It is 2020 time for a new diff thread.

[mikeywith]

Current Pace:   100.7131%  (1980 / 1965.98 expected, 14.02 ahead)
Previous Difficulty:   17345948872516.06
Current Difficulty:   16847561611550.27
Next Difficulty:   between 16972158024665 and 16972198062357
Next Difficulty Change:   between +0.7396% and +0.7398%

34 blocks to go, we are only 14 blocks ahead, so we won't have a negative adjustment, we also can't have anything above 1%, Bitcoin price is close to $12,000 as I type ($11891 on Binance), I don't expect any major moves in difficulty for weeks to come as long as we remain within this price range.

[1714681829]

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[philipma1957]

you know if we hit a pair of long blocks we could get very close to 0.0

it is nice to see this. lets do it again.

edit :

1 more block to go.

[citronick]

Looks like listed companies having to do with Bitcoin, gets a bump up in their stock price!

Aug 14, 2020

• The Nasdaq-listed mining company announced Friday the new order will see its mining capacity quadruple from 3,020 units to over 13,520 rigs.
• Only last month, Marathon agreed to purchase a total of 1,360 rigs – 660 S-19s as well as 700 rigs from rival manufacturer MicroBT. The new rigs will be installed this weekend at the company's facility in Quebec.
• Having started expanding capacity in Q4 2019, the company says it expects the additional hashrate will make its mining facility a revenue-earning venture.
• Bitmain plans to ship 1,000 previously purchased rigs to Marathon in October and November.
• The deal means the Las Vegas-based Marathon will soon become one of the largest operators in the whole of North America, making up 1.2% of total hashrate on the Bitcoin network.
• Marathon's stock price was up over 12% to just under $4 at press time.

[mikeywith]

As far as we know Bitmain hasn't shipped anything in a while, how are new gears being installed this weekend? whatever is in the article is actually based on their previous july article, there is no proof that they received those S19s, perhaps they only received the M31s+ from MicroBT.

• Marathon's stock price was up over 12% to just under $4 at press time.

The market cap of this stock is just about 100M, so that's just about 10M increase which is really NOTHING, almost all crypto coins including the shittiest once made much more than that the past week but coindesk.com has to write about it because they need content to keep the profit comning.

I also don't understand why would anyone invest in a company that is about to spend 25% of it's value on expensive mining gears that need above 18 months to ROI (a terrible business model as far a mining i concerned) unless they are counting on a massive bull market for Bitcoin and in the case, isn't buying BTC directly a better bet?

Back to difficulty.

Latest Block:   643762  (12 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   109.0709%  (659 / 604.19 expected, 54.81 ahead)
Current Difficulty:   16947802333946.61
Next Difficulty:   between 17766127758786 and 18506401907744
Next Difficulty Change:   between +4.8285% and +9.1965%

we are 54 blocks ahead, BTC is making it's 3rd attempt to break the 12k level (very likely to break it and move to 14k), at current prices and difficulty S9 makes profit at 5 cents/kWh and less

5 cents = $0.35 per day
4 cents = $0.60 per day
3 cents = $0.90 per day

I think most of the fresh hashrate came from those old S9s.

[philipma1957]

The tax advantages for buying gear vs coins directly are huge.
So if you have a good power deal buying gear allows some safety margins that buying coins do not allow.

[mikeywith]

Doesn't that depend on the tax system? I mean you already pay 25% upfront when you import mining gears to the U.S, so even your gears turn out to be unprofitable 2 months later, you have simply lost 25%.

Another advantage of buying Bitcoin over mining is that Bitcoin doesn't become obsolete or defective, mining is a very high risk, your whole farm can catch fire, it has operational costs, security, maintenance, downtime, theft, etc.

Also, mining profit is a "taxable event", the moment you get those sweet payouts in your wallet, whatever amount you received is taxed based on the fiat value of the time the pool sent you the payouts, also once you sell your mined bitcoins you are taxed again, but when you buy bitcoin with USD you are not taxed until you sell, and if you sell at a loss you could use "tax-loss harvesting". Correct me if I am wrong.

I don't know enough about U.S taxes, I just read about recently in an attempt to figure out the U.S election effects on Bitcoins and how different tax rules could be applied.

