It is 2020 time for a new diff thread.

[philipma1957]

Latest Block:   654454  (8 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   88.7236%  (1271 / 1432.54 expected, 161.54 behind)
Previous Difficulty:   19298087186262.61
Current Difficulty:   19997335994446.11
Next Difficulty:   between 17778023474363 and 18051609390677
Next Difficulty Change:   between -11.0980% and -9.7299%
Previous Retarget:   October 17, 2020 at 11:34 AM  (+3.6234%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Sunday at 11:27 PM  (in 5d 14h 6m 57s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Monday at 5:17 AM  (in 5d 19h 56m 51s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 15d 12h 52m 20s and 15d 18h 42m 14s

A solid drop over 10%

and prices at 13400

this is almost too good to be true.

[1714704526]

1714704526

[1714704526]

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[1714704526]

1714704526

[favebook]

I agree, this might make me OC some units again that I downclocked for efficiency. Price-wise, I expect it to rise again before end of year, but not further than 15k.

[Biffa]

The bad news: Many S19s and S19 pros will be delivered soon (need more information regarding this.

I think the majority of the first S19 batches are already online and have been for a month or so. I could be wrong, but I don't think there will be any more coming online till January now.

[mikeywith]

I think the majority of the first S19 batches are already online and have been for a month or so. I could be wrong, but I don't think there will be any more coming online till January now.

I can't complain, this means we have about 8 weeks of good profitability regardless of what the price might or might not do, this should make up a bit for all the losses which many of us have been facing with the 17 series gears. .

Current difficulty status

Current Pace:   88.2848%  (1311 / 1484.97 expected, 173.97 behind)
Current Difficulty:   19997335994446.11
Next Difficulty:   between 17688830739610 and 17942127621555
Next Difficulty Change:   between -11.5441% and -10.2774%
Previous Retarget:   October 17, 2020 at 5:34 PM  (+3.6234%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Monday at 8:42 AM  (in 5d 7h 38m 22s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Monday at 2:10 PM  (in 5d 13h 5m 31s)

BTC price is making new highs, currently at $13777, which is great, if we break that 14k level, we should head straight to 16k, with difficulty dropping >10% is just too good to be true as Phil said.

[philipma1957]

Yeah I can sell a bit today and hedge if it crashes .
What is Nice is if it goes up I also do okay.
Since I earn more which makes up for the sale.

[Searing]

I should have blown some 'dubious' litecoin back in the day for solar arrangement like you did Philipma1957....my 8c arrangement with a friend at data hall. 8c kWh is just not gonna cut it for any POW mining. Indeed I don't see any ASIC or POW miner of any algo flavor working until maybe, Fall 2021.

Not sure what I'd have to have to make 8c kWh work for a Bitcoin price, even if I got a new, largest, Bitcoin miner today on the doorstep...but I would think I'd need about $18k Bitcoin price to even look into the possibility. Currently selling crap out of attic on ebay to convert to BTC dust...it sucks... but makes a lot more sense than a POW miner. I miss mining, I was such a cute newbie miner full of hope, back in the day. Miss the fun. Miss all them pretty coins at 50/25/12.5 per block. I mean 6.25 per Bitcoin block, yech!

Brad

[JayJuanGee]

Concededly, I am NOT mining, so I do not have the same kinds of "hands on" and personal experience as you guys, yet I am having some troubles understanding the degree to which any kind of meaningful changes in mining difficulty are taking place.  When I look at the difficulty measurements, I mostly see minor fluctuations, especially if such measurements are made over each of the adjustment periods.

https://btc.com/stats/diff

So, currently, the difficulty estimator is showing that the next adjustment of difficulty is currently projected to be down about 5.91% in 5 days and 8 hours.... and I know that those projections can end up changing, too.. but even if such downward difficulty projection plays out, it still keeps difficulty higher than it was 4 adjustments back - on 9/7.

From a non-miner perspective, the adjustments to difficulty do not seem to be very great, significant or material, even if miners are reporting on the ground that these kinds of adjustments have a lot of meaningful impact on their own profitability - coupled with short-term UPpity BTC price moves?

[philipma1957]

Miners have to micro manage.

Forget all costs except power.  Power is paid in cash not BTC.

Monthly bills are common

So a 2 week difficulty is about 1/2 of your bill time.

