Difficulty Not An Issue?

[Trongersoll]

Ok, Difficulty went up. before it did, many people were concerned about their declining incomes. Now that i think about it, it isn't really an issue because it goes up equally for everyone. What is a concern is the amount of new equipment coming on line. The USB ASICs aren't any faster than GPU's and are currently priced higher. The only real benefit of the ASICs at present is the low cost of power for them relative to GPUs.

We all are fighting over our slice of the same pie. We add new equipment in hopes of increasing our share, at the expense of all the other miners. The only way you will see a drastic drop in income will be if new equipment comes online at fast rate. If other miners expand their mining operation faster than you, as ASICminer did, then you lose. ASICminer is about 12% of the pie at the moment. so everyone else saw a 12% decline in income. add the 8% unknown and we are down 20%. The thing is, we take the loss as it occurs so it isn't all that noticable unless you look at long term changes.

Now, when ASIC based machines that cost significantly less for the same Hashing power as GPUs, that is when using GPUs will not be cost effective. ie. If Butterfly ever gets around to delivering all the hardware people paid for, that will be a game changer.

So, in a nutshell, all things being equal, difficulty changes aren't really an issue in and of themselves.

[1714606413]

1714606413

[1714606413]

1714606413

[1714606413]

1714606413

[MashRinx]

Difficulty, in itself, shouldn't ever be looked at as an issue.  If anything, it should be considered a benefit because the additional hashing power makes for a stronger network and a more secure system.

What is happening with ASICs currently has happened before, but in a different way.  When CPU mining changed to GPU mining, those still mining on CPUs were getting smaller slices of the pie, but had the option at the time to go out and purchase at least reasonably available hardware to compete with others making the same change.  Something similar happened with FPGUs, but at a smaller scale because of the relative cost of FPGAs, the only major gain was in the reduced power utilization in most cases, and the looming of ASICs not long afterwards.

With ASICs, it is true that the same shift is occurring again, but this is the first major shift where miners are not able to reasonably acquire the hardware to continue to 'keep up'.  I think it will be interesting to continue to watch this latest shift play out.  I've seen on other threads how ASICs that are being purchased as recently as today have very little possibility of paying themselves off at current prices, but without a crystal ball, no one can say that with certainty either.  In early 2012 when BTC were at $4 - $5, ROI looked very different for GPUs at that time as well, fast-forward to current BTC prices and it looks quite a bit different.  The "when to shut down GPUs" conversations have been taking place since July/Aug or 2012, if not before that, and GPUs are still mostly profitable today, although maybe not for much longer.  Only time will tell.

For the record, I do not own any ASIC hardware, do not have any or order or pre-order, and do own a decently sized GPU farm, but this isn't a poor-me post.  It just is what it is.  If there was a reasonably-priced, fully-trusted vendor selling ASICs, would I order some today?   Maybe, but kudos all the same to those who took the right risk with Avalon and ASICMiner and have been rewarded for choosing well.

[mgio]

Ok, Difficulty went up. before it did, many people were concerned about their declining incomes. Now that i think about it, it isn't really an issue because it goes up equally for everyone. What is a concern is the amount of new equipment coming on line. The USB ASICs aren't any faster than GPU's and are currently priced higher. The only real benefit of the ASICs at present is the low cost of power for them relative to GPUs.

We all are fighting over our slice of the same pie. We add new equipment in hopes of increasing our share, at the expense of all the other miners. The only way you will see a drastic drop in income will be if new equipment comes online at fast rate. If other miners expand their mining operation faster than you, as ASICminer did, then you lose. ASICminer is about 12% of the pie at the moment. so everyone else saw a 12% decline in income. add the 8% unknown and we are down 20%. The thing is, we take the loss as it occurs so it isn't all that noticable unless you look at long term changes.

Now, when ASIC based machines that cost significantly less for the same Hashing power as GPUs, that is when using GPUs will not be cost effective. ie. If Butterfly ever gets around to delivering all the hardware people paid for, that will be a game changer.

So, in a nutshell, all things being equal, difficulty changes aren't really an issue in and of themselves.

First of all, ASICMiner is roughly 25% of the pie presently.

