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

[philipma1957]

Well so far I look smart.

https://diff.cryptothis.com/
Latest Block:   677601  (5 minutes ago)

Current Pace:   92.3218%  (226 / 244.80 expected, 18.8 behind)

Previous Difficulty:   21865558044610.55                           
Current Difficulty:   23137439666472.05                           
Next Difficulty:   between 21549868335542 and 22782233019867

Next Difficulty Change:   between -6.8615% and -1.5352%


Previous Retarget:   last Thursday at 9:38 PM  (+5.8168%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   April 16, 2021 at 3:33 AM  (in 12d 13h 6m 53s)
Next Retarget (latest):   April 17, 2021 at 1:35 AM  (in 13d 11h 8m 42s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 14d 5h 54m 50s and 15d 3h 56m 40s
...

Now it is early.  But picture 3 huge cloud mining outfits.

With gear they built on the cheap (ie bitmain)

and they leased 70% of the eth gear they made along with 70% of the btc gear they made.

Why not lease all of it well power shortages and it lets them lose the edge since that 30%+30% is mining against their own gear.

instead they put out 70+70 and shift the unused gear to what ever earns more per watt.

ie they have 7 of 10 eth miners doing 3300 watts each = 23100 watts
they have 7 of 10 btc miners doing 3300 watts each = 23100 watts.

3 idle miners for eth
3 idle miners for btc


so they simply shut off either 3 of the eth miners or 3 of the btc miners and turn on the other ones.

So 3 x 270 usd = 810 usd for the 3 idle eth miners
or 3 x 40 usd = 120 usd for the 3 idle btc miners.

So my guess is they just shut off a ton of btc miners and turn on a ton of eth miners thus btc hash rate/diff drops 5%

lets look at eth hashrate/diff


https://etherscan.io/chart/hashrate

onwards and upwards

" Highest Avg Hash Rate of 490,883.6004 GH/s was recorded on Friday, April 2, 2021 "


there is no way. that what I am saying is not happening.

hope they continue to do it.
As it helps with btc prices to go upwards

and packs down eth price a bit.

Since I am pro btc and anti eth it works for me.

[NotATether]

hope they continue to do it.
As it helps with btc prices to go upwards

and packs down eth price a bit.

Since I am pro btc and anti eth it works for me.

Now we just have to find out how long these mining outfits are going to leave some of their BTC miners off. Or maybe even what will cause them to switch them back on.

So why on earth do I spend 14000 to generate less money and btc
when I can spend 8310 to generate more money and BTC via conversions of the coins I mine.

Until this dynamic collapses BTC diff won't skyrocket. (at Least I hope so).

I have a pretty strong feeling that the Newegg/Amazon/eBay resellers could cause a difficulty spike by collectively raising GPU prices. If there's a case of people mass-buying 3070's and 3060's (I just don't see people dropping money to mass buy 3080's and 3090's except as a last resort) because that's the only bracket they can afford anyway - whether it's gamers buying one card or a mining aficionado swiping 20 of them - sooner or later there's going to be a price panic.

And 3060 already doesn't play well with ETH mining so more of those being bought will most likely mine BTC. Or maybe LTC or whatever PoW NVIDIA isn't nerfing these days.

[alh]

Into the home stretch for the current epoch: 1834 blocks /1823 expected at this point (ahead by about 10). Current projection is for a small (less than 1%) increase in difficulty. Last BTC price was $63371 !  Yesterday I am sure I saw a new All Time High (ATH) of over $64K.

Times are still pretty good for miners.

[stompix]

Price is seeing a correction but it's still on a 7 days period up by 10%, we've entered a period when I guess it's simply impossible to manufacture and ship enough gear to even dare to match the pace of the price increase and the current difficulty adjustment of what's now 1% seems to me as a clear indicator nothing is going to change the radically short term.

Besides, we have had already close to 3 months of insane mining profits, I don't know how it could be possible at this time for old gear to be still in transit and not have mined for at least one month. I understand that some might have sold their miners for a higher price now but they would either have mined before shipping or the gear is already installed and hashing, just my assumption but the hashing power of old gear in transit now between customers shouldn't account to anything of impact.

