ASIC's hitting later than expected = Good thing?

[Meatball]

I think that ASIC's are seeing delays and are going to hit for at least a couple of weeks after the reward drop has a silver lining.  Since the reward drop occurring while ASIC's are not in the mix, we can get a good picture of how the BTC network reacts to the reward drop alone.  Will it drive some people out?  Lower the difficulty?  Drive up the price?  We should know in a few weeks.

If ASIC's arrived while the network was still in the midst of the reward drop change, it would be impossible to understand if changes we see were brought about by the ASIC's or the reward drop.  The inverse is true as well, if the network has time to work it's way through any impacts the reward drop may have before anyone starts mining with ASIC's then we have to opportunity to watch ASIC's impact on the network without any influence from the reward drop.

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[Jaw3bmasters]

If ASIC's arrived while the network was still in the midst of the reward drop change, it would be impossible to understand if changes we see were brought about by the ASIC's or the reward drop. 

Don't forget the 2012 end-of-times flood.

Which reminds me, since the world gonna end and all, send me your bitcoins. I'll put in a good word for ya.

[shwoop]

I think that ASIC's are seeing delays and are going to hit for at least a couple of weeks after the reward drop has a silver lining.

I concur.  The halving and ASICs occurring at the same time could have been quite a mess.

The week following the halving should be very interesting indeed.

[bcpokey]

Good thing for whom is the question.

It's good for people with an academic interest in bitcoin. It's incredibly bad for people who plunked thousands of dollars down 5-6 months ago.
On a grander scale, it is neutral and doesn't matter either way.

[Isokivi]

Good for my fpga's that havet yet reached 100% RoI
Kinda bad for my gpu's at my electric rates the off chanse of breakage is not covered with what remains of profit after the reward halving.
Bad for my Asic order.

I guess atleast I have my risk decentralized ?

[firefop]

Good for my fpga's that havet yet reached 100% RoI
Kinda bad for my gpu's at my electric rates the off chanse of breakage is not covered with what remains of profit after the reward halving.
Bad for my Asic order.

I guess atleast I have my risk decentralized ?

I guess that's a point for some people.

Personally, I think it would be interesting to see what happens at halving... and then again at ASIC release. We can expect a quick crash and even quicker recovery when ASICs hit... but halving may slowly drive the price or may do nothing at all...

[Isokivi]

I guess that's a point for some people.

Personally, I think it would be interesting to see what happens at halving... and then again at ASIC release. We can expect a quick crash and even quicker recovery when ASICs hit... but halving may slowly drive the price or may do nothing at all...

I would also prefer if these two massive changes did not coincide. It would make things much simpler.

[joshv06]

I think it's a good thing. It allows me to get more of my ROI from my video cards. Had the ASICs been released sooner, my video cards would've been put out of work.

[420]

Great points of benefit

[ewhenn]

Yup, I'll get more profit from my GPUs.  As far as I'm concerned I'd be happy as a pig in slop if ASICs got delayed another 6 months, lol.

[bitcoindaddy]

Yup, I'll get more profit from my GPUs.  As far as I'm concerned I'd be happy as a pig in slop if ASICs got delayed another 6 months, lol.

You're kidding right? Or do you have free power? With the reward halving - I am shutting down. Use the bitcoin profitability calculator and see if you are actually making money after Wednesday with 25 BTC:

http://bitcoinx.com/profit/

[AndrewBUD]

I have free power. If anyone has a couple rigs they want me to host for them. I'll do a 50/50 split

[Meatball]

Yup, I'll get more profit from my GPUs.  As far as I'm concerned I'd be happy as a pig in slop if ASICs got delayed another 6 months, lol.

You're kidding right? Or do you have free power? With the reward halving - I am shutting down. Use the bitcoin profitability calculator and see if you are actually making money after Wednesday with 25 BTC:

http://bitcoinx.com/profit/

Yeah, unless more than half the people shut down then you won't be making more profit.  If you're counting on people dropping out and there being a big difficulty drop, don't.  Difficulty drops take forever to hit compared to how quickly difficulty can ramp up.  You normally get difficulty adjustments about every 2 weeks, if half the people shut down, difficulty will still be the same until the next reset, but since half as many people are hashing, it'll take twice as long to get there.

