Next difficulty in approx 3 days?? 1,240,416

[Jaime Frontero]

You can predict it. Just look at how many blocks to go, and divide by the current blocks/hour rate.  That will give you a pretty accurate idea.  Right now it's looking like Friday morning.

It will be another doozy.

How exciting!!!! Less BTC, more competition, less trading, less credibility, lower exchange rate!? What could go wrong?



What does it take to make the difficulty lower?

ummm... no.

Less BTC

no.  7,000 more per day.

more competition

ok - yes.  so?

less trading

no.  more trading - as those who are motivated purely by money transition from mining to trading and arbitrage.

less credibility

no.  more credibility, as the Bitcoin economy diversifies and expands from mining and speculation into trading and arbitrage.

lower exchange rate

no.  a larger and more diversified Bitcoin economy, with more and more deflation kicking in by design, will inevitably result in a higher exchange rate.

[TraderTimm]

I hope the difficulty triples. I haven't played video games in a month. And the new American McGee's Alice is out. I hear Duke Nukem sucks, but still. It's Duke Nukem.

I have a signed x-mas card from 3D Realms that has duke on it, and all the team. Wonder what that is worth in bitcoin land... maybe...

[nemo]

Seeing as I fucked myself good and hard on namecoin speculating, I'll give you 5 namecoins for it.

[BtcNmcMiner]

Seeing as I fucked myself good and hard on namecoin speculating, I'll give you 5 namecoins for it.

That exchange sure hasn't moved much in the last three or four days

[DamienBlack]

When the reward goes down to 25 it is just like a 100% difficulty increase. It isn't that big a deal. We've had > 85% difficulty increases and it didn't cause people to quit.

[[Coins!]]

When the reward goes down to 25 it is just like a 100% difficulty increase. It isn't that big a deal. We've had > 85% difficulty increases and it didn't cause people to quit.

Yeah but it is halved reward + another difficulty increase at the 210k block : )  So a double whammy.

However, I predict people will drop out long before 210k block:

Imagine right now (877k difficulty) you have 1.0Ghash.

You are mining 1.0 coins / 24 hours.

Every 50% difficulty increase drops your mining rate by 2/3.

In 1 50% difficulty  increase (going up to say 1.29M which we'll probably surpass) you are getting 2 coins every 3 days instead of 3, or .66 coins/day.  Hashing power will continue to rise, so this difficulty will only last for 9 days.

In 2 50% difficulty increases from now you are getting .44 coins/day, but again you only get 9-10 days to mine at this difficulty.

in 6 50% difficulty increases from now you are getting .08 coins/day, basically taking 11.3 days to mine just 1 coin. This difficulty is barely 2 months away. In other words, by September we'll be around 7M difficulty.

Most of the miners are not at 1.0 Ghash.  Most are using a single GPU.  So in 6 difficulty increases, even some of the fastest cards will take a full month to mine 1.0 coins.  However since difficulty goes up every 9-12 days, they'll never get that full month at that same difficulty.

In 6 difficulties mining will be silly, and at that point many miners will drop out.

[BombaUcigasa]

In 6 difficulties mining will be silly, and at that point many miners will drop out.

Why?

[finnthecelt]

You can predict it. Just look at how many blocks to go, and divide by the current blocks/hour rate.  That will give you a pretty accurate idea.  Right now it's looking like Friday morning.

It will be another doozy.

How exciting!!!! Less BTC, more competition, less trading, less credibility, lower exchange rate!? What could go wrong?



What does it take to make the difficulty lower?

ummm... no.

Less BTC

no.  7,000 more per day.

more competition

ok - yes.  so?

less trading

no.  more trading - as those who are motivated purely by money transition from mining to trading and arbitrage.

less credibility

no.  more credibility, as the Bitcoin economy diversifies and expands from mining and speculation into trading and arbitrage.

lower exchange rate

no.  a larger and more diversified Bitcoin economy, with more and more deflation kicking in by design, will inevitably result in a higher exchange rate.

I was really talking about a snapshot in time. Presently. And I meant less BTC per miner when difficulty goes up but thanks for the detailed analysis.

[[Coins!]]

In 6 difficulties mining will be silly, and at that point many miners will drop out.

Why?

I explained why, mathematically, in my post.

What part of diminishing returns every 9-12 days doesn't make sense to you?

If you think 0.08 bitcoins / day will be profitable for a 1.0Ghash mining rig, then you must expect that the value of a bitcoin will rise equivalently with the difficulty.

If a BTC is worth $15 at 877k difficulty, then it will need to be worth about $120 at 7M difficulty.

Do you foresee the price of BTC going up tenfold in 60 days?

[BombaUcigasa]

In 6 difficulties mining will be silly, and at that point many miners will drop out.

Why?

I explained why, mathematically, in my post.

What part of diminishing returns every 9-12 days doesn't make sense to you?

If you think 0.08 bitcoins / day will be profitable for a 1.0Ghash mining rig, then you must expect that the value of a bitcoin will rise equivalently with the difficulty.

If a BTC is worth $15 at 877k difficulty, then it will need to be worth about $120 at 7M difficulty.

Do you foresee the price of BTC going up tenfold in 60 days?

I seee.... so looking at the history when people were making more than 1BTC a day on their CPU, then suddenly they went under 1 BTC, and some people posted things similar to what you did. Well, some of those people are still around. Also that 1 BTC rose in value 2000 times. You never know what the future holds.

But think for yourself. How many people will want to use bitcoins, how many bitcoins will there be in existence? How much will a bitcoin be worth?

What happens when mining becomes unprofitable? What has happened so far in this circumstance?!

[saadtariq30]

You can predict it. Just look at how many blocks to go, and divide by the current blocks/hour rate.  That will give you a pretty accurate idea.  Right now it's looking like Friday morning.