As for the new miner prices, yesterday I was discussing with a friend an offer he saw on the marketplace, 19pro for $18k, just four hours later, it was sold out, this is madness, 10k at current profits I get it, but going double over that?

[philipma1957]

Price is seeing a correction but it's still on a 7 days period up by 10%, we've entered a period when I guess it's simply impossible to manufacture and ship enough gear to even dare to match the pace of the price increase and the current difficulty adjustment of what's now 1% seems to me as a clear indicator nothing is going to change the radically short term.

Besides, we have had already close to 3 months of insane mining profits, I don't know how it could be possible at this time for old gear to be still in transit and not have mined for at least one month. I understand that some might have sold their miners for a higher price now but they would either have mined before shipping or the gear is already installed and hashing, just my assumption but the hashing power of old gear in transit now between customers shouldn't account to anything of impact.

As for the new miner prices, yesterday I was discussing with a friend an offer he saw on the marketplace, 19pro for $18k, just four hours later, it was sold out, this is madness, 10k at current profits I get it, but going double over that?

Yeah  right now if you have an okay amount of gear and want more you are better off doing Newegg shuffle and hoping for a gpu.

You get a gpu at close to normal price mine eth use nice hash and convert to BTC.

It is the single best explanation as to why the btc diff is so low.

why pay a number like 18k for a unit that earns 110 x .40 = 44 bucks and burns 80 kwatts say 8 bucks net of 44-8 =36 noisy hot.



a nvidia 3070 on ebay is about 1400 so you get 10 for 14000k maybe 15k for 2 rigs.

you do 600 mh it earns 60 a day it burns 40kwatts say 4 bucks so net is 60-4 = 56 not as hot and less power less noise less to build.
300 days later look below

56 x 300 = 16800 so you paid the rig off in 300 days and made an extra 1800
vs 36 x 300 = 10800 you are 7200 in the hold after 300 days.

so BTC growth = tiny
ETH growth = bigly

[stompix]

Yeah  right now if you have an okay amount of gear and want more you are better off doing Newegg shuffle and hoping for a gpu.

For you in the US maybe, for us is a disaster, unless you go for a rx6700 and pay 1200euros you have to settle for 1050ti or an 1660 forgotten on stock, and the prices are hilarious sometimes, the 1050ti goes for 400 euros twice as much as when it was a brand new card.
But unlike in the asics business, Nvidia can produce easily millions of cards unless we see another insane surge in the price of altcoins probably the madness will stop, but god knows, I anticipated a lot of things and none came true

Back to bitcoin...

I wonder if this insane profit margin will fuel the theory of miners helping the overall price by not dumping to pay for electricity and other costs, at these rates you can easily cover the cost with a fraction of the income and not forced to liquidate like in the past.
It's still ~960 daily coins, (last24h) $60 million that are not completely hitting the exchanges....again, speculations, speculations

[philipma1957]

Yeah  right now if you have an okay amount of gear and want more you are better off doing Newegg shuffle and hoping for a gpu.

For you in the US maybe, for us is a disaster, unless you go for a rx6700 and pay 1200euros you have to settle for 1050ti or an 1660 forgotten on stock, and the prices are hilarious sometimes, the 1050ti goes for 400 euros twice as much as when it was a brand new card.
But unlike in the asics business, Nvidia can produce easily millions of cards unless we see another insane surge in the price of altcoins probably the madness will stop, but god knows, I anticipated a lot of things and none came true

Back to bitcoin...

