Long range forecast of the network hashrate and Difficulty

[organofcorti]

Below is the original short range forecast post. Long range forecast posts start here.

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I've written a new post about the MT GOX US$BTC price affecting miner confidence in terms of network hashrate rather than Difficulty. I derive a rather nice model from hints the cross correlation function provided, and try to interpret what model might explain about the nature of the historic network hashrate. I've also made the charts a little smaller.

I hope you find this discovery as interesting as I did.

In summary:

• Model 0: log(H) ~ 1.74 + 0.94lag1(log(H)) + 0.21lag1(log(p)) - 0.14lag4(log(p)) . This will be within +/- 15.1% of the actual network hashrate with 95% confidence.
• All terms of the model are significant.
• Model 0 tells us that the network hashrate is generally conservative - one week's average will remains similar to the previous week's average, and will see positive or negatve changes due to the weekly median MTGOX US$-BTC price from the previous week and three weeks before that.
• Model 0 shows that changes in the network hashrate are generally attributable to price; however a volatile market has minor effect on the weekly average network hashrate.
• A robust longer range forecast model and a more sensitive longer range forecast model will be address in the next post or two.

http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/2012/11/102-forecasting-network-hashrate.html

[bcpokey]

Good post, and kudos for the impressive modelling. It really honed in there.
I was all set to buy some bitcoins when they fell to $10.50ish (I've been out of the game for a while but picking back up interest), but alas around $10.70 they started trending upwards, and are now ~$11.70, so I have no bitcoins to pass along for your fine work 

And I don't say that simply because I got an honorable mention

[meowmeowbrowncow]

How do this maths?

[bitcoindaddy]

You lost me starting with the word "I've".  Does this model tell you anything about what will happen to the BTC price when all the ASIC power comes online?

[organofcorti]

You lost me starting with the word "I've"

Sorry about that. I promise I'll use it less often

Does this model tell you anything about what will happen to the BTC price when all the ASIC power comes online?

No, but it could tell you if there's been any sneaky ASIC mining done by a manufacturer.

[organofcorti]

How do this maths?

The maths in which part? I dont even

[organofcorti]

Good post, and kudos for the impressive modelling. It really honed in there.
I was all set to buy some bitcoins when they fell to $10.50ish (I've been out of the game for a while but picking back up interest), but alas around $10.70 they started trending upwards, and are now ~$11.70, so I have no bitcoins to pass along for your fine work 

Stupid Wordpress accepting bitcoin now. Look what they did to the exchange rate.

Anyway, there'll be another post or two on this type of model, plenty of time for donations

[bitboyben]

Looking forward to your next posts. I think you are getting to some real helpful information.
Price does drive difficulty and how it does is clearly demonstrated. Should be easy for miners to make decisions on investing in hardware.

[phr33]

Good post, and kudos for the impressive modelling. It really honed in there.
I was all set to buy some bitcoins when they fell to $10.50ish (I've been out of the game for a while but picking back up interest), but alas around $10.70 they started trending upwards, and are now ~$11.70, so I have no bitcoins to pass along for your fine work 

Stupid Wordpress accepting bitcoin now. Look what they did to the exchange rate.

Anyway, there'll be another post or two on this type of model, plenty of time for donations

Hehe, you will have to incorporate that in your model then!

[organofcorti]

With molecular's help I've finally finished the post on long range network forecasts of up to four weeks. I'm surprised at how accurate the forecasts have been in recent times, although with the current changes I don't see this lasting long. Anyway, I've provided everything you need to getstarted making you own predictions (and doing your own analysis, should you wish): at:

http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/2012/12/104-long-range-forecasts-of-network.html

I've also posted the numerical forecasts here:

One week forecast
Two week forecast
Three week forecast
Four week forecast
Canary


Short except below:

4. Summary

• Up to four week forecasts of the network hashrate can be modelled and provide reasonable accuracy
• The forecast models of two to four weeks do not help us understand the nature of the relationship between the MTGOX US$BTC exchange rate and the network hashrate in the same way the best model (forecast one week) does.

