2021, time for a new general & diff speculation thread...

[philipma1957]

Perhaps. We have been spoiled by the last few epochs  
I have to say that I'm pleased as punch with price - between the tax harvesting I did when BTC hit 30k (selling most of the amount I had bought at 43k to take the Capital Gains loss then next day buying back at 29.5k) I'm certainly 'above water' once again. Just kinda/sorta wish I had been a bit braver and bought more at the dip  

Still a smart move.

and a diff of  15.7 at 46k is  better than a diff of 23.1 at 63k

[1714989602]

1714989602

[mikeywith]

Difficulty around 8%, with 107.8 pace right now, not something I'm overjoyed about

While there is no way to confirm this, I strongly believe that the majority of this 8% comes from gears that were unprofitable at the 30k levels rather than the relocation of mining gears, of course, gears are being relocated and there is no doubt about it, I just highly doubt they are being moved this fast, if the price drops back to 30k in the next epoch, we should get some clarity regarding this.

[philipma1957]

https://www.bitrawr.com/difficulty-estimator


Latest Block:   695387  (3 minutes ago)

Current Pace:   107.6427%  (1884 / 1750.24 expected, 133.76 ahead)

Previous Difficulty:   13672594272814.14                           
Current Difficulty:   14496442856349.12                           
Next Difficulty:   between 15607102334841 and 15612252459387
Next Difficulty Change:   between +7.6616% and +7.6971%
Previous Retarget:   July 31, 2021 at 12:26 AM  (+6.0255%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Tomorrow at 12:35 AM  (in 0d 20h 26m 16s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Tomorrow at 12:41 AM  (in 0d 20h 32m 24s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 0h 8m 37s and 13d 0h 14m 46s

still hanging around 45-46k

and 15.6 to be new diff

so 13.6-14.4-15.6

I am guessing we do not move as much next jump .  Maybe  just under 5% to 16.3.  I also think price may get past 50k

[stompix]

While there is no way to confirm this, I strongly believe that the majority of this 8% comes from gears that were unprofitable at the 30k levels rather than the relocation of mining gears

I would call this hash rate ghost miners.Of course, there is gear that was unprofitable in certain conditions at 30k and 17-20T difficulty, but, where was this gear when the price was around 10k and the difficulty at the same 17-20T back in October? It's either that this gear wasn't mining then either or that from that point somewhere in January March it moved, why??? No idea! I still can't understand what has happened to all that hash rate that was mining at 4 times less the price and it's still offline now, either that China had a lot more hash rate and not everything it is currently offline as otherwise it wouldn't make sense or there a lot of gear in transit, a lot!!!, or the breakdown of mining gear is way over what we think, with them falling like flies. Way to many variables!

Still 7-8%, I wouldn't be surprised by another 7-8 next period even with the price still at 45k, but another increase on the same level in a month, nope, not my thing.
The good news is that prices per kWh are soaring all over the globe so who managed to get a fixed price over a long term contract is safe....for now.

[kano]

2021-08-13 05:42 UTC

DIFF CHANGE: hi=695520 delta=7.31% new=15556093717702.6 prev=14496442856349.1



Still wonder how they bother to say 'between' ... ... coz it's not between

Next Difficulty:   between 15607102334841 and 15612252459387
Next Difficulty Change:   between +7.6616% and +7.6971%
Next Retarget (earliest):   Tomorrow at 12:35 AM  (in 0d 20h 26m 16s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Tomorrow at 12:41 AM  (in 0d 20h 32m 24s)

[Philipma1957cellphone]

Good uppity on price. Over 47500 and diff dropping 1%

[mikeywith]

Good uppity on price. Over 47500 and diff dropping 1%

I wouldn't count on that drop, we are still too early but my guess would be on the upside, maybe not another 7% but most likely up, it's hard to estimate difficulty while prices keep changing this much, but as it stands right now and regardless of what the price might do, from now on, we are most likely only going to go up. sadly.

