It is 2020 time for a new diff thread.

[philipma1957]

Yeah buying asic gear ⚙️ is next to impossible to justify at the prices asked.

Well I will continue doing my mining ⛏ in a mixed gear manner. Hoping for the best.

[stompix]

Looking back at the moment I opened my big mouth and made a really, god how really stupid that prediction was, even with the huge jump we had and a bit of price retrace for the 12.5k high, we're still below the level when I said it will grow 50%. So, on the 15 July when I said that. the price was 9241, with a difficulty of 17,345T, now the price is 10903 but the difficulty is 19,314T with a downward trend, instead of the 20,465T to match the price growth, so rather than 50% up is 5% down, man I messed up so bad. Even if bitmain does deliver some October and November batch which seem sold out unless the price crashes there is no way for it to come true even by half of that.

As for the current stats, two days to go and we're 6 blocks behind, with a bit of extra miner luck we might see another 0.0x% change.

Latest Block:   650784  (29 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   99.6298%  (1633 / 1639.07 expected, 6.07 behind)
Next Difficulty Change:   between -0.2381% and -0.2296%

[mikeywith]

Predicting future difficulty isn't easy, I too probably make more wrong predictions than right, simply put, the mining industry isn't rational, one would assume that paying $3500 for S19 pro which makes about $150 at 5 cents per Khw is something that nobody would do because this takes 2 whole YEARS to ROI at best case scenario, and there is zero guarantee that the miner will not toast by then, no matter how you look at it, paying this much is plain STUPID unless you are betting on the price to get extremely bullish, which in that case, buying the coin directly would yield better results with much less risk.

However, guess what? people are actually paying $3500 for S19 pro and $2500 for S19, they might not be stupid, they could have been laundering some money, tricking investors to invest in losing business, it could be any other reason but they all fall into the same category of "irrationality" which makes difficulty prediction a tough job.

[philipma1957]

Picking diff is very very hard.


Not as hard as picking price.

I have run many many many diff threads 🧵.

I have some in site due to my power cost which is a 50-50 coin split.

Not to insult a free power guy like mikeywith but he will always prefer cheaply priced mining gear over new.

Not to insult a five cent power guy but he is looking for efficient newer gear and possibly with aftermarket firmware to be more efficient.

A big farm with 10,000 s19pros is not even looking at the power to hash to cost angle.

He looks at how many will buy into my company and at what price.

and a three thousand dollar unit with write offs etc is under 2000 cost for him.

bitmain is looking for suckers to buy their cloud mining contracts.

They all have a different business plan then a guy like me.
I would love to be all s9 but it screws the warehouse guy.
He would love me to be a s19pro and gpu mix mining at nicehash as this give me the most $ per watt.

So for me I look how to balance
$ per watt earnings vs
$ per hash vs
gear not dying too quickly.

So I look at all cases above and try to guess the diff.

always knowing that btc mooning = alters all calculations.

and always realizing that I dont over extend if price crashes.


The big farm that used a lot of OPM simply does not give a shit.

Here is why it was Other Peoples Money.

 If coin moons he gets rich.
If coins crash he loses other people’s money 💵.

I spend an hour or two each week trying to track new farms being built and trying to guess if they used OPM

opm guys wreck the diff. As they dont lose if it crashes.

[Philipma1957cellphone]

Well diff looks to drop a bit.  WE ARE about 300 blocks to go.

An interesting twist here is Potus and Fotus getting covid-19. Markets dropped a bit as more 2020 uncertainty has occurred.  A long serious bout with this covid for trump could shake market confidence a lot.

[mikeywith]

Not to insult a free power guy like mikeywith but he will always prefer cheaply priced mining gear over new.

You are 100% correct on this one, we all have different ways to run our businesses and to each their own goals, mine has always been on the low-risk side, in other words, I always focus on fast ROI, and the only time I did something different I was screwed.

Telling people that I have 300KW to use and they all are S9 seems stupid, some would suggest that since my power is limited but free I should go for more efficient gears.

In order for me not to push things too much, I usually keep the load around 200ish KW, with just about 180 S9s in that farm, what I can alternatively do is use that 200KW for S19 pros for an example, and then I will have about 70 of them that hash at  7700TH instead of just 2500TH, I am sure many people would have gone with S19 pros or T17 at least, but my maths won't work that way, and here is why:

S9i 14th costs about 60$ shipped
S19 pro costs about $3500 shipped

This is $10,800 vs 245,000, in fact, even if I were to go with T17s, the maths will still favour the S9s in every single way.