I wonder if this insane profit margin will fuel the theory of miners helping the overall price by not dumping to pay for electricity and other costs, at these rates you can easily cover the cost with a fraction of the income and not forced to liquidate like in the past.
It's still ~960 daily coins, (last24h) $60 million that are not completely hitting the exchanges....again, speculations, speculations

Yeah. I mine

BTC
ETH
LTC/DOGE
BCH
OCTOPUS
KAPOW

everything is designed on getting more BTC

So gpus on ebay in usa at stupidly high 2x prices  are a bargain compared to s19pros.

so buy a gpu at 2x msrp mine eth convert to cash and btc  is simply far better to do

than buying the s19pro on ebay or at blokforge.  blokforge had some s19pros at 16500. add tax and shipping  I got to just under 18000 for 1 s19pro

it makes 38 cents a th or 110 x 38 = $41.80 it burns 80 kwatts or 4 dollars that is 38 a day or 474 days to break even.  It is pretty loud it is hot. it needs a custom psu.

Which at the cost it is you should order the psu for it  just in case . say 500 more

I went to uk ebay and I see nvidia 3070 gpus for about. £1300 so 10 = £13000 = 17900 usd. tack on 500 for 2 mobos plus etc

and 18500 for the gpus vs 18000 for the s19pro

you get 600 mh or 600 x 19 cent that is 60 usd a day in eth auto vert to btc
power is under 50 kwatts or under 3 a day at 5 cent power
60 usd - 3 = 57 a day

18500/57 = 324 days to break even for 2 five card rigs

18500/38 = 474 days to break even for 1 s19pro and a spare psu


lets see with gpus you may or may not have the warranty since you got them on ebay
the gpus have resale value

the asic you have the crappy warranty service for 6 months.

but roi is 324 days vs 474 days.

this is directly affecting btc hashrate. as resources are diverting to  gpus

https://etherscan.io/chart/hashrate. from 269 nov 17 2020 to 539 apr 13 2021 about 100%

https://www.blockchain.com/charts/hash-rate.   from 126 nov 17  2020 to  169 apr 13 2021  about 34%




remember the chip shortage will force choices on how to expand

I am going to check out merge mining of LTC/DOGE

and see if the hash rate has grown like ETH or like BTC



LTC was 171 on nov 17 2020
LTC is now 288 on apr 14 2021 or about 68% up
Doge was 191 on Nov 17 2020
Doge is now 285 on Apr 15 2021 or up about 49%



So BTC diff nov 2020 to April 2021 + 33%
Doge diff nov 2020 to April 2021 + 49%
LTC diff nov 2020 to April 2021 + 68%
ETH diff nov 2020 to April 2021 +100%

So it looks like a lot of people are doing what I do.

Mining the coins that  gets the most $ per watt

Then convert it to some fiat for bills and some BTC

Now when you look at merge mined LTC/Doge more diff increases than BTC. less than ETH

and the reason is LTC/Doge makes more per watt than an s19pro
but less per watt than gpu rigs.

you can get 2 l3+ for about 1000 usd
so you can get 36 for about 18000 usd

that would be 18gh
it would burn  648 kwatts

earn 112 usd in ltc
earn 96 usd in doge
208 -33 = 175 a day

18,000/175 = 102 days.  this looks best. but that is because doge has jumped to 12-13 cents.

I suspect more growth here except chip short age will slow it.

So when you look at it all.

any of the three are good to mine

but

ETH and or LTC/Doge are clearly more bang for the buck than BTC asics.

It should be interesting to watch this over the next 2-4 months.

[alh]

WOW!

Those last 50-100 blocks must have flashed by in a hurry. Looks like we closed the out epoch with a +7.8% increase as a late surge in hashing seems to have materialized. I sure didn't see that coming as the first 1800 blocks had been bouncing around, mostly in the positive, but nothing significant. And then we end of with a overall increase of 7.8%.

BTC never fails to disappoint in terms of craziness.

Edit: The above figures are derived from cryptothis. Unfortunately my skill at actually using the "Copy to Clipboard" from cryptothis and then being able to get anything useful are non-existent.

The following is my hand typing:

Previous Retarget: Today at 2:40 PM (7.8499%)

The associated current and previous difficulty figures support that as well (which I didn't include here). Please forgive me if posted junk info based on what I saw on cryptothis.

 

[stompix]

Those last 50-100 blocks must have flashed by in a hurry. Looks like we closed the out epoch with a +7.8% increase as a late surge in hashing seems to have materialized.

