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

[j68r]

It never ceases to amaze me, the number of people who appear to be involved with bitcoin mining and yet don't seem to have grasped even the most basic understanding of how the mining/minting process works.

[BitCoin Operated Boy]

It never ceases to amaze me, the number of people who appear to be involved with bitcoin mining and yet don't seem to have grasped even the most basic understanding of how the mining/minting process works.

Well you are welcome to enlighten me then :-D

[j68r]

Why would you get involved in mining and not want to enlighten yourself, it isn't like the information is secreted away in the dark recesses of the net or impenetrable to mere mortals.

[drewster]

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

The landlord will never know.  The people who have free electricity live in apartments where each apartment is not individually metered.  If it were individually metered, the landlord would make them pay for their own electricity.  The landlord might notice his electric bill increasing for the complex and be irritated about it, but will probably not be able to figure out which unit is causing the rise, and realistically probably won't suspect that it's any individual unit. 

[drewster]

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.

This will change over the next year or so, probably quite dramatically.  Additional electronics producers will continue to move into the mining ASIC market, attracted to the fat margins.  This will drive prices and margins down, meaning more TH/s at even lower prices.  This will continue to translate to increasing difficulty until the market is close to saturated, which, if Bitcoin continues to grow, will still be several years out.

[BitCoin Operated Boy]

Well I have obviously tried and I may have missed something although I have been into btc for a while. There is still a lot to learn

If you criticize you should provide some hints for the source where to find more info in the subject to make it easier for me.

Critcizing without offering a solution has no value. It brings nothing

Why would you get involved in mining and not want to enlighten yourself, it isn't like the information is secreted away in the dark recesses of the net or impenetrable to mere mortals.

[j68r]

Well I have obviously tried and I may have missed something although I have been into btc for a while. There is still a lot to learn

If you criticize you should provide some hints for the source where to find more info in the subject to make it easier for me.

Critcizing without offering a solution has no value. It brings nothing

Why would you get involved in mining and not want to enlighten yourself, it isn't like the information is secreted away in the dark recesses of the net or impenetrable to mere mortals.

There's me thinking you were being sarcastic.. just goes to show.

Ask me a question if you're just wanting to make me do a test or head over to https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page for a starter.

[quone17]

Maybe I'm a romantic but I thought part of the allure of btc was that anyone could do it, and it makes so no one has a disproportionately large amount of hashing power. Now everyone is just greedy because t he price went up so there are farms of rigs. What about putting a max limit on the amount of hash that can come from any one ip address?

[BitCoin Operated Boy]

Well I have obviously tried and I may have missed something although I have been into btc for a while. There is still a lot to learn

If you criticize you should provide some hints for the source where to find more info in the subject to make it easier for me.

Critcizing without offering a solution has no value. It brings nothing

Why would you get involved in mining and not want to enlighten yourself, it isn't like the information is secreted away in the dark recesses of the net or impenetrable to mere mortals.

There's me thinking you were being sarcastic.. just goes to show.

Ask me a question if you're just wanting to make me do a test or head over to https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page for a starter.

I already asked you a question which you ignored.

You said "most basic understanding of how the mining/minting process works"

So if you think that I don't understand how it works you are welcome to explain it here what you think I don't understand and where did I make a mistake and why it is a mistake.
So far you hafve brought no coherent criticism. Just vagule criticised without explaining what is inccrect nad what I dont' know.

As I said crtiicism is pointless if not backed by coherent information.

[brush242]

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

A lot of people will run their rigs until it is no longer physically possible for the rig to mine BTC because they are investing/betting that the price of BTC will rise far beyond any resources they have used for the miner, power, et cetera. They aren't worried about the electricity cost, per se.

[jojo69]

Now that we are on full custom ASICs we are done with the multiple order of magnitude increases in efficiency.

From here on out advances in mining hardware will be bound by Moore's law, doubling every 18 months so, as die shrinks and incremental architecture improvements are achieved.

I would expect that by this coming summer (Northern hemisphere) we will be able to purchase equipment that will not be obsolete nearly as quickly as we see now.  

[brush242]

If free electricity is needed for big corporations to be competitive, then big corporations will have free electricity. That's how capitalism works.

Which, of course, is dead wrong. That is not how capitalism works at all. Especially when it comes to the level of bitcoin mining by a joint venture of Matsumura Fishworks and Tamaribuchi Heavy Manufacturing Concern.

[cr1776]

Now that we are on full custom ASICs we are done with the multiple order of magnitude increases in efficiency.

From were on out advances in mining hardware will be bound by Moore's law, doubling every 18 months so, as die shrinks and incremental architecture improvements are achieved.

I would expect that by this coming summer (Northern hemisphere) we will be able to purchase equipment that will not be obsolete nearly as quickly as we see now. 