[philipma1957]

Okay buy a bitcoin for 10000 sell for 7000 in under a year is a short term capital gains loss of 3000.

the max amount you can deduct in a year on a short term capital gains loss is 3000 .

so there is a limit for the deduction.

Ie buy 2 coins at 20,000 sell for 14000 and you can deduct only 3 k this year and 3 k next year.

lets say your tax bracket is 33%.  you have a 1000 tax break two years in a row. vs a 2000 break in one year.

gets more complex as every state has different rules on cap gains / losses

in New Jersey you pay on a cap gain on a sale coin
and fuck you on a cap loss on a sale of coin

so my NJ tax bill gets zero benefit from sales of coin at a loss. and is higher on sales of coin at a gain.

My federal bill is about 25% rate.

My state bill is about 6% rate.

More to this on mining if the power bill is good enough gear always earns money unless it breaks.

So if I buy 20000 in gear have it malaysia built and shipped I pay zero import tax.

so 20,000 k is cost of goods say power is 1/2 the coins say i earn 4 coins in a year.

make coins drop to 7k.  i paid 34,000 gear and power year one I earned 28,000 in coins.

a business loss of 6k . but i own the gear and possess 2 coins

the other way i paid 20 k for. 2 coins . a loss of 6k on paper

in both cases i lay out 20k
in both cases i hold the coins

in the gear case i have gear and 2 of 4 coins
in the coin case i have coins

now does 20k buy enough gear to earn four coins in a year?

i will check I checked

so in my case.

buy 2 coins at 10k 1 year later they are worth 7k. or i turned 20k into 14k

or buy 20k in s17 pro  in one year they mine 2.9 btc so a year later

i turned 20k into 20 s17pro and 1.45 in btc worth 10k.

first case if i do not sell the coins no tax issues. no reporting paper loss of 6k

second case i paid 1.45 of the coin to mine

so tax wise my cost is 20k+ 10k as the coin dropped in value.

or a cost of 30k.  i own all the gear and the coin i held is worth 10k.

if i have paid for gear before i added this gear and if it makes money.

i can write off my losses in year one of the 20 x s17 pro.

all of the above is a case where coins drop from 10k to 7k and i added 20k to whatever i had.

[mikeywith]

How are they going to import say a 25M worth of mining gears that are made in China and avoid paying import taxes? I do understand that if it's a personal business and you are buying 10-20 gears that might work, I know Bitmain ships "some" of their miner from Malaysia, but such a huge order will most likey come from Shenzen, even if it was shipped to Malayisia and then to the U.S.

If I understand what you wrote correctly it means mining for individuals is better than holding because import tax can be avoided, but for business it isn't as good, can you do the same math with the tariffs added to the equation for 2 scnerios?

1: Btc from 10k to 7k.
2: Btc from 10k to 13k.

[philipma1957]

I need to do some research I don't know how to write off import taxes if I do say 25 and add 6 in port cost is 31m I am not sure of write off rules on gear.

A truck for a business can be deprecated not sure about mining gear rules on depreciation.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

In the US, 100% of mining gear and any other equipment for a business can be deducted. ref https://www.section179.org/section_179_deduction/

[philipma1957]

Thank you I read it and It look like the import tax is also deductible.

So the company buying 25+6 = 31 million in gear has a write-off on the first 31 million in coins mined.
A write off on the infrastructure built. Which has to be 2-4 million to build and wire the site .
A write off on the power cost say 3 cents a kwatt

so lets say they got 14000 units for the 25,000,000

that is 14,000 x 3.5 = 49,000 kwatts an hour or 1470 usd an hour . round to 1500 an hour or 36,000 a day power bill. or 13,140,000 year power bill.

So

31.0
13.1
3.9
48 million first year. I won't get into the idea that the gear and the build may need to be deducted over 1,2,3,4 ,5 years.

14,000 units at 110 th = 1,540,000. th or 1540 ph or 1.54 eh

right now this is 0.00000791 x  1540000 = 12.18 coins a day at viabtc.  now over the next year it will decline or stay the same  or rise.

