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

[stompix]

  Somebody might be getting a shitload of gear online..

Latest Block:   706684  (11 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   107.5262%  (1085 / 1009.06 expected, 75.94 ahead)
Next Difficulty Change:   between +5.8338% and +7.5343%

Half of the period gone, the trend is up, was something around 4% pace when I last checked during the weekend, so this might be real, not just luck. 7% at nearly 150exa is 100k s19proj, this is definitely not only new deliveries.
China is still in blackout session so I doubt somebody is powering there again, ...no idea on the culprit! 

Meanwhile, as I was browsing through what mining companies say about new gear, this is from Bitfarms:

As previously announced in April 2021, the new facility is expected to add up to 210 megawatts (MW) of infrastructure capacity in 2022 at a contracted rate of US 2.2 cents per kilowatt hour with electricity provided by a private power company.

How the hell do they manage to get those prices?

[1714990818]

1714990818

[1714990818]

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[mikeywith]

Somebody might be getting a shitload of gear online..

Latest Block:   706684  (11 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   107.5262%  (1085 / 1009.06 expected, 75.94 ahead)
Next Difficulty Change:   between +5.8338% and +7.5343%

Not so optimistic after all ha ? , to me, we are just getting back on track, the last two difficulty change was just "not normal" with all things considered, so if we get 8% this epoch, or even 10%, it kind of just offsets the previous one, I think +4-8% increase every month will be the norm for months to come.

[eectechnology]

Meanwhile, as I was browsing through what mining companies say about new gear, this is from Bitfarms:

As previously announced in April 2021, the new facility is expected to add up to 210 megawatts (MW) of infrastructure capacity in 2022 at a contracted rate of US 2.2 cents per kilowatt hour with electricity provided by a private power company.

How the hell do they manage to get those prices?




[/quote]

In the press release they mentioned that "Bitfarms’ new production facility will be housed in four warehouse-style buildings inside the gates of a private power company. In light of reduced demand in the rural location where the power company is located, in April 2021 the parties signed a mutually beneficial eight-year, 210 MW power purchase agreement to power the facility."

Possibly a hydro project gone wrong. Given the timescales to build a hydro plant it may be that economic factors changed over the years, so 2 cents per kWh might look very attractive if you don't have much other custom. 210 MW at 2 cents equates to around $38.8 million a year, more or less guaranteed, plus the power company  mentioned will no doubt be charging Bitfarms ground rent for their facilty, plus they don't have to go to the expense of erecting pylons and wires to take the power to the customer.

Seems like a win-win for both parties, very smart thinking.

[stompix]

Not so optimistic after all ha ?

Don't know what to say, probably not overenthusiastic about it but strangely enough, I'm not that concerned.
Of course, I'm constantly switching between targets, ROI in $, amount of crypto if this and that, value if I would sell the miners and so on and on but still I'm in positive territory unless the gear fails even with 10% per month increase in difficulty straight to February I'm not finding anything that could change my mood, lest say I'm slightly optimistic and more koala-ish than a bear 

I'm not seeing how Bitmain would simply produce 1 million gear overnight, no way, they have s19pro still in stock so there is not that big of a demand, energy prices are skyrocketing everywhere so I doubt projects like the above-mentioned one will suddenly appear out in every country, rather than that I see power companies cutting miners power and selling it to residential consumers.

Kazakhstan to Limit Power for Crypto Mining to 100 MW Nationwide

Another door gets shut, how many are still left? With surging prices for everything how many countries and companies can afford to sell tens of TWh at 3-4 cents? This virus thing has changed a lot of stuff, I think the future is far less predictable at this moment than ever.

Possibly a hydro project gone wrong.

By the costs, yeah it looks like so.
But since they didn't advertise it like another marvelous green renewable mining project and they keep quiet about it makes me think is fossil powered.

[alh]

I recently read an article about a shuttered coal power plant in Seneca Lake NY that was refurbished to use Natural Gas in 2017. In 2019, the owners decided that BTC mining was a good use for their power. The following link provides more details:

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/bitcoin-miners-resurrect-fossil-fuel-power-plant-drawing-backlash-from-environmentalists

[NotFuzzyWarm]

...
 rather than that I see power companies cutting miners power and selling it to residential consumers.
Kazakhstan to Limit Power for Crypto Mining to 100 MW Nationwide
...

I love how in that link they say,

The 1 MW limit is far below what many existing industrialized mines operate on, but is more than many small cities consume.

