It's been a turbulent year, maybe this thread needs an update or we need a new one.
I also posted this a few days ago in the
Energy Consumption of the Bitcoin Network thread.
The Math: (extract from an internal report)
• First difficulty drop seen in 2 years occurred 2 Dec 2014
• Over the next 85 weeks (21 months) a total of 2.1 million Bitcoins will be mined
• USD $735 million at $350/BTC, $1 billion at $500/BTC, >$2 billion at $1000/BTC
• 280 MW estimated Bitcoin network size today (compared to Google's estimated 260 MW, Facebook 78 MW)
• Block reward halving ETA July 2016 (85 weeks, 5 days as of today)
• Bitcoin output from 25 BTC to 12.5 BTC per block (next halving estimated 2020)
Historical Bitcoin Network Data:Nov/Dec 2014 (today):Hashrate: 290 PH/s (+35%)
Total Megawatt: 280 MW (home mining almost gone)
Megawatt Industrial/Data Center: 270 MW (+35% 0.85W/GH new capacity)
August 2014:Hashrate: 214 PH/s (+375% or 94%/month)
Total Megawatt: 214 MW
Megawatt Industrial/Data Center: 200 MW (>1000-2000%)
April 2014:Hashrate: 57 PH/s
Total Megawatt: 250-500 MW (mostly at home miners)
Megawatt Industrial/Data Center: 10-20 MW
I have gathered tons of pictures and data about mines during the past year, but unfortunately it's all scattered in different folders and places on my computer since we are extremely busy building our own stuff.
