What's after the terrahash?

[stsbrad]

With the exponential growth of mining power, what comes after the terrahash? In three years where do you think mining will be? Is the last coin generation estimate of 2140 variable?

Thanks!

[ChuckBuck]

Petahash?

Is this a rhetorical question?  If so, basically the home miner will die out due to increasing electrical costs with little to no ROI.  Serious mining will definitely move into the datacenter.

2014 will probably be the death of the hobby miner.

[BurtW]

The current best estimate for the next halving date is:  2016-08-30 07:54:41 UTC (129 weeks, 2 days, 18 hours, 10 minutes)

If the network had produced 6 blocks per hour the halving date should have been about:  2017-01-01

So you can see it (and therefore the final end date) has been "pulled in" by about 3 months so far.

[stsbrad]

Thanks for the responses. It's going to be strange one day when asics are looked upon the same as CPU mining.

[cloverme]

The current best estimate for the next halving date is:  2016-08-30 07:54:41 UTC (129 weeks, 2 days, 18 hours, 10 minutes)

If the network had produced 6 blocks per hour the halving date should have been about:  2017-01-01

So you can see it (and therefore the final end date) has been "pulled in" by about 3 months so far.

I wonder if the price of BTC will rise with the halving....

[pjviitas]

Petahash?

Is this a rhetorical question?  If so, basically the home miner will die out due to increasing electrical costs with little to no ROI.  Serious mining will definitely move into the datacenter.

2014 will probably be the death of the hobby miner.

Even datacenters will be unprofitable before the end of 2015

No matter how you slice it...difficulty will be forced to level out.

[zimmah]

Petahash?

Is this a rhetorical question?  If so, basically the home miner will die out due to increasing electrical costs with little to no ROI.  Serious mining will definitely move into the datacenter.

2014 will probably be the death of the hobby miner.

Even datacenters will be unprofitable before the end of 2015

No matter how you slice it...difficulty will be forced to level out.

It will stabilize. If it's too unprofitable, less people will invest in miners. Less investing in miners means less production and development of miners, which means difficulty will not go up as fast, which means miners will once again become profitable, which will start a new wave of people interested, which will again result in miners becoming unprofitable, repeat..


Oh and by the way:

Unit	Value	scientific notation	Symbol
	1
Kilo	1000	103	k
Mega	1.000.000	106	M
Giga	1.000.000.000	109	G
Tera	1.000.000.000.000	1012	T
Peta	1.000.000.000.000.000	1015	P
Exa	1.000.000.000.000.000.000	1018	E
Zetta	1.000.000.000.000.000.000.000	1021	Z
Yotta	1.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000	1024	Y

[The Bitcoin Foundation]

Petahash?

Is this a rhetorical question?  If so, basically the home miner will die out due to increasing electrical costs with little to no ROI.  Serious mining will definitely move into the datacenter.

2014 will probably be the death of the hobby miner.

Even datacenters will be unprofitable before the end of 2015

No matter how you slice it...difficulty will be forced to level out.

What is price rises? = back in business

[pjviitas]

Petahash?

Is this a rhetorical question?  If so, basically the home miner will die out due to increasing electrical costs with little to no ROI.  Serious mining will definitely move into the datacenter.

2014 will probably be the death of the hobby miner.

Even datacenters will be unprofitable before the end of 2015

No matter how you slice it...difficulty will be forced to level out.

What is price rises? = back in business

It won't matter...you simply won't be able to power the facility.

Before the end of 2015 you will need a heavy industrial service to power a data centre.  These types of services are at transmission voltage and are typically reserved for powering entire cities or heavy industrial facilities such as vehicle assembly and production plants.

I havn't run the number but I am guessing there will simply no way on the planet to power a mining facility.

The only way that difficulty can continue to rise is improvements in technology...in other words better than 1W/GHs.

[BurtW]

I havn't run the number but I am guessing ...

Instead of guessing why not just run the numbers?  Is that because the numbers do not agree with your guess?

[pjviitas]

I havn't run the number but I am guessing ...