More than 'small cities consume'?   Maybe more than a small rural farming village where the homes just have a small refrigerator, a couple fans and a few light bulbs for when it gets dark.. Hell throw in some large stores and you are already over 1MW.  Saying that 1MW is enough to feed anything that can be called a 'city' is laughable.

re: the cutting miners to sell elsewhere, depends on if the needed transmission lines are in place to do it. The hosting centers/mines that were in the Portland OR and Washington state areas were not shut down from supply issues -- the Public Utilities did not want to keep paying for upgrading existing lines to feed the rapidly growing energy usage-dense data centers -- specifically ones for mining. Thing is, the area was originally home to a couple ALCOA aluminum smelters because of the massive hydro power dams there. When ALCOA shut the smelters down the miners moved in along with several massive Google and Microsoft data centers. Then - some new main grid transmission lines were completed to connect the dams to neighboring areas/states & Canada meaning power could be sold to them with a hefty markup in price vs the local market. Well per cu/ft of rack space mining farms/hosting sites are far more hungry to feed than conventional data centers. Throw in a media circus about energy usage and.. bye bye miners  

[mikeywith]

I see something interesting in the latest study from Cambridge.


source: https://cbeci.org/mining_map

The "Average monthly hashrate share, Aug'21:" is ZERO for China, which we all know is bullshit.

So what happened?

Possibility 1:

Viabtc, Btc.com, and Poolin "lied" about their reports to Cambridge claiming that there wasn't a single mining gear with an IP address coming from China

Possibility 2:

ALL that's left from Chinese miners are now mining behind a proxy/VPN


Possibility 3:

ALL the miners in China were actually shut down.

I am certain that point 3 can't be it, so it's either 1 or 2, my guess would be that there are many miners still mining in China under the radar, the Chinese government isn't the most transparent, and corruption isn't unusual there.


The latest study puts the U.S at NO.1 with about 47% of the total hashrate.

[stompix]

The 1 MW limit is far below what many existing industrialized mines operate on, but is more than many small cities consume.

More than 'small cities consume'?   Maybe more than a small rural farming village where the homes just have a small refrigerator, a couple fans and a few light bulbs for when it gets dark.. Hell throw in some large stores and you are already over 1MW.  Saying that 1MW is enough to feed anything that can be called a 'city' is laughable.

Let's hope my math doesn't betray me on this, but if we only look at residential consumers, and since I don't have an average for Kazakhstan I will just use Romania s they have around the same purchasing power and we have 2Mwh consumption per dwelling, that would be around 4000 houses a year and roughly around 10k poeple if we make another average of 2.5 per house.

That is if we only look at residential consumption not adding commercial and industrial, so for poorer cities, it might be possible. For example, we have an installed power capacity of roughly 1.2MW/1000 poeple, France has about 2MW per 1000 poeple, that including the demands of the industry and other activities.

And mikeywith, I will go with 1 and a lot of % of 3  
I don't believe it dropped to zero but at the same time I believe it's negligible, not even worth mentioning.
If SMCP was allowed to post this, then it might be possible the situation is far worse than this, and I don't see miners daring to weasel their way out with tricks right now. China’s power crisis: in export showroom Yiwu, some businesses wonder if they’ll survive

[mikeywith]

And mikeywith, I will go with 1 and a lot of % of 3  
I don't believe it dropped to zero but at the same time I believe it's negligible, not even worth mentioning.
If SMCP was allowed to post this, then it might be possible the situation is far worse than this, and I don't see miners daring to weasel their way out with tricks right now. China’s power crisis: in export showroom Yiwu, some businesses wonder if they’ll survive

Let's do a bit of math and more speculation, back in May China nearly 50% of the total hashrate (before the ban) and the hashrate estimation by then was 170EH, so China easily had 85EH worth of mining gears, the hashrate did drop to almost half in the following months, which did seem like mining Bitcoin in China did actually stop, but there was also a massive drop in price from 64k to 28k, which most certainly forced other miners to shut down, there is no way the 85EH that vanished between May and July all came from China.

The interesting part is the following 2 months, Hashrate went from 85EH to 150EH, that's an average increase of 32.5EH per month, or 325,000 S19 pro a month, there is no way that miners outside of China could bring 650,000 S19 pro or the equivalent up and running in just 2 months, it doesn't make sense especially given that the price in Sep did not make any gains.