Also, it isn't just the ROI factor, it is the robustness of these gears, in my other mini-farm since power is pretty limited to about 180amps, I can only use about 28 S9s, which is a bit less than 390TH and isn't worth the trouble, so I went ahead and filled with more efficient gears (a mixture of the 17 series) and now I have a ton of dead boards and PSUs, after having re-done the math, I would have been better of with keeping just S9s in there, but well, a lesson learned.

I plan to close down this mini-farm by next year and expand the other one, I would like to get a 600Kva transformer (won't be easy but doable) and I will only place S9s in there, my initial plan was to get rid of those Antminer 17 series and replace them with MicroBT M21s, but two things got in my way

1- M21s price increased after the 14k bull run and the shutdown of bitmain shop.
2- People here are heavily focused on ROI as well, so nobody is willing to pay $1000 for an S17 pro that does 52th when they can buy about 15*S9s for the same price and mine at 200TH, so I am stuck with these 17 series gears and looks like I am going to milk them until they die on me.

[philipma1957]

just about flat with 60 blocks left.

Latest Block:   651106  (a minute ago)
Current Pace:   99.7722%  (1955 / 1959.46 expected, 4.46 behind)
Previous Difficulty:   17345997805929.09
Current Difficulty:   19314656404097
Next Difficulty:   between 19292018544297 and 19292039245955
Next Difficulty Change:   between -0.1172% and -0.1171%
Previous Retarget:   September 19, 2020 at 10:33 PM  (+11.3494%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Today at 11:19 PM  (in 0d 10h 11m 21s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Today at 11:19 PM  (in 0d 10h 11m 23s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 14d 0h 45m 59s and 14d 0h 46m 2s

To project what the most efficient gear does

1 s19pro 110 th about 110 x 0.0719 usd at via htc = $7.91 before power

it uses 3.3 x 24 = 80 watts rounded a day

10 cent power = 8.00 a loss
  9 cent power = 7.20 a 71 cent profit   not counting labor, maintenance , breakage and infrastructure
  8 cent power = 6.40 a 1.51 usd profit  not counting labor,   "                 "        "
  7 cent power = 5.60 a 2.31 usd profit  not counting   "
  6 cent power = 4.80 a 3.11 usd profit  not    "
  5 cent power = 4.00 a 3.91 usd profit  "
  4 cent power = 3.20 a 4.71 usd profit
  3 cent power = 2.40 a 5.51 usd profit

so if you got them for 2000usd and have 3 cent power 363 days to breakout only if your labor maintenance breakage and infrastructure is zero cost.

so basically a terrible way to do a business.

and it indicates no growth for diff (caveat price stays around 10-11k)

time will tell.

[mikeywith]

It's done, and it's almost flat with just -0.0858% which doesn't mean anything because that tiny drop could be the affect of luck and not a single miner has left the network, very bad news for those who are counting on either a drop in difficulty or a spike in price, flat price and difficulty works for me, but to many people, this only prolongs their ROI given that most of them think if the price doesn't go up then the difficulty will have to drop which hasn't been the case for quite some time now.

Current diff status:

Latest Block:   651399  (5 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   100.0954%  (232 / 231.78 expected, 0.22 ahead)
Previous Difficulty:   19314656404097
Current Difficulty:   19298087186262.61
Next Difficulty:   between 19314723396198 and 19375021052183
Next Difficulty Change:   between +0.0862% and +0.3987%
Previous Retarget:   Yesterday at 5:12 AM  (-0.0858%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   October 18, 2020 at 4:53 AM  (in 12d 9h 2m 59s)
Next Retarget (latest):   October 18, 2020 at 5:08 AM  (in 12d 9h 18m 2s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 23h 40m 46s and 13d 23h 55m 49s

[philipma1957]

And amazing as it is we are up 3%

Latest Block:   651823  (7 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   103.2443%  (656 / 635.39 expected, 20.61 ahead)
Previous Difficulty:   19314656404097
Current Difficulty:   19298087186262.61
Next Difficulty:   between 19645905643530 and 19946145878088
Next Difficulty Change:   between +1.8023% and +3.3581%
Previous Retarget:   last Saturday at 11:12 PM  (-0.0858%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   October 17, 2020 at 12:39 PM  (in 9d 3h 32m 38s)
Next Retarget (latest):   October 17, 2020 at 5:27 PM  (in 9d 8h 20m 56s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 13h 26m 30s and 13d 18h 14m 48s

