Huge difficulty spike after Halving -- coincidence?

[eleuthria]

If you look at blockchain.info before the reward halving, you can see where a lot of that spike came from.  Bitminter and BTC Guild both had especially nice runs of luck for about 12 hours preceeding the change.  BTC Guild's luck alone would have been interpreted as a ~2-2.5 TH/s increase in overall network speed for those 12 hours, and even a few hours after.

[1714950527]

1714950527

[1714950527]

1714950527

[1714950527]

1714950527

[1714950527]

1714950527

[Transisto]

I have really cheap energy 0.07Kw/h and I will continue mining.. my goal is long LONG term so I dont care about halving.. I care about hoarding...but eventually, when 2Ghash make less than .20 BTC per day, then I might upgrade to sopmething different...

So you're the cause of the spike ? Good to know.

Seriously, There was ~18 block in the time it's supposed to take for 9, this could be an extra ~20ghs in a relatively small time span.

[AngelusWebDesign]

1. If it were just BTCguild's luck, it should be leveling off at some point. Instead, the estimated next difficulty just keeps going up.

2. If it were just ex-miners firing up their rigs for old times sake/to find the last 50BTC block, they must be leaving them on for a while longer.

3. As for "some people don't realize GPU mining isn't profitable anymore", that wouldn't explain an INCREASE in hashing power. It would only explain hashing power staying the same.


So we still don't have the answer.

[Fjordbit]

The increase in difficulty started before the halving. The halving was supposed to be at 1pm, and it got pushed up 3 hours overnight.

I don't think it's ASICs, it's people turning on their dusty miners for a shot at history.

Many people will continue mining in spite of non-profitability. Some do it because they believe in bitcoin, others because they believe bitcoin price will rise and justify their actions (this is actually wrong because they could instead just buy some bitcoin if they think price will rise). Meanwhile, on the price side of things, you can really only expect it to rise at most at a rate that would eat through the order book at half the average volume.

[Transisto]

The increase in difficulty started before the halving. The halving was supposed to be at 1pm, and it got pushed up 3 hours overnight.

I don't think it's ASICs, it's people turning on their dusty miners for a shot at history.

Many people will continue mining in spite of non-profitability. Some do it because they believe in bitcoin, others because they believe bitcoin price will rise and justify their actions (this is actually wrong because they could instead just buy some bitcoin if they think price will rise). Meanwhile, on the price side of things, you can really only expect it to rise at most at a rate that would eat through the order book at half the average volume.

I do both, I mine and I buy because I know BTC will rise in price... better than buying stock.. IMO...

What do you do for diner ?

/Seriously,  Do you really think a sufficient number of miners care much about finding the last 50btc block to affect hashrate in any visible way ? It has very little historical value, the chance of finding is extremely small, It require that you mine Solo,  90%+ of miners don't.  GPU mining is still profitable for many, but it as not profitable enough to restart a mining farm for less than a day.

[CoinDiver]

How does this always happen when this is the first time it's halved?

How many times has it NOT happened?

[GernMiester]

How does this always happen when this is the first time it's halved?

YOU ARE AN IDIOT!

[wormbog]

2. If it were just ex-miners firing up their rigs for old times sake/to find the last 50BTC block, they must be leaving them on for a while longer.

#2 is my guess. Folks turned on their miners for the day to enjoy the final hours of 50BTC reward. Now that it's past, they have to keep them on long enough to exceed the withdrawl minimum so they claim the fruits of their labors. But it's taking longer than expected since the reward rate is now half what it used to be.

[Clearfly]

If you look at blockchain.info before the reward halving, you can see where a lot of that spike came from.  Bitminter and BTC Guild both had especially nice runs of luck for about 12 hours preceeding the change.  BTC Guild's luck alone would have been interpreted as a ~2-2.5 TH/s increase in overall network speed for those 12 hours, and even a few hours after.

Bitminter's run of luck today happened because i turned off my GPU miners and fired up my FPGA's which arrived today 

[BCMan]

If you look at blockchain.info before the reward halving, you can see where a lot of that spike came from.  Bitminter and BTC Guild both had especially nice runs of luck for about 12 hours preceeding the change.  BTC Guild's luck alone would have been interpreted as a ~2-2.5 TH/s increase in overall network speed for those 12 hours, and even a few hours after.

