is the network hash dropping?

[TheJuice]

The overall decrease is exponential growth is fairly easy to explain. Most of the orders currently being shipped were ordered when difficulty was 5-10 times lower. Back then it was easy to fall for the "im gonna be rich" mentality. Now, there is no miner on the market that even if delivered today will make bank. Very few new orders are being placed for miners, and now that KNC has shipped very little new hash speed is hitting the market. BFL, Avalon, ASICMiner are done with new hardware. It's just not profitable enough even at cost.


The next jump will be cointerra. I predicted months ago the plateau would be around 4-5 Phash. We are there.

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[DeathAndTaxes]

The overall decrease is exponential growth is fairly easy to explain. Most of the orders currently being shipped were ordered when difficulty was 5-10 times lower. Back then it was easy to fall for the "im gonna be rich" mentality. Now, there is no miner on the market that even if delivered today will make bank. Very few new orders are being placed for miners, and now that KNC has shipped very little new hash speed is hitting the market. BFL, Avalon, ASICMiner are done with new hardware. It's just not profitable enough even at cost.


The next jump will be cointerra. I predicted months ago the plateau would be around 4-5 Phash. We are there.

KNC ships the next batch (probably >2 PH/s conservatively and maybe closer to 2.5 PH/s realistically) in 6 days so calling it a plateau is a little premature.
Then HF batch one is mid Dec a little smaller maybe 0.5 PH/s.
The HF batch two is unknown since the first batch got pushed back (will it be a month late? will it ship right after batch 1?) but it looks to be larger maybe 2 PH/s max.

The rest should be the usually slow BFL dribble and small blocks by the other three (ASICMiner, Avalon, Bitfury) but my guess is they are not going to be significant compared to the existing hashrate and the three events above.

Cointerra is saying "on track for late Dec" but given holidays (vacation time) and the late tapeout, my guess is "late Dec" is code word for "oops at the last minute we just missed it and we are looking at mid January". Regardless of it being late Dec or early January we aren't going to be sitting @ 4 (or even 5) PH/s for that long.

[dskitchen]

Please remember/note that there is a lot of noise in the hashrate reading.  Also note that the estimated next difficulty is not that accurate right after an adjustment.

The best charts I have seen for this sort of speculation are found here:

http://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

Note the second graph down.  It shows graphically how much the next difficulty estimate varies over each difficulty adjustment cycle.

Also note:

Bitcoin Difficulty: 510,929,738

Estimated Next Difficulty: 656,156,896 (+28.42%)

I believe this to be the best estimate at this time.  

Thank you for this link! The charts here put things in a very nice visual relationship.

[JakeGold]

The overall decrease is exponential growth is fairly easy to explain. Most of the orders currently being shipped were ordered when difficulty was 5-10 times lower. Back then it was easy to fall for the "im gonna be rich" mentality. Now, there is no miner on the market that even if delivered today will make bank. Very few new orders are being placed for miners, and now that KNC has shipped very little new hash speed is hitting the market. BFL, Avalon, ASICMiner are done with new hardware. It's just not profitable enough even at cost.


The next jump will be cointerra. I predicted months ago the plateau would be around 4-5 Phash. We are there.

It'd seriously wager that it's mostly BFL orders too. For a long time they were the only company taking unlimited ASIC orders. And if you look at their shipping update blog, they were cranking them out like no tomorrow for a while, but have recently slowed down shipments.

[Rival]

Apparently most people think there is some big meter attached to the network that measures the global hash. This is not true at all.

When you go to websites that tell you the global hashrates, they are giving you the information based upon a calculation. The look at the difficulty (a known number) and the time between solved blocks (a known number) and they calculate an approximation of the hash rate required to perform that. They average these numbers over several timeframes to smooth out the curves and give us reasonable approximations... but these are of course just approximations and can be skewed by large difficulty increases.

The global hash does not drop when difficulty increases, it is just a temporary lag where calculations are not reflecting reality quite so closely.