So lets do  14 , 12 , 10. coins a day

5110 coins if diff declines
4380 coins if diff is flat.  52,560,000 in earnings with flat price and flat diff 48,000,000 write off 4.256 mill profit plus you still have the gear

3650 coins if diff rises.   43,800,000 in earnings with flat price and rising diff means a paper loss of 4.2 mill you can write it off on other earnings  so that loss is reduced and you are out of pocket  by about 2.8 million but you still have the gear.

sticking with diff rise and earning 3650 coins but price rises to 13000

you earned 47,450,000 net loss of 550,000 write it off you have true loss of 350,000 and have the gear.

if you held coins 48 mill = 12,000 coins price rise to 13,000 means they are worth 52,000,000 and you can hold them you are up 4,000,000

but the next year.

the mining company has 14,000 units and just has a power bill.

if you say diff rises but price is flat at 13,000

they may earn 3,000 coins in year 2 and 3,000 x 13,000 = 39,000,000 - 13,000,000 for power = 26,000,000 profit

so at year two the miner has the gear and has turned 26,000,000 profit.

the holder has coins 12,000 of them and is 4,000,000 ahead .

remember in both cases 48 mill was sunk in the first year.

now if you are the miner after 2 years the sunk in money is paid you have a current yearly cost of 13 mill for the power.

if you are the holder you have 52 million worth of coins 4,000 coins which you paid 48 million for them

but you held the coins so your at risk money is 52 million if they are lost or stolen or a huge crash in price.

the miner has the gear and infrastructure paid off and 2,000 coins

the out of pocket is paid off.  he only has 2,000 coins at risk So in the case where diff rises twice over 2 years

and price rises slowly to 13,000 the miner kills the holder.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Well there *is* a limit to what is allowed as section 179 relief is strictly for small business. Total allowed for 2020 is $3,630,000 in equipment purchases. And yes, import taxes are deductible. AFAIK for business purchases they always have been.

[philipma1957]

Well there *is* a limit to what is allowed as section 179 relief is strictly for small business. Total allowed for 2020 is $3,630,000 in equipment purchases. And yes, import taxes are deductible. AFAIK for business purchases they always have been.

Sp they would need to structure it as multiple small companies and be covered that way.

13 companies would do the trick. Point is a large buy of newer gear can work even with the import tax.

I did the case of price rise to 13 k and diff moving about 20% up.

It is superior to mine then to buy and hold in that case.

One of the reasons is after two years the holder still has all the original coins held and is subject to a large loss if price tanks.

he large miner has paid off all the gear and the gear will earn more coins if price tanks as diff will drop as it did in the oct 2018 to feb 2019 time period.

[Last of the V8s]

https://blog.bitmex.com/antminer-s19-pro-vs-whatsminer-m30s/

Abstract: We compare and measure various performance metrics for two of the latest and most energy efficient Bitcoin mining products, MicroBT’s Whatsminer M30S+ and Bitmain’s Antminer S19 Pro. Obviously the more expensive 7nm Bitmain product is more powerful, however the miners are pretty similar in terms of output. Our data over a short three day period shows that the Bitmain miner has slightly stronger performance than the Whatsminer, however the Whatsminer appears to have superior stability. In general, both machines are impressive and we predict the two companies will be in neck and neck competition over the next few years.

wonder what you guys make of their little tests

[favebook]

I call this statement bulls**t:

In high power mode the Whatsminer had marginally better  energy efficiency, with an average rate of 34.3 J/TH.

And I do not understand the way they measure temperature... Of course Whatsminer is going to be hotter in that kind of measurement test since it has lower air flow.

[mikeywith]

3 days of testing a mining gear are useless, also some parts of the tests are far from fair, like the temperature test, it's plain stupid, such a test must be done with all fans set to static speed because these gears deal with the relationship between temperature - fans in different manners, so S19pro's fans might go to higher RPMs when the highest chip temp is over 60c while Whatsminer M30S+ might only do that when temps are over 70c, the same thing goes to the sound test, the way these tests were conducted is fairly poor IMO.

Anyway, all the information in that article are widely known among the mining community, it has always been this way.

Efficiency > Bitmain.
Stability and Robustness > MicroBtc and others.