Bitminter's run of luck today happened because i turned off my GPU miners and fired up my FPGA's which arrived today  

Why so happy? You will never pay them off.  Or I am missing something?

[jamesg]

This stuff really only makes sense averaged over a multi-week period.

http://blockorigin.pfoe.be/chart.php

pfoe.be shows it pie chart over the last 2016 blocks to try and get rid of the noise. They also track blocks by parsing individual pool websites instead of guessing ip addresses like blockchain.

[Clearfly]

If you look at blockchain.info before the reward halving, you can see where a lot of that spike came from.  Bitminter and BTC Guild both had especially nice runs of luck for about 12 hours preceeding the change.  BTC Guild's luck alone would have been interpreted as a ~2-2.5 TH/s increase in overall network speed for those 12 hours, and even a few hours after.

Bitminter's run of luck today happened because i turned off my GPU miners and fired up my FPGA's which arrived today  

Why so happy? You will never pay them off.  Or I am missing something?

Half price for FPGA's, and no ASIC's shipping this year due to flaws found in their designs. They'll pay for themselves before any ASIC's start shipping. When that happens they'll be reprogrammed for other tasks.

[BCMan]

If you look at blockchain.info before the reward halving, you can see where a lot of that spike came from.  Bitminter and BTC Guild both had especially nice runs of luck for about 12 hours preceeding the change.  BTC Guild's luck alone would have been interpreted as a ~2-2.5 TH/s increase in overall network speed for those 12 hours, and even a few hours after.

Bitminter's run of luck today happened because i turned off my GPU miners and fired up my FPGA's which arrived today  

Why so happy? You will never pay them off.  Or I am missing something?

Half price for FPGA's, and no ASIC's shipping this year due to flaws found in their designs. They'll pay for themselves before any ASIC's start shipping. When that happens they'll be reprogrammed for other tasks.

With current difficulty and price you'll need ~8 months to pay them off, assuming half price for FPGA's and you paying nothing for electricity. ASICs will hit pretty soon, most probably Jan-Feb 2013...

[molecular]

1. If it were just BTCguild's luck, it should be leveling off at some point. Instead, the estimated next difficulty just keeps going up.

2. If it were just ex-miners firing up their rigs for old times sake/to find the last 50BTC block, they must be leaving them on for a while longer.

3. As for "some people don't realize GPU mining isn't profitable anymore", that wouldn't explain an INCREASE in hashing power. It would only explain hashing power staying the same.


So we still don't have the answer.

ASIC testing, isn't that the most probably answer?

[molecular]

2. If it were just ex-miners firing up their rigs for old times sake/to find the last 50BTC block, they must be leaving them on for a while longer.

#2 is my guess. Folks turned on their miners for the day to enjoy the final hours of 50BTC reward. Now that it's past, they have to keep them on long enough to exceed the withdrawl minimum so they claim the fruits of their labors. But it's taking longer than expected since the reward rate is now half what it used to be.

then why is it continuing? (EDIT: sorry, I didn't even read your explanation, but think it's unlikely)



it looks more and more significant (not variance) to me.

[Clearfly]

2. If it were just ex-miners firing up their rigs for old times sake/to find the last 50BTC block, they must be leaving them on for a while longer.

#2 is my guess. Folks turned on their miners for the day to enjoy the final hours of 50BTC reward. Now that it's past, they have to keep them on long enough to exceed the withdrawl minimum so they claim the fruits of their labors. But it's taking longer than expected since the reward rate is now half what it used to be.

then why is it continuing? (EDIT: sorry, I didn't even read your explanation, but think it's unlikely)



it looks more and more significant (not variance) to me.

Draw a straight line through the graph for the past 6 months and it looks like the difficulty is averaging out. Also that spike is less than the spike exactly 1 month ago

[molecular]

2. If it were just ex-miners firing up their rigs for old times sake/to find the last 50BTC block, they must be leaving them on for a while longer.

#2 is my guess. Folks turned on their miners for the day to enjoy the final hours of 50BTC reward. Now that it's past, they have to keep them on long enough to exceed the withdrawl minimum so they claim the fruits of their labors. But it's taking longer than expected since the reward rate is now half what it used to be.

then why is it continuing? (EDIT: sorry, I didn't even read your explanation, but think it's unlikely)



it looks more and more significant (not variance) to me.

