Difficulty jumps 21%

[illinest]

A huge leap. Is this 'organic' or is it somehow part of the 2x plan to kill off the old chain with a fatally elongated readjustment period?

What do you think?

I am very worried that this is Bitmain setting us up for catastrophe next month. What if they drove up difficulty, knowing that they can easily control a majority of the hash rate, making the likelihood of chain death on the legacy chain higher given how difficult it will be to find blocks?

We could even take the conspiracy a step further. What if the plan is to drive difficulty up on both the legacy and 2x chains, only to withdraw hash power from both chains and point it at Bitcoin Cash? Surely it would look like an attack by Bitmain, but they've already been pretty open about their preference for BCH over BTC, and they might not have to 51% attack either chain if difficulty is high enough. This would force users of both chains to contemplate a hard fork of the POW/difficulty algo, or otherwise migrate to Bitcoin Cash.

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[European Central Bank]

Who defines the level of difficulty? Bitmain?

the bitcoin algorithm decides. the more miners there are the harder it becomes. bitmain probably has the most mining power so they have the most influence over upping mining difficulty.

[kwukduck]

This is part of the Sw2x team to kill off bitcoin core.

Expect another similar adjustment before the fork.

Since they have 94% miner support (even higher if you consider how much mining power they are themselves directing at the core chain right now to bump up the difficulty) such a high difficulty on the core network will guarantee a success for SW2x team and instantly kill the entire bitcoin core network.

[dothebeats]

Have no idea. But I believe hashrate increases are generally a positive sign.

Could it have been miners who were mining BCH coming back over to BTC?

Well they have long returned mining bitcoin after BCH became unprofitable due to difficulty increases. Also the moment that there's a large spike in diffculty all I can come up with is that there are new mining hardware that's being tested by a mining company since that was the case in the last two years or so. Today it might be that the miners are just following where the money is or whatever is profitable at a given time.

[illinest]

This is part of the Sw2x team to kill off bitcoin core.

Expect another similar adjustment before the fork.

Since they have 94% miner support (even higher if you consider how much mining power they are themselves directing at the core chain right now to bump up the difficulty) such a high difficulty on the core network will guarantee a success for SW2x team and instantly kill the entire bitcoin core network.

What's your opinion on the outcome of the fork then? Do you think some or all of the Core developers would back a POW change for the legacy chain if the network was completely stuck? I get the impression that Core is not onboard with simply continuing to develop Bitcoin after this sort of hostile takeover.

Knowing your style, I'm guessing you are bearish on the price as well? Where do you see the price of BTC, B2X and whatever altcoin might emerge from a dead legacy network, next year?

[GreatOrchid]

Yes it is insane, this is not profitable anymore for bitcoin miners at the moment. anyway, it has rised a lot, so they were making a lot of profit from the increase + the bitcoins that they used to mine.
So it was time for it to happen, anyway, it can be a complot, today there have been a lot of issues about Segwitx2 fork and about their developer's team, they are so shady and they want to make bitcoin go do at all cost. Maybe you should try to take a look at this, maybe that is the real reason behind all this problem.

[dead_m92]

Maybe bitmain increased the difficulty, they are going to release a new antminer and that is probably why they have rised it, because they want to increase their sales on their new miner.. It seems to be possible, but it is just a coincidence.. I dont believe in coincidences, but maybe it is true.
but yes, it was time to make it happen, bitcoin miners were taking a lot of profit.. i hope that the fees are going to be lowered after this mess.

[Youghoor]

I read a lot of conspiracies about this during the past few days, and a lot of people were predicting that this was going to happen because bitcoin rised a lot in the last weeks.
Just think about it, it was $4000 two weeks ago, and now it is upto $5700 each bitcoin (more than 20%) and bitcoin miners were making a lot of profit. Some people say that this is because the new product from bitmain, and others because of the price, and some people because of the next fork.
The whole community is crazy

[cpfreeplz]

It's a viscous cycle that's great for HODLERS. Price rise causes hash power to increase and hash power increase causes price to increase!

Lol. Which came first, the hash power or the price? Haha like what came first, the chicken or the egg? I don't think there's any way to figure out over time what would come first.

[xypos]

Well i would assume that difficulty rises it is a precursor to bitcoin's price jumping up as well.

However jumping 21% at a time is completely abnormal and probably won't be sustained into the future. There has been no movement of price since yesterday, so i'm really doubting this correlation is true.

It's a viscous cycle that's great for HODLERS. Price rise causes hash power to increase and hash power increase causes price to increase!

