Difficulty.....It can't keep going up 30% each increase.

[TheWoodser]

Can anyone explain to me how it’s possible to keep going up in Diff by 30%?

At some point in the near future (2-3 months) the dominant machines will be 2-3Thash but the total number of those machines will be lower than the total number of ASIC blades, USB miners, and random BFL miners that have not burst into flames.

What is the speculation on difficulty?  In two months will it be a battle of the "Haves" and "Have not’s" with regard to Thash machines?  Will this be the end of the "bedroom" miner?

I am just interested in some banter about where you think the diff is going with TerraminerIV and Hash fast coming online and do you think their supply of machines will be enough to disrupt the diff for the small time miner?

[1713254671]

1713254671

[1713254671]

1713254671

[empoweoqwj]

Can anyone explain to me how it’s possible to keep going up in Diff by 30%?

At some point in the near future (2-3 months) the dominant machines will be 2-3Thash but the total number of those machines will be lower than the total number of ASIC blades, USB miners, and random BFL miners that have not burst into flames.

What is the speculation on difficulty?  In two months will it be a battle of the "Haves" and "Have not’s" with regard to Thash machines?  Will this be the end of the "bedroom" miner?

I am just interested in some banter about where you think the diff is going with TerraminerIV and Hash fast coming online and do you think their supply of machines will be enough to disrupt the diff for the small time miner?

The bedroom miner is dead. Not literally I hope, but yes, 2014 will see the beginning of industrial-scale mining and the end of home mining.

Unless the btc price falls back to $50 of course and then god knows what will happen

[johnyj]

Can anyone explain to me how it’s possible to keep going up in Diff by 30%?

At some point in the near future (2-3 months) the dominant machines will be 2-3Thash but the total number of those machines will be lower than the total number of ASIC blades, USB miners, and random BFL miners that have not burst into flames.

What is the speculation on difficulty?  In two months will it be a battle of the "Haves" and "Have not’s" with regard to Thash machines?  Will this be the end of the "bedroom" miner?

I am just interested in some banter about where you think the diff is going with TerraminerIV and Hash fast coming online and do you think their supply of machines will be enough to disrupt the diff for the small time miner?

The bedroom miner is dead. Not literally I hope, but yes, 2014 will see the beginning of industrial-scale mining and the end of home mining.

Unless the btc price falls back to $50 of course and then god knows what will happen

I don't think so, millions of miners with free electricity will be able to mine much more efficiently than a mining farm. That is the reason eventually mining companies will not make their own farm, since that cost too much electricity and generate too much heat, and the worst is that those equipments will quickly become a burden due to rising difficulty

[empoweoqwj]

Can anyone explain to me how it’s possible to keep going up in Diff by 30%?

At some point in the near future (2-3 months) the dominant machines will be 2-3Thash but the total number of those machines will be lower than the total number of ASIC blades, USB miners, and random BFL miners that have not burst into flames.

What is the speculation on difficulty?  In two months will it be a battle of the "Haves" and "Have not’s" with regard to Thash machines?  Will this be the end of the "bedroom" miner?

I am just interested in some banter about where you think the diff is going with TerraminerIV and Hash fast coming online and do you think their supply of machines will be enough to disrupt the diff for the small time miner?

The bedroom miner is dead. Not literally I hope, but yes, 2014 will see the beginning of industrial-scale mining and the end of home mining.

Unless the btc price falls back to $50 of course and then god knows what will happen

I don't think so, millions of miners with free electricity will be able to mine much more efficiently than a mining farm. That is the reason eventually mining companies will not make their own farm, since that cost too much electricity and generate too much heat, and the worst is that those equipments will quickly become a burden due to rising difficulty

How important electricity costs are depends on the bitcoin price, which is an unknown. As for generating too much heat, the new Gen3 mining equipment due out in Spring from ASICMINER is extremely energy efficient using liquid immersive cooling. They can pack tonnes of chips into a very small space and the power consumption is <0.2W per G.

If you can think you can compete in your bedroom or wherever you get "free" electricity, good for you. But industrial scale mining will be a reality by mid-2014.

[niothor]

Can anyone explain to me how it’s possible to keep going up in Diff by 30%?

At some point in the near future (2-3 months) the dominant machines will be 2-3Thash but the total number of those machines will be lower than the total number of ASIC blades, USB miners, and random BFL miners that have not burst into flames.

What is the speculation on difficulty?  In two months will it be a battle of the "Haves" and "Have not’s" with regard to Thash machines?  Will this be the end of the "bedroom" miner?

