:

[jalidi]

Wow, this thread was very insightful, thank you for the numbers. I was shocked by the degree of the increase today but I didn't realize that the difficulty could potentially ramp up THAT much in just two weeks to a month. I had to revise the calculations I made of my new rig's probable output at 1.0 GHash/sec... geez, only a third of a coin a day at 3 million+ difficulty!

[finnthecelt]

..........

[Hook^]

For the last year, difficulty has grown at almost exactly 4%/day on average.  This corresponds with the growth in computing horsepower joined to the network.

see
 http://bitcoin.sipa.be/ for the graphs.

[Adam]

Here ya go...

Block Number:   135072
   
Difficulty   
Lower Extrema:   1501595
Lower Quartile:   1604385
Median:   1684194
Upper Quartile:   1761534
Upper Extrema:   1888997



Block Number:   137088
   
Difficulty   
Lower Extrema:   2107142
Lower Quartile:   2524375
Median:   2930547
Upper Quartile:   3346816
Upper Extrema:   4075713

I'm confused, you're projecting a jump from 1,379,223 to 1,684,194 in the next jump, a 22% increase.  But the jump after that is to 2,930,547 - a 74% increase?

[TraderTimm]

chodpaba, thanks again for the numbers.

Been running a few, and I noticed that bitcoin charts actually didn't do the usual "Double the T-Hash rate" thing it usually does when we transition to another difficulty level. In fact, the suggested target of 1,378,416 in 1,976 blocks @ 7.85 blks/hr sounds downright reasonable at a slight decrease of -0.06%!

Wonder if they fixed their estimation windows/averaging.

[[Coins!]]

chodapa, what do you think the odds are of hitting 7m difficulty before the end of August?

[hawks5999]

Can you edit first post with your updated numbers?


UPDATE 6/24/2011 4:46PM
Here is one way to keep the original record and still update the first post.

If you are interested and want to know what I am doing read on

[hawks5999]

Can you edit first post with your updated numbers?


UPDATE 6/24/2011 4:46PM
Here is one way to keep the original record and still update the first post.

Read on to see the evolution of this forecast

What he said.


UPDATE 6/24/2011 4:49PM
Hey look my comment was even updated after being quoted

[qualia8]

Hmmmn.  To come about, those numbers would have to be met by a surge in ATI card production (surely they know us and what we want by now), coupled with a constant and steady rise in the value of the BTC, but as no one can really predict either of those things, it's nice to have a worst case scenario charted out.  Thanks.

The stock price has been tanking lately.  You know, they've been CEO-less for quite some time now and rumor is, the new guy is from IBM: culture clash.

I bet the cards had an impact on their sales already, no doubt.  But with the increases in difficulty, only gamers will buy new cards now.  Mining to pay for your hardware is a losing proposition now.

[imperi]

The stock market tanked after Sept. 11 and also around 2007/2008... did video cards stop getting better at an exponential rate? Nope.

[bitcoinBull]

Nice work.

Around ~3M for block 137088 seems reasonable if the price goes back up to ~$30 before then.

Longer-term prospects of Moore's Law look good.  7000 series AMD GPUs rumored to start shipping later this year, and next-gen Xilinx Artix-7 FPGAs in 1Q 2012 might be cost-competitive with the AMDs.

I would not attribute much credence to the estimated Difficulty on Bitcoin Charts in any case. It is initially way off and only approaches anything accurate when we get close to the re-target, in other words... Useless. They seem to be using an autocorrelation method for the forecast which I discounted months ago. The cross-correlation with price history is much more useful because it allows you to look out farther with less variance.

And then the reported hash rate / difficulty estimate can spike way high just after the readjustment.  I've seen this on bitcoinwatch and bitcoin.sipa.be too.  I think its because they're using the hash rate estimates on blockexplorer.  There should be some method to smooth out the estimate across the readjustment (a short-term estimate with no use of price).  I'd like to use it for my charts.