No real improvement  for a miner. The stats for the s19 pro are

110 x 0.0744 = 8.18 usd a day earned as per viabtc.com

the s19pro burns 3.3 x 24 = 79.2 kwatts lets say 80 kwatts

so

8.18 - 8.80 = 62 cent loss at   11 cent power.
8.18 - 8.00 = 18 cent profit at 10 cent power. at a 2500 price for the s19pro 13888 days to break even
8.18 - 7.20 = 98 cent profit at   9 cent power. at a 2500 price "     "     "         2551 days to break even
8.18 - 6.40 = 1.78 usd profit at 8 cent power. at 2500 "  "   "     "   "    "         1404 days to break even
8.18 - 5.60 = 2.58 usd profit at 7 cent power. at 2500 ..........................         968 days to break even
8.18 - 4.80 = 3.38 usd profit at 6 cent power. at 2500 ..........................         739 days to break even
8.18 - 4.00 = 4.18 usd profit at 5 cent power. at 2500 ..........................         598 days to break even
8.18 - 3.20 = 4.98 usd profit at 4 cent power. at 2500 ..........................         502 days to break even
8.18 - 2.40 = 5.78 usd profit at 3 cent power. at 2500 ..........................         432 days to break even
8.18 - 1.60 = 6.58 usd profit at 2 cent power a 2500 unit .....................         379 days to break even

those numbers assume:
no breakage.
no maintenance cost.
no infrastructure cost.

they are grim numbers.

Actually I would say they are more grim for asic builders then anyone.

[mikeywith]

What is even worse is that markets aren't showing any real signs of recovery, Covid-19 cases are hitting a new ATH almost daily



https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/

It will probably take another year for things to slow down with the pandemic, and this could potentially lead to lower bitcoin prices or in the best case, flat price for an extended period of time, both scenarios aren't good for miners who paid a premium for the new gears, remember that these miners have a relatively short lifespan so even if you have free power there is no guarantee you will ever be able to ROI, this is why my main focus has been fast ROI.

I was talking to a large miner last night (in an attempt to get more information about how bitmain assemble their gears in Malaysia) and in the middle of our conversation we did talk about the exact topic we discuss here, and he brought a very interesting point which is the hydro season in China, many large players are counting on a nice difficulty drop by mid or end of this month when the rainy season in China is over and there is no more dirt-cheap power, we know that there are tens of thousands of gears which are now hashing at almost free power somewhere near the rivers in China, so it does make sense that these will have to go offline pretty soon, we don't know exactly how much the total hashrate there is, but I can only assume that it's at least 10-15%.

I believe a drop of 10-15% is almost certain by the end of the month, the question which remains is that are these S9s going to be replaced by other more efficient gears, in other words, will we have 10-15% of the hashrate leave the network and that's it, or will that be replaced by more efficient gears and thus keep the difficulty flat or take it even higher, I tend to believe that the drop will be more than the new hashrate, so we will very likely have a drop of some kind.

Having said that, the drop which I now expect isn't going to be a life-changer for those who paid 2.5-3.5k for S19/S19pro, but that should at least reduce their overall ROI by a bit.

[windjc]

Biden is going to win which means that there is going to be a huge stimulus on the horizon. Markets will react positively to this. By 2022 we might see inflationary result from this. Inflation or fear of inflation would be the most potential bullish market condition for bitcoin. The US hasn't had inflation since the 1970s. During that time gold had its biggest rally in history by far.

[philipma1957]

Biden is going to win which means that there is going to be a huge stimulus on the horizon. Markets will react positively to this. By 2022 we might see inflationary result from this. Inflation or fear of inflation would be the most potential bullish market condition for bitcoin. The US hasn't had inflation since the 1970s. During that time gold had its biggest rally in history by far.

hmm “we shall see what we shall see.”

Frankly we want betterment some how some way.

at the moment we have about 2.95% jump and are near 11500.

I really would like to see a strong move to ATH.

[mikeywith]

@windjc, that is a lot of "IFs" which might not happen, I wouldn't count on stimulus to be a life-changing factor for bitcoin, a good portion of that money will surely end up being invested in bitcoin but it won't be something huge, we have a ton of other cryptocurrencies as well as a ton of other markets where most of that money will go to, the good thing about bitcoin, however, is its relatively small market cap.

U.S stock market cap = 27,000 Billion
Bitcoin market cap     = 200 Billion

so if the stimulus is going to be 2000 billion and 1% (20 billion) of that goes into stock, it doesn't add much with only 0.-07%, however, 20 billion for bitcoin is 10% which isn't that bad.

I really would like to see a strong move to ATH.

Watch the S&P 500, if it breaks its ATH (3% from current prices) then bitcoin will likely hit 16k by end of the year if the stock market fails to do so and start collapsing, we will see 9k again.