This means, there is a huge possibility that the majority of miners did shut down after the initial ban, and them A LOT of them managed to come back online in Aug-Sep, I believe there is at least 20-25EH still grinding in China.

[wndsnb]

This means, there is a huge possibility that the majority of miners did shut down after the initial ban, and them A LOT of them managed to come back online in Aug-Sep, I believe there is at least 20-25EH still grinding in China.

20-25EH seems high to me. I'm sure there are some operations still going, paying off whoever needed, but it's got to be difficult to keep a reasonably sized mine open when the government is shutting down power to manufacturing industries. If the average is 50W/th, that's around 500MW.

I guess there could be 5000 100KW mines that could slip under the radar though.

[mikeywith]

20-25EH seems high to me. I'm sure there are some operations still going, paying off whoever needed, but it's got to be difficult to keep a reasonably sized mine open when the government is shutting down power to manufacturing industries. If the average is 50W/th, that's around 500MW.

The reasoning behind this estimation is the sudden appearance of 65EH within two months, I don't think anyone can move that much hashrate from China to somewhere else and have it up and running in such a short period of time.

Also, last year China consumed 7,51 TWh, 20EH is just about 13% of the total energy for bitcoin mining "estimated by Cambridge" which is 13% of 112TWh and that is just 14.5TWh, that is not even 0.2% of how much China consumes, it's really just a drop in the ocean when you think about it.

[philipma1957]

This means, there is a huge possibility that the majority of miners did shut down after the initial ban, and them A LOT of them managed to come back online in Aug-Sep, I believe there is at least 20-25EH still grinding in China.

20-25EH seems high to me. I'm sure there are some operations still going, paying off whoever needed, but it's got to be difficult to keep a reasonably sized mine open when the government is shutting down power to manufacturing industries. If the average is 50W/th, that's around 500MW.

I guess there could be 5000 100KW mines that could slip under the radar though.

Yeah they have ices for dessert so if a large commercial warehouse with a few dozen freezers dedicates 3-5 freezers to mining it is a lot of diverted power.



https://cdnimg.webstaurantstore.com/documents/specsheets/079297_kold_locker_walk-ins_spec_sheet.pdf

lots of these are at the ware house I mine in as the ice cream company  went broke.

they do about 3600 watts. So I am thinking any one with a lot of them online could shut down a few and mine.  But likely they would chose other algos.

[mikeywith]

Yeah they have ices for dessert so if a large commercial warehouse with a few dozen freezers dedicates 3-5 freezers to mining it is a lot of diverted power.

And don't forget that mining has one main advantage over the vast majority of other operations which is the ability to relocate fast and cheap, no matter how large the mining farm is, it's only a matter of a few days to load and unload the gears in the new warehouse, we have seen the Chinese move tens of thousands of mining gears from/to the rainy areas in no time, they just hire 50-100 people to unplug the miners and the trucks hit the road, not many other operations can be moved like this.

[philipma1957]

And a big jump is coming in about an hour.

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

...

Latest Block:   707608  (13 minutes ago)

Current Pace:   107.8400%  (2009 / 1862.95 expected, 146.05 ahead)


Previous Difficulty:   19893045048575.13                            
Current Difficulty:   20082460130830.84                            
Next Difficulty:   between 21657786560761 and 21657807043517
Next Difficulty Change:   between +7.8443% and +7.8444%
Previous Retarget:   October 18, 2021 at 4:25 PM  (+0.9522%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Today at 3:59 PM  (in 0d 1h 4m 54s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Today at 3:59 PM  (in 0d 1h 4m 55s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 12d 23h 34m 22s and 12d 23h 34m 23s


...

This is over 10eh if my math is right

so 10 s19 = 1ph

100 s19 = 10ph

1000 s19 = 100ph

10000 s19 = 1eh

10,000 s19 = 10eh

A lot of gear.

A bullish number.