Instead of guessing why not just run the numbers?  Is that because the numbers do not agree with your guess?

How many GHs do you think will be required by the end of 2015 in order to earn 1BTC a month?

[BurtW]

I havn't run the number but I am guessing ...

Instead of guessing why not just run the numbers?  Is that because the numbers do not agree with your guess?

How many GHs do you think will be required by the end of 2015 in order to earn 1BTC a month?

You tell me.  You are the one making the claim:

I havn't run the number but I am guessing there will simply no way on the planet to power a mining facility.

How did you come to this?  What numbers did you use?

[pjviitas]

I havn't run the number but I am guessing ...

Instead of guessing why not just run the numbers?  Is that because the numbers do not agree with your guess?

How many GHs do you think will be required by the end of 2015 in order to earn 1BTC a month?

You tell me.  You are the one making the claim:

I havn't run the number but I am guessing there will simply no way on the planet to power a mining facility.

How did you come to this?  What numbers did you use?

Can we assume 20% every 2 weeks?

[jamesc760]

I'd assume 25% increase every 12 days.

[BurtW]

The average over this data set is 23.04% every 11.41 days so let's use that.

Code:

Date             Difficulty      Change  Hash Rate
------------     -------------   ------  ---------------
Feb 28, 2014     3,815,723,799   21.92%  27,314,015 GH/s
Feb 17, 2014     3,129,573,175   19.39%  22,402,357 GH/s
Feb 05, 2014     2,621,404,453   19.49%  18,764,744 GH/s
Jan 24, 2014     2,193,847,870   22.59%  15,704,175 GH/s
Jan 13, 2014     1,789,546,951   26.16%  12,810,076 GH/s
Jan 02, 2014     1,418,481,395   20.12%  10,153,885 GH/s
Dec 21, 2013     1,180,923,195   30.01%   8,453,378 GH/s
Dec 10, 2013       908,350,862   28.41%   6,502,229 GH/s
Nov 29, 2013       707,408,283   16.07%   5,063,826 GH/s
Nov 17, 2013       609,482,680   19.29%   4,362,847 GH/s
Nov 05, 2013       510,929,738   30.70%   3,657,378 GH/s
Oct 26, 2013       390,928,788   46.02%   2,798,377 GH/s
Oct 16, 2013       267,731,249   41.45%   1,916,495 GH/s
Oct 06, 2013       189,281,249   27.19%   1,354,928 GH/s
Sep 25, 2013       148,819,200   32.13%   1,065,289 GH/s
Sep 14, 2013       112,628,549   29.56%     806,227 GH/s
Sep 04, 2013        86,933,018   32.22%     622,291 GH/s
Aug 24, 2013        65,750,060   29.40%     470,657 GH/s
Aug 13, 2013        50,810,339   35.88%     363,715 GH/s
Aug 03, 2013        37,392,766   19.63%     267,668 GH/s
Jul 22, 2013        31,256,961   19.47%     223,746 GH/s
Jul 11, 2013        26,162,876   22.63%     187,281 GH/s
Jun 29, 2013        21,335,329   10.32%     152,724 GH/s
Jun 16, 2013        19,339,258   23.92%     138,436 GH/s
Jun 05, 2013        15,605,633   28.41%     111,709 GH/s
May 25, 2013        12,153,412   8.64%       86,998 GH/s
May 12, 2013        11,187,257   11.03%      80,082 GH/s
Apr 30, 2013        10,076,293   12.28%      72,129 GH/s
Apr 17, 2013         8,974,296   16.96%      64,241 GH/s
Apr 05, 2013         7,673,000   14.59%      54,925 GH/s
Mar 24, 2013         6,695,826   38.13%      47,931 GH/s
Mar 14, 2013         4,847,647   10.98%      34,701 GH/s
Mar 01, 2013         4,367,876   19.63%      31,266 GH/s
Feb 18, 2013         3,651,012   11.47%      26,135 GH/s
Feb 05, 2013         3,275,465   10.33%      23,447 GH/s

[pjviitas]

The average over this data set is 23.04% every 11.41 days so let's use that.

