencies).

Just about 30 blocks to go, and we are well over 340 blocks "ahead". Still looking like +21.xx% increase.

We are now just about 25% into the current epoch. We have completed 506 blocks, and are currently 97 blocks ahead of where we would expect to be. Yes I know it's early, but it seems to me that much of the "missing hash rate" from the last epoch has now returned. I am also expecting we'll end of with an increase of at least 2% when this epoch ends. I know that there is plenty of time for things to change, but I think it very unlikely we'll see another decrease.

Last BTC price: $54,279.

-------------------------  Update from past the halfway point of the epoch ---------------------------------

After 1111 blocks, we are now 188 blocks "ahead" (better than a full day of expected production.). Obviously it's it's almost certain that we'll have an increase, and it's likely to be well above 5%.

BTC price is still good at: $57,997.

We are well over 12 days into the current epoch and still "behind". If the hash rate was as it was a couple of weeks ago, we would expect to be at roughly block 1760, but we are actually at 1501. My periodic looks at suggest that the "missing" hash rate is still missing for the most part. Hard to know if/when it will return. For what it's worth, cryptothis.com is projecting that the epoch will finish late Saturday or early Sunday with a difficulty decrease of about 14%.

@NotFuzzyWarm: Looks like your order for BTC at $44K isn't going to get filled soon, currently at $55,535.   

The further we get into this "depressed hash rate" epoch, I wonder if maybe some of it won't return until after the next adjustment. My theory is that if there is someone (i.e. an entity) that has been offline for power reasons, maybe they would actually delay their restart until after the adjustment BY CHOICE. In other words why burn the power if you are within a few days of what looks to be a noticeable decrease in difficulty? This would depend on the economic situation of those with the option, but it might be an interesting short term plan to optimize their capture of what is essentially a predetermined supply of coins.

Just a thought since are at roughly what should be the half-way point of 776 / 996 blocks expected. BTC price is roughly $53K.

The couple of online articles I've read suggest that huge chunks of Bitcoin mining are "offline" due to a coal shortage in China. Whil eit's possible that they are just constrained, it's a pretty massive reduction in BTC hashing. Here's what I saw:

https://www.benzinga.com/markets/cryptocurrency/21/04/20674195/power-outage-in-chinas-xinjiang-region-may-have-triggered-bitcoin-selloff

https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/chinas-xinjiang-blackout-and-bitcoin-hashrate-correction-caused-btc-price-crash/

and a few other similar ones. These are fairly current and I not just from December 2020 or January 2021. Either way, the current projected difficulty decrease is real and not just variance (aka "luck). I didn't see anything to suggest how long this will last. While the Bitcoin mining firms may outside pull with Chinese officials, they will likely have to compete for power with residential and other business uses that have a big impact on their populace until their coal situation is fully resolved.

For most of us this is fairly good news, unfortunately BTC price is down to roughly $55K .

Yeah, that's the drag about a decrease in difficulty, it take longer to get here. It's interesting that by design difficulty rises more quickly (because the adjustment arrives before 14 days), while a decrease takes longer the larger the decrease.

Unfortunately BTC price has also declined. 

I looked into the arbitrage opportunity for SHA-256 hashing (i.e. BTC versus BCH in terms of $/Th) that Phil described, and it looks like that has largely evaporated. The price of BCH has fallen enough that it has a very tiny edge .

Interesting while it lasted, but alas no more.

WOW!

Those last 50-100 blocks must have flashed by in a hurry. Looks like we closed the out epoch with a +7.8% increase as a late surge in hashing seems to have materialized. I sure didn't see that coming as the first 1800 blocks had been bouncing around, mostly in the positive, but nothing significant. And then we end of with a overall increase of 7.8%.

BTC never fails to disappoint in terms of craziness.

Edit: The above figures are derived from cryptothis. Unfortunately my skill at actually using the "Copy to Clipboard" from cryptothis and then being able to get anything useful are non-existent.

The following is my hand typing:

Previous Retarget: Today at 2:40 PM (7.8499%)

The associated current and previous difficulty figures support that as well (which I didn't include here). Please forgive me if posted junk info based on what I saw on cryptothis.

 

Into the home stretch for the current epoch: 1834 blocks /1823 expected at this point (ahead by about 10). Current projection is for a small (less than 1%) increase in difficulty. Last BTC price was $63371 !  Yesterday I am sure I saw a new All Time High (ATH) of over $64K.

Times are still pretty good for miners.

Into the home stretch for this epoch: 1832 mined / 1726 expected at this point. BTC price is still $59K+ .

cryptothis is currently projecting an increase of roughly +6.1% late tomorrow. This is going to sting a bit compared to the last couple of months.

In the final stretch of this epoch: Currently 1882/1849 expected. cryptothis is projecting an increase of +2% on Friday afternoon. BTC price doing well at $57,833.

We are now a bit past the half way point in this epoch. We are currently ahead some (1063/1039 expected) in terms of the blocks mined. At the present rate cryptothis.com projects that we'll finish the epoch with a difficulty increase of about +2%. BTC price is still pretty high at $56,795.

Edit: A few hours later, BTC price has now risen to a new high of $61,000!

Every time I looked at this over the last week the price has been good, and we have been ahead by 10-25 blocks. No crazy spikes in the block solve rate.  I don't think I even seen it behind during the last 7 days for what it's worth.

Less than 200 blocks to go in this current epoch: 1816/1841 expected. Projecting a small decline in difficulty.
BTC price: $49,860.

We are gaining ground compared to my last update: 762/769 expected (only 7 behind now)While this currently is showing a small possible decrease, my actual bet is that we'll end up on the positive side before the epoch is over (about 9 days away). BTC prices has firmed up a bit at $50,374.

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Another update on the current epoch (aka the 700 block hash discussion): We are currently at 460/483 expected. This is currently projected to end with a decrease of -3.6% to -1.5% (plenty of time for that to change).

Unfortunately BTC price continues to slide, currently at $49,599. BTC has been above $50K for the last week.

When Bitcoin price soars and it ends up in the News, lots of folks decide to start mining for "Fear Of Missing Out" (aka FOMO). This level of interest by new folks will continue as BTC price rises and will evaporate if it falls in a significant way for months or more.

It could very well be that someone(s) with a lot of hashrate have decided that at the present time it might be better to just plug away and let BTC price increases do the work for profit. That 6EH would come at a cost, so maybe you would "turn some off" and reduce their cost for next couple of weeks. After all, a difficulty increase hurts everyone, including the Multi-EH folks as well as the TH folks like me.

If there is some kind of deliberate effort to adjust hash rate, those folks don't know the epoch has switched. Right now we are at 156/156.28 blocks. BTC price is $56081.

Of course it's possible they are just messing with Phil. 

While I have zero inside information, my best guess is that any preference is more an attribute of the buyer and NOT the country in which they live. I expect any folks that have received an S19 Pro have paid substantial money a while ago and hence gotten their equipment  as a result. Bitmain has run into the same shortage of ASIC manufacturing as Ford and lot's of other companies. You can read up on TSMC and other silicon foundries.