One of the contributing factors to this apparent loss of hash rates we are experiencing is the huge volume of transactions recently. The number of transactions is increasing faster than the actual hash rate. Additionally, as the global hash increases, it becomes more difficult to ship or manufacture enough hash to make a percentage increase.  You cannot have exponential hash increases forever, because if you could we would need the entire energy output of the sun by 2016 to increase the global hash by another 50%. It is slowing because it has to. 40% or 50% increases every two weeks simply cannot continue. There just is not enough energy available. I saw somewhere a chart where someone projected that if we kept increasing the hash rates by 50% every 2 weeks and had 28nm chips that by 2015 we would be using the entire energy output of the united states just for hashing.

[digitalindustry]

I think it could also be some of the early asic hardware being shut down....basically usb erupters are useless, Japalpeno's are just like 25 usb erupters so they are useless as well, do the gen 1 ASICMiner blades still make anything on a daily basis?

I haven't had my usb erupter plugged in for quite a while...it just doesn't matter anymore.
It was only making a fraction of a cent per day...maybe the electricity isn't much either but it isn't worth me thinking about it anymore.
My Saturn is generating a decent amount each day and it eclipses anything put out by the USB or Jalapeno.

There have to be others shutting down their old ASIC hardware as well...and nobody can possibly be running gpu rigs anymore(?)

Also, I think that the hardware market is just saturated.... nothing you can buy makes a profit...and no one has any tolerance for mining at a loss.
 

^
That obviously

[JakeGold]

[...]
One of the contributing factors to this apparent loss of hash rates we are experiencing is the huge volume of transactions recently.
[...]

What? That's the most nonsensical thing I've heard all week. How is the hash rate affected by the transaction volume?

I only bother asking because everything else you said was spot on.

[monkee]

What? That's the most nonsensical thing I've heard all week.

you must've not read the post a few up from yours that says people are shutting down asics then.  why on earth would people be unplugging asics that earn more than they consume in electricity/cooling costs?  they wouldn't, unless they don't like money.

[BurtW]

What? That's the most nonsensical thing I've heard all week.

you must've not read the post a few up from yours that says people are shutting down asics then.  why on earth would people be unplugging asics that earn more than they consume in electricity/cooling costs?  they wouldn't, unless they don't like money.

Which has nothing to do with the quoted and response.

I believe that monkee's comment was a comparing of the nonsense in the thread.  JakeGold says "most nonsensical thing ever...",  monkee then says "If you think that is nonsense well what about this..." and discusses what he thinks is even more nonsensical.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I believe that monkee's comment was a comparing of the nonsense in the thread.  JakeGold says "most nonsensical thing ever...",  monkee then says "If you think that is nonsense well what about this..." and discusses what he thinks is even more nonsensical.

Yup it makes sense now.  I feel stupid (but I blame it on a lack of caffeine as part of a balanced breakfast) .

[monkee]

I believe that monkee's comment was a comparing of the nonsense in the thread.  JakeGold says "most nonsensical thing ever...",  monkee then says "If you think that is nonsense well what about this..." and discusses what he thinks is even more nonsensical.

Yup it makes sense now.  I feel stupid (but I blame it on a lack of caffeine as part of a balanced breakfast) .

sorry, i considered quoting from both posts but i decided to be lazy

*edit* thanks for explaining BurtW.  sometimes i do need a translator, haha

[Viperbass]

Hash rates will not be dropping, I am still expecting a 15% increase next time, then another 10-15% increases each time for the rest of the year. Come end of Jan and feb we can expect 40-50% increases.

Moral of the story for small to medium players, buy and hold bitcoins. All ur mining rigs will become expensive coffee tables within a year.

[P_Shep]

Looks like normal service has resumed.

[thew3apon]

Hash rate might only drop temporary due to not profitable and miner off their ASIC.. but right now the price of BTC went up so I guess they turn back on immediately..