What happens when there is a big difficulty drop?

[LiveJay]

With this exponential growth in difficulty lately I was wondering:  Because the difficulty is adjusted each 2016 blocks and not some other measure of time, if there were a substantial decrease in network capacity wouldn't the blockchain get "stuck"?  For example,  say things keeps growing nicely and then the next reward split rolls around and half the miners decide to shut down their operations overnight because it's not profitable.  It might go from 10 minutes to find a new block to 2 hours or more.  Then it could take 168 days to reach 2016 blocks and have the difficulty readjust.

Is this a real danger, or an I missing something in the specification?

Thanks,

-Jay     

[Zanatos666]

With this exponential growth in difficulty lately I was wondering:  Because the difficulty is adjusted each 2016 blocks and not some other measure of time, if there were a substantial decrease in network capacity wouldn't the blockchain get "stuck"?  For example,  say things keeps growing nicely and then the next reward split rolls around and half the miners decide to shut down their operations overnight because it's not profitable.  It might go from 10 minutes to find a new block to 2 hours or more.  Then it could take 168 days to reach 2016 blocks and have the difficulty readjust.

Is this a real danger, or an I missing something in the specification?

Thanks,

-Jay     

Essentially that is a probability.  We have seen this with alt coins already.  Someone jumps on with a huge hash rate, jacks up the difficulty as they mine away block after block, then stops mining.  The difficulty would adjust back down, but it has to find the blocks first, and with it so high, and not enough miners out there with enough hash power (and just pure luck) the difficulty never comes back down because no one is finding blocks to get help it get to the next difficulty adjustment.

However, I dont think anyone sees this happening with BTC just yet.  What you might see is that there are less and less miners, and more and more mining companies in which you would buy shares in.

[timk225]

With all the ASICS out there mining BTC now, you'd be a FOOL to invest a single penny in BTC mining.  Mine Scrypt coins instead, like LiteCoin or FeatherCoin or DigitalCoin.

But to answer your actual question.... I don't know.  I don't think it'd get stuck, just slow down a lot.

[crazyates]

It is possible, but I don't see that happening.

The hardware today is so diverse, some miners will remain profitable longer than others, depending on power efficiency. When the difficulty is 1Billion and the reward drops to 12.5BTC, an Avalon unit would be losing money (unless you had free electricity). At the same time, a BitFury would still be making 0.1BTC/day, and turning out a profit. People might turn off their Avalons, but not turn off their BitFurys. See what I mean?

And this is also a few years away, so we could have more powerful/efficient/cheaper hardware. Even at 12.5BTC it would still be profitable, I think.

[polarhei]

It is possible, but I don't see that happening.

The hardware today is so diverse, some miners will remain profitable longer than others, depending on power efficiency. When the difficulty is 1Billion and the reward drops to 12.5BTC, an Avalon unit would be losing money (unless you had free electricity). At the same time, a BitFury would still be making 0.1BTC/day, and turning out a profit. People might turn off their Avalons, but not turn off their BitFurys. See what I mean?

And this is also a few years away, so we could have more powerful/efficient/cheaper hardware. Even at 12.5BTC it would still be profitable, I think.

Avalon has other usages, but the Intel received right now,not strong. if the input part is fixed, then the script will be defeated

[os2sam]

say things keeps growing nicely and then the next reward split rolls around and half the miners decide to shut down their operations overnight because it's not profitable.  It might go from 10 minutes to find a new block to 2 hours or more.  Then it could take 168 days to reach 2016 blocks and have the difficulty readjust.

The same, or similar thing was a concern the last reward split.  We've seen what has happened since then.  I would expect similar in the future.

The sky hasn't fallen yet.
Sam

[DeathAndTaxes]

With this exponential growth in difficulty lately I was wondering:  Because the difficulty is adjusted each 2016 blocks and not some other measure of time, if there were a substantial decrease in network capacity wouldn't the blockchain get "stuck"?  For example,  say things keeps growing nicely and then the next reward split rolls around and half the miners decide to shut down their operations overnight because it's not profitable.  It might go from 10 minutes to find a new block to 2 hours or more.  Then it could take 168 days to reach 2016 blocks and have the difficulty readjust.

Is this a real danger, or an I missing something in the specification?

Thanks,

-Jay     

If half the miners shut down the average time per block would rise to 20 min nominal and it would take 4 weeks not 2 weeks for difficulty to adjust and when it does difficulty would be cut in half doubling the reward for the remaining miners.  If 99.9% of miners all stopped on the same day yes that would be bad but miners tend to act independently and shutdown at different times.

[Takeshi_Kovacs]

It is possible, but I don't see that happening.