Draw a straight line through the graph for the past 6 months and it looks like the difficulty is averaging out. Also that spike is less than the spike exactly 1 month ago

Ok, maybe it's not decisive at all at this point. In fact one would probably have to "normalize" for price when making such judgements.

[Clearfly]

If you look at blockchain.info before the reward halving, you can see where a lot of that spike came from.  Bitminter and BTC Guild both had especially nice runs of luck for about 12 hours preceeding the change.  BTC Guild's luck alone would have been interpreted as a ~2-2.5 TH/s increase in overall network speed for those 12 hours, and even a few hours after.

Bitminter's run of luck today happened because i turned off my GPU miners and fired up my FPGA's which arrived today  

Why so happy? You will never pay them off.  Or I am missing something?

Half price for FPGA's, and no ASIC's shipping this year due to flaws found in their designs. They'll pay for themselves before any ASIC's start shipping. When that happens they'll be reprogrammed for other tasks.

With current difficulty and price you'll need ~8 months to pay them off, assuming half price for FPGA's and you paying nothing for electricity. ASICs will hit pretty soon, most probably Jan-Feb 2013...

http://www.tricone-mining.com/
My calculations at current difficulty/half reward and their current hashing rates says they'll pay off in ~8-10 weeks. Maybe less if GPU miners start dropping off the network due to unprofitablilty.
I somehow doubt we'll see any real working ASIC's until Feb/March at the earliest and thats if they don't have any further delays/issues from what they've already experienced.

[BCMan]

If you look at blockchain.info before the reward halving, you can see where a lot of that spike came from.  Bitminter and BTC Guild both had especially nice runs of luck for about 12 hours preceeding the change.  BTC Guild's luck alone would have been interpreted as a ~2-2.5 TH/s increase in overall network speed for those 12 hours, and even a few hours after.

Bitminter's run of luck today happened because i turned off my GPU miners and fired up my FPGA's which arrived today  

Why so happy? You will never pay them off.  Or I am missing something?

Half price for FPGA's, and no ASIC's shipping this year due to flaws found in their designs. They'll pay for themselves before any ASIC's start shipping. When that happens they'll be reprogrammed for other tasks.

With current difficulty and price you'll need ~8 months to pay them off, assuming half price for FPGA's and you paying nothing for electricity. ASICs will hit pretty soon, most probably Jan-Feb 2013...

http://www.tricone-mining.com/
My calculations at current difficulty/half reward and their current hashing rates says they'll pay off in ~8-10 weeks. Maybe less if GPU miners start dropping off the network due to unprofitablilty.
I somehow doubt we'll see any real working ASIC's until Feb/March at the earliest and thats if they don't have any further delays/issues from what they've already experienced.

You've got a major error somewhere in your calculations. Try this one http://bitcoinx.com/profit/index.php
 Assuming that you have bfl singles and paid for each 300$, then hardware break even is 235 days without electricity cost.

[bcpokey]

If you look at blockchain.info before the reward halving, you can see where a lot of that spike came from.  Bitminter and BTC Guild both had especially nice runs of luck for about 12 hours preceeding the change.  BTC Guild's luck alone would have been interpreted as a ~2-2.5 TH/s increase in overall network speed for those 12 hours, and even a few hours after.

Bitminter's run of luck today happened because i turned off my GPU miners and fired up my FPGA's which arrived today  

Why so happy? You will never pay them off.  Or I am missing something?

Half price for FPGA's, and no ASIC's shipping this year due to flaws found in their designs. They'll pay for themselves before any ASIC's start shipping. When that happens they'll be reprogrammed for other tasks.

With current difficulty and price you'll need ~8 months to pay them off, assuming half price for FPGA's and you paying nothing for electricity. ASICs will hit pretty soon, most probably Jan-Feb 2013...

http://www.tricone-mining.com/
My calculations at current difficulty/half reward and their current hashing rates says they'll pay off in ~8-10 weeks. Maybe less if GPU miners start dropping off the network due to unprofitablilty.
I somehow doubt we'll see any real working ASIC's until Feb/March at the earliest and thats if they don't have any further delays/issues from what they've already experienced.

Just for fun I calculated this out, at 315MH/sec, no electrical costs, current difficulty, and 10 week payoff, you would have had to get each board + chip for $40/chip (free board), or for a ~950MH/sec setup, board + chips + fans + etc would have to be $120.

That sound right to you, or do you think you need to re-calc?