[2020-04-08] Mining Bitcoin Just Became More Difficult by Almost 6%

[blacky90]

While, two weeks ago, it was estimated that Bitcoin (BTC) mining difficulty might drop by 16%, it just went up 5.77 % today, as more miners turned their machines on in the past two weeks. (Updated at 09:10 UTC: the second paragraph has been updated.)

The mining difficulty (used as a measure for how hard it is to compete for mining rewards) now stands at 14.7 T, or almost at the level, it was in the second half of January, according to major Bitcoin mining pool BTC.com. In the next adjustment in two-weeks time, mining difficulty is expected to rise by 5.65% to 15.55 T. However, this forecast will change depending on changes in hashrate, the computational power of the Bitcoin network. Should it increase further, the mining difficulty will follow. Since March 26 it's up by around 10%.

https://cryptonews.com/news/mining-bitcoin-just-became-more-difficult-by-almost-6-6240.htm

[snipie]

All of this is temporarily since after few weeks we will have new "achievement"

In theory, three more difficulty adjustments left until the Bitcoin mining reward halving estimated on May 13

After this date and the halving of the block reward, i wonder how things will go!

[Darker45]

In theory, three more difficulty adjustments left until the Bitcoin mining reward halving estimated on May 13

After this date and the halving of the block reward, i wonder how things will go!

Most likely, there will be a decrease of difficulty after halving as the reward will also be decreasing by half. This might somehow force some miners to temporarily switch off their mining hardware. The price of BTC will certainly be a factor as well. If the cut of new BTC supply will indeed drive the price up and profitability will remain despite the halving, then it will encourage them to resume business as soon as possible.

[forbesmining]

Unfortunately, today mining has become really difficult and unprofitable. But I still hope this isn't the end.

[onrise]

Unfortunately, today mining has become really difficult and unprofitable. But I still hope this isn't the end.

I think in last couple of years if we take a ratio compared to 2017 and to 2020 there would have being a significant drop as many miners who understood it is not real worth as it was before as already quit and moved to something else. Also now I do not think it is feasible as well for a individual person to even consider this option any further. If anyone is doing here and would like to share their experience will be great.

[Harlot]

Unfortunately, today mining has become really difficult and unprofitable. But I still hope this isn't the end.

Why would it be the end? If you look at the recently created blocks right now you will see that the network is still in normal operations considering how many blocks are created in interval. Just remember that difficulty always adjust with the current hashrate we have. So if the hashrate increases we can expect
that the mining difficulty would increase as well. This just shows that a lot of miners are competing right now to get those block rewards that's why the difficulty is rising. Only downside with this one is smaller mining farms and pools are always overshadowed by big farms that's why they don't see this kind of increase in difficulty as something profitable on their side.

[bbc.reporter]

@Harlot. Agreed. However, he might not be wrong on what might occur after the next halving hehehe. It would be clearly disadvantageous for the smaller mining farms if the price of bitcoin does not pump.

The skeptical me thinks that this is not a race to get 12.5 BTC before the halving. It might be the big mining farms geting ready to kill the small mining farms after the halving.



Bitcoin’s mining difficulty, an indicator of competition among bitcoin miners, also touched 16.10 trillion (T) today, as compared to its all-time high of 16.55 T recorded in March.

It suggests that more miners have joined the race ahead of the halving, which will see mining reward per-block reduce from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC. The halving is expected to occur next week on May 12.

"After the halving, however, the first 1008 blocks will face higher mining difficulty and lower payouts," De La Torre told The Block.

Source https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/64034/bitcoins-mining-difficulty-and-hashrate-near-all-time-highs-ahead-of-halving-hinting-at-increased-mining-activity

[Harlot]

@Harlot. Agreed. However, he might not be wrong on what might occur after the next halving hehehe. It would be clearly disadvantageous for the smaller mining farms if the price of bitcoin does not pump.

The skeptical me thinks that this is not a race to get 12.5 BTC before the halving. It might be the big mining farms geting ready to kill the small mining farms after the halving.

This has been the game of big mining farms ever since the price of Bitcoin temporarily got lower compared to the higher operating costs of small mining farms. To cut their losses or if they are lucky to break even they will just sell their mining equipment to big mining farms.  However I don't see any bad thing about this one since the difficulty level always adjusts depending on the current situation, if the difficulty gets higher  I know a lot of farms will shutdown their operations thus lowering the overall hashrate of the network, when this happens we all know that the difficulty will significantly go down. This will take time of course for the whole network to adjust to the next block rewards we have and I think miners will be more creative on reducing their costs more like using renewable energy.