Lol. Which came first, the hash power or the price? Haha like what came first, the chicken or the egg? I don't think there's any way to figure out over time what would come first.

Exactly. Maybe it's the pump of price that resulted in this.

[digaran]

It's a viscous cycle that's great for HODLERS. Price rise causes hash power to increase and hash power increase causes price to increase!

Lol. Which came first, the hash power or the price? Haha like what came first, the chicken or the egg? I don't think there's any way to figure out over time what would come first.

Further lol, now tell me which came first, girls came and then people jumped them or people were jumping and girls came? please laugh for 5 seconds.
Best thing to do right now to prevent emperor Wu jumping us all is to change how difficulty is adjusting, they did the same thing with Bitcoin cash, they lowered the difficulty, what I'm suggesting is not to lower it but reduce the time of adjustment from 2 weeks to 48 hours.
Also Bitmain is not just one miner, there are thousands of small miners using their pools for more profit, if Bitmain tries something against the interests of the whole network, people will stop using their pools.

[Crankautist]

Russia started mining bitcoin!

[exstasie]

It's a viscous cycle that's great for HODLERS. Price rise causes hash power to increase and hash power increase causes price to increase!

Lol. Which came first, the hash power or the price? Haha like what came first, the chicken or the egg? I don't think there's any way to figure out over time what would come first.

It's pretty easy. Miners could mine an unknown fork with no users. Would anyone buy the coins just because they mined them? Of course not! Hash power follows price.

That's not to say that it's perfectly efficient; miners are rational actors, but they are not always correct in their assumptions about users and network activity. I do think that some people watch for increases in the hash rate as indication of investment. After all, this indicates investment in mining hardware, which is indirect investment in BTC -- bullish. But that doesn't change the fundamental relationship. A rational miner buys mining hardware because he expects the price to rise.

[atc1-REAL]

Probably has to do with the price appreciation recently. However, becuase of this, no matter the price, the profits always seem to be the same. Some will stop after a price correction and the difficulty migt reduce, again keeping the profit constant.

[rev2]

As some others have already stated, this is most probably because of the price increase. The higher the price, the profitabler mining becomes.

But yeah, 21% is quite a lot.

[European Central Bank]

As some others have already stated, this is most probably because of the price increase. The higher the price, the profitabler mining becomes.

But yeah, 21% is quite a lot.

a percentage like that is not normal and the price has stopped rising. it also coincides with multiple fork dramas and people circling who have a great incentive to usurp the original bitcoin blockchain and now is the ideal moment to attempt it.

it all seems a little too neat not to be the case to me but maybe i'm being paranoid.

[Coffee135]

Maybe bitmain increased the difficulty, they are going to release a new antminer and that is probably why they have rised it, because they want to increase their sales on their new miner.. It seems to be possible, but it is just a coincidence.. I dont believe in coincidences, but maybe it is true.
but yes, it was time to make it happen, bitcoin miners were taking a lot of profit.. i hope that the fees are going to be lowered after this mess.

Bitcoin is self-regulating system. Its creators have worked very well and probably figured almost everything. But it seems to me that the most vulnerable part of bitcoin is the greed of miners. The increasing complexity creates the conditions under which bitcoin can't do without a monopoly of miners.

[mmortal03]

Isn't it time for BCH to be pumped?  It's looking very 'ripe' for a pump right now.

You must be psychic.

[mmortal03]

Yes it is insane, this is not profitable anymore for bitcoin miners at the moment.

False.

[Denker]

A huge leap. Is this 'organic' or is it somehow part of the 2x plan to kill off the old chain with a fatally elongated readjustment period?

What do you think?

I am very worried that this is Bitmain setting us up for catastrophe next month. What if they drove up difficulty, knowing that they can easily control a majority of the hash rate, making the likelihood of chain death on the legacy chain higher given how difficult it will be to find blocks?

We could even take the conspiracy a step further. What if the plan is to drive difficulty up on both the legacy and 2x chains, only to withdraw hash power from both chains and point it at Bitcoin Cash? Surely it would look like an attack by Bitmain, but they've already been pretty open about their preference for BCH over BTC, and they might not have to 51% attack either chain if difficulty is high enough. This would force users of both chains to contemplate a hard fork of the POW/difficulty algo, or otherwise migrate to Bitcoin Cash.

No one will ever move to Bcash!
And if Bitmain indeed should have the balls to di such an attack, let's get it on!
The core devs have for such a scenario emergency back up plans!
Yes this would be a tough time however after it we would show the entire world how resilient Bitcoin is to such actors!!
You wanna do shenanigans and play against the rules, well then face and take consequences afterwards as well.
I'm not worried!!