Next jump is -10% and it lasts for 14 or even as much as 16 days if it is a big drop.
Since we know that rainy season prices ended for power in China the jump after this one will be -3 to +3 (estimate)

I know 28-32 days of good difficulty are coming.  I can micromanage those days. I can turn an almost certain profit for that time period.
In my case I am a 4 man team with a small team. On great months we make 8000 a month on shit months we make 2000 a month.

That is usd profit. Last month we made 2600 usd.
The projected profit based on difficulty will be 1.1 x 1.03 = 1.133 x 1 higher than last month.

This allows me a cash out choice of 345 worth of coin into fiat

2600 x 1.113 = 2945

2945-2600 = 345   and be cashed and we can still hodl the same 2600 usd worth of coin we held last month.

What kills miners is over expanding and not hodling some of the profit.

I always need to study my:

cash
coins
gpus
asics
debt

vs the diff the next 2 diff and the current price along with 20% lower price and 20% higher price.

This lets me know if I need to sell some coin buy some gear sell some gear.

Look at a model with 8k a month for 12 months = 96k
Look at a model with 2k a month for 12 months = 24k

play with debt number.
play with diff number.

We have some time had 6 months of flat diff = good time to expand your mining gear.

[vapourminer]

I miss mining, I was such a cute newbie miner full of hope, back in the day. Miss the fun. Miss all them

yeah i always like the hum of computers, did seti and folding for years. so mining corn was a natural thing.

but now? i have one 8 slot mining board with some gpu and fpga gear that mines eth at the moment. other times, some shitcoin or another. autoconvert pools (yes im that lazy) turn it into corn. my mining may not secure the bitcoin network but selling crap for corn on a regular basis (should) help the price.

any worthwhile asic btc miner is far too loud for home use. i started mining as a hobby, kinda want to keep it that way.

[philipma1957]

Yeah home mining btc is a lost thing.

Back in 2012. I had 22gh on gpus mining btc this would only happen on overclock.

22gh sounds like a joke now but at the time the network was 22th.  So 1/1000 of the entire network of btc was in my garage  .  about 7kwatts an hour

at the current time the net work is 146,000,000th

so 146,000,000/1000 = 146,000th that is 2920 s17 units burning 5840 kwatts. it could hardly fit in a 24 by 20 foot garage

right now hash has dropped to 130,000,000th due to end of rainy season and price dropped a bit to 13,132 due to miners like myself  and bigger converting btc to usd.

I made a decision to cash in some btc the last 10 days
4743 usd for  btc in cash which has gone towards various things like buying gear and repairs from AUG to OCT

I Still held some back and of course I am earning coin every day as I type this.

[mikeywith]

From a non-miner perspective, the adjustments to difficulty do not seem to be very great, significant or material, even if miners are reporting on the ground that these kinds of adjustments have a lot of meaningful impact on their own profitability - coupled with short-term UPpity BTC price moves?

The profitability margin in mining is very tiny, 5% in either direction makes all the difference between winning and losing, thousands of mining gears shut-down with a tiny increase in difficulty because their gears become no longer profitable.

One more thing is that a difficulty drop of 5% isn't just 5% more profit, it could be a lot more than that, and here is the math the most people aren't aware of:

Let's take the average miner who pays 5 cents per Khw and see how the next 10% drop in difficulty will make him A LOT more profitable.

Currently, T17 makes  $4.53, pays $3.02 for power and NET profit is $1.51

With a 10% drop (ignoring price factor since it can go either way) it will make $4.98, pays the same $3.02 for power, and nets $1.96 in profit which isn't just 10% more profit by any means, it's almost 30% more net profit ($1.51 vs 1.96$)

So a -5% in difficulty isn't just 5% more BTC and it gets even better for the guys who pay 6-7 cents, even much better for those who have less efficient gears than the T17.

[philipma1957]

We dropped some more.

Latest Block:   654656  (30 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   86.3790%  (1473 / 1705.28 expected, 232.28 behind)
Previous Difficulty:   19298087186262.61
Current Difficulty:   19997335994446.11
Next Difficulty:   between 17302650375895 and 17473468395818
Next Difficulty Change:   between -13.4752% and -12.6210%
Previous Retarget:   October 17, 2020 at 11:34 AM  (+3.6234%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Monday at 11:43 AM  (in 4d 4h 55m 37s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Monday at 3:33 PM  (in 4d 8h 46m 15s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 16d 1h 8m 22s and 16d 4h 59m 0s

a diff drop from 19.997 to 17.473  is really big

https://www.blockchain.com/charts/hash-rate

hashrate dropped from 146 eh on oct 17 to  130 eh on oct 26

https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-hashrate.html#3m

hashrate dropped from 157 eh on oct 17 to 101 eh on oct 28.

not sure why the hashrate charts vary that much.  As the truth seems to be somewhat inbetween those numbers.

