Next LTC Difficulty Jump :-(

[cdog]

Looks like back to around 550-600+ (35%+ jump) and the price has been stuck in the mud around $3 this week.    Not that Im selling.

My 5000 kh/s is only going to be generating around $600 profit a month (~8 LTC/day), but Im a big believer in BTC/LTC long term so I will stick with it.

The good news is, when it jumps a lot of people may quit mining LTC and go for other alt coins, but still, this next jump is going to be brutal.

I guess it gives us a while to mine some cheap coins before they get listed on Gox, at which point the price - and difficulty - will just go insane.

[stslimited]

what are you talking about ? coinotron says litecoin difficulty at 396.6 , this is down from 430 something

[tycho]

Sure, the instantaneous difficulty estimate is high, but the hashing power was still lower for about 1/4 of the blocks mined this round, so it's only going to be 450 or so: http://allchains.info/

[YipYip]

Looks like back to around 550-600+ (35%+ jump) and the price has been stuck in the mud around $3 this week.    Not that Im selling.

My 5000 kh/s is only going to be generating around $600 profit a month (~8 LTC/day), but Im a big believer in BTC/LTC long term so I will stick with it.

The good news is, when it jumps a lot of people may quit mining LTC and go for other alt coins, but still, this next jump is going to be brutal.

I guess it gives us a while to mine some cheap coins before they get listed on Gox, at which point the price - and difficulty - will just go insane.

If you have watched the diff curve as long as I have you will also take note of a couple of things

a) Never take the estimate value right after a change or < 5% measured  as it will always be massivlely high i.e your 650 + value

b) There is a wave as part of the cycle as to the accuracy of the estimated value i.e after about 12% measured its value is always 10-20% lower than actual result and at about 65% its about 10% too much over

c) Litcoinpool.org/stat is usually always closer to the real numbers (dont know why ) than reading the raw figures from allchains.info

Hope this helps to settle your nerves...also just get so much hash power that you dont stress about it tooooooo much

[endriuska]

What are you guestimates for LTC diff? Can i assume that diff will increase by 30% each month? is that accurate?

[ThatDGuy]

I guess it gives us a while to mine some cheap coins before they get listed on Gox, at which point the price - and difficulty - will just go insane.

The price rising when LTC is traded on MtGox not guaranteed.  LTC has already seen a ridiculous burst from when it was just a rumor, and is now valued quite high.

Who knows? Maybe it will spike up and then dip below, and $3 is a good value for it... but LTC was also had not been >$1 before April 1, 2013.  Without even the currently limited usefulness of even Bitcoin as a currency, Litecoin is largely for miners and speculators only right now.

I'm long on LTC as well, though!  I just think the MtGox opening days will be completely nuts, and that could well mean tons of people selling what they've been hoarding.

[ThatDGuy]

What are you guestimates for LTC diff? Can i assume that diff will increase by 30% each month? is that accurate?

I would say 30% is on the low end of what we will see, but it's difficult to say since the difficulty will follow the coin's value relative to Bitcoin and what can be most efficiently mined in a given day.

http://ltc.block-explorer.com/charts

Litecoin was at difficulty 101 on April 1st.  Today it is at 469.8. That's a 365% increase.  Of course LTC itself saw an increase from $0.70 to $3.20, which is 357% and seems to line up really quite close.  Granted LTC spiked much higher than this a few times.

The next few months are going to be crazy, though.  With ASICs coming in doing much more efficient hashes on BTC, lots of GPU miners will continue the migration that we've already seen over to LTC (and other altcoin flavors of the day/week/month) It will be a tighter profit margin, but my guess is it will still be a bit more profitable to be LTC mining over BTC mining if you are converting to BTC or USD regularly simply because there's more risk involved with the currency.

Guessing? I would say we're looking at 850 by the end of May.  After that who knows, it could well drop if the speculation bubble from the MtGox implementation reveal bursts.

[crymo]

I'm not expecting difficulty 850 at the end of month. Simply because price won't rise 2x. Peaplea will just move on and mine another altcoin...

[KS]

I'm not expecting difficulty 850 at the end of month. Simply because price won't rise 2x. Peaplea will just move on and mine another altcoin...

Looking at the historical charts for BTC and LTC, the price seems totally correlated with the difficulty. So higher difficulty will mean higher value.

It makes sense in economics terms. Difficulty is a measure of interest in the currency, in a way, and the more ppl want something, the more they are willing to pay for it. You might also look at it from the money supply standpoint. More ppl for roughly the same amount of coins. More ppl means more coins are needed (so everyone can use some) and so the value of these coins, when the supply is limited such as for BTC/LTC, increases.

This is long-term and does not take into account the market crashing because ppl are unloading their 2yr old coins. But when all these coins will be unloaded, the "normal" appreciation/difficulty ratio will resume.

[ThatDGuy]

I'm not expecting difficulty 850 at the end of month. Simply because price won't rise 2x. Peaplea will just move on and mine another altcoin...

