Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[Wings1987]

Dump failed

Starting to think $220 is to bears what $300 was to bulls

Kind of surprised

I think a lot of you forget that $220 or so is mining cost for a lot of operations. It would be surprising to me if we went lower for a long period of time. If you truly believe that is the case you should not be invested. Everyone remember how much hash rate dropped off the network in the Jan 15 drop to $166? If we had stayed at those levels and the hash stayed shut down there would have been major network problems for weeks. Block times/transaction times would have been a disaster. Watch the media coverage if that happens. It will not be good for anyone. Bear or Bull.

And before anyone argues that the Chinese miners have costs lower than that. ASIC development and deployment has slowed to a crawl compared to most of last year. If there really was money to be made in China wouldn't we be seeing huge farms coming online? It wouldn't take much to push the rest of the world out of mining if that were the case.

Actually difficulty/hashrate does not affect the working of the blockchain, difficulty is made artificially high when the hashrate rises to keep block time stable. The blockchain will move the same regardless of high or low hashrate (drastic drops in hashrate can cause high block time until it adjusts, but that's all).

I was referring to high block time. In Jan hashrate went from 358 PH to 229 PH (and yes I realize that is not a completely accurate figure) Block times would be extremely long until the next adjustment. Losing one quarter to one third of the hashrate would be a mess.

[Wings1987]

Dump failed

Starting to think $220 is to bears what $300 was to bulls

Kind of surprised

I think a lot of you forget that $220 or so is mining cost for a lot of operations. It would be surprising to me if we went lower for a long period of time. If you truly believe that is the case you should not be invested. Everyone remember how much hash rate dropped off the network in the Jan 15 drop to $166? If we had stayed at those levels and the hash stayed shut down there would have been major network problems for weeks. Block times/transaction times would have been a disaster. Watch the media coverage if that happens. It will not be good for anyone. Bear or Bull.

And before anyone argues that the Chinese miners have costs lower than that. ASIC development and deployment has slowed to a crawl compared to most of last year. If there really was money to be made in China wouldn't we be seeing huge farms coming online? It wouldn't take much to push the rest of the world out of mining if that were the case.

Actually difficulty/hashrate does not affect the working of the blockchain, difficulty is made artificially high when the hashrate rises to keep block time stable. The blockchain will move the same regardless of high or low hashrate (drastic drops in hashrate can cause high block time until it adjusts, but that's all).

This. You might get one long block, that's all though. Difficulty adjusts and you're back to 10 minute average. The network functioned just fine when hashrate was much lower. Personally I'd like to see less institutional mining anyway, so I won't cry if big miners have to switch off because they're not making ends meet.

You would have long block times until the next adjustment. The two week interval could turn into 3 or 4 easily. After the next adjustment things would be back to normal.

[Wings1987]

It wouldn't doesn't take much to push the rest of the world out of mining if that were, which is the case.

Edited that for you.

Thanks.

Doing too many things at one time.

[Fatman3001]

Dump failed

Starting to think $220 is to bears what $300 was to bulls

Kind of surprised

I think a lot of you forget that $220 or so is mining cost for a lot of operations. It would be surprising to me if we went lower for a long period of time. If you truly believe that is the case you should not be invested. Everyone remember how much hash rate dropped off the network in the Jan 15 drop to $166? If we had stayed at those levels and the hash stayed shut down there would have been major network problems for weeks. Block times/transaction times would have been a disaster. Watch the media coverage if that happens. It will not be good for anyone. Bear or Bull.

And before anyone argues that the Chinese miners have costs lower than that. ASIC development and deployment has slowed to a crawl compared to most of last year. If there really was money to be made in China wouldn't we be seeing huge farms coming online? It wouldn't take much to push the rest of the world out of mining if that were the case.

Frankly I have heard everything regarding mining costs.
Some people were saying that it was at around $400 last year, with miners like David Pate (https://twitter.com/davidpate8) saying they were underwater at around $300-$400. Difficulty only increased since then...


I have heard Tim Swanson say that BitFury currently has a mining cost of basically $180 BTC, the best performing western miners I guess (the others have been squeezed out while only the biggest chinese pools remained).

(a)I think claims such as "price cannot go below X because that's the mining cost" makes no sense tbh.


I'm no expert in this so if somebody has better info feel free to chime in.

First of all your last point (a) is pretty much spot on. At best it means that miners believe they will not sink, but then we should see  more investment as well. What we have now is lots of miners with lots of sunk cost hoping to at least break even.

Regarding the rest. If you have expensive overhead and costly capital costs it could well be $300-$400, but those guys pretty much bought it this last year.

If you have no capital cost, low site rent, electricity between 2-7cents and s3 or s5 miners that are completely paid back your costs could be between $80-$150 if you manage the machines yourself or with cheap labour.

[aliro38]

It wouldn't doesn't take much to push the rest of the world out of mining if that were, which is the case.

Edited that for you.

Thanks.

Doing too many things at one time.