To bull run guys hashrate drops like these tend to drag prices downward. As they allow a miner to sell more coin since they will earn more coin.

[mikeywith]

We are going back to July's difficulty level, which was a few months into the rainy season in China, this could suggest that there hasn't been many S19/S19 pros out there, and the main cause for the recent difficulty spikes was the old gears coming back online in China, I think that is accountable for at least 50% of the difficulty increments, anyway 13% drop is NO joke.

To bull run guys hashrate drops like these tend to drag prices downward. As they allow a miner to sell more coin since they will earn more coin.

Some would argue that the opposite is correct because more profit = less pressure on miners = fewer coins being sold, my take on this is a bit neutral because after all, newly mined coins are really nothing but a small percentage of the circulation supply, looking at the daily trade volume of BTC gives you a clearer vision on what I am trying to explain.

[DaCryptoRaccoon]

It's rather amazing that at this price point that anyone would ramp down there machines with the current price but as you say this could be old gear that came online and is now taken away.

I wonder how many of the big mines actually upgraded to the latest versions of the Antminer my thoughts are a lot didn't buy they as they were concerned over the Bitmain leadership wars and late delivery and they stuck with the older machines.

Interesting times!

[philipma1957]

[...]

But when a pool grabs 2.8 btc  in fees  due to to many blocks getting made  they can justify selling the 2.8 since the next few hundred blocks will ALL GENERATE HIGH FEES.   So if you make 10 blocks a day  and grab 25 btc in fees know tomorrow you do the same and for the next few days you do this. then sell off a lot of coins at going rate is easier to do.

[figmentofmyass]

We dropped some more.

a diff drop from 19.997 to 17.473  is really big

any speculation about why difficulty and price are moving in such opposite directions this month? does it have to do with the end of the rainy season in china, and is that an expected phenomenon from year to year?

To bull run guys hashrate drops like these tend to drag prices downward. As they allow a miner to sell more coin since they will earn more coin.

maybe that's fitting, since BTC price is hitting a wall right at the 2019 top. traders/whales love to paint a good double top.

[mikeywith]

I wonder how many of the big mines actually upgraded to the latest versions of the Antminer my thoughts are a lot didn't buy they as they were concerned over the Bitmain leadership wars and late delivery and they stuck with the older machines.

Interesting times!

Let's do a bit of analysis:

The difficulty we had before the halving was 16T, at that time the first batch of S19s was starting to ship out, which IMO was the reason why difficulty only dropped to 13.7T despite a reward reduction of 50%, in late June with a combination of the new mining gears from both Bitmain and Micro BT and the rainy season which resulted in thousands of S9s to go back online.

From June to late October we rose strong and steady from 13.7T to 19.9T which is a spike of 45%, what's interesting is this:

Late September price was at the 10k levels while difficulty was already above 19T, now we are 35% up in price but 13% of the hashrate is fading away, the question is if these guys were profitable at 10k price and 19T difficulty why leave now when the difficulty is almost the same but price is 35% higher?

The answer is simple, the 13% are old gears that are no longer profitable without the hydropower, there is no way that someone who mined with S19/S19 pro back in September would shut down now when profits are much higher!

Since we are heading back to 17T levels and assuming that this is it and we are not going to dip any further, in other words, assuming all the S9s in China are now shut-down, then we can safely assume the following is accurate:

13.7T to 17.3 T most of it came from new gears.
17.3 to   19.9T most of it came from old gears.

My estimation is 25-30EH came from new gears (Bitmain 19 and 17 series, as well as both Avalon and MicroBT new generation ) and more or less the same came from old gears, but this is still a bit too early to confirm, we will need to see how the next epoch react, and long story short, any drop in difficulty with the price above 10-11k comes from old gears going offline, when we stop dropping or start going back up then we know that all the hydro gears are gone for this year.