[DaCryptoRaccoon]

It's all down to price after the halving, If we see a drop down to the sub 6k zone again I fear a lot of the miners will shut up shop and start to sell out there bag's to market this in turn will push the price lower thus causing chaos in the markets if the price is pushed low very quickly there will be massive losses in the trading sector's with all the highly leveraged trades on the exchanges at the moment it will be a domino effect all it takes is one big player to decide to push the sell button and flip the machines off.

On the other hand bitcoin needs to come back to the people there was nothing wrong with bitcoin running a lower hashrate in the past my and I know for sure all the smaller farms are itching for the big guys to fail and turn off give bitcoin back to the people is my view.

Big miners like Bitmain have a monopoly and it's about time they felt some pain... The same pain us small miners felt with there delays in new equipment or there scamming selling S9's contracts and running s17's in the background.

I would welcome a return and diff drop in bitcoin with open arms.

No matter what happens thought Bitcoin will survive! BTC

[Naida_BR]

Unfortunately, today mining has become really difficult and unprofitable. But I still hope this isn't the end.

I haven't read a lot about the impact that mining has to the bitcoin price but I think that if it becomes more difficult to be mined, isn't this is going to increase the price of bitcoin in long term? This is the so called scarcity.
It is unprofitable if you have expensive electricity other wise in the long term you are going to gain more than you do now.

[thirdkiller]

I hope this will not be an obstacle for avid miners.

[Ozero]

These are temporary predicted difficulties. This activity should be reconfigured and earn in a new way. Ineffective bitcoin mining farms will disappear, after which the price of bitcoin will inevitably increase.

[lijian2019]

One of BTC's most accurate macro signals is about to send a bull market signal,

As bitcoin's hash rate plummeted by about 40%, so did the surrender.

But with the hash rate collapsing, BTC miners are re entering the industry with new strategies and machines to improve their profitability.

This recovery has led bitcoin's hash ribbon, an indicator of signals from changes in BTC hash rates, to tend to "buy.".


As Charles Edwards, a digital asset manager and analyst, recently wrote with reference to the following chart: the "recovery" of hash rate may happen at the end of next week The "buy" signal from the hash ribbon also makes the price momentum rise from now on, so it may take more than a week. "

[glowing10]

Long years ago, itself I gave up the idea of mining because of the electricity costs is too high. Equipment cost was high and then difficulty level keeps on increasing which just make it less attractive to mine the coins. Thus, investing was a better option for me than thinking of mining and take care of those expenses and require some space as well for the setup etc.

[peterurb]

Everyone (minimally inside of us) thought, that Bitcoin price will rise almost immediately and have price profitable even for smaller mining farms. I think, that biggest problem was with COVID crisis, which made people less invest in higher-risk investments (mostly people who don't understand how crypto works - they are only investing and hoping price rise). But it is a good signal, cause miners still believe in price rise.

[Harlot]

Everyone (minimally inside of us) thought, that Bitcoin price will rise almost immediately and have price profitable even for smaller mining farms. I think, that biggest problem was with COVID crisis, which made people less invest in higher-risk investments (mostly people who don't understand how crypto works - they are only investing and hoping price rise). But it is a good signal, cause miners still believe in price rise.

The coronavirus has nothing to do when it comes to the profitability of Bitcoin mining for small miners. The block rewards is too small for them to be even ideal for small miners to continue their operations ever since the halving in 2016 happened. That's why now when we see miners shutting down their only option is for their resources to be sold to bigger mining farms and pools in order for them to break even. With regards to Bitcoin'r price going up, I believe this is the only way the miners will profit now and they won't be the ones starting to sell their Bitcoin that they have mined as the price of Bitcoin will be the one that will determine if they will profit or not.

[lijian2019]

Everyone (minimally inside of us) thought, that Bitcoin price will rise almost immediately and have price profitable even for smaller mining farms. I think, that biggest problem was with COVID crisis, which made people less invest in higher-risk investments (mostly people who don't understand how crypto works - they are only investing and hoping price rise). But it is a good signal, cause miners still believe in price rise.

The coronavirus has nothing to do when it comes to the profitability of Bitcoin mining for small miners. The block rewards is too small for them to be even ideal for small miners to continue their operations ever since the halving in 2016 happened. That's why now when we see miners shutting down their only option is for their resources to be sold to bigger mining farms and pools in order for them to break even. With regards to Bitcoin'r price going up, I believe this is the only way the miners will profit now and they won't be the ones starting to sell their Bitcoin that they have mined as the price of Bitcoin will be the one that will determine if they will profit or not.

Hut 8, a Canadian bitcoin miner, said last week that it had raised $8.3 million by selling a 6 per cent stake to investors, about $800000 more than its original target of $7.5 million.

The Toronto listed bitcoin hollowing company said the money would keep it competitive. Since bitcoin was halved for the third time, many small miners with outdated equipment and insufficient scale are under pressure to be shuffled out.

[anoufal]

The complexity will constantly increase, making this segment of the market unprofitable.