I don't think other altcoins alone will be enough to sway the vast majority of GPU miners who will be continuing to hit LTC.  Price may well not go up at all, much less 2x, but the hashes will definitely go up overall for altcoins as ASICs continue to roll in.

[miningusa]

It's really not going to be pretty, hope it doesn't destroy things though.

[glendall]

I'm hoping a lot miners will give up when they are only making $20 bucks profit after paying their power bills.

But probably not. Likely many people will continue to mine if even only making $5 a month profit after paying power bills.

I think mining profitability after August will basically be decimated. If you don't at least live in a country with cheap power it won't be worth it all.

When ASICS are in actual full production and more available, at that point you'll be look at scenarios where you'll have to pay a big investment, and will have to get a ROI in under 2.5 months or you've lost, with little resale value for your purchase. In short things look grim  !

[ThatDGuy]

I'm hoping a lot miners will give up when they are only making $20 bucks profit after paying their power bills.

But probably not. Likely many people will continue to mine if even only making $5 a month profit after paying power bills.

I think mining profitability after August will basically be decimated. If you don't at least live in a country with cheap power it won't be worth it all.

When ASICS are in actual full production and more available, at that point you'll be look at scenarios where you'll have to pay a big investment, and will have to get a ROI in under 2.5 months or you've lost, with little resale value for your purchase. In short things look grim  !

All of this is based entirely on the value of cryptocurrencies. 

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg60zczsg2011-02-11zeg2013-05-01ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv

While it might be slow, and a very bumpy ride up - if you're investing in ASIC mining I would think it's very much because you're long on Bitcoin.  ROI of anything under 9-12 months is reserved to the earliest of investors who put their money in the right place.

I would definitely recommend people looking for that <3 month ROI return to just buy Bitcoin/Litecoin instead, honestly.

Disclosure: I'm mining both and am relatively better off if more don't start mining.

[KS]

meh, ASICs are trickling in. GPUs have a few months left.

[kendog77]

People who say GPU mining will die in the near future are also saying all scrypt coins will die as well. I don't buy that argument at all.

Until someone comes up with FPGAs or ASICS for scrypt mining, which isn't going to happen anytime soon, GPUs must stay profitable in order for scrypt coins to have the hash power behind them that is needed to survive.

[fran2k]

People who say GPU mining will die in the near future are also saying all scrypt coins will die as well. I don't buy that argument at all.

Until someone comes up with FPGAs or ASICS for scrypt mining, which isn't going to happen anytime soon, GPUs must stay profitable in order for scrypt coins to have the hash power behind them that is needed to survive.

We, The Miners, are going to build a long future to GPU mining.

[KS]

People who say GPU mining will die in the near future are also saying all scrypt coins will die as well. I don't buy that argument at all.

Until someone comes up with FPGAs or ASICS for scrypt mining, which isn't going to happen anytime soon, GPUs must stay profitable in order for scrypt coins to have the hash power behind them that is needed to survive.

We, The Miners, are going to build a long future to GPU mining.

Also, each new GPU generation brings more hashing power and GPUs have a good resale value...now, if only they could consume a bit less electricity...

[ewitte]

Video cards are usually very easy to sell. Bitcoin/LTC is a pretty small group of individuals vs gamers.  A smaller ASIC may get pushed out far enough to become worthless.

[kokojie]

I guess it gives us a while to mine some cheap coins before they get listed on Gox, at which point the price - and difficulty - will just go insane.

The price rising when LTC is traded on MtGox not guaranteed.  LTC has already seen a ridiculous burst from when it was just a rumor, and is now valued quite high.

Who knows? Maybe it will spike up and then dip below, and $3 is a good value for it... but LTC was also had not been >$1 before April 1, 2013.  Without even the currently limited usefulness of even Bitcoin as a currency, Litecoin is largely for miners and speculators only right now.

I'm long on LTC as well, though!  I just think the MtGox opening days will be completely nuts, and that could well mean tons of people selling what they've been hoarding.

lol LTC on mtgox, you going to wait a long time, if ever. This is going to be another BFL type delay, ur lucky to see it by next year.

[ThatDGuy]

I guess it gives us a while to mine some cheap coins before they get listed on Gox, at which point the price - and difficulty - will just go insane.

The price rising when LTC is traded on MtGox not guaranteed.  LTC has already seen a ridiculous burst from when it was just a rumor, and is now valued quite high.

Who knows? Maybe it will spike up and then dip below, and $3 is a good value for it... but LTC was also had not been >$1 before April 1, 2013.  Without even the currently limited usefulness of even Bitcoin as a currency, Litecoin is largely for miners and speculators only right now.

I'm long on LTC as well, though!  I just think the MtGox opening days will be completely nuts, and that could well mean tons of people selling what they've been hoarding.

lol LTC on mtgox, you going to wait a long time, if ever. This is going to be another BFL type delay, ur lucky to see it by next year.

The longer it takes to get on MtGox, the better for me personally - ideally it would line up after much better infrastructure is in place for new speculators to get their fiat in and have less roadblocks to going completely apeshit over a $1-$4 coin.