Where did you get the 7.8%?
There were 163 blocks in the last 24 hours before the adjustment:

679391   00000000000000000005a2db60197fa9012b70f75e4745b362afc16a052d6ee6   2021-04-15 18:40
679228   00000000000000000002fccb1d3beb05522ddfeb1b2cd7a4919c4fecdef96ce9   2021-04-14 19:44

If you wonder why not 679227 is because it was mined at 18:22, there was a full one hour and 20 minutes before them.
That would be a 13% pace, and 4 hours later it's a bit higher.
But I doubt it will keep on, just like that 80 minutes break between blocks this might have been caused by pure luck.

[mikeywith]

just like that 80 minutes break between blocks this might have been caused by pure luck.

By applying a simple cumulative distribution function of blocks found between 60 and 120 mins intervals we get

exp(−60/10)−exp(−120/10) =  0.24%, by pure luck you mean great luck? .


So the last figures are:

Latest Block:   679435  (a minute ago)
Current Pace:   94.8096%  (44 / 46.41 expected, 2.41 behind)
Previous Difficulty:   23137439666472.05                           
Current Difficulty:   23581981443663.85                           
Next Difficulty:   between 22440989722141 and 23530328479738
Next Difficulty Change:   between -4.8384% and -0.2190%
Previous Retarget:   Yesterday at 9:40 PM  (+1.9213%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   April 29, 2021 at 10:27 PM  (in 13d 17h 3m 33s)
Next Retarget (latest):   April 30, 2021 at 4:03 PM  (in 14d 10h 39m 35s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 14d 0h 47m 39s and 14d 18h 23m 40s

I did anticipate a higher increase, but the only time I am happy when I am wrong is when I make such predictions, I wish to be wrong every time I think we are going to have a spike.

[stompix]

~
By applying a simple cumulative distribution function of blocks found between 60 and 120 mins intervals we get
exp(−60/10)−exp(−120/10) =  0.24%, by pure luck you mean great luck? .

You, you...you! 
Now, just read a topic about another mess in China with power failures do toe coal mines accidents, I know some of the guys reading around here are more knowledgeable about the things happening there, how much of that is true?

The difficulty prediction is a mess:

Latest Block:   679522  (10 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   81.4586%  (131 / 160.82 expected, 29.82 behind)
Next Difficulty Change:   between -18.4544% and -2.7668%

fees have hit again 180sat/b min per block, something weird is happening. Ideas?
And no mikeywith, no luck this time   

Please forgive me if posted junk info based on what I saw on cryptothis.

Common bro, don't be like that, makes me feel like an a**!
I was just asking where you got that as obviously since I was watching that at different times than you I got some other numbers, plus I thought the first time the whole retarget was 7% and I was like, whaaat!?!

[philipma1957]

~
By applying a simple cumulative distribution function of blocks found between 60 and 120 mins intervals we get
exp(−60/10)−exp(−120/10) =  0.24%, by pure luck you mean great luck? .

You, you...you!  
Now, just read a topic about another mess in China with power failures do toe coal mines accidents, I know some of the guys reading around here are more knowledgeable about the things happening there, how much of that is true?

The difficulty prediction is a mess:

Latest Block:   679522  (10 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   81.4586%  (131 / 160.82 expected, 29.82 behind)
Next Difficulty Change:   between -18.4544% and -2.7668%

fees have hit again 180sat/b min per block, something weird is happening. Ideas?
And no mikeywith, no luck this time  

Please forgive me if posted junk info based on what I saw on cryptothis.

Common bro, don't be like that, makes me feel like an a**!
I was just asking where you got that as obviously since I was watching that at different times than you I got some other numbers, plus I thought the first time the whole retarget was 7% and I was like, whaaat!?!

People are moving gear to BCH. It is up 29%

https://www.viabtc.com/.   check the numbers




say you own a s19pro 110th

so 110th x 0.3713 = 40.843 usd worth of btc

or 110th x 0.4564 = 50.204 usd worth of bch


mine direct to coinbase convert to btc  and you gain 25% rather than mining btc direct.