[philipma1957]

Good uppity on price. Over 47500 and diff dropping 1%

I wouldn't count on that drop, we are still too early but my guess would be on the upside, maybe not another 7% but most likely up, it's hard to estimate difficulty while prices keep changing this much, but as it stands right now and regardless of what the price might do, from now on, we are most likely only going to go up. sadly.

yeah its early I think we shifted to +2 or +3

[flip4flop]

If we dont see a continued rise in price or at least some sort of continued support above the 40k level as more and more institutions and businesses like HUT8 and Bitfarms continue to expand wouldnt difficulty just crush out the little guys with one or two older ASICs? Then add in what would happen if the majority of China did come back online?  At what point do we need to see a significant increase in price to offset what could be a very large change in difficulty?

[mikeywith]

At what point do we need to see a significant increase in price to offset what could be a very large change in difficulty?

It's different for every person depending on their power rate and the efficiency of their mining gears, if the price stays the same and the next difficulty epoch is 10% higher, that will be the point for so many folks running 70w/TH or higher and pay above 8 cents, IMO miners should be prepared for a never-ending difficulty increase which isn't going to be offset by price for the long run, but as it stands right now, mining is very profitable for those who bought gears at reasonable prices.

[flip4flop]

At what point do we need to see a significant increase in price to offset what could be a very large change in difficulty?

It's different for every person depending on their power rate and the efficiency of their mining gears, if the price stays the same and the next difficulty epoch is 10% higher, that will be the point for so many folks running 70w/TH or higher and pay above 8 cents, IMO miners should be prepared for a never-ending difficulty increase which isn't going to be offset by price for the long run, but as it stands right now, mining is very profitable for those who bought gears at reasonable prices.

I like to see the numbers you put there. I am adding a few Antminer S19j Pro that will arrive in January and have a rate of .06. My goal is to have those paid off in 8 months after they are delivered and start mining. While I am expecting the difficulty to increase between now and then, I would hope that the price does as well. From what I can tell right now after electricity they are making about  $35-40/day.  From what I can tell I can afford to go down to about $20 profit and I will just about break even after 1 year of mining.  If not as long as there is a spike in price at some point over the year it should even out. My initial plan is to sell what I mine monthly until I am in the green and then look at holding 60% in BTC and spreading out the other 40% in USD or other investments.

[Philipma1957cellphone]

At what point do we need to see a significant increase in price to offset what could be a very large change in difficulty?

It's different for every person depending on their power rate and the efficiency of their mining gears, if the price stays the same and the next difficulty epoch is 10% higher, that will be the point for so many folks running 70w/TH or higher and pay above 8 cents, IMO miners should be prepared for a never-ending difficulty increase which isn't going to be offset by price for the long run, but as it stands right now, mining is very profitable for those who bought gears at reasonable prices.

I like to see the numbers you put there. I am adding a few Antminer S19j Pro that will arrive in January and have a rate of .06. My goal is to have those paid off in 8 months after they are delivered and start mining. While I am expecting the difficulty to increase between now and then, I would hope that the price does as well. From what I can tell right now after electricity they are making about  $35-40/day.  From what I can tell I can afford to go down to about $20 profit and I will just about break even after 1 year of mining.  If not as long as there is a spike in price at some point over the year it should even out. My initial plan is to sell what I mine monthly until I am in the green and then look at holding 60% in BTC and spreading out the other 40% in USD or other investments.

Some advice for new miner is stack some of the coin you are mining.

It can be hard but if you clear .1 btc in a given time frame you should stack 5% of it. The other 95% you can pay down the startup costs.
The next .1 btc you clear you should stack 7.5% of it.
The next.   .1 btc you clear  you should stack 10% of it
The next  .1 btc you clear you should stack 12.5% of it
The next .1 btc you clear you should stack 15% of it
So of the first .5 HTC mined a goal would be 0.05 btc stacked

Then assess what to do.

If mining continues eventually an unreal amount of gear will be added.

Diff will.clear 30t but it may take as long as 2024 to see abundance of chips and gear.

[mikeywith]

I like to see the numbers you put there.

When diff is at 17.5T every TH will be making about 0.32$ a day  (assuming btc price is static) , so for someone in EU who pays 15 cents and is running say an S9 at  93w/th they will be forced to shut down, this is why I said "it is DIFFERENT for everyone" because everyone's profit margin is different, some people are affected by 10% increase in price or 15% drop in price, others are still in the safe zone even with 100% increase in difficulty.

I am adding a few Antminer S19j Pro that will arrive in January and have a rate of .06. My goal is to have those paid off in 8 months after they are delivered and start mining. While I am expecting the difficulty to increase between now and then, I would hope that the price does as well. From what I can tell right now after electricity they are making about  $35-40/day.