The ASICs that people have been buying from Avalon and BFL are far cheaper than the equivalent GPUs.

GPU mining is already dead. Some people will try and hold on for the next month or two but it is over. The only people who will continue after that are people who: already have the hardware, get free electricity, and need the heat they generate to heat their homes.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say, mining difficult is EVERYTHING (well that and price). It can make or break a miner. I don't really understand how you can say "it isn't really an issue".

[glendall]

I'm not sure what you are trying to say, mining difficult is EVERYTHING (well that and price). It can make or break a miner. I don't really understand how you can say "it isn't really an issue".

+1  . Ya don't really see how it can be see any other way either. As far as for miners anyways.

If you had nothing to do with mining and had a strong focus on generating quick fiat with your BTC investments, even then, mining difficulty should still play as a strong consideration in your plans beyond anything longer than a week or so.

We are the middle of exponential shift right now, the like of which, I think, could only feasibly happen once more in the next 10-20 years for mining. It's an interesting time, to be sure.  

I'm still at a bit of loss at how you could have a GPU farm and not really consider difficulty as a major factor in any decisions related to this.

[Trongersoll]

hmmm.... interesting as to how perceptions of reality can vary.

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

[YipYip]

ASIC's are the great disruptive noise going through mining at the moment....

We do have ALT ...6 months ago the total BTC network was 19-26 Terra

LTC is currently sitting around 17 terra...

Of the current 120+ terra how much is serious GPU farmers and not ASICS or kids with 3 cards in crossfire etc ...?

20-40terra ??..who knows I dont ... but long story short even if LTC goes to 30 Terra and still stays at ~3$ it still works for me with a solar setup

Margins are reduced down to ~ 10% ROI per month but thats still pretty awsome considering a bank will give u 5% per ANUM

To quote jurassic park "Life (aka Miners) will find a way "

There is going to be a big shake up in August thats for sure !!! (Avalon will drop the bomb.... BFL and the long suffering pple is still an open question regardless of them shipping 100 units out of 60000 ordered)

But from this LTC will have new energy and markets....BTC and ASIC I think is good and bad at the same time ... BTC are going to lose a huge pool of community plane and simple...dont be surprised if LTC gets to 20-30$ in 6 months

Like others I went through the bASIC & BFL bullshit for 3 months and I think now is not a good time to be buying ASICS considering the premium ppl are paying... I am content to sit on my solar farm and mine LTC until ASIC's get a bit more realistic in price's 

[FCTaiChi]

The big companies are not delivering to us.  There is hoarding going on.  I'm not sure what is going on with Avalon.. but BFL should be sued.  I didn't buy anything from them or I'd be the first to try to rally people..


                                                     Ever wonder where BFL offices are located?

                                            This is a map generated from the IP addresses of miners.

[kinitex]

The big companies are not delivering to us.  There is hoarding going on.  I'm not sure what is going on with Avalon.. but BFL should be sued.  I didn't buy anything from them or I'd be the first to try to rally people..


                                                     Ever wonder where BFL offices are located?

                                            This is a map generated from the IP addresses of miners.

Yup I've noticed that statistic as well.

You know damn well both BFL and Avalon are delaying their shipments so long just to "test" their current supply. The profitability of mining Bitcoin conveniently sky rocketed right around when all these asics should have been shipped. Now we're hearing excuse after excuse as to why they're being delayed, yet the net hash rate has continued to sky rocket. No way it can climb this fast with just GPU miners.

The only way you could really sue them is if you had an inside source to admit their delays were un-warranted, but they could just come back with "oh we needed atleast 3 months worth of testing before shipment".

All I know is if I had a pre-order with either company, I'd probably be banned from here by now from pure rants lol.

[FCTaiChi]

I know!  I can't believe people aren't calling lawyers and knocking on doors.

People are getting after me for this map being a 'debunked conspiracy'
yeah yeah I know..  but I don't know the person that makes the map, I'd like to ask them.  There is no way to know if they've taken money either...  Like I said in another thread recently, people have been publicly compromised by money already.  Who knows how many in the background have been paid off.