This is one of the reasons thinking btc only is fine for stacking a coin.  but

what you mine to get that btc needs to be flexible.  and

40 usd a day vs 50 usd a day is a big difference for 1 machine.

[mikeywith]

I know some of the guys reading around here are more knowledgeable about the things happening there, how much of that is true?

Most of it is accurate, the hashrate took a huge dive in the past 24 hours.



This will probably be over in a day or two, but it will have an impact on the current epoch which is great for the rest of the miners.

Phill that is one part of it, but the current hashrate of BCH is only 2EH, even if it doubles, it's still nothing compared to the massive hashrate we have on BTC.

[philipma1957]

https://diff.cryptothis.com/

Latest Block:   679539  (13 minutes ago)

Current Pace:   79.0516%  (148 / 187.22 expected, 39.22 behind)

Previous Difficulty:   23137439666472.05                            
Current Difficulty:   23581981443663.85                            
Next Difficulty:   between 18659038009141 and 22733651728131
Next Difficulty Change:   between -20.8759% and -3.5974%
Previous Retarget:   Yesterday at 3:40 PM  (+1.9213%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   April 30, 2021 at 4:15 AM  (in 13d 5h 23m 24s)
Next Retarget (latest):   May 3, 2021 at 8:42 AM  (in 16d 9h 50m 8s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 14d 12h 35m 35s and 17d 17h 2m 20s

This would be quite amazing to get a 20% drop and have BTC go to 75K

We can dream.

But I do see

BTC at 37.8 cents a th

BCH at 47.68 cents a th

26.5% better to mine BCH at the Moment.

[danieleither]

This would be quite amazing to get a 20% drop and have BTC go to 75K

We can dream.

But I do see

BTC at 37.8 cents a th

BCH at 47.68 cents a th

26.5% better to mine BCH at the Moment.

Which pool are you seeing these figures with? I'm currently using Poolin and the difference is marginal ($0.01 per Th difference between BTC vs BCH)?

[Biffa]

No idea where he's getting it from, but I wish all this shitcoin crap would go back to the parts of the forum where it belongs.

[stompix]

24h stats

Blocks: 99
Avg. time between blocks: 14 mins 33 secs
Transactions: 207,185
Median transaction fee: $21.4923

At least it's weekend, if this shit continues till Monday afternoon (GMT) we're going to see $30-50 in fees.

Latest Block:   679593  (3 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   76.6280%  (202 / 263.61 expected, 61.61 behind)
Next Difficulty Change:   between -23.3220% and -5.4729%

Seriously what's happening there, is the whole region out of power, or are they just cutting miners off the grid for balance?
As for the BCH, yeah, the flippening is coming, yawn!

[philipma1957]

No idea where he's getting it from, but I wish all this shitcoin crap would go back to the parts of the forum where it belongs.

unfortunately it is directly affecting BTC difficulty.

those numbers are all viabtc payout numbers.

If bitmain only built BTC gear.

I can see your point but they don't.

If bitmain only had BTC cloud I could see you point but they don't

If all other coins did not exist and could not be traded on the same exchanges as BTC I could see your point.

If you truly believe that $$$ per watt is meaningless to BTC difficulty I would agree with you.

But I will give it a rest.

Here is the chart I get for payouts for coins from via btc


at this moment in time eth mining  is the best way to covert power into cash and or btc

with LTC/Doge the second best

[alh]

I looked into the arbitrage opportunity for SHA-256 hashing (i.e. BTC versus BCH in terms of $/Th) that Phil described, and it looks like that has largely evaporated. The price of BCH has fallen enough that it has a very tiny edge .

Interesting while it lasted, but alas no more.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

I looked into the arbitrage opportunity for SHA-256 hashing (i.e. BTC versus BCH in terms of $/Th) that Phil described, and it looks like that has largely evaporated. The price of BCH has fallen enough that it has a very tiny edge .

Interesting while it lasted, but alas no more.

Good. Hopefully that will table further discussion of that crap coin.
I'd hate to have to start deleting posts because of excessive discussion of alts...