Does not seem like a bad plan at all, but, you are making a big mistake thinking your gear can mine for 1 year which isn't certain, also, the second point is that I see you use fiat values to determine ROI, to me, that's a bad business model, you need to consider ROI in BTC, if you can't mine the same amount of BTC you can buy today + a good enough amount, then buying bitcoin now and not having to deal with all the mining process is a no brainer.

With that being said, 6 cents is pretty decent, your main issue will be the lifespan of your mining gears, if they can survive long enough, you will probably be in the green, also make sure you get a spare PSU, they are rare and expensive and have a bit of a high failure on all the 19 series, so buying 1-2 or two whenever they are available will be beneficial.

[stompix]

I am adding a few Antminer S19j Pro that will arrive in January and have a rate of .06.

Just to make sure, is it really January?

That aside, I'm glad the pace is taking a breather, it was staying at 115 for way too much for my comfort, down to 113, let's see it drop below 110 as this just ain't ....nice. Three rounds of 10% and we're above 20T, with a 15% increase it takes only two periods, there is no way the price will manage to keep the same pace.
The only good news is that I see vendors being out of gears for instant delivery, so at least there is limited gear that can be purchased on top of what's in transit now but, god knows how much has already been shipped.

Ps
Foundry has just got over 10% for the last 3 days, at 10.14% and, 11.97 EH/s, Mara has some 2.5 EH/s also, I wonder if they grab the crown by the end of the year.

[flip4flop]

Seeing the potential for a 14% increase on the next adjustment is just scary to see what could happen to the price. As more of the miners from China come back online after being relocated and companies like HUT8 and Bitfarms continue to add hundreds of miners per quarter, to include replacing older systems it almost feels like the difficulty will continue to skyrocket month after month. While new miners may be 1-2 months away. The ones coming online are going to be very efficient and push some of these older models to be mining at a loss. Hopefully removing a large portion of the older models will help a little.

[philipma1957]

100 th at 30 watts a th is 3kwatts or 72 kwatts in a day round to 80

so

  3 cent 2.40
  4 cent 3.20
  5 cent 4.00
  6 cent 4.80
  7 cent 5.60
  8 cent 6.40
  9 cent 7.20
10 cent 8.00
11 cent 8.80
12 cent 9.60

and viabtc is paying 38 cents a th or $38.00 for 100th

so if 3x the diff a 10 cent mine drops to 38/3= $12.67 - 8 =  4 a day profit.

When mining sucks the squeeze is worse than that.

We saw 6 and 7 cent miners struggle with good gear.

that would mean diff could go up 4x or 38/4= $9.50 -5.60 = 3.90 a day profit for a 6 cent miner.

This means Diff growth has to 2x when I do not know maybe Jan 1 2023.

It also means diff growth of 3x is likely by Jan 1 2024.

So I predict
 Jan 1 2023 over 24 diff
 Jan 1 2024 over 40 diff

[stompix]

So I predict
 Jan 1 2023 over 24 diff
 Jan 1 2024 over 40 diff

If over 24 means also below 25 I think you're far too optimistic.
We're at 15.5, assuming this damn pace keeps going (back to 115, and 171 blocks in the last 24 hours, making it 118.7 in this interval) we might hit 18t already, in order not to get over 25t we would need that none of the next 36 periods to be over 1% on average.

With that much gear lying around and no changing price, I would consider it a miracle to stay below 25 till then. For the other prediction, that's a hard one, but I doubt we will grow only 8t in 16 months and then 16 in 12.
That being said, it would be soooo nice! But only 50exa added in one year? Don't think so.

[mikeywith]

If over 24 means also below 25 I think you're far too optimistic.

Maybe he is a bit optimistic, most certainly not "too optimistic", let's just assume this whole china thing and the drop to 30k did not happen, at 60k bitcoin it's save to assume that the vast majority of mining gears were profitable, the highest hashrate we ever had was what? 170EH or so? now back to reality what do we know?

1- Production of mining gears is too slow.
2-Relocating all that hashrate takes a long time.