Welcome.
How do you think anyone can compete in long-run mining with a country where electricity is already very cheap and may be obtained even cheaper? (like 2-3-5x or more times cheaper...)
If our cost is 220$ (give or take), what would be their cost then?
I'd bet mining farms in China grow like mushrooms after a rain. On the other hand, I also suspect that ASIC companies keep the hefty profits under control, mostly for themselves and maybe for a small group of investors. That's why global hash-rate is relatively stable.

[Norway]

ps: @Wandererfromthenorth awesome Uranus meme!

+1

[gizmoh]

33,000 BTC shorted on finex.  A bullwhale could launch the price into the stratosphere.

Why should he do that? Out of altruism to help stubborn bulls releasing their heavy bags. Smart whales follow the trend, coz there is more and safer money to be made, guess in which direction that goes. All thehope the bulls in here have left is, oh will barry save us, will a whale save us, will the winklis save us, oh yeah the short squeeze will do it. How about you better hope that the average person finds some reason again to buy himself some coin, one single entity won´t turn the whole market around.

+1.

For some reason people think a person would do something which is against their basic interest. "Bullwhale" (person who wants to buy large sum of BTC) will do something which will launch the price high so he can buy less BTC for the same amount of US$?!?!? Do you see how stupid this sounds? Do you really think someone would do such an idiotic thing? Only reasonable course of action for someone who wants to buy many BTC is to drive the price down as much as he can.

Bullwhale buying the orderbook to create an Impulse , the buyer hopes to reverse the trend and ignite an uptrend.
Its may be less risky than putting a static bid in a continuing downtrend.

[Cassius]

This. You might get one long block, that's all though. Difficulty adjusts and you're back to 10 minute average. The network functioned just fine when hashrate was much lower. Personally I'd like to see less institutional mining anyway, so I won't cry if big miners have to switch off because they're not making ends meet.

You would have long block times until the next adjustment. The two week interval could turn into 3 or 4 easily. After the next adjustment things would be back to normal.

You are quite right, I'd forgotten it was calculated fortnightly or so. Yeah, that would be a pain, but presumably not everyone would turn off their miners at once. Even those who found it uneconomical to mine would wait for varying lengths of time before they pulled the plug, in case the price came back up. I guess the really big outfits might switch off immediately if their costs are really high, but I think some of those keep a proportion of BTC anyway.

[publicjud]

the fun starts again.  This time to $300?

[DutchTrades]

a BTC-e bot is buying 10BTC a minute for an hour.. Some weird shit is happening on this exchange..

[Wings1987]

the fun starts again.  This time to $300?

Just saw that too. Busy yapping about mining cost and didn't notice that BTC-E started heating up in the last hour.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

a BTC-e bot is buying 10BTC a minute for an hour.. Some weird shit is happening on this exchange..

Good.
Maybe somebody is sick of a year long bear dominated market.

[publicjud]

the fun starts again.  This time to $300?

Just saw that too. Busy yapping about mining cost and didn't notice that BTC-E started heating up in the last hour.

repeat of yesterday....

[gizmoh]

a BTC-e bot is buying 10BTC a minute for an hour.. Some weird shit is happening on this exchange..

Genuine buyer is Weird these days!
Also btc-e removed the 1% fee on deposit, so don't expect discounted price anymore.

[Norway]

the fun starts again.  This time to $300?

I think it's just one rich guy (Russian?) that just want a lot of bitcoin. Fast.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[LFC_Bitcoin]

So we've now determined that there is no BTC-E hacker & the exchange is running fine.
Maybe somebody just wants to buy a lot of coin 'innit'.

[Cassius]

a BTC-e bot is buying 10BTC a minute for an hour.. Some weird shit is happening on this exchange..

Good.
Maybe somebody is sick of a year long bear dominated market.

Willy's cousin?

[gentlemand]

a BTC-e bot is buying 10BTC a minute for an hour.. Some weird shit is happening on this exchange..

Good.
Maybe somebody is sick of a year long bear dominated market.

Willy's cousin?

The internet is tired of waiting for its own currency so it has taken over adoption. We may as well sit back and relax.

[Wings1987]

It wouldn't doesn't take much to push the rest of the world out of mining if that were, which is the case.

Edited that for you.

Thanks.

Doing too many things at one time.

Welcome.
How do you think anyone can compete in long-run mining with a country where electricity is already very cheap and may be obtained even cheaper? (like 2-3-5x or more times cheaper...)
If our cost is 220$ (give or take), what would be their cost then?
I'd bet mining farms in China grow like mushrooms after a rain. On the other hand, I also suspect that ASIC companies keep the hefty profits under control, mostly for themselves and maybe for a small group of investors. That's why global hash-rate is relatively stable.

Last mining note I promise.

Right now the S4+ is the latest hardware. Cost is 4.215 BTC . Earnings per day would be .0264077 not including electricity/rent/labor or any difficulty changes. Break even point on hardware alone would be 160 days. Bulk orders of 1500 - 2000 units will probably get you just under 40% off. (if they follow what they have done on previous models)

Plug in your own Rent/electricity/labor/racks/wiring/switches/cabling and you will see why I think large farms are not being built out at this price level.