Code:

Date             Difficulty      Change  Hash Rate
------------     -------------   ------  ---------------
Feb 28, 2014     3,815,723,799   21.92%  27,314,015 GH/s
Feb 17, 2014     3,129,573,175   19.39%  22,402,357 GH/s
Feb 05, 2014     2,621,404,453   19.49%  18,764,744 GH/s
Jan 24, 2014     2,193,847,870   22.59%  15,704,175 GH/s
Jan 13, 2014     1,789,546,951   26.16%  12,810,076 GH/s
Jan 02, 2014     1,418,481,395   20.12%  10,153,885 GH/s
Dec 21, 2013     1,180,923,195   30.01%   8,453,378 GH/s
Dec 10, 2013       908,350,862   28.41%   6,502,229 GH/s
Nov 29, 2013       707,408,283   16.07%   5,063,826 GH/s
Nov 17, 2013       609,482,680   19.29%   4,362,847 GH/s
Nov 05, 2013       510,929,738   30.70%   3,657,378 GH/s
Oct 26, 2013       390,928,788   46.02%   2,798,377 GH/s
Oct 16, 2013       267,731,249   41.45%   1,916,495 GH/s
Oct 06, 2013       189,281,249   27.19%   1,354,928 GH/s
Sep 25, 2013       148,819,200   32.13%   1,065,289 GH/s
Sep 14, 2013       112,628,549   29.56%     806,227 GH/s
Sep 04, 2013        86,933,018   32.22%     622,291 GH/s
Aug 24, 2013        65,750,060   29.40%     470,657 GH/s
Aug 13, 2013        50,810,339   35.88%     363,715 GH/s
Aug 03, 2013        37,392,766   19.63%     267,668 GH/s
Jul 22, 2013        31,256,961   19.47%     223,746 GH/s
Jul 11, 2013        26,162,876   22.63%     187,281 GH/s
Jun 29, 2013        21,335,329   10.32%     152,724 GH/s
Jun 16, 2013        19,339,258   23.92%     138,436 GH/s
Jun 05, 2013        15,605,633   28.41%     111,709 GH/s
May 25, 2013        12,153,412   8.64%       86,998 GH/s
May 12, 2013        11,187,257   11.03%      80,082 GH/s
Apr 30, 2013        10,076,293   12.28%      72,129 GH/s
Apr 17, 2013         8,974,296   16.96%      64,241 GH/s
Apr 05, 2013         7,673,000   14.59%      54,925 GH/s
Mar 24, 2013         6,695,826   38.13%      47,931 GH/s
Mar 14, 2013         4,847,647   10.98%      34,701 GH/s
Mar 01, 2013         4,367,876   19.63%      31,266 GH/s
Feb 18, 2013         3,651,012   11.47%      26,135 GH/s
Feb 05, 2013         3,275,465   10.33%      23,447 GH/s

