Am I wrong?

[nakowa]

If the generation rate of block is constant, allegedly only 1 block in about 10 minutes, that means the network generates 7200 BTC a day (before some day in 2014).

According to bitcoinwatch.com, current total network hashrate is 11539.08gH/s，approximately 11.5T.

Does that mean if I have a 1.15 T hashrate pool, then my pool could mine approximately 720 BTC a day?

If this is true, can I ignore exponentially increasing difficulty? I mean what I should concern as a miner, is in effect the percentage I occupy of total hashrate, right?

 

[wareen]

The difficulty adjusts to the total hashrate, so if you assume exponentially increasing difficulty than you are also facing exponentially increasing total hashrate, hence the percentage you occupy is exponentially _decreasing_.

[HideousBeastManGuy]

OP,

That is partially correct, but the difficulty is adjusted based on the total hash rate every 10-12 days or whatever it is (it's actually per number of blocks, I'm sure someone remembers it, I don't).  Presumably you will get more people participating in mining the easier the difficulty.

I think we're getting somewhat close to the point where we stop seeing new miners and thus the difficulty will stop increasing, and your assumptions are correct.

[ercolinux]

Yes, you math is correct, and if you go there

http://api.bitcoin.cz/stats/graphs/

you can see a nice graph of the number of coins mined with a 2-2.5GHash pool where you can find out a drop from an average of 2400BTC/day to near 1400 in a month or so due to increased difficulty.

[julz]

"I think we're getting somewhat close to the point where we stop seeing new miners "

I have a suspicion this is wrong.

There must be tens of millions (at least) of people who for some reason don't have access to a way to deposit funds to the exchanges (or don't want to for privacy reasons.. secret from spouse etc).
I suspect many such people will join mining pools with fairly average GPUs and generate very small BTC balances - especially if pools lower their payout threshold.

Whether all this low end mining adds up to much.. I don't know.. I just suspect that for some people, even though they may only end up with a balance on the order of millicoins, it'll be something they'll get into if bitcoin continues to get publicity and mindshare.

Once other ways of earning bitcoin, through work, local trade etc become possible - I guess those low end miners too may drop off. It could be a long time though.

[spruce]

There must be tens of millions (at least) of people who for some reason don't have access to a way to deposit funds to the exchanges (or don't want to for privacy reasons.. secret from spouse etc).

I think that if bitcoin gets to be that popular the infrastructure will grow accordingly, and you'll be able to go down to the corner store and buy some bitcoin mills or mikes on the spot for cash.

[nakowa]

... but if this is true, then "difficulty" is somewhat irrelevant to mining, since 1) block generating rate is nearly constant, 2) total hashrate is increasing...

How many btc miners could earn is in effect can be calculated by block * reward * your hashrate / total hashrate...

Something is missing?

[wareen]

How many btc miners could earn is in effect can be calculated by block * reward * your hashrate / total hashrate...

Something is missing?

No, except that total hashrate is effectively measured with difficulty. So you can't really say that difficulty is irrelevant because total hashrate cannot be measured directly. You need the difficulty parameter (which in turn is just calculated from the time it took the network to solve the last 2016 blocks).

[nakowa]

How many btc miners could earn is in effect can be calculated by block * reward * your hashrate / total hashrate...

Something is missing?

No, except that total hashrate is effectively measured with difficulty. So you can't really say that difficulty is irrelevant because total hashrate cannot be measured directly. You need the difficulty parameter (which in turn is just calculated from the time it took the network to solve the last 2016 blocks).

Thank you for explanation.