It will be another doozy.

How exciting!!!! Less BTC, more competition, less trading, less credibility, lower exchange rate!? What could go wrong?



What does it take to make the difficulty lower?

It will never get lower.

Why less credibility if its harder to get?  If history has proven anything it is that people usually want what they CAN'T get. And who the hell said the exchange rate will be lower? It might dip for a little bit after MTGOX comes back in, but in 2 weeks everything will be back to normal with bitcoins trading at about $30 a coin.

I really hope you're right..

[saadtariq30]

In 6 difficulties mining will be silly, and at that point many miners will drop out.

Why?

I explained why, mathematically, in my post.

What part of diminishing returns every 9-12 days doesn't make sense to you?

If you think 0.08 bitcoins / day will be profitable for a 1.0Ghash mining rig, then you must expect that the value of a bitcoin will rise equivalently with the difficulty.

If a BTC is worth $15 at 877k difficulty, then it will need to be worth about $120 at 7M difficulty.

Do you foresee the price of BTC going up tenfold in 60 days?

I got to know about this whole btc scam () on may 5th 2011...back then my radeon 6950 used to make around 3 coins per day...back then the price was 3.4$...in approx. 30days the price went up to the all time high of 30ish$..hell i sold 10 coins at 20.6 pounds per coin..thats approx. 33$!!!..yes in 30days the price increased atleast 10 times...will it happen again after the whole mtgox mess? i dunno..but it has happened before..this is no time to get demotivated out of this btc scam..mine and hold..it will be worth it

[[Coins!]]

I seee.... so looking at the history when people were making more than 1BTC a day on their CPU, then suddenly they went under 1 BTC, and some people posted things similar to what you did. Well, some of those people are still around. Also that 1 BTC rose in value 2000 times. You never know what the future holds.

But think for yourself. How many people will want to use bitcoins, how many bitcoins will there be in existence? How much will a bitcoin be worth?

What happens when mining becomes unprofitable? What has happened so far in this circumstance?!

Yes, I agree that the price rose 2000x.   But people were also able to switch to GPU mining from CPU mining.  There is no reasonable hardware advance on the horizon besides theoretical ASIC cards, which may or may not come to market.  6 difficulties from now, fractional rewards will be psychologically dissuading.

I also clearly stated what the price needs to be to keep the same margin of interest it has now, I didn't say it would not get there, only that it needed to get there to keep value. 

I don't know what the future holds, but unless it does hit $160 in the next 60 days, it won't be profitable any longer.

I got to know about this whole btc scam () on may 5th 2011...back then my radeon 6950 used to make around 3 coins per day...back then the price was 3.4$...in approx. 30days the price went up to the all time high of 30ish$..hell i sold 10 coins at 20.6 pounds per coin..thats approx. 33$!!!..yes in 30days the price increased atleast 10 times...will it happen again after the whole mtgox mess? i dunno..but it has happened before..this is no time to get demotivated out of this btc scam..mine and hold..it will be worth it

I am mining and holding : )

I am mining really slowly, with my single GPU.  I didn't even get started until June, totally missed the early-adopter curve.

I would love for 1 BTC to be $100, or $1,000, or $10,000.  

Just cautioning people to not get ridiculous, and to think about everything before they go crazy.

The catch is that every one has 1 penny.  Nearly everyone has $1.  Not as many people have $10.  Fewer have $100.  Fewer still have $1000.

There is not unlimited funding to invest in BTC, nor even in the stock market.  Apple stock is $350/share, Google stock is $550/share.  Stocks can cleverly split when the price gets too far out of the range of what middle-america can invest in.  Not so with bitcoins, they just use fractional amounts.  People will have a built-in antipathy to spend $10 on .01 BTC.

[nemo]

It depends on how that .01 is packaged.

[BinaryMage]

There is not unlimited funding to invest in BTC, nor even in the stock market.  Apple stock is $350/share, Google stock is $550/share.  Stocks can cleverly split when the price gets too far out of the range of what middle-america can invest in.  Not so with bitcoins, they just use fractional amounts.  People will have a built-in antipathy to spend $10 on .01 BTC.

First of all, you're taking world demographics into account, not demographics of Bitcoin investors. Most of us have much more than a thousand dollars. And while people do like to get "more", the antipathy to getting less for more has already been passed, when the price went over $1 USD/1 BTC. $whatever USD/.01 BTC is no different.

[Adam]

There is not unlimited funding to invest in BTC, nor even in the stock market.  Apple stock is $350/share, Google stock is $550/share.  Stocks can cleverly split when the price gets too far out of the range of what middle-america can invest in.  Not so with bitcoins, they just use fractional amounts.  People will have a built-in antipathy to spend $10 on .01 BTC.

Didn't stop Berkshire Hathaway - look up ticker brk.a, never split since it started in 1965.  It started at $19, now worth $114,122

[SlipperySlope]

I dropped out of bitcoin mining back in July 2010 after solving two blocks myself on the CPU miner then available.  We had no pools back then and the difficulty jump made it unlikely for me to earn any more coins.

I rejoined mining recently. My current rigs are GPU miners that rate a total 1200 MH/sec.  Assuming projected difficulty trendlines, I suppose that I can mine 50 or so more bitcoins before I'm at cost parity with my daily electric bill of 2.40 USD for the 860 watts consumed - and I operate them without air conditioning.

I'll liquidate the rigs beyond what I need for everyday computing when that time comes.   And I'll be alert for the next cost-efficient mining hardware advance - it could come from ASIC, or perhaps AMD will recognize the bitcoin mining marketplace and develop a variation of their existing GPU architecture for bitcoin mining, e.g. just lots of low-voltage Stream Processing Units.