Difficulty are going down - No question about it - New price target 3-4 dollars

[geek-trader]

You don't get it? Why is it that so many here don't get easy math or easy economics. It should not be that hard. If difficulty goes down then I can mine more bitcoins with my "1,4 GHash/s rig" / day, when i do so, I will be able to sell MORE bitcoins / day, and because of that I don't need it to be at 5-6 dollars, I'm happy to get 3-4 dollars and I STILL make a good profit at the last line, that is in dollars / day. Get it now? If not please stop commenting.

YOU might get more BTC when the difficulty goes down, but the TOTAL amount of BTC paid to miners is THE SAME.  That's the WHOLE POINT of difficulty.

I think it's you that "don't get easy math or easy economics."

[fastandfurious]

Another thing, don't think that because miners are leaving that is a sign that the prices are to low, that is only a sign that miners that shouldn't be mining in the first place mined bitcoins, the ones with high electricity bills. The Bitcoin economy as whole is big enough that you should see what you see in the real world, that is major advantages, so who are we that have them and will mine at pretty much any cost and are happy to see miners leave the market? The group of us miners that mine for free or with low electricity cost, and I know that we are a pretty big group. Some people actually do their due diligence.

[fastandfurious]

You don't get it? Why is it that so many here don't get easy math or easy economics. It should not be that hard. If difficulty goes down then I can mine more bitcoins with my "1,4 GHash/s rig" / day, when i do so, I will be able to sell MORE bitcoins / day, and because of that I don't need it to be at 5-6 dollars, I'm happy to get 3-4 dollars and I STILL make a good profit at the last line, that is in dollars / day. Get it now? If not please stop commenting.

YOU might get more BTC when the difficulty goes down, but the TOTAL amount of BTC paid to miners is THE SAME.  That's the WHOLE POINT of difficulty.

I think it's you that "don't get easy math or easy economics."

And what happens if I get more Bitcoins, and everyone else that are STILL mining also does so? Do you think that our incentives to sell at a lower price would be higher? Do you think that everyone else that has bitcoins would see that and understand economics, see the opportunity to sell high (before the miners) and buy back cheaper?

[Nesetalis]

/if/ everyone was getting more bitcoins than they should, the difficulty would adjust... and the faster people get bitcoins, the faster the difficulty adjusts to set it to 1 block every 6 minutes.
over time, the average will stay around 1 block every 6 minutes, though short term there will be fluctuations. This round you might earn more than average, then if thats true, next round you will earn less than average. That is how difficulty works.

[fastandfurious]

Right now Bitcoin economy is in high inflation environment, later in maybe in 2013 (bitcoins mined is halfed) the price of creating a bitcoin isn't that important, because that in correlation to total amounts of Bitcoins is far smaller. But today this is not the case, still the amount of bitcoins in comparison to what is created are relatively big enough that it is very important to understand the price of one bitcoin created.

Get to understand the price of creating one bitcoin and do your due dilligence. So you don't get hustled at the exchanges by the traders that put up fake buy orders and also by the miners that make money on your dollars when YOU as a direct buyer are taking the majority of the risk by putting in money in this economy.

The miners have always two options. Stop mining (no cost). Sell the rig. The direct buyer has pretty much no options if someone wants to sell 100 000 bitcoins within a short time frame. Then you have lost 50 %.

[fastandfurious]

/if/ everyone was getting more bitcoins than they should, the difficulty would adjust... and the faster people get bitcoins, the faster the difficulty adjusts to set it to 1 block every 6 minutes.
over time, the average will stay around 1 block every 6 minutes, though short term there will be fluctuations. This round you might earn more than average, then if thats true, next round you will earn less than average. That is how difficulty works.

That is not my point, I understand that.

My point in simple English is this. Miners that have high electricity cost will leave, that will take down the difficulty, that will make miners as me with zero or low electricity cost able to sell more bitcoins at A LOWER PRICE because we have a MAJOR ADVANTAGE.

Still don't get it? If not maybe you will get it when we hit new lows. As long as difficulty don't get a fair amount higher from the last all time high, the price of 10 dollars are very high.

[geek-trader]

You don't get it? Why is it that so many here don't get easy math or easy economics. It should not be that hard. If difficulty goes down then I can mine more bitcoins with my "1,4 GHash/s rig" / day, when i do so, I will be able to sell MORE bitcoins / day, and because of that I don't need it to be at 5-6 dollars, I'm happy to get 3-4 dollars and I STILL make a good profit at the last line, that is in dollars / day. Get it now? If not please stop commenting.

YOU might get more BTC when the difficulty goes down, but the TOTAL amount of BTC paid to miners is THE SAME.  That's the WHOLE POINT of difficulty.

I think it's you that "don't get easy math or easy economics."

And what happens if I get more Bitcoins, and everyone else that are STILL mining also does so? Do you think that our incentives to sell at a lower price would be higher? Do you think that everyone else that has bitcoins would see that and understand economics, see the opportunity to sell high (before the miners) and buy back cheaper?