We just adjusted to 3.43 Million difficulty about a day or so ago with a network hashing rate of ~ 24-25 TH.  If nothing changes we'll see the next adjustment around 12/10.  When the reward drops we'll still have 1680 blocks left to find before the difficulty drop.  If the network suddenly drops to 12-13 TH, it'll probably take double the time it normally would to find those 1680, or 20 minutes a block.  Calculate that out and we're talking 23.3 days from that point to finish those remaining blocks or somewhere around 12/21 or 12/22.  That whole time you will be getting half as much per block, and the blocks are going to be longer in coming.

[bitboyben]

Well if difficulty drops half way then wouldn't we be making the same as before?

I think if BTC price/difficulty ratio history were to apply here it will take two difficulty periods before people actually shut down. I think ASICS will be out the door before we see the total effect of block halving.

If I look at that calculator I see ~$0.15kw/hr power consumers roughly breaking even. Correct me if im wrong. But maybe somethink it is worth it to heat their home.

IMHO it isn't good for the BTC  community to shrink.

[bitcoindaddy]

Well if difficulty drops half way then wouldn't we be making the same as before?

I think if BTC price/difficulty ratio history were to apply here it will take two difficulty periods before people actually shut down. I think ASICS will be out the door before we see the total effect of block halving.

If I look at that calculator I see ~$0.15kw/hr power consumers roughly breaking even. Correct me if im wrong. But maybe somethink it is worth it to heat their home.

IMHO it isn't good for the BTC  community to shrink.

Your reward drop will happen immediately and thus your rate of earning will drop immediately, but any changes to difficulty will happen slowly. Even if you think the price will rise or difficulty will drop, it probably doesn't make any sense to mine for the next few weeks unless you have free power.

[rupy]

You normally get difficulty adjustments about every 2 weeks, if half the people shut down, difficulty will still be the same until the next reset, but since half as many people are hashing, it'll take twice as long to get there.

Yes, but your income would double! = no change from reward drop if half the miners stop mining!

Edit: Hum, I stand corrected, seems GPU miners are still mining, deepbit hashing power didn't budge at all!?

[Gomeler]

At $0.11 USD/kWh and it being winter in Colorado I am still mining away on GPUs. My apartment stays at a comfortable temperature and with current difficulty and rewards I'm still making a few hundred dollars above electricity costs.

Something interesting.. Litecoin/BTC pricing doesn't appear to have budged. According to http://www.litecoinpool.org/calc if I were mining litecoins right now I'd earn roughly the same BTC as I was earning prior to the reward split.

[rupy]

Ok, seems I was right, revenue per block stays the same or better it seems?! So that must mean about half of miners stopped?! It's increasing block by block so happy days for FPGA!

This is so weird, must mean all miners on deepbit use FPGA or keep GPU going?!

But block speed should be half and its been ~3 hours and 28 blocks mined so that doesent make sense? Can somebody please explain whats going on?

[The-Real-Link]

Good point OP.  Was thinking the same.  This way even though it goes against my profiting feelings, at least everyone who has an ASIC will be starting on fair ground at 25 coin blocks.  I know people anticipated earning during the 50 coin blocks but that time is now passed.

Even if ASICs are 2-3 weeks out or so, we may still be able to get an indication of how many people are dropping simply due to network power or times solving a block.  Not 100% accurate by any means but perhaps good enough.

[Gomeler]

Ok, seems I was right, revenue per block stays the same or better it seems?! So that must mean about half of miners stopped?! It's increasing block by block so happy days for FPGA!

This is so weird, must mean all miners on deepbit use FPGA or keep GPU going?!

But block speed should be half and its been ~3 hours and 28 blocks mined so that doesent make sense? Can somebody please explain whats going on?

Random variance. Block 210041 was ~39 minutes long.