The next difficulty

[cdb000]

We have recently seen the last difficulty adjustment before the block reward drops to BTC25.

It may be that lots of GPUs will be turned off in a couple of days, or it may be that people will continue to mine despite the block reward drop.

It may be that ASICs will be delivered, or it may be that they will remain in the future.

The value of the Bitcoin may go up, or down, or be stable.

All these factors can influence the difficulty so, what do you think the next difficulty will be?

Up a lot?
Up a bit?
About the same?
Down a bit?
Down a lot?

For the record, I have no idea.

[Korbman]

I really don't see how it would go up until ASICs are out..and since I'm sure there will be a number of GPUs turning off, I can only suspect that the difficulty will decrease. This is, of course, ignoring price changes...but I haven't seen substantial volatility too recently, so my guess is that it won't have much of an effect on difficulty/mining yet (even if the price keeps going up).

This next week should give us some insights though!

[bitboyben]

5% per difficulty period has been pretty steady.
I imagine ppl will be holding on to price increases as a possibility.
Also it is winter. So many have to pay for heat, why not get BTC if you have to pay for power any way...

[2GOOD]

5% per difficulty period has been pretty steady.
I imagine ppl will be holding on to price increases as a possibility.
Also it is winter. So many have to pay for heat, why not get BTC if you have to pay for power any way...

I think that many of the large GPU miners will fully/partly quit or do extreme undervolt, while trying to sell some GPUs this can cause maybe 5-10% diff change, of course if asics are out of the game. Heat is a good thing in the winter but when you have 5-6 rigs it's not

[vitruvio]

Ask bitcoin miner for the hashrate since last diff change, ask bitcoin miner for the hashrate in last 120 blocks, tell me how many block since diff change,  and I will calculate what will be the next diff if hashrate remains the same until 2016 blocks.

This are math, not a votation to choose the next diff .

Regards

[bcpokey]

Ask bitcoin miner for the hashrate since last diff change, ask bitcoin miner for the hashrate in last 120 blocks, tell me how many block since diff change,  and I will calculate what will be the next diff if hashrate remains the same until 2016 blocks.

This are math, not a votation to choose the next diff .

Regards

Since hashrate is guaranteed to not remain constant for the next 1818 blocks (remaining in this round), that's not a helpful offer. And people are voting not to choose, but what they are speculating it will be, based on the information they have at hand.

[vitruvio]

Ask bitcoin miner for the hashrate since last diff change, ask bitcoin miner for the hashrate in last 120 blocks, tell me how many block since diff change,  and I will calculate what will be the next diff if hashrate remains the same until 2016 blocks.

This are math, not a votation to choose the next diff .

Regards

Since hashrate is guaranteed to not remain constant for the next 1818 blocks (remaining in this round), that's not a helpful offer. And people are voting not to choose, but what they are speculating it will be, based on the information they have at hand.

I agree, too many blocks remain to make an accurate estimation. I forgot that we were in speculation subforum  .

Regards

[CrazyGuy]

BFL isn't shipping any new FPGAs and lots of GPU miners are going to be shutting down their rigs. difficulty certainly isn't going to rise.

[AngelusWebDesign]

BFL isn't shipping any new FPGAs and lots of GPU miners are going to be shutting down their rigs. difficulty certainly isn't going to rise.

And yet, almost 3 days after a difficulty reset, we have this:


Blocks   210093
Total BTC   10.502M
 
Difficulty   3438909
Estimated   3553979 in 1587 blks
 
Network total   28.085 Thash/s
Blocks/hour   6.85 / 526 s

So *someone* is turning on some new mining hardware.

[vitruvio]

Add to this that since block's reward is 25 BTC, in less than 20 hours LTC hashrate has doubled, it means that at least 0.5 TH/s has switched from BTC to LTC, add the people who has switch to alternate coins.

Regards

[Luno]

Look at it like this; if difficulty were to fall, price would fall. The raise in hashing is a way to support the current price. Someone have the silicon for this.

[bcpokey]

Look at it like this; if difficulty were to fall, price would fall. The raise in hashing is a way to support the current price. Someone have the silicon for this.

Nope!

[DobZombie]

It could take 6 months until we know exactly what effect the halving has.

Gotta wait for the stubborn miners to switch off (up to 3 months)
And then the GPU heaters to be turned off (up to 6 months)

[meebs]

It could take 6 months until we know exactly what effect the halving has.

Gotta wait for the stubborn miners to switch off (up to 3 months)
And then the GPU heaters to be turned off (up to 6 months)

the thing I am curious about is.. when/if asic's come in force and difficulty goes to say.. 100m... where will the fpga's go?

when it takes 200k diff 1 shares to gross $1 (assuming $20/btc... ) it just wont even be worth it for them anymore.. much less any GPU.

[bitboyben]

It could take 6 months until we know exactly what effect the halving has.

Gotta wait for the stubborn miners to switch off (up to 3 months)
And then the GPU heaters to be turned off (up to 6 months)

the thing I am curious about is.. when/if asic's come in force and difficulty goes to say.. 100m... where will the fpga's go?

when it takes 200k diff 1 shares to gross $1 (assuming $20/btc... ) it just wont even be worth it for them anymore.. much less any GPU.

BFL FPGAs will be traded in. I think bASIC has a similar plan but I don't know. Others will comment I'm sure.
Nice thing about FPGA is they can be used of either things so they have residual value. Also they may not have a return on investment of a year any more but depending on the price of power may be profitable still.

[GernMiester]

The hash rate dropped for a day or two and is climbing right back to where it was.
GPU miners went nowhere it seems.

[bitboyben]

Price has steady increases. Maybe GPU users in high power cost areas are probably holding out till the price matches break even. I think some paying $0.15/kw need about $15-16 per coin to stay in the green. I would say that could happen by the end of the month if these increases keep at this rate. Just an opinion no charts or data to back that up.

[creativex]

The hash rate dropped for a day or two and is climbing right back to where it was.
GPU miners went nowhere it seems.

That's because LTC difficulty hasn't adjusted lower yet. It's currently more profitable to mine BTC. Many will switch back to LTC mining when the difficulty adjusts.

[meebs]

The hash rate dropped for a day or two and is climbing right back to where it was.
GPU miners went nowhere it seems.

That's because LTC difficulty hasn't adjusted lower yet. It's currently more profitable to mine BTC. Many will switch back to LTC mining when the difficulty adjusts.

heck.. once difficulty drops.. 2.6 mhash will be worth like $8/day at current 0.006 fx rate. not a bad deal.. even though 2.6 ghash is still worth $5 a day at current difficulty and price.