[deepceleron]

I think difficulty will level off at the next recalculation, and it will probably take near 14 days to get there. Potential miners are already cancelling their video card orders or trying to return or restock their hardware bought in the past week. We've learned that the prices on exchanges don't have to always go higher. In the next month ATI won't sell more Radeon HD GPUs than have ever been made. It will take a big bump in the exchange rates for people to go gung ho in buying new mining hardware again.

[DamienBlack]

Yes, that was truly incredible accuracy on your original forecast. I did not believe it when I first saw it. It seems to hard to predict. I think it would have been right on the nose if not for the mt gox incident.

[marcus_of_augustus]

chodpaba if you can't get wealthy somehow with your knowledge something is wrong with the world and efficient information markets theory

[DamienBlack]

chodpaba if you can't get wealthy somehow with your knowledge something is wrong with the world and efficient information markets theory

Indeed. When bitcoins take over the world, chodpaba will be elected supreme ruler.

[DamienBlack]

Very interesting. Ironically, it seems like a good time to invest in mining equipment, as the difficulty shouldn't be going up much in the next month, but if people did that, then the difficulty _would_ rise.

Then again, it is probably an even better time to just buy if you are interested in investing. The price:difficulty ratio indicates that compared to the past, it is a good time to buy, not mine.

I'm guessing this means you don't predict a big price rise soon. Late August?

[marcus_of_augustus]

chodpaba if you can't get wealthy somehow with your knowledge something is wrong with the world and efficient information markets theory

Indeed. When bitcoins take over the world, chodpaba will be elected supreme ruler.

Lord of Slack perhaps.

.... even a Lord of the manor has a price that will get him out of bed ....

[marcus_of_augustus]

Very interesting. Ironically, it seems like a good time to invest in mining equipment, as the difficulty shouldn't be going up much in the next month, but if people did that, then the difficulty _would_ rise.

Then again, it is probably an even better time to just buy if you are interested in investing. The price:difficulty ratio indicates that compared to the past, it is a good time to buy, not mine.

I'm guessing this means you don't predict a big price rise soon. Late August?

Yeah, I don't see any reason to think any different right now. The thing that makes sense to me is that these 'flat' periods are pretty essential to fueling the extended rallies. If it happens too soon it will probably just peter out and crash, and there probably isn't enough pent-up demand for that just yet.

yep, the market is digesting, the flat periods are essential, the rallies (or dumps) are just the visible evidence and final outcome of all the mulling that has gone on for some period beforehand ..... a trigger makes them finally make the move on a price that they had already decided on days, weeks or months ago, trigger dates are an interesting angle of analysis also, seasons, moon cycles, tax dates, etc.

... think a drop to 9-10 area is on the cards before the big roller gets up steam again.

After the flurry of news articles the quietness is interesting, lots of normally chattery people are mulling what the heck bitcoin means for them, if they haven't got an answer they like they'll be buying, "can't beat 'em join 'em" types ...

[sadpandatech]

Alrighty then... Here's the new forecast.

Block Number:   137088
   
Difficulty   
Lower Extrema:   1570160
Lower Quartile:   1706590
Median:   1811096
Upper Quartile:   1919977
Upper Extrema:   2089002



Block Number:   139104
   
Difficulty   
Lower Extrema:   1176248
Lower Quartile:   1365916
Median:   1561493
Upper Quartile:   1741244
Upper Extrema:   2072914

Yeah, that's right. If prices don't get all crazy for the next couple weeks Difficulty could be flat to down. This is like what happened back in March after the fall from $1.10. Soon after I first discovered the cross-correlation between price and Difficulty.

Holy, awesomeness.. =)
If I may, I'd like to make a very uneducated perdiction;

1.65-1.7mil at next retarget and continuing a bit up from there to 1.71-1.85 at the following retarget...

[sadpandatech]

You can do it too. Here's an example of the basic method:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AkzCs5F7cezpdHRCWjZIQ0haWmw0cHVKV0d6M2VpM0E&hl=en&authkey=CKGr0YsE

It's not exactly what I'm doing these days, but it's a good start.

wow, .9963 corelation

Have the methods you are using now brought that any closer?