I'm  trader and a miner.  I'm going to get the best price for my BTC no matter where I got them from, mining or trading.

I see what you are saying.  If miners get more BTC this week because the difficulty was lower, they will be more likely to sell them cheaper to cover electricity and hardware costs.

This is the old "difficulty drives price" vs "price drives difficulty" argument. We've been around and around this argument this whole thread.  It comes down to what you believe.

I believe price drives difficulty.

This is like "liberal vs conservative" - in the long run, there is no right answer.

[geek-trader]

On a related note, at least no one is arguing it's "un-ethical" to mine BTC: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=36881.0

[fastandfurious]

You don't get it? Why is it that so many here don't get easy math or easy economics. It should not be that hard. If difficulty goes down then I can mine more bitcoins with my "1,4 GHash/s rig" / day, when i do so, I will be able to sell MORE bitcoins / day, and because of that I don't need it to be at 5-6 dollars, I'm happy to get 3-4 dollars and I STILL make a good profit at the last line, that is in dollars / day. Get it now? If not please stop commenting.

YOU might get more BTC when the difficulty goes down, but the TOTAL amount of BTC paid to miners is THE SAME.  That's the WHOLE POINT of difficulty.

I think it's you that "don't get easy math or easy economics."

And what happens if I get more Bitcoins, and everyone else that are STILL mining also does so? Do you think that our incentives to sell at a lower price would be higher? Do you think that everyone else that has bitcoins would see that and understand economics, see the opportunity to sell high (before the miners) and buy back cheaper?

I'm  trader and a miner.  I'm going to get the best price for my BTC no matter where I got them from, mining or trading.

I see what you are saying.  If miners get more BTC this week because the difficulty was lower, they will be more likely to sell them cheaper to cover electricity and hardware costs.

This is the old "difficulty drives price" vs "price drives difficulty" argument. We've been around and around this argument this whole thread.  It comes down to what you believe.

I believe price drives difficulty.

This is like "liberal vs conservative" - in the long run, there is no right answer.

That is true what you are saying price should in most cases drive difficulty. But I like to analyse things, for me right now that tells me that miners are more desperate. Because they have invested heavily in mining rigs last months, they wanted to "hustle" the direct buyer and thought they could make easy money, but we should be smarter then that. I'm a direct buyer (I believe in Bitcoin long term), but not at levels I know I am getting hustled.

[Nesetalis]

i'll put this out there though. /I/ believe in bitcions, so i'm going to mine them whether i'm paying to mine them, or being paid to mine them. The reason is because I believe the long term bitcoin price will rise, maybe not this year, perhaps next, perhaps when its 12BTC per block... the halving will certainly drive price I think.

[FlipPro]

Hows this ENTIRE POST working for ya?

[the joint]

I think it's, on average, going up for the next 2 weeks due to the pre/post conference hype.  After that, I think a lot of it depends on the success on the conference (like, what will Forbes/CNN/Wall Street Journal/etc. make of new things like Bitcoin ATM and other developments?). 

[kano]

You don't get it? Why is it that so many here don't get easy math or easy economics. It should not be that hard. If difficulty goes down then I can mine more bitcoins with my "1,4 GHash/s rig" / day, when i do so, I will be able to sell MORE bitcoins / day, and because of that I don't need it to be at 5-6 dollars, I'm happy to get 3-4 dollars and I STILL make a good profit at the last line, that is in dollars / day. Get it now? If not please stop commenting.

YOU might get more BTC when the difficulty goes down, but the TOTAL amount of BTC paid to miners is THE SAME.  That's the WHOLE POINT of difficulty.

I think it's you that "don't get easy math or easy economics."

And what happens if I get more Bitcoins, and everyone else that are STILL mining also does so? Do you think that our incentives to sell at a lower price would be higher? Do you think that everyone else that has bitcoins would see that and understand economics, see the opportunity to sell high (before the miners) and buy back cheaper?

I'm  trader and a miner.  I'm going to get the best price for my BTC no matter where I got them from, mining or trading.

I see what you are saying.  If miners get more BTC this week because the difficulty was lower, they will be more likely to sell them cheaper to cover electricity and hardware costs.

This is the old "difficulty drives price" vs "price drives difficulty" argument. We've been around and around this argument this whole thread.  It comes down to what you believe.

I believe price drives difficulty.

This is like "liberal vs conservative" - in the long run, there is no right answer.

That is true what you are saying price should in most cases drive difficulty. But I like to analyse things, for me right now that tells me that miners are more desperate. Because they have invested heavily in mining rigs last months, they wanted to "hustle" the direct buyer and thought they could make easy money, but we should be smarter then that. I'm a direct buyer (I believe in Bitcoin long term), but not at levels I know I am getting hustled.

... or ...
The previous difficulty was 1690895.80305
The current difficulty is 1888786.7053531

What price range happened at the previous difficulty?