[mikeywith]

Previous Difficulty:   20082460130830.84                           
Current Difficulty:   21659344833264.85                           
Previous Retarget:   Yesterday at 9:58 PM  (+7.8520%)

We are back to June difficulty levels, the price was below 40k at that point, now it's 70% higher, this is still relatively very good for all miners, I believe the days of negative adjustments are over, hopefully, we keep getting only small spikes of 3-5% at most, we need 25% increase from here to hit the ATH level, I think we can hit that around 1-15 Jan 2022

[philipma1957]

Previous Difficulty:   20082460130830.84                           
Current Difficulty:   21659344833264.85                           
Previous Retarget:   Yesterday at 9:58 PM  (+7.8520%)

We are back to June difficulty levels, the price was below 40k at that point, now it's 70% higher, this is still relatively very good for all miners, I believe the days of negative adjustments are over, hopefully, we keep getting only small spikes of 3-5% at most, we need 25% increase from here to hit the ATH level, I think we can hit that around 1-15 Jan 2022

Maybe or maybe we flatten out to 1,2,3 numbers.

which means feb or march for new high in diff.

[stompix]

we need 25% increase from here to hit the ATH level, I think we can hit that around 1-15 Jan 2022

So we would need a little over 4.5 in 5 periods average to achieve that, it's not going to be linear so a bit up and down but around that.
Of course, we had that gear mining at one point so it would make total sense to have it mine again at better rates, adding on top the deliveries of new gear it would be possible but  I somehow don't think we'll reach that level this soon.
Yeah, we had one huge spike but before that, we only had + 4.54 % , + 3.16 %, + 4.71 %, + 0.95 %, and each percentage will be harder and harder from now on so I think we're safe for a few extra periods before reaching the previous ATH.

I'm not that optimistic on a longer term, those companies are not buying SH gear, they are waiting for months of pre-order so even if the conditions would be worse they will still have nothing to do but to plug them on and start mining if he price doesn't go up probably the end of spring will be the end of happy mining days.

10000 s19 = 1eh
10,000 s19 = 10eh
A lot of gear.

You missed a zero on the last one, it's 100 000 
Foundry is getting more and more hashrate it's at 12.1 over 3 days from 9.3 over 3 months so some of that gear si definitely mining there.

[eectechnology]

Two bits of information that maybe of interest, my apologies if this is old stuff:

1. blockchain.com estimates network hashing rate at 186 EH. Someone is adding a fair amount of hashing power

2. about 6 weeks ago Genesis Mining (owned by Coinbase) raised $431 for expansion; yesterday Coindesk reported that Genesis will be adding 9.4EH to the party in the
    next 12 months, and they are probably not the only ones. They are building a new 300MW facility in Texas, suggesting that it could hold up to roughly 85 - 90,000 s19
    pro's. I'm guessing they'll be building their own infrastructure, so taking away $31 million means that they would be getting their miners for around $4500, somewhat
    less than Bitmain's $11,440. As a business can they offset the 25% import duty added onto Miners against their Texas corporation tax?

At $4,500 small mining concerns are at a huge disadvantage as they don't get any discounts, and with global energy prices starting to rise things can only get worse. It's not
difficult to see that even with cheap hosting at 6c/kWH and a likely 200+ EH going into the new year, a current S19 pro will take well over 2 years to break even.

[philipma1957]

Two bits of information that maybe of interest, my apologies if this is old stuff:

1. blockchain.com estimates network hashing rate at 186 EH. Someone is adding a fair amount of hashing power

2. about 6 weeks ago Genesis Mining (owned by Coinbase) raised $431 for expansion; yesterday Coindesk reported that Genesis will be adding 9.4EH to the party in the
    next 12 months, and they are probably not the only ones. They are building a new 300MW facility in Texas, suggesting that it could hold up to roughly 85 - 90,000 s19
    pro's. I'm guessing they'll be building their own infrastructure, so taking away $31 million means that they would be getting their miners for around $4500, somewhat
    less than Bitmain's $11,440. As a business can they offset the 25% import duty added onto Miners against their Texas corporation tax?

At $4,500 small mining concerns are at a huge disadvantage as they don't get any discounts, and with global energy prices starting to rise things can only get worse. It's not
difficult to see that even with cheap hosting at 6c/kWH and a likely 200+ EH going into the new year, a current S19 pro will take well over 2 years to break even.

yep 👍 six cent power is the usual cutoff for mining when things get tightened .

Of course a simple price raise to 85k fixes the issue.

So stack them while you can boys.

[kano]

Ah fun, Genesis mining, they're the ones who withheld 28 or more 25 BTC blocks on slush in Dec 2015 due to testing bad software on a live pool, and all the slush miners paid for those blocks in losses, and slush hid that information, the longest running pool was for the first 5 years not even checking pool statistics that would have easily identified the problem
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1976.msg14904742#msg14904742
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=77000.msg13482822#msg13482822