So to make one Bitcoin a month that works out to:
Date   Difficulty   H/s
March 12, 2014   4,249,658,360   278E+009
March 23, 2014   5,228,779,646   342E+009
April 3, 2014   6,433,490,477   421E+009
April 15, 2014   7,915,766,682   518E+009
April 26, 2014   9,739,559,326   637E+009
May 8, 2014   11,983,553,795   784E+009
May 19, 2014   14,744,564,589   964E+009
May 30, 2014   18,141,712,270   1E+012
June 11, 2014   22,321,562,778   1E+012
June 22, 2014   27,464,450,841   2E+012
July 4, 2014   33,792,260,315   2E+012
July 15, 2014   41,577,997,092   3E+012
July 26, 2014   51,157,567,622   3E+012
August 7, 2014   62,944,271,202   4E+012
August 18, 2014   77,446,631,287   5E+012
August 30, 2014   95,290,335,136   6E+012
September 10, 2014   117,245,228,351   8E+012
September 21, 2014   144,258,528,963   9E+012
October 3, 2014   177,495,694,036   12E+012
October 14, 2014   218,390,701,942   14E+012
October 26, 2014   268,707,919,669   18E+012
November 6, 2014   330,618,224,361   22E+012
November 18, 2014   406,792,663,254   27E+012
November 29, 2014   500,517,692,868   33E+012
December 10, 2014   615,836,969,304   40E+012
December 22, 2014   757,725,807,032   50E+012
January 2, 2015   932,305,832,972   61E+012
January 14, 2015   1,147,109,096,889   75E+012
January 25, 2015   1,411,403,032,812   92E+012
February 5, 2015   1,736,590,291,572   114E+012
February 17, 2015   2,136,700,694,751   140E+012
February 28, 2015   2,628,996,534,821   172E+012
March 12, 2015   3,234,717,336,444   212E+012
March 23, 2015   3,979,996,210,761   260E+012
April 3, 2015   4,896,987,337,720   320E+012
April 15, 2015   6,025,253,220,331   394E+012
April 26, 2015   7,413,471,562,295   485E+012
May 8, 2015   9,121,535,410,248   597E+012
May 19, 2015   11,223,137,168,769   734E+012
May 30, 2015   13,808,947,972,453   903E+012
June 11, 2015   16,990,529,585,306   1E+015
June 22, 2015   20,905,147,601,761   1E+015
July 4, 2015   25,721,693,609,206   2E+015
July 15, 2015   31,647,971,816,767   2E+015
July 27, 2015   38,939,664,523,350   3E+015
August 7, 2015   47,911,363,229,530   3E+015
August 18, 2015   58,950,141,317,614   4E+015
August 30, 2015   72,532,253,877,192   5E+015
September 10, 2015   89,243,685,170,498   6E+015
September 22, 2015   109,805,430,233,780   7E+015
October 3, 2015   135,104,601,359,643   9E+015
October 14, 2015   166,232,701,512,905   11E+015
October 26, 2015   204,532,715,941,478   13E+015
November 6, 2015   251,657,053,694,395   16E+015
November 18, 2015   309,638,838,865,583   20E+015
November 29, 2015   380,979,627,340,214   25E+015
December 10, 2015   468,757,333,479,399   31E+015
December 22, 2015   576,759,023,113,052   38E+015

At 1W/GHs that works out to 38MW.

The datacenter that ran this would need a heavy industrial service similar to what is used to run a full sized pulp and paper mill or small city or town.

[BurtW]

I have created a response to your numbers in the following thead since I think this speculation deserves its own thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=518111.0

[jeppe]

i will still continue to mine even when mining becomes unprofitable it has become a great funnn!!!

[zimmah]

Code:

Date             Difficulty      Change  Hash Rate
------------     -------------   ------  ---------------

December 22, 2015	576,759,023,113,052	38E+015

At 1W/GHs that works out to 38MW.

The datacenter that ran this would need a heavy industrial service similar to what is used to run a full sized pulp and paper mill or small city or town.

there are already miners on the market with ~0.65W/GH and these are just 28nm

by 2015 we will likely be on 20nm or even 14nm which will probably be close to ~0.45W/GH (20nm) or ~0.35W/GH (14nm)

Maybe the mining will largely shift to cloudmining as well (large mining facilities in industrial areas that rent mining contracts much like cex.io) , although that would introduce centralization to some degree.

[pjviitas]

Code:

Date             Difficulty      Change  Hash Rate
------------     -------------   ------  ---------------

December 22, 2015	576,759,023,113,052	38E+015

At 1W/GHs that works out to 38MW.

The datacenter that ran this would need a heavy industrial service similar to what is used to run a full sized pulp and paper mill or small city or town.

there are already miners on the market with ~0.65W/GH and these are just 28nm

by 2015 we will likely be on 20nm or even 14nm which will probably be close to ~0.45W/GH (20nm) or ~0.35W/GH (14nm)

Maybe the mining will largely shift to cloudmining as well (large mining facilities in industrial areas that rent mining contracts much like cex.io) , although that would introduce centralization to some degree.

Its one thing to have miners with advanced technology and quite another to have miners in quantity with advanced technology.