Current status:

Latest Block:   653064  (22 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   102.9148%  (1897 / 1843.27 expected, 53.73 ahead)
Previous Difficulty:   19314656404097
Current Difficulty:   19298087186262.61
Next Difficulty:   between 19866082490202 and 19868127126770
Next Difficulty Change:   between +2.9433% and +2.9539%
Previous Retarget:   October 4, 2020 at 5:12 AM  (-0.0858%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Today at 7:41 PM  (in 0d 19h 16m 17s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Today at 7:43 PM  (in 0d 19h 18m 17s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 14h 29m 1s and 13d 14h 31m 0s

The rainy season in China is about to finish, thousands of S9s will go offline by the next diff adjustment, let's hope that drop won't be wiped by all the S19/S19 pro miners.

[windjc]

By markets I meant the stock market, followed by Btc. Once BTC clears 15k then the cycle of positive feedback loop will begin. Add fears of inflation down the road and thats more than enough for the next rally, which is due.

[philipma1957]

A lot of us are pushing for this.  If we do ½ as good as dec 2017 price needs to be 30k.

diff was 1.7  edit it was 1.3
price was 20k
3000 watts earned 28th

diff is 19  this is 11x  edit  this factor is 14.6
if we go to 30k  that is 1.5x  edit  38k is 1.9x
3000 watts earns 100th   this is about 4x  so 1.5x times 4x is around 6x  which is about ½ the diff increase .  So 30k gets us to ½ the profits of 20k did in dec 2017  edit  1.9x 4 =7.6 which is a bit more then 52% as good as dec 2017 aah.  so 37-38k is ½ as good as dec 2017 at 20k

all top of my head math but close.

actually diff was 1.3 in dec 2017 so  we need to get closer to edit 37k-38k to be half as good as 2017 profits.

and 78k to be at 2017 dec profit margin.

you know when you look at those numbers 38k seems really pretty likely to happen lets hope so.

The rainy season in China is about to finish, thousands of S9s will go offline by the next diff adjustment, let's hope that drop won't be wiped by all the S19/S19 pro miners.

So far a very solid drop. 12% this is nice.

[minefarmbuy]

Good trend on tx fees, and market is up. Wonder how much older gear and/or higher kwh will come online if this keeps up.

[philipma1957]

Good trend on tx fees, and market is up. Wonder how much older gear and/or higher kwh will come online if this keeps up.

well at 12000 price and  a diff drop of 5%

the 55-60 watt gear like the A1066 look okay.

we are at -8% and 12,900

[mikeywith]

So far a very solid drop. 12% this is nice.

Even though we went up about 15% in price, the difficulty is still dropping, which suggest that those thousands of S9s that were running on hydropower in China have actually left (at least a large portion of them), I am pretty confident that we will have a drop in difficulty for this epoch even if the price was to shoot to $15,000, what happens in the following epoch will, of course, be different depending on the price.

the 55-60 watt gear like the A1066 look okay.

I wouldn't really worry about 55-60 wat/the gears, they are a drop in the ocean, the big player is "S9", the moment they become profitable at 4-6 cents again, a huge chunk of them will come back online to boost the difficulty.

[philipma1957]

We would need a major price move past 18k to make the s9 have value.

as I speak we are at 12.9k with diff still looking to drop a bit. -5% looks like it may happen.

Latest Block:   654257  (30 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   92.5567%  (1074 / 1160.37 expected, 86.37 behind)
Previous Difficulty:   19298087186262.61
Current Difficulty:   19997335994446.11
Next Difficulty:   between 18554829769811 and 18851734847483
Next Difficulty Change:   between -7.2135% and -5.7288%
Previous Retarget:   October 17, 2020 at 11:34 AM  (+3.6234%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   November 1, 2020 at 7:42 AM  (in 6d 19h 43m 34s)
Next Retarget (latest):   November 1, 2020 at 1:36 PM  (in 7d 1h 37m 32s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 14d 21h 7m 15s and 15d 3h 1m 13s

-7%. and coins at 13k would be nice for mining

time will tell.

[mikeywith]

Things are getting even better

Latest Block:   654267  (28 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   92.3215%  (1084 / 1174.16 expected, 90.16 behind)
Next Difficulty Change:   between -7.4521% and -5.9542%
Previous Retarget:   October 17, 2020 at 5:34 PM  (+3.6234%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   November 1, 2020 at 3:33 PM  (in 6d 18h 16m 48s)
Next Retarget (latest):   November 1, 2020 at 9:31 PM  (in 7d 0h 15m 9s)

I wanted to confirm the theory of the ending of the rainy season in China from a different point, and I can now tell you with confidence that we have thousands of S9s going offline, the price of those used miners in China has dropped quite a bit since the past week, which means a good number of mining gears "suddenly" got into the supply circulation of used miners in China.

The good news: Price is still at the 13k level, this epoch will most likely be negative. The bad news: Many S19s and S19 pros will be delivered soon (need more information regarding this.