What's more important than all of this is the fact that 10% addition on top of 110EH is far easier than a 10% on 170E, so even after all the old gears come back online, we will be capped by 170E+ whatever China has produced since May, 1EH is 10k S19s, do you think Bitmain will make 1M S19s by Jan 2032? I don't.

So my point is that (I think) phill is being optimistic, but you are being a bit pessimistic (which isn't bad at all for any miner to be)  , I believe what's going to happen is something in between the projection of you both, I believe we will surpass the 24t sooner than Jan 2023, but not any time soon.

[stompix]

What's more important than all of this is the fact that 10% addition on top of 110EH is far easier than a 10% on 170E, so even after all the old gears come back online, we will be capped by 170E+ whatever China has produced since May, 1EH is 10k S19s, do you think Bitmain will make 1M S19s by Jan 2032? I don't.

I don't think we don't need 1 million on top of what is mining now to reach the 180EH needed for 25T, we are already at least 120EH, of course, I assume no gear will break, then we would need 60 EH in 16 months, or about 37k miners per month manufactured not only by bitmain but by the others as well. And we have what is on order and delivered now as new gear, and what lingering either in a cargo ship or still in a warehouse in China on top of that. I see it perfectly doable to reach again 25T by next August if not sooner, but as pessimistic I am by this one I am rather optimistic for the 40T. That I see it way harder to be achieved, and not with these prices.

Also about those miners, Riot is expecting  81,146, already pad till Q4 2022, they have received only 25,946  Marathon group has an order of 133k and they have only deployed to date 19,395, here we go 170k 19pro to be delivered to just two companies. How many more are there?

I'm pessimistic short term, but rather optimistic long term. With oil, gas, coal prices going through the roof I have a feeling we're going to see some spikes in electricity prices pretty soon and that will kill a lot of enthusiasm. I'm safe at 4.7 before taxes till December at least.  

[mikeywith]

I don't think we don't need 1 million on top of what is mining now to reach the 180EH needed for 25T, we are already at least 120EH, of course, I assume no gear will break, then we would need 60 EH in 16 months, or about 37k miners per month manufactured not only by bitmain but by the others as well.

Ok let's do some simple math for the worst-case scenario possible, let's reset the counter to the max possible hashrate we had, which was 17.89EH, so we work with 180EH for the sake of simplicity, let's say all of it comes back online by end of the year, I think this is a "fairly pessimistic" estimation which we all agree to.

Now this

Also about those miners, Riot is expecting  81,146 (https://www.riotblockchain.com/news-media/press-releases/detail/112/riot-blockchain-announces-july-production-and-operations), already pad till Q4 2022, they have received only 25,946  Marathon group has an order of 133k (https://ir.marathondh.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1254/marathon-digital-holdings-reports-second-quarter-2021) and they have only deployed to date 19,395, here we go 170k 19pro to be delivered to just two companies.

This is more of a half-full glass vs half-empty story, you can say that if just two companies 170k S19 pros then the total will be a lot more, you can also say that since Bitmain has delayed the delivery for these orders for almost a year to be sent in full, then they must be having some trouble making new gears, then to answer this question.

How many more are there?

Probably not so many. When was the last time Bitmain sold any mining gear on their website? not for as long as I can remember, of course ignoring the limited sale of S19js that went out of stock in no time which was most likely due to them listing a very small amount of gears, so if you ask me, these two guys are probably their biggest clients, I highly doubt that Bitmain has pending orders of more than 300k miners in total, these two folks probably make half of the demand, so if bitmain makes 300k miners in a year, or let's just say they will make 500k gears (accounting for the other manufacturers) then by the end of 2022 we will at most have an addition of 50EH on top of that 180EH.

That would translate to difficulty of 32T by Q1 2023. but then.

We can't ignore that Bitcoin price can take a huge dive and suppress the demand on gears, many miners will be forced to shut down, the 60EH that are still offline and yet to find a new home are not likely to show up by end of the year, no place on planet earth has both China power rates + power capacity + cheap mining gears + infrastructure and whatnot, all of these factors will slow down the difficulty increase, but even in the worst-case scenario where everyone has cheap power and ready to host as many miners they can afford, with bitcoin price going only up and the world is the perfect place, the hashrate will still be capped production.

In short, miners like us who are already well placed in the game will be pretty happy this year, and probably 2022, folks who paid 6k or 8k for a miner they are going to receive next year will probably be in deep shit.