[4,847,647]Difficulty Discussion Thread [TRENDING ↑ ↑]

[DobZombie]

DIFFICULTY DISCUSSION
Updated 24/01/2013

Current Bitcoin Difficulty
4,847,647

Current Trend Arrows
↓ = Next Difficulty is estimated DOWN 1% to 10%
↓ ↓ = Next Difficulty is estimated DOWN 11% to 50%
↓ ↓ ↓ = Next Difficulty is estimated DOWN 50% or more
↑ = Next Difficulty is estimated UP 1% to 10%
↑ ↑ = Next Difficulty is estimated UP 11% to 50%
↑ ↑ ↑ = Next Difficulty is estimated UP 50% or more

Difficulty Graph of the last 2 months


Sources
http://bitcoindifficulty.com/
http://bitcoin.sipa.be/
http://bitcoinwatch.com/

--------------------------------------------------------
O.P.
Looks like the difficulty might be going down? I know it's only a drop of 0.8% but could it be the start of something?

Does everyone think this is because everyone is starting to sell their GPUs, in anticipation of 1/2block.

I personally think (hope) that when the block halving happens difficulty will either go down(a lot), or Bitcoin value will double (*crosses fingers*).

either way, I reckon this is how it will go until our ASICs start rocking up.

[1714153584]

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[1714153584]

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[1714153584]

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[kokojie]

I can tell you right now that btc price will not double overnight, the decrease in inflation rate is tiny compared to 10m+ coins outstanding. On the other hand, it'll add up over time, and have an effect on price months later. Difficulty decrease is likely, due to all the people quitting due to being unprofitable. Eventually an equilibrium will be reached again.

[bitboyben]

I'm curious what percentage of coins are sold vs held vs swapped on markets. There must be some stats on that and some super math people that could guesstimate how much the supply change will change the price. Say 78% is saved, 22% is sold or moved for product?
We already know what the daily supply will be and we have the volume of the markets...

[Fcx35x10]

Atm I would assume more people would be holding then selling. Unless the have to dump their btc for some financial reason

[Stephen Gornick]

Looks like the difficulty might be going down? I know it's only a drop of 0.8% but could it be the start of something?

Just simple variance would account for a decrease of that estimate level with no decrease in physical hashing capacity.

But I don't think there are many people adding either GPUs or FPGAs so anyone trying to beat the rush by selling their GPUs now could cause a net decrease to the amount of hashing capacity that exists.

either way, I reckon this is how it will go until our ASICs start rocking up.

The difficulty adjusts right before block 210,000 so if many Thash/s of capacity drop out that first adjust period will be brutal.  Not just for severity (i.e., a shock to many miners who learn that "halving" means half.   As in if your system is bringing in 0.4 BTC before it now brings in 0.2 BTC) but in duration.  The more capacity that drops out means the longer that first adjustment period persists.

Here was my play-by-play prediction made about a month ago:
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=118952.msg1278827#msg1278827

[Stephen Gornick]

here must be some stats on that

Back when there were mostly solo miners you could get a general feel by seeing where the generated coin hadn't moved.  But with payouts from pools, there's really no data showing how much of that gets cashed out.   With pools that pay out generated coin directly (e.g., Eligius and P2Pool) you can see this again, and perhaps assume these miners are typical and then extrapolate the results for all miners. 

But just because the generated coin moves doesn't mean it is cashed out -- it could simply mean it got moved to a savings wallet, for example.

[Unacceptable]

I'm curious what percentage of coins are sold vs held vs swapped on markets. There must be some stats on that and some super math people that could guesstimate how much the supply change will change the price. Say 78% is saved, 22% is sold or moved for product?
We already know what the daily supply will be and we have the volume of the markets...

I was thinking the same thing.I looked around & still have no idea..................

MtGox volume is around 24,500 today....if that can be extrapolated to anything I don't know...............

[dunand]

Some are probably starting to disable GPU mining farm because of bicoin halving in 10 days AND Asic coming in less than a month.

[Blazr]

Its just variance. I'm sure it'll be clearly obvious when GPU mining becomes unprofitable.

[bcpokey]

Looks like the difficulty might be going down? I know it's only a drop of 0.8% but could it be the start of something?

Just simple variance would account for a decrease of that estimate level with no decrease in physical hashing capacity.

But I don't think there are many people adding either GPUs or FPGAs so anyone trying to beat the rush by selling their GPUs now could cause a net decrease to the amount of hashing capacity that exists.

either way, I reckon this is how it will go until our ASICs start rocking up.

The difficulty adjusts right before block 210,000 so if many Thash/s of capacity drop out that first adjust period will be brutal.  Not just for severity (i.e., a shock to many miners who learn that "halving" means half.   As in if your system is bringing in 0.4 BTC before it now brings in 0.2 BTC) but in duration.  The more capacity that drops out means the longer that first adjustment period persists.

Here was my play-by-play prediction made about a month ago:
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=118952.msg1278827#msg1278827

Day 26: Many "slightly used" GPU cards land in wrapped boxes under trees.  Others, particularly those who had a larger investment in their GPU rigs, are using the phrase "bah, humbug" more than they had in any prior holiday season.

That made me "lol".