I am just interested in some banter about where you think the diff is going with TerraminerIV and Hash fast coming online and do you think their supply of machines will be enough to disrupt the diff for the small time miner?

The bedroom miner is dead. Not literally I hope, but yes, 2014 will see the beginning of industrial-scale mining and the end of home mining.

Unless the btc price falls back to $50 of course and then god knows what will happen

I don't think so, millions of miners with free electricity will be able to mine much more efficiently than a mining farm. That is the reason eventually mining companies will not make their own farm, since that cost too much electricity and generate too much heat, and the worst is that those equipments will quickly become a burden due to rising difficulty

Free electricity?  I would love to see the face of your landlord when he sees the bill from your 2 Neptunes hashing all day

[giantdragon]

Free electricity?  I would love to see the face of your landlord when he sees the bill from your 2 Neptunes hashing all day

In Russia "free" electricity is rather common!
BTW, no single industrial-scale miner will ever be able to compete with a nerd keeping his miner in the basement connected to "free" electricity!  

[empoweoqwj]

Free electricity?  I would love to see the face of your landlord when he sees the bill from your 2 Neptunes hashing all day

In Russia "free" electricity is rather common!
BTW, no single industrial-scale miner will ever be able to compete with a nerd keeping his miner in the basement connected to "free" electricity!  

Yes they can. Because they produce the chips for a fraction of what they sell them for.

[niothor]

Free electricity?  I would love to see the face of your landlord when he sees the bill from your 2 Neptunes hashing all day

In Russia "free" electricity is rather common!
BTW, no single industrial-scale miner will ever be able to compete with a nerd keeping his miner in the basement connected to "free" electricity!  

No nerd will be able to keep his machine running 24/7.
No nerd will be able to get the same deal on the price of the miners a huge buyer.

And by that "free" electricity , you mean

[johnyj]

Just compare these two scenarios:

1. 1 million users, each one running bitfury's USB miner, electricity can be ignored, 2GH per user, that is 2000T hash power

2. A big mining farm, 1000 machines, 2TH each , same total hash power, but the electricity and cooling cost, together with rent of the hosting location etc will cost them a fortune to mine coins. If the difficulty is enough high, sooner or later they will be forced to shutdown due to cost higher than mining income (they can simply buy coin instead of mine)

However, if the mining farm sold those 1000 machines to many customers, they will easily collect enough coins through their sale. But the miners who receive those 1000 machines might not be able to mine that amount of coins during its life time. This has become the norm in ASIC mining era, almost no one have ever get their bitcoin investment back by purchasing ASIC mining rigs

So it is always better to sell the mining rigs to millions of users, and this will also increase the decentralization of the network

[niothor]

Yeah , in theory
In reality we have people using their usb miners as keyholders .

[infinitybo]

TheWoodser, The BTC that are mined are earned by those who're doing the best work securing the Bitcoin network and the operating costs of mining should continue to be proportional to demand.

[empoweoqwj]

Just compare these two scenarios:

1. 1 million users, each one running bitfury's USB miner, electricity can be ignored, 2GH per user, that is 2000T hash power

2. A big mining farm, 1000 machines, 2TH each , same total hash power, but the electricity and cooling cost, together with rent of the hosting location etc will cost them a fortune to mine coins. If the difficulty is enough high, sooner or later they will be forced to shutdown due to cost higher than mining income (they can simply buy coin instead of mine)

However, if the mining farm sold those 1000 machines to many customers, they will easily collect enough coins through their sale. But the miners who receive those 1000 machines might not be able to mine that amount of coins during its life time. This has become the norm in ASIC mining era, almost no one have ever get their bitcoin investment back by purchasing ASIC mining rigs

So it is always better to sell the mining rigs to millions of users, and this will also increase the decentralization of the network

You do realize bitfury make a big profit on USB miner right? What if bitfury, or another company like bitfury, mines themselves. Their hardware costs would be 10% to 30% of the people they sell to.

And the idea that everyone running USB miners is getting free electricity is total nonsense.

[theecoinomist]

Free electricity?  I would love to see the face of your landlord when he sees the bill from your 2 Neptunes hashing all day

In Russia "free" electricity is rather common!
BTW, no single industrial-scale miner will ever be able to compete with a nerd keeping his miner in the basement connected to "free" electricity!  

No nerd will be able to keep his machine running 24/7.
No nerd will be able to get the same deal on the price of the miners a huge buyer.