I believe you are right.  Going from CPU to GPU had a similar ramp and then slowed until the ASICs this year.

[empoweoqwj]

Maybe I'm a romantic but I thought part of the allure of btc was that anyone could do it, and it makes so no one has a disproportionately large amount of hashing power. Now everyone is just greedy because t he price went up so there are farms of rigs. What about putting a max limit on the amount of hash that can come from any one ip address?

You are being romantic

[empoweoqwj]

Now that we are on full custom ASICs we are done with the multiple order of magnitude increases in efficiency.

From were on out advances in mining hardware will be bound by Moore's law, doubling every 18 months so, as die shrinks and incremental architecture improvements are achieved.

I would expect that by this coming summer (Northern hemisphere) we will be able to purchase equipment that will not be obsolete nearly as quickly as we see now. 

Sound sensible. Be nice to purchase equipment that isn't obsolete by the time you take delivery of it

[cdog]

Mining equipment will continue to become more powerful and efficient, but most importantly the ever increasing competition will make them cheaper.  So in six months you may be able to get a 3-5 TH miner for the $1500.  I do agree though, that the current exponential rate of increasing difficulty does not incentive the average miner to reinvest BTC in upgraded hardware..

lol, no, just no.

Remember what BFL did? They RAISED their prices Spring2013 and delivered (albeit very late) lower hashrate and higher power costs.

Remember, its a free market. If someone bids up a miner on ebay and immediately pays after winning, thats actually how much that miner is worth.

Not everyone is sophisticated in their knowledge of and approach to BTC mining. Sadly, many people see it as a get rich quick scheme.

Although, I kind of appreciate these people who calculate the ROI for their ebay miner in fiat, because: they mine at a loss or breakeven. Admirable.

"OMG BFL Monarch Cards shipping Nov/Dec2013 Im gonna be printing up dem internet webmoneycoinz like hotcakes next month! Yeehaw!"

*checks out with a few Monarchs and picks up a Jupiter on ebay* (cause this buyer is impatient, and they just raised his VISA credit limit)

[empoweoqwj]

Mining equipment will continue to become more powerful and efficient, but most importantly the ever increasing competition will make them cheaper.  So in six months you may be able to get a 3-5 TH miner for the $1500.  I do agree though, that the current exponential rate of increasing difficulty does not incentive the average miner to reinvest BTC in upgraded hardware..

lol, no, just no.

Remember what BFL did? They RAISED their prices Spring2013 and delivered (albeit very late) lower hashrate and higher power costs.

Remember, its a free market. If someone bids up a miner on ebay and immediately pays after winning, thats actually how much that miner is worth.

Not everyone is sophisticated in their knowledge of and approach to BTC mining. Sadly, many people see it as a get rich quick scheme.

Although, I kind of appreciate these people who calculate the ROI for their ebay miner in fiat, because: they mine at a loss or breakeven. Admirable.

"OMG BFL Monarch Cards shipping Nov/Dec2013 Im gonna be printing up dem internet webmoneycoinz like hotcakes next month! Yeehaw!"

*checks out with a few Monarchs and picks up a Jupiter on ebay* (cause this buyer is impatient, and they just raised his VISA credit limit)

Surely natural selection has to get rid of the "ebay Miners"? People can only max out their credit cards once. Or do we have to wait for them to max out the 2nd + 3rd cards ;-\

[Jcw188]

There must be people not doing th math an paying these crazy prices for Ming. And just to mine at a loss probably. I think they must think btc price is goin up again. But can it go up and up forever?

[jojo69]

I think they must think btc price is goin up again. But can it go up and up forever?

no

only until it represents the majority of the value on the planet, at which point it will be constrained by the size of the global economy

[j68r]

Well I have obviously tried and I may have missed something although I have been into btc for a while. There is still a lot to learn

If you criticize you should provide some hints for the source where to find more info in the subject to make it easier for me.

Critcizing without offering a solution has no value. It brings nothing

Why would you get involved in mining and not want to enlighten yourself, it isn't like the information is secreted away in the dark recesses of the net or impenetrable to mere mortals.

There's me thinking you were being sarcastic.. just goes to show.

Ask me a question if you're just wanting to make me do a test or head over to https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page for a starter.

I already asked you a question which you ignored.

You said "most basic understanding of how the mining/minting process works"

So if you think that I don't understand how it works you are welcome to explain it here what you think I don't understand and where did I make a mistake and why it is a mistake.
So far you hafve brought no coherent criticism. Just vagule criticised without explaining what is inccrect nad what I dont' know.

As I said crtiicism is pointless if not backed by coherent information.

OK we're at cross purposes, I never initially replied to you though you've clearly chosen to make it so. I have made no comment on anything you said before your reply steering the conversation to being about yourself. I'll refrain from further comment since we're clearly on a different page.