[paszczakojad]

What is happening with ASICs currently has happened before, but in a different way.  When CPU mining changed to GPU mining, those still mining on CPUs were getting smaller slices of the pie, but had the option at the time to go out and purchase at least reasonably available hardware to compete with others making the same change.  Something similar happened with FPGUs, but at a smaller scale because of the relative cost of FPGAs, the only major gain was in the reduced power utilization in most cases, and the looming of ASICs not long afterwards.

The key difference is that you could make your own miner on a CPU, on a GPU and even on a FPGA (I recently made a miner with 4 Artix-7 FPGAs mining at 1.6 GH/s for $650). But you can't make yourself an ASIC miner, that costs too much. So you can only beg companies like Avalon or BFL to sell you some. But it will be more profitable for them to mine on their own than to sell chips/devices to you (constant, controlled income vs one shot). What if they stop selling miners and mine on their own? We'll have to shut down our miners after some time and whole mining will be controlled by 3-4 ASIC companies. That's the end of mining.

I gave up my FPGA project - even if it's cheaper than ASICminer - because at current difficulty (and difficulty increase rate) the ROI rised to 6-8 or even more months. I have better investments than that :/ I'll leave these two PCBs I already made running and forget the whole thing.

P.

[Lohoris]

I gave up my FPGA project - even if it's cheaper than ASICminer - because at current difficulty (and difficulty increase rate) the ROI rised to 6-8 or even more months. I have better investments than that :/ I'll leave these two PCBs I already made running and forget the whole thing.

6-8 months is a great ROI, actually...

what could possibly yield you better results?

[paszczakojad]

I gave up my FPGA project - even if it's cheaper than ASICminer - because at current difficulty (and difficulty increase rate) the ROI rised to 6-8 or even more months. I have better investments than that :/ I'll leave these two PCBs I already made running and forget the whole thing.

6-8 months is a great ROI, actually...

Well, it's very risky 6-8 months. Current lead-time for Artix-7 from the manufacturer is 2 months. The difficulty in 2 months? Currently it's rising at 1-1.5M per day, so it should be around 70-100M then. So the ROI will be counted in years. And who knows what happens during that time? The ASIC manufacturers will keep their arms race, the difficulty will rise even more and the ROI will never come. Not thinking about actual income.

P.

[Phil21]

The big companies are not delivering to us.  There is hoarding going on.  I'm not sure what is going on with Avalon.. but BFL should be sued.  I didn't buy anything from them or I'd be the first to try to rally people..


                                                     Ever wonder where BFL offices are located?

                                            This is a map generated from the IP addresses of miners.

The one thing wrong with this theory re: the map is that it would take an epic dumbass to try to hide a mining farm, while not buying a cheap VPS or dedicated server somewhere to run their public bitcoind node from.

I just can't see someone scamming at *that* level being so obvious, but I guess I've been surprised in the past.

If I were a troll with a lot of hash power, I'd have found someone located in their city to host a machine running bitcoind for me

[Amph]

The big companies are not delivering to us.  There is hoarding going on.  I'm not sure what is going on with Avalon.. but BFL should be sued.  I didn't buy anything from them or I'd be the first to try to rally people..


                                                     Ever wonder where BFL offices are located?

                                            This is a map generated from the IP addresses of miners.

they are mining with them until difficulty will make those pre-ordered asic useless, when this happen they will ship those machine
what a joke

I gave up my FPGA project - even if it's cheaper than ASICminer - because at current difficulty (and difficulty increase rate) the ROI rised to 6-8 or even more months. I have better investments than that :/ I'll leave these two PCBs I already made running and forget the whole thing.

6-8 months is a great ROI, actually...

what could possibly yield you better results?

the point is to make profit, not to make roi, making only roi is useless
and when i say profit, i mean an amount equal to the one invested, aka ROI X 2 minimum

[statdude]

The big companies are not delivering to us.  There is hoarding going on.  I'm not sure what is going on with Avalon.. but BFL should be sued.  I didn't buy anything from them or I'd be the first to try to rally people..


                                                     Ever wonder where BFL offices are located?

