Next difficulty ~4,000,000,000? Tracking difficulty since 145,000,000.

[tarmi]

allchains.info gives the best info for difficulty changes.

[TooDumbForBitcoin]

Too many 8 and 9-minute blocks for a 50% jump.

More like a 26.7% jump, resulting in:

495,306,773

[Atroxes]

I'm putting my money on http://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty.

Their track record speaks volumes

[Puppet]

I'm putting my money on http://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty.

Their track record speaks volumes

I agree its best predictor out there, but about that track record, assuming you refer to their charts, do keep in mind the difficulty axis is exponential.  Its a lot easier to achieve what appears like a straight line if the axis isnt linear .

[crazy_rabbit]

http://bitcoindifficulty.com/

Current difficulty: 390,928,788
Next difficulty (estimate): 462,272,138 (+18%)

I would invest in ASIC if the difficulty stabilized like this. Hope its not another 40%..

Of course, everyone would. And therein lies the problem no? If the difficulty stabilised like this, many more people would buy ASICS which would make the rate change, and go up much higher.

[Schrankwand]

http://bitcoindifficulty.com/

Current difficulty: 390,928,788
Next difficulty (estimate): 462,272,138 (+18%)

I would invest in ASIC if the difficulty stabilized like this. Hope its not another 40%..

Of course, everyone would. And therein lies the problem no? If the difficulty stabilised like this, many more people would buy ASICS which would make the rate change, and go up much higher.

The good thing would be that at some point, added hashpower will only be a small add to the network.
Adding 1th a year ago would have been insta craziness, right now it is a drop on a hot stone.

With every increase, you need exactly that percentage more added to the former difficulty to increase further. It gets harder, but there will be some settlement soon

[Puppet]

With every increase, you need exactly that percentage more added to the former difficulty to increase further. It gets harder, but there will be some settlement soon

Please define "soon", so we can quote it for posterity

Of course, everyone would. And therein lies the problem no? If the difficulty stabilised like this, many more people would buy ASICS which would make the rate change, and go up much higher.

Exactly. And the same effect works on price and price/difficulty. "I would buy some asics if only their price or profitability was more reasonable", and that too is a self defeating prophecy. Which is why we will see lower prices, but no improvement in mining profitability for the foreseeable future (which admittedly, is only a few months in this universe).

[Schrankwand]

With every increase, you need exactly that percentage more added to the former difficulty to increase further. It gets harder, but there will be some settlement soon

Please define "soon", so we can quote it for posterity

Of course, everyone would. And therein lies the problem no? If the difficulty stabilised like this, many more people would buy ASICS which would make the rate change, and go up much higher.

Exactly. And the same effect works on price and price/difficulty. "I would buy some asics if only their price or profitability was more reasonable", and that too is a self defeating prophecy. Which is why we will see lower prices, but no improvement in mining profitability for the foreseeable future (which admittedly, is only a few months in this universe).

The "soon" depends on the daily added hashrate, the bitcoin price and so on.

Right now, to increase difficulty 100% you would need to add as much power as we have right now, approximately. Sure, that is possible, but then, to do that again, you again, need to double, which means you need to add four times the hashing power.

While I agree that we are getting very efficient, we will see some point where profits go to hell in all this mining business. If BTC China doesnt drive the price beyond $400, the profit margins will become smaller and smaller and the smarter equipment manufacturers will cash out and retire. And I believe this is the point I am talking about

[rampalija]

When will be next difficulty jump? Tomorrow

[Puppet]

The "soon" depends on the daily added hashrate, the bitcoin price and so on.

Right now, to increase difficulty 100% you would need to add as much power as we have right now, approximately. Sure, that is possible, but then, to do that again, you again, need to double, which means you need to add four times the hashing power.

While I agree that we are getting very efficient, we will see some point where profits go to hell in all this mining business. If BTC China doesnt drive the price beyond $400, the profit margins will become smaller and smaller and the smarter equipment manufacturers will cash out and retire. And I believe this is the point I am talking about

As mining profits dwindle, hardware prices will follow suit, until margins on hardware also become too small for vendors to bother with. That part I think basicaly everyone agrees with. Where the opinions differ rather dramatically is where this point will occur. You will find opinions ranging from 10 to 500+ PH at the current exchange rate. So, quantify it.

For the record, Im putting it somewhere between 100 and 250PH (at todays BTC rate), when growth will no longer be exponential (some % of the network per month), but will become linear (fixed amount of TH) and begin to slow down. The actual % may decrease next year, as I am not sure we will be able to maintain 3+% per day, but 1% or more will continue for quite some time IMO. Note that 1% per day is still a doubling every 2 months, and is still exponential.

[rampalija]

I dont think it will go down not even mext year, cuz new ASICss will be aviable with more GHs. But be sure when the will go down the price will go too

[RoadStress]

I don't know who is nailing it, but i think this is the second time you guess it damn good. Grats! Waiting for the next one now.

[zvs]

I thought it'd be 520-530m 3 or 4 days ago, then 520m about 18 hours ago.  It looks like someone turned some stuff off.  haha.

[baritus]

I don't know who is nailing it, but i think this is the second time you guess it damn good. Grats! Waiting for the next one now.

I'm keeping track of how accurate each of the "guesses" is on the first post.

[Ekaros]

5*10^8

[Schrankwand]

I thought it'd be 520-530m 3 or 4 days ago, then 520m about 18 hours ago.  It looks like someone turned some stuff off.  haha.

Actually, I have seen 4 Petahash before, now it is 3.2. If people are turning stuff off, they are turning A LOT off. I have no idea if this is profitable. But possibly, you could hash around 70-80% of the time and then switch off, just to delay the difficulty increase. Im not sure this works, though. Or is profitable.

[TooDumbForBitcoin]

Actually, I have seen 4 Petahash before, now it is 3.2. If people are turning stuff off, they are turning A LOT off.

Well, you gotta ship to your customers eventually.

[Rival]

In 5 years we may well be reminiscing about how you used to be able to buy your own personal miners, join a pool, and get your own bitcoins.

Eventually it must reach a point where the only people mining are the manufacturers. Only they can get miners at a cost that can squeeze out a microscopic profit.

[Puppet]

I thought it'd be 520-530m 3 or 4 days ago, then 520m about 18 hours ago.  It looks like someone turned some stuff off.  haha.

Actually, I have seen 4 Petahash before, now it is 3.2. If people are turning stuff off, they are turning A LOT off. I have no idea if this is profitable. But possibly, you could hash around 70-80% of the time and then switch off, just to delay the difficulty increase. Im not sure this works, though. Or is profitable.

Not likely anything is being switched off, its probably just variance. Remember, we cant measure actual network hashrate, we can only guess the hashrate based on how fast blocks are found, and in the short term thats obviously influenced by luck. If you would try to measure the network speed using 2 blocks, you could "measure" 100 exahash if it happens to be a quick block. Anything less than a few 100 blocks is meaningless and even 1000 blocks will show non trivial variance. Im sure someone will do the math for you (organofconti, are you reading?).

Another possibility is a more sinister one: someone is trying to attack the network, either by creating double spends or in a way recently described here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=325225.0

ghash.io was recently implicated in an alleged double spend attack against some betting site:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=321630.0

Not sure if there is a consensus on whether or not those allegations hold water, but it sounds plausible and just to be safe, this would be a good time to point your miner to a small pool if you are mining at ghash or one of the other "too big to fail" pools. Give bitminter a try, they are giving away a KnC Jupiter this month if you get lucky.

[Schrankwand]

Here it is: 511m.


Crap