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Author Topic: ASICs, Network Hash Rate, and Profitability  (Read 934 times)
Moheta (OP)
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June 13, 2013, 04:30:27 PM
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I was curious about how the entire BTC hash/s will be affected by all the ASICs coming online and what kind of difficulty could be expected in the future.  According to the bitcoin wiki (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty), the network hash rate is calculated with the following equation:
Network hash/s = Difficulty * 2**32 /600

Rounding to the nearest Thash/s, the current difficulty level shows 112 Thash/s in the entire BTC network.
The next difficulty increase is estimated to be around 19.5 million which means that the BTC network will have 140Thash/s (an increase of 28Thash/s in 2 weeks!!)

There's no way to know for sure how many ASICs will ship in the coming months so I took a wild guess as to how big the ASIC market is.  Let's say every single registered bitcointalk member gets a 10Ghash/s miner for themselves.  There are just over 126000 members so that would add 1260 Thash/s to the network.  An additional 1260 Thash/s would push the difficulty up to 192 million.

I went to a bitcoin profit calculator (http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/) and plugged in some numbers.  Lets say I bought 2 BFL 5GH/s miners for a total of $550 (not saying I'd buy from these guys, it was just an easy starting point).  To make it simple I made the conversion rate 100 USD/BTC, "free electricity" and kept the default profitability decline (0.61).  The break even is 248 days.  That's less than a year to recoup a modest investment without considering the current difficulty rate is 10 times less than my estimation.

Could there be enough room in the market for everybody?  I understand that every assumption above is a wild guess, but it seems like there could still be profit in the future by mining.

What do you guys think?

Also, let me know if my calculations are out of whack or if I haven't communicated the information in an understandable manner Smiley
bitbeast
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June 13, 2013, 06:22:53 PM
 #2

Quote
There's no way to know for sure how many ASICs

- There is:

http://bfl.ptz.ro/

See the upper table.

Time is money mining.
Moheta (OP)
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June 13, 2013, 07:47:00 PM
 #3

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There's no way to know for sure how many ASICs

- There is:

http://bfl.ptz.ro/

See the upper table.

Thanks for the link.  I was considering all ASICs, not just BFL.  ASICMiner, Avalon, etc. and all the new companies starting up like KnCMiner, Terrahash, etc.
atariguy
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June 13, 2013, 08:19:51 PM
 #4

Also, that page is out of date and only includes self-reported orders.
ck99
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June 13, 2013, 08:36:13 PM
 #5

Quote
There's no way to know for sure how many ASICs

- There is:

http://bfl.ptz.ro/

See the upper table.

Yeah, I'm not sure I would trust that table. At the very least, I wouldn't make any financial decisions based off of it...
Andijviesoep
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June 13, 2013, 09:25:22 PM
 #6

I was curious about how the entire BTC hash/s will be affected by all the ASICs coming online and what kind of difficulty could be expected in the future.  According to the bitcoin wiki (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty), the network hash rate is calculated with the following equation:
Network hash/s = Difficulty * 2**32 /600

Rounding to the nearest Thash/s, the current difficulty level shows 112 Thash/s in the entire BTC network.
The next difficulty increase is estimated to be around 19.5 million which means that the BTC network will have 140Thash/s (an increase of 28Thash/s in 2 weeks!!)

There's no way to know for sure how many ASICs will ship in the coming months so I took a wild guess as to how big the ASIC market is.  Let's say every single registered bitcointalk member gets a 10Ghash/s miner for themselves.  There are just over 126000 members so that would add 1260 Thash/s to the network.  An additional 1260 Thash/s would push the difficulty up to 192 million.

I went to a bitcoin profit calculator (http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/) and plugged in some numbers.  Lets say I bought 2 BFL 5GH/s miners for a total of $550 (not saying I'd buy from these guys, it was just an easy starting point).  To make it simple I made the conversion rate 100 USD/BTC, "free electricity" and kept the default profitability decline (0.61).  The break even is 248 days.  That's less than a year to recoup a modest investment without considering the current difficulty rate is 10 times less than my estimation.

Could there be enough room in the market for everybody?  I understand that every assumption above is a wild guess, but it seems like there could still be profit in the future by mining.

What do you guys think?

Also, let me know if my calculations are out of whack or if I haven't communicated the information in an understandable manner Smiley

I agree. My own calculations lead to a similar conclusion. If you're purely in it for the money, investing in ASICs is probably a very bad idea considering the unknowns and the fact that aside from bitcoin mining, pretty much the only use they have is heating up the air surrounding them.
2weiX
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June 13, 2013, 09:33:04 PM
 #7

Quote
There's no way to know for sure how many ASICs

- There is:

http://bfl.ptz.ro/

See the upper table.

Yeah, I'm not sure I would trust that table. At the very least, I wouldn't make any financial decisions based off of it...

It is highly inaccurate.
bitbeast
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June 14, 2013, 11:17:34 AM
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It is highly inaccurate.

- For all your considerations (about the 'profitability' of BTC mining etc.) to be 'accurate' enough, you need to have only a one small eptitude: an ability to predict the exchange rate of bitcoin to your national currency at any moment of the future. Cheesy

Time is money mining.
hoewer4what
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June 14, 2013, 11:27:32 AM
 #9

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It is highly inaccurate.

- For all your considerations (about the 'profitability' of BTC mining etc.) to be 'accurate' enough, you need to have only a one small eptitude: an ability to predict the exchange rate of bitcoin to your national currency at any moment of the future. Cheesy


ok, you would be rich then
bitbeast
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June 14, 2013, 12:02:46 PM
 #10


- About the growth of BTC network difficulty:

http://bitcoin.sipa.be/

Time is money mining.
mprep
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June 14, 2013, 12:58:20 PM
 #11


- About the growth of BTC network difficulty:

http://bitcoin.sipa.be/

Wonder when will it fall down.

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