The hardware today is so diverse, some miners will remain profitable longer than others, depending on power efficiency. When the difficulty is 1Billion and the reward drops to 12.5BTC, an Avalon unit would be losing money (unless you had free electricity). At the same time, a BitFury would still be making 0.1BTC/day, and turning out a profit. People might turn off their Avalons, but not turn off their BitFurys. See what I mean?

And this is also a few years away, so we could have more powerful/efficient/cheaper hardware. Even at 12.5BTC it would still be profitable, I think.

s/years/months/

Yes, I know that the reward drop is not months away but one month after diff hits 1,000,000,000 it will hit 2,000,000,000 and the pay out will be the same as your 1Billion and 12.5 rewards scenario.

[fattypig]

With this exponential growth in difficulty lately I was wondering:  Because the difficulty is adjusted each 2016 blocks and not some other measure of time, if there were a substantial decrease in network capacity wouldn't the blockchain get "stuck"?  For example,  say things keeps growing nicely and then the next reward split rolls around and half the miners decide to shut down their operations overnight because it's not profitable.  It might go from 10 minutes to find a new block to 2 hours or more.  Then it could take 168 days to reach 2016 blocks and have the difficulty readjust.

Is this a real danger, or an I missing something in the specification?

Thanks,

-Jay    

yes, if a corporate is capable of pushing up the difficulty to 10x it is, then he off his machine just to save electricity, and mine again once the difficulty is reduced. This way he kill all the bitcoin farming

[polarhei]

It is possible, but I don't see that happening.

The hardware today is so diverse, some miners will remain profitable longer than others, depending on power efficiency. When the difficulty is 1Billion and the reward drops to 12.5BTC, an Avalon unit would be losing money (unless you had free electricity). At the same time, a BitFury would still be making 0.1BTC/day, and turning out a profit. People might turn off their Avalons, but not turn off their BitFurys. See what I mean?

And this is also a few years away, so we could have more powerful/efficient/cheaper hardware. Even at 12.5BTC it would still be profitable, I think.

Currently I have lost the first era, now in second era, If I don't do that before the third era, then I have a high chance to lose the game.

In the third era, The BTC selling price may get higher as harder to find the new one.

[philipma1957]

With this exponential growth in difficulty lately I was wondering:  Because the difficulty is adjusted each 2016 blocks and not some other measure of time, if there were a substantial decrease in network capacity wouldn't the blockchain get "stuck"?  For example,  say things keeps growing nicely and then the next reward split rolls around and half the miners decide to shut down their operations overnight because it's not profitable.  It might go from 10 minutes to find a new block to 2 hours or more.  Then it could take 168 days to reach 2016 blocks and have the difficulty readjust.

Is this a real danger, or an I missing something in the specification?

Thanks,

-Jay     

  dude it would be great if difficulty dropped from 189 mill to 100 mill if diff was all that mattered.

 BTW we have had diff drops.  not a new thing. 

[cowandtea]

Everyone would be happy and company would produce more ASIC.

[Leehoya]

More money  . Unless you say those big mining pool goes down, its literally impossible. It would pose a danger to bitcoin if that really happens. Some small pools can easily do a 51% on bitcoin. Havent seen any really huge miners that would off their farm.

[DPoS]

With all the ASICS out there mining BTC now, you'd be a FOOL to invest a single penny in BTC mining.  Mine Scrypt coins instead, like LiteCoin or FeatherCoin or DigitalCoin.

But to answer your actual question.... I don't know.  I don't think it'd get stuck, just slow down a lot.

what about ShillCoin??  you got any of those you can sell me?

[hulk]

Everyone would panic and think that its the government . Bitcoin price crash to $1.

[donut]

More money  . Unless you say those big mining pool goes down, its literally impossible. It would pose a danger to bitcoin if that really happens. Some small pools can easily do a 51% on bitcoin. Havent seen any really huge miners that would off their farm.

You do realize miners have backup pools set up right? I have 6 backup pool set up just in case they get DDOSed. Which they actually did a few days ago. My final backup is P2Pool, which you can't really DDOS.

[joeventura]

With this exponential growth in difficulty lately I was wondering:  Because the difficulty is adjusted each 2016 blocks and not some other measure of time, if there were a substantial decrease in network capacity wouldn't the blockchain get "stuck"?  For example,  say things keeps growing nicely and then the next reward split rolls around and half the miners decide to shut down their operations overnight because it's not profitable.  It might go from 10 minutes to find a new block to 2 hours or more.  Then it could take 168 days to reach 2016 blocks and have the difficulty readjust.

Is this a real danger, or an I missing something in the specification?

Thanks,

-Jay     

Yes I was also wondering the same thing about when my hair will grow back and when my genitalia will double in size.

So three things that won't happen.