Bitmain USED to have the best delivery standards (Not anymore), MicroBT's distributors have a bad reputation in that regards, also Bitmain gears have "custom firmware" so those who like to overclock/underclock the gears will prefer Bitmain since these firmware devs don't seem to pay much attention to non-bitmain gears.

But all in all MicroBT IMO makes better gears, this has been true at least since after the making of the S11 onwards.

[philipma1957]

Well I can tell you one thing right now the high power test for the m30s+ pulled  3743 watts

Whatsminer High Power Mode

The Whatsminer M30S+ also has an option of a “high power” mode, which we experimented with for one day. As Figure 6 below shows, during this period the miner produced an average output of 109.4 TH/s, a significant increase compared to “normal power” mode. Of course this also consumes more power, 3,743 W, compared to 3,331 W in normal conditions.

3743/208 = 17.99 amps for a power jack that rates 20 amps  and I can be certain it does not  rate 18 amps 24/7/365

So Once again mining the m30s+ at high  = dangerous.

Whatsminer builders are stubborn mofo's and consistently push the power too hard.

The gear should do 3000 watts at normal and 3300 watts at high speed.

Not 3300 watts at normal and 3743 watts at high speed.

Since this gear will affect the difficulty it should have a mention in this thread.

Lastly it looks like this test should be the m30s+ vs the s19

not the m30s+ vs the s19 pro

Based on the numbers.

the m30s++ looks very close or better then the s19pro

and the m30s+ looks very close or better then the s19

at V8 thank you.

[philipma1957]

I found a good post by V8

https://twitter.com/bigmagicdao/status/1295422797523509249
https://twitter.com/bigmagicdao/status/1295427366152368128
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3989041

heavy rain in China, hashrate dropping in Sichuan

bitcoin doesn't care, diff will retarget and it will still be the most secured asset on the planet

edit: bonus from 21 yrs ago https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/jan/19/johngittings

Corruption brings fear for safety of China's Three Gorges dam

we were 69 blocks ahead at that point and 5.7% diff jump was coming
we are now 51 blocks ahead and a 3.6% jump is coming in 4-5 days

Latest Block:   644559  (9 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   103.6882%  (1456 / 1404.21 expected, 51.79 ahead)
Previous Difficulty:   16847561611550.27
Current Difficulty:   16947802333946.61
Next Difficulty:   between 17530993187784 and 17581578449053
Next Difficulty Change:   between +3.4411% and +3.7396%
Previous Retarget:   August 10, 2020 at 3:53 PM  (+0.5950%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Monday at 3:56 AM  (in 3d 18h 0m 48s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Monday at 4:51 AM  (in 3d 18h 56m 8s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 12h 2m 54s and 13d 12h 58m 13s

thanks to v8 for info and a likely reason for the next diff dropping since the 17 of aug.

[mikeywith]

I am not entirety negating the impact of the "possible" internet/electricity outages in Sichuan, and according to the source of the news which V8 referenced, it claims that over 70% of the hashrate comes from Sichuan, it doesn't say 70% of the total network hashrate or 70% of the hashrate in China, but it's more likely the latter, so we know there is at least 60% of the hashrate in china, this means at least 40% of the total hashrate is located in Sichuan.

The total hashrate dropped from 129 to 125 or in other words 3%, keep in mind that bitcoin price dropped 5% since then, add to that the luck factor of the network, it makes the "Sichuan drop" close to zero, if it was a 10% drop in hashrate I would say ok maybe quarter of the mining farms in the region were hit, but 3% in the total hashrate simply implies nothing major happened in Sichuan and all of this is "media trying to sell some hot content".

[Last of the V8s]

Yes the latter is right mikeywith, and good analysis from you and Phil. The mining sheds in Sichuan are not all going to be swamped by floods, as they are high in the mountains. Western Sichuan where they are is part of the same land formation as Tibet. The odd one may get washed away in a flash flood and sensationalism or worry, tied to the 3 Gorges Dam concerns, may blow things out of proportion. If that blows, there is a good lot of hash downstream, so let's hope the sheds in Eastern China don't fall prey to real floods or again sensationalism. Let's note also that the Sichuan rigs get transported seasonally, over to Inner Mongolia mostly, after the rainy season where power is cheaper then, so that proportion of Chinese mining is itinerant!