                                            This is a map generated from the IP addresses of miners.

they are mining with them until difficulty will make those pre-ordered asic useless, when this happen they will ship those machine
what a joke

I gave up my FPGA project - even if it's cheaper than ASICminer - because at current difficulty (and difficulty increase rate) the ROI rised to 6-8 or even more months. I have better investments than that :/ I'll leave these two PCBs I already made running and forget the whole thing.

6-8 months is a great ROI, actually...

what could possibly yield you better results?

the point is to make profit, not to make roi, making only roi is useless
and when i say profit, i mean an amount equal to the one invested, aka ROI X 2 minimum

Any further proof that is BFL or other ASIC producers are hoarding?

Interesting subject matter.

[mgio]

hmmm.... interesting as to how perceptions of reality can vary.

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

That is for ASICMiner's solo mining only. They also mine as part of BTCGuild.

See this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0AkPdXsQFT-vIdHRVUjQ5Ql9BQWR6OENLMkhyUktUblE&type=view&gid=0&f=true&sortcolid=-1&sortasc=true&page=-1&rowsperpage=250

They are currently at 26.50% of the worlds total hashrate.

[mt_bird]

The big companies are not delivering to us.  There is hoarding going on.  I'm not sure what is going on with Avalon.. but BFL should be sued.  I didn't buy anything from them or I'd be the first to try to rally people..


                                                     Ever wonder where BFL offices are located?
http://imageshack.us/a/img196/103/globalhashmoststablemin.png
                                            This is a map generated from the IP addresses of miners.

Yup I've noticed that statistic as well.

You know damn well both BFL and Avalon are delaying their shipments so long just to "test" their current supply. The profitability of mining Bitcoin conveniently sky rocketed right around when all these asics should have been shipped. Now we're hearing excuse after excuse as to why they're being delayed, yet the net hash rate has continued to sky rocket. No way it can climb this fast with just GPU miners.

The only way you could really sue them is if you had an inside source to admit their delays were un-warranted, but they could just come back with "oh we needed atleast 3 months worth of testing before shipment".

All I know is if I had a pre-order with either company, I'd probably be banned from here by now from pure rants lol.

It makes sense that this will tend to happen when specialized hardware (ASICs) exists that is orders of magnitude more efficient at mining than commodity hardware (GPUs); the few companies that are capable of building that hardware will eventually control a significant fraction of the total network.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. What would happen if in a year from now, all the remaining GPU miners have left bitcoin for LTC (or other scrypt alt coins) and the bitcoin network is controlled by say 10% ASICs that are eventually delivered to costumers and the remaining 90% consists of ASICs that are controlled by just a few companies? Perhaps at that point people will consider changing the bitcoin hashing algorithm to something that is more ASIC-resistant like scrypt?
 

[mintymark]

Um, it seems only fair to mention that before Josh joined BFL, he ran one of the larger mining pools. As far as I know he still does, and he does this from his own premises which happen to be in the same town as BFL.  Thats where he lives and why he accepted a job at BFL!! This much is pretty mush established fact if you look at thr history through previous posts.

I dont know if BFL are mining or not, and I dont know when or even if I will get my equipment from BFL, but the above is pretty relevant to this thread.

[Lohoris]

I gave up my FPGA project - even if it's cheaper than ASICminer - because at current difficulty (and difficulty increase rate) the ROI rised to 6-8 or even more months. I have better investments than that :/ I'll leave these two PCBs I already made running and forget the whole thing.

6-8 months is a great ROI, actually...

what could possibly yield you better results?

the point is to make profit, not to make roi, making only roi is useless
and when i say profit, i mean an amount equal to the one invested, aka ROI X 2 minimum

Of course, but... why do you assume it would instantly explode just after having returned the investment?

[statdude]

Um, it seems only fair to mention that before Josh joined BFL, he ran one of the larger mining pools. As far as I know he still does, and he does this from his own premises which happen to be in the same town as BFL.  Thats where he lives and why he accepted a job at BFL!! This much is pretty mush established fact if you look at thr history through previous posts.

I dont know if BFL are mining or not, and I dont know when or even if I will get my equipment from BFL, but the above is pretty relevant to this thread.

So, you're saying that hash spike in the US is from a pool? Which?