[legitnick]

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Why does everyone think halving will cause the price to go up?

[Stephen Gornick]

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Why does everyone think halving will cause the price to go up?

There's a difference between in going up and it doubling.

There are some who mine specifically to acquire coins to make purchases.   If the proceeds of mining bring in less than the electric bill, then to obtain those coins needed to continue making purchases there is increased demand at the markets.  Nobody knows how much of mining is for this purpose. 

And the supply of new coins will definitely be dropping by half.

So these factors normally put upward pressure on the exchange rate.

On the flipside, there have been a lot of speculators, miners and others holding onto coins waiting for the big payoff.  With there being less than 10 days to the halving and no steady rise (last weeks bump can mostly be attributed to the WordPress announcement) it could be that $12 is all we see.

From my casual observations though, I think there are a lot more people who would buy here but are playing chicken ... waiting until the last minute to commit, hoping the exchange rate drops again giving a lower entry point.  But even if there is a spike up as panic buying sets in, there are still plenty will be thrilled to cash out at $14, $15, if it gets there.  So it looks really unlikely halving will result in a doubling of the exchange rate.  But a 20% rise from $11.75 in the days leading up to the having?   Sure, it could happen.

[DobZombie]

And now it's a slight increase

Bitcoin Difficulty
3,368,767

Next difficulty (estimate):
3,371,490

Nearly virtually the same

[cunicula]

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Why does everyone think halving will cause the price to go up?

There is no logical reason to expect the price to go up.

Many people post nonsense suggesting that the price will go up.

Widespread nonsense is usually sufficient to provoke a market reaction.

Nonsense is particularly effective when market participants are poorly informed.

[DobZombie]

There is no logical reason to expect the price to go up.

This is how I think it'll go...

block reward halves

miner receives less money

Miner asks for more $$ per bitcoin mined.

Now I don't think the ask price for 1BTC will double right away, but I think that it will trend upwards.

A man can hope and dream can't he?

 

[bobitza]

Some are probably starting to disable GPU mining farm because of bicoin halving in 10 days AND Asic coming in less than a month.

I wouldn't disable anything yet and wait for the actula halfing and/or ASICs to start pumping the difficulty up.

Unless you want to sell your GPUs and think that the price drop AFTER is more than the BTC you can mine BEFORE.

[Meatball]

There is no logical reason to expect the price to go up.

This is how I think it'll go...

block reward halves

miner receives less money

Miner asks for more $$ per bitcoin mined.

Now I don't think the ask price for 1BTC will double right away, but I think that it will trend upwards.

A man can hope and dream can't he?

 

Sadly, it doesn't work that way.  The only thing that drives up price is increased demand vs. supply.  In the coming months there's going to be a lot more supply than demand as GPU miners liquidate their final BTC pools and ASIC miners start dumping everything they can to get some payback on their investments which will drive the BTC price down.  I wouldn't be surprised in the least if you see the BTC/$ price go half or lower where it is.

The only possibility that could drive up demand is if GPU miners that stop mining buy BTC in lieu of mining.  Honestly, I don't see that happening.  Let's be realistic, most miners are in it to make a quick buck.  They're not in it to help the BTC economy, because they they think Cryptocurrency is the wave of the future, or they want to hoard in case a BTC will be worth $1000.  They do it to turn a quick profit and make "free" money for hardly any effort on PC equipment they already had or picked up on the cheap.  I highly doubt that any GPU miner that isn't migrating to ASIC's will say, "Well, I'm not going to mine anymore, but I'll put all the money I would have spent on power for my GPU's into buying BTC every month."

People can kid themselves all they want, but 90% of the people are mining bitcoins because of greed, pure and simple.

[cunicula]

People can kid themselves all they want, but 90% 99.9% of the people are mining bitcoins because of greed, pure and simple.

FTFY

[Fjordbit]

I can tell you right now that btc price will not double overnight, the decrease in inflation rate is tiny compared to 10m+ coins outstanding.

The bitcoin price is determined by the flow of people selling coins versus the flow of people buying coins. The amount of coins issued can effect this flow, but the number of coins minted certain has an effect. There's only 61K bitcoins between the current price and $14. With 3600 coins no longer being minted each day, this should tilt the flow to eat through that in a few weeks.

This is speculative though because we don't know how many of the minted coins actually go to markets now and how many are squirreled away and saved. And then after the halving, with miners save the same amount by percentage, or will they sell off the same amount nominally and thus have a lower saving percentage. For example,  starting with saving at 80% and selling at 20%, this goes to saving 60% selling 40%, which is still 10 bitcoins per block being sold, just less being saved relatively.

[Stephen Gornick]

They're not in it to help the BTC economy, because they they think Cryptocurrency is the wave of the future

Which means those miners don't hold many unsold coins

there's going to be a lot more supply than demand as GPU miners liquidate their final BTC pools

Which they normally sell anyway, so that isn't an upward change in the quantity of coins headed to market for sale.

I wouldn't be surprised in the least if you see the BTC/$ price go half or lower where it is.

There would have to be something major to happen to see a drop anywhere near that.  GPU miners being unable to compete and powering down doesn't really impact the exchange rate either way, from what I can tell.