And by that "free" electricity , you mean

But free electricity is somewhat common, I have a handful of friends who pay a 'fixed' electricity price included in rent in Scandinavia..

[empoweoqwj]

Free electricity?  I would love to see the face of your landlord when he sees the bill from your 2 Neptunes hashing all day

In Russia "free" electricity is rather common!
BTW, no single industrial-scale miner will ever be able to compete with a nerd keeping his miner in the basement connected to "free" electricity!  

No nerd will be able to keep his machine running 24/7.
No nerd will be able to get the same deal on the price of the miners a huge buyer.

And by that "free" electricity , you mean

But free electricity is somewhat common, I have a handful of friends who pay a 'fixed' electricity price included in rent in Scandinavia..

Right, so you have a handful of friends who are paying a fixed electric charge until the landlord sees the actual bill and changes the deal or kicks them out.

That leaves 999,999,995 people running USB miners to explain where they get their temporarily free electricity from.

[cowandtea]

Free electricity?  I would love to see the face of your landlord when he sees the bill from your 2 Neptunes hashing all day

In Russia "free" electricity is rather common!
BTW, no single industrial-scale miner will ever be able to compete with a nerd keeping his miner in the basement connected to "free" electricity!  

No nerd will be able to keep his machine running 24/7.
No nerd will be able to get the same deal on the price of the miners a huge buyer.

And by that "free" electricity , you mean

But free electricity is somewhat common, I have a handful of friends who pay a 'fixed' electricity price included in rent in Scandinavia..

Right, so you have a handful of friends who are paying a fixed electric charge until the landlord sees the actual bill and changes the deal or kicks them out.

That leaves 999,999,995 people running USB miners to explain where they get their temporarily free electricity from.

Most people don't calculate their electricity charges cause its paid by their parents which is really wrong...

[FlyForFun]

Can anyone explain to me how it’s possible to keep going up in Diff by 30%?

At some point in the near future (2-3 months) the dominant machines will be 2-3Thash but the total number of those machines will be lower than the total number of ASIC blades, USB miners, and random BFL miners that have not burst into flames.

What is the speculation on difficulty?  In two months will it be a battle of the "Haves" and "Have not’s" with regard to Thash machines?  Will this be the end of the "bedroom" miner?

I am just interested in some banter about where you think the diff is going with TerraminerIV and Hash fast coming online and do you think their supply of machines will be enough to disrupt the diff for the small time miner?

Right now the only people that can profit from this is those that can manufacture themselves. They build immediately and start mining it immediately..

[An amorous cow-herder]

I don't think so, millions of miners with free electricity will be able to mine much more efficiently than a mining farm.

Oh, you mean those millions of miners with free electricity AND free hardware surely?

[TheWoodser]

I love where this topic is going.

The great points I see are the manufacturers ability to make cheap chips....and mine them making the most profit margin.  I would say that commercial power (in the US) costs more than residential.  Especially, in the case of a data center.  The data center also, has to recoup the UPS, cooling, and redundancy costs that a home user might not account for.  Where is the trade off between paying to be "live" during a blackout and recouping the costs of a generator??

I just feel that of the total mining power out there, a majority of it will be in the minorities hands... (the 80/20) rule.  80% of the hashing will be done by 20%....In BTC's case it could be more like 95/5.

As far as the free power thing, I know of guys that are in the military living on base that have either free or almost free access to power.  Not everyone with free power is living in their parents basement. 

[empoweoqwj]

Free electricity?  I would love to see the face of your landlord when he sees the bill from your 2 Neptunes hashing all day

In Russia "free" electricity is rather common!
BTW, no single industrial-scale miner will ever be able to compete with a nerd keeping his miner in the basement connected to "free" electricity!  

No nerd will be able to keep his machine running 24/7.
No nerd will be able to get the same deal on the price of the miners a huge buyer.

And by that "free" electricity , you mean

But free electricity is somewhat common, I have a handful of friends who pay a 'fixed' electricity price included in rent in Scandinavia..

Right, so you have a handful of friends who are paying a fixed electric charge until the landlord sees the actual bill and changes the deal or kicks them out.

That leaves 999,999,995 people running USB miners to explain where they get their temporarily free electricity from.

Most people don't calculate their electricity charges cause its paid by their parents which is really wrong...

Not only is it "wrong", it also shows the disparity between "home miners" and "industrial-level" miners. People used to write computer games in their basements. Now they are written by 200 people in offices. Things change.

[johnyj]

We will see, when the mining income drop below electricity cost, who are still running their rigs