But when a pool grabs 2.8 btc  in fees  due to to many blocks getting made  they can justify selling the 2.8 since the next few hundred blocks will ALL GENERATE HIGH FEES.   So if you make 10 blocks a day  and grab 25 btc in fees know tomorrow you do the same and for the next few days you do this. then sell off a lot of coins at going rate is easier to do.

That's true, but the weight of those freshly mined bitcoins is nothing compared to what others can sell/buy.

[hossamdz]

[...]

True and i agree but as we see bitcoin failed many times in this week to break 14 k $ edge (3 times exactly on 30 min chart) , am afraid if bigger volume didnt enter the market we can see a huge dump on bitcoin price and also on the whole market.

[stompix]

Late September price was at the 10k levels while difficulty was already above 19T, now we are 35% up in price but 13% of the hashrate is fading away, the question is if these guys were profitable at 10k price and 19T difficulty why leave now when the difficulty is almost the same but price is 35% higher?

Nice post, just as the one that was spot on about the rainy season, but one thing, or maybe more as another thing popped up in my mind as I was typingng. Will it be just 13%? Block time went from 12.30 to 13.09, 14.54 and 14.4. In the last 24% hours there have been 104 blocks, that's only 72% of the target. Of course, we all know, luck..but common, just bad luck for 5 days? As for the profitability all that gear that was running on dirt cheap/ free excess hydropower, is it so unprofitable that will not get back online even with just as cheap coal power? Or is this a combination of the new tariffs in Inner Mongolia, with the note that I don't have a clue how legit this news is.

But, as much as you miners enjoy this drop combined with a price increase I'm certain that a lot of people can't for this painful period to be done so we can see again blocks at a 10-minute interval, it's nearly 4 days of high fees and clogged mempool, with 150MB and 45btc in fees sitting there. Just grab it already!!!!  

[mikeywith]

Will it be just 13%? Block time went from 12.30 to 13.09, 14.54 and 14.4. In the last 24% hours there have been 104 blocks, that's only 72% of the target. Of course, we all know, luck..but common, just bad luck for 5 days?

You are correct, but 72% is only from within the last 104 blocks if blocks average time has been like this from the first block then we would have a difficulty drop of 100-72, but we only started going this slow recently, in other words, mining gears have been shutting down gradually not all at once, on the first day of this epoch the average block time was 9.1 mins, on 24th it was 9.4 mins, also keep in mind that new gears keep coming online as the old once leave, also the auto profit-switching algos will mine BTC for a few hours and then go to another alt and so on so forth.

in short, there is a lot of noise within the short intervals, pretty hard to tell why and how things happen.

As for the profitability all that gear that was running on dirt cheap/ free excess hydropower, is it so unprofitable that will not get back online even with just as cheap coal power? Or is this a combination of the new tariffs in Inner Mongolia.

Good point, hydropower costs about 1 cent per Kwh, coal power costs anywhere from 3.5 to 5 cents, there is no doubt that a good portion of these gears will come back online, but I got a quote for $38 per miner with PSU and that's S9i, not the old S9 which is probably below $30, that is very close to their scrap value, this drop in price suggests that many, many S9s aren't going back to "work".

However, eventually, another larger portion will be shipped overseas to countries like Malaysia, Iran, Venezuela, and many other countries that have 1 cent or less power rates, but all those countries combined can't accommodate 100% of the supply, which means a lot of S9s will sit there and do nothing, perhaps they will come back online when bitcoin price starts to hit some good levels.

With that being said, with a difficulty drop of 13-14% and bitcoin price above $13,000 I won't be surprised to see a +% change in difficulty in the next epoch.

But, as much as you miners enjoy this drop combined with a price increase I'm certain that a lot of people can't for this painful period to be done so we can see again blocks at a 10-minute interval, it's nearly 4 days of high fees and clogged mempool, with 150MB and 45btc in fees sitting there. Just grab it already!!!!  

Miners are the back-bone of Bitcoin, you should be paying high fees with a smile on your face knowing that it's going serve a greater purpose. .

All in all, as miners, we could really use the high fees and drop in difficulty for a few weeks, I have personally encountered a large loss due to investing in the 17 series mining gears from Bitmain, my timing was perfect, the plan was supposed to work out, but alas, turned out the quality was more than terrible, and a short while before that I lost a good amount of money with those S9ks, and I am not alone, most miners didn't have a good year, 2020 has been rough on us, don't envy us for having a good month or two.