Will it drop back to the previous difficulty at the end of this 2016 blocks?
No. It will be higher. Higher difficulty than the previous 1690895.80305 ... ... ...

Any association between price and difficulty would be extremely complex ... not a simple-minded "difficulty went down price will go down"

[n4l3hp]

/if/ everyone was getting more bitcoins than they should, the difficulty would adjust... and the faster people get bitcoins, the faster the difficulty adjusts to set it to 1 block every 6 minutes.
over time, the average will stay around 1 block every 6 minutes, though short term there will be fluctuations. This round you might earn more than average, then if thats true, next round you will earn less than average. That is how difficulty works.

That is not my point, I understand that.

My point in simple English is this. Miners that have high electricity cost will leave, that will take down the difficulty, that will make miners as me with zero or low electricity cost able to sell more bitcoins at A LOWER PRICE because we have a MAJOR ADVANTAGE.

Still don't get it? If not maybe you will get it when we hit new lows. As long as difficulty don't get a fair amount higher from the last all time high, the price of 10 dollars are very high.

If all miners think like you, Bitcoin is doomed. Seriously, it's very obvious that you are not into Bitcoins for its success. Ultra low price = people loose interest = helping paypal in destroying bitcoin.

These people who say they its alright to sell low because they have free electricity, are you really sure its free? For example, young miners who still live with their parents think that they are mining for free. Even though the parents are the one paying the electricity, that will have an effect on the spendings of the entire family. Since Dad has to pay higher electric bills, some little luxuries and savings will be affected. In short, stealing money from the parents. And those who mine at work, thievery and corruption plain and simple and might cause the company to size down (if a lot of employees are mining at the office) and probably lay off some of the workers in the future (if unlucky, your butt is on the line).

[Clipse]

I find all these market predictions hilarious since if price drops (which we know can happen since its still a volatile market) then these speculator threads are seen as prophecies however then the price recovers within 5days and those prophecies arnt being called out at all?

Ive noticed the absolute opposite to what you propose here, lower difficulty ended in higher trading value since more people get involved in the market and not only those who allready have coins from months ago.

Every single difficulty increase we have had since going over 1million difficulty resulted in a new low when hitting the next difficulty.

Drop the difficulty by 50% and you will more likely see the price stay relatively the same ~$10 or move up rapidly as before.

This is just another one of those and have no substance except pure gullable speculation.

[skyhigh]

Difficulty is lower but I don't agree with OP that it is plummeting or anything along these lines.

Difficulty dropped from 1.89 down to 1.80 or 5%. I will agree with the fact that difficulty will most likely drop some more, based on the fact that network is still losing its mining power daily. I see outflow of 50 to 100Gh per day. Network top was 14.1Th when price cracked down to sub $9 miners started leaving and are still doing so. I don't think difficulty will drop more than 3 to 5% unless something major would happen to the price in either direction. By major I mean 50%+ move.

I don't agree with OP on his new price target. At least not anytime soon, 4 to 12 weeks. Bitcoin being that volatile its hard to predict basically anything, but my personal opinion right now is, that price simply can not plummet like OP is suggesting. We could see price drop to $9.50 but that's about it for immediate future.

Last time price dropped to sub $6  it was a mix of very unfortunate things coming together at exactly the right time. It was 1 block sell of 26k at the market that dropped the price from $7.xx down to $5.75. This was the biggest 1 block market sell when price itself was already struggling. Whoever was unloading those big blocks could certainly come back and sell more, but at the moment price is very well supported on the bid side and it would take a lot of persistent selling to shake the markets like that again. Also every time we get this kind of shocks to the system, you have to realize that bitcoins are spreading from very few people to the much bigger audience, which is always a good thing. Eventually all the early adopters and maybe Satoshi himself will unload most of their holdings and bitcoins will be held by a greater number of people.

I'm currently waiting to see which way the market will decide to go. I still see the pressure at the moment is to the down side, which means $9.50 area is the key on the downside. If we get a rally and price starts to run, I'm interested in price above $14.00 to $15.00 area. All this are simple key areas from bitcoins trading history.

[GoWest]

Instant difficulty currently at a multiple of 1.07 or 1.928 million.  Looks like the next increase might actually be an increase.

[GoWest]

Holy crap.  1.30x instant difficulty now for 2.35 million! 

[Kermee]

Holy crap.  1.30x instant difficulty now for 2.35 million! 

DB was over +10% lucky over the past 24-hours.
BTC Guild is holding +24% lucky over the past 24-hours.

That's why the 'Instant Difficulty' indicator shows 2.35 million...

Cheers,
Kermee

P.S. I'm still not worried about a Diff. Increase.
P.P.S. http://dot-bit.org/tools/nextDifficulty.php -- I've found it to be too 'aggressive' in its estimating in regards to Bitcoins. http://blockexplorer.com/q/estimate is a lot more accurate.

[GoWest]

Thanks Kermee.  Good points.