I'll try to update the forecasts when I can, but you now have the necessary tools to do it yourself should you wish. PM me at the bitcointalk.org forums if you need help converting data to a time series to do your own analysis.

[Dalkore]

Short answer:  Higher, much higher.   We will have some calm while ACIS are being readied and deployed but after that, increases in orders of magnitude. 

[organofcorti]

Short answer:  Higher, much higher.   We will have some calm while ACIS are being readied and deployed but after that, increases in orders of magnitude. 

I wrote something much the same in the last two blog posts in the series. I didn't want to mention it again, since it I went over that in detail, but yes with ASICs coming we expect the hashrate to be higher. Once the hashrate is outside the confidence interval for error, we know an influence other than price is affecting the hashrate, compared to historical data.

[organofcorti]

I thought I'd best update this thread with the news that I'm now posting weekly (ish) network forecasts:

http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/2012/12/weekly-network-forecast-3rd-december.html

I'll post regular updates on a different board: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=129059.0

[phorensic]

[crazyates]

I understand about 5% of eacy of your posts, organofcorti. You could be posting graphs about how many cheerios you ate for breakfast that day, and I'd still believe you.

[organofcorti]

I understand about 5% of each of your posts, organofcorti. You could be posting graphs about how many cheerios you ate for breakfast that day, and I'd still believe you.

See, you *did* follow it!

You bring up a good point though. I try to make posts as accessible as possible for a wide audience, without losing too much information. I guess I'm failing at this. The best thing to do is just post something along the lines of "Can you explain or rephrase <whatever it is that you found unintelligible>", either here or the blog. Also, I work two jobs and can only work on posts late at night, so anything you don't follow could be a mistake or a poorly phrased explanation on my part.

For the weekly network forecasts though, the tables are pretty self explanatory, and the date and hashrate at the top of each chart is my forecast for that date as of the posting date.

[crazyates]

I understand about 5% of each of your posts, organofcorti. You could be posting graphs about how many cheerios you ate for breakfast that day, and I'd still believe you.

See, you *did* follow it!

You bring up a good point though. I try to make posts as accessible as possible for a wide audience, without losing too much information. I guess I'm failing at this. The best thing to do is just post something along the lines of "Can you explain or rephrase <whatever it is that you found unintelligible>", either here or the blog. Also, I work two jobs and can only work on posts late at night, so anything you don't follow could be a mistake or a poorly phrased explanation on my part.

For the weekly network forecasts though, the tables are pretty self explanatory, and the date and hashrate at the top of each chart is my forecast for that date as of the posting date.

Haha I knew it!

Well 5% may have been a bit of an exaggeration. I understand most of your tables/charts/graphs, and really appreciate your projections. I just don't understand quote HOW you got to those conclusions, which to be fair I don't really expect you to educate me if I can't already figure it out. You've already posted quite a bit of information for being as busy as you sound!

Keep up the good work!

[organofcorti]

Update:

0.Introduction
This week's forecast is interesting, since it shows an influence other than price and hashrate having an effect on the current network hashrate. This influence is of course likely to be the block reward halving reducing the number of miners that find it profitable to mine, and hence recucing the network hashrate.

3. Models and datasets:
The model datasets have been collected into one paste to save time. Model estimates have been likewise aggregated.

Forecast and canary model analysis
All datasets
All estimates

2. Results
The Canary model shows its value here. The drop in network hashrate is outside the 95% confidence interval for the percentage error; in fact it's outside the 99.9% confidence interval. I had hoped for this result which is an indicator that the Canary model may be useful for detecting when ASICs start to hash in significant numbers.

The Model.f1 prediction for this week is also outside the 95% confidence interval - this was not completely unexpected since the change is significant enough to be outside the expected error range.

[420]

were they right

[organofcorti]

were they right

Were who right? If you mean Dalkore, then no, he wasn't right. My estimates were much closer.