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

[kano]

Since I've mentioned this a few times over the last couple of weeks in my Discord channel, I'll add it here also since it's directly related to diff

For diff changes: max drop is -75%, max increase is +300%, per diff change.

Code is here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/src/pow.cpp#L49

The factor limits are /4 and *4 so applying that to the long hex diff value means simply x * 4 and x / 4
so x * 4 = x + 300% and x / 4 = x - 75%

The diff number most people quote (e.g. current 19.9T) isn't the actual diff value, it's an inverted calculation of it,
but it still is the same limits inverted:
i.e. when the diff 'value' hits the max * 4, the inverted diff value is divided by 4

nBits in the code linked above is the value 'Bits' mentioned on https://kano.is/index.php?k=minedet
(and explained how it converts to a long hex value near the bottom)

[1715663789]

1715663789

[1715663789]

1715663789

[alh]

As we slowly grind through the current epoch, we are nearly 75% done (1487 / 1934 expected). Per cryptothis, that's about 77% of the expected pace. Clearly a big chunk of hash rate is "missing" even from the end of the last epoch. Glad that @kano weighed in above with another little tidbit about Bitcoin difficulty calculation.

No real joy on the BTC price front: $32,945. Unless Mr. Fuzzy went big on his last BTC purchase he is probably "underwater" for his last pair of announced trades.   

I hope @Phil is OK since he hasn't hit this thread in a while.

[NotATether]

Interesting read about what a real CE (European Conformity​) mark is and what a "Chinese Export" (CE) mark is.

https://support.ce-check.eu/hc/en-us/articles/360008642600-How-To-Distinguish-A-Real-CE-Mark-From-A-Fake-Chinese-Export-Mark

I know we're drifting off-topic, but good grief, thanks to this I just discovered that my replacement power adapter's CE mark is fake!    Too late to ask for a refund though. I have had some issues recently with another adapter blowing a fuse after a power surge, and it kind of sucks that Chinese companies can just dump their equipment to our markets without even trying to send them for a proper inspection.

Well time to go shopping again...  

[kano]

Interesting read about what a real CE (European Conformity​) mark is and what a "Chinese Export" (CE) mark is.

https://support.ce-check.eu/hc/en-us/articles/360008642600-How-To-Distinguish-A-Real-CE-Mark-From-A-Fake-Chinese-Export-Mark

...
can just dump their equipment to our markets without even trying to send them for a proper inspection.
...

Well, the inspection isn't what makes the hardware good or bad, it's the build that decides that.
... and some things can pass inspection and still be crap.

So basically you wanna buy items based on their quality, which really the only way to do that is by reputation (not based on some sticker on it)

[philipma1957]

As we slowly grind through the current epoch, we are nearly 75% done (1487 / 1934 expected). Per cryptothis, that's about 77% of the expected pace. Clearly a big chunk of hash rate is "missing" even from the end of the last epoch. Glad that @kano weighed in above with another little tidbit about Bitcoin difficulty calculation.

No real joy on the BTC price front: $32,945. Unless Mr. Fuzzy went big on his last BTC purchase he is probably "underwater" for his last pair of announced trades.   

I hope @Phil is OK since he hasn't hit this thread in a while.

I am fine thank you.

I don't post here very often.

Thank you for your concern.

I will say this.

19.9/25.3 =  78.6%. diff shift starting this Thursday

34.2/64.9 = 52.7%  price right now.


So if you only mine BTC

and you made 1000 a day in usd on May

you soon will make  527/786   670 a day

you  will make a lot more on next adjustment about 839 a day

This is assuming full btc only gear paid off and converting  to cash daily. With price staying at 34.2

It is not that bad for an established BTC miner not in China.

[DaveF]

Well the answer was a drop of 27.94%.
So the next question is that going to be stable for any period of time?
I don't think it will be. I feel there will be a lot more spikes up and down.
No scientific or logical reason, just a gut feeling that big mining farms are going to be a lot more aggressive in where they mine.
They moved once, they can do it again. As opposed to the "we built it here, so we will stay here" theory.

Just my thoughts.

-Dave

[philipma1957]

Well the answer was a drop of 27.94%.
So the next question is that going to be stable for any period of time?
I don't think it will be. I feel there will be a lot more spikes up and down.
No scientific or logical reason, just a gut feeling that big mining farms are going to be a lot more aggressive in where they mine.
They moved once, they can do it again. As opposed to the "we built it here, so we will stat here" theory.

Just my thoughts.

-Dave

I wonder if the new countries will allow them to stay.

It is early but numbers are very low.

https://diff.cryptothis.com/
Latest Block:   689500  (9 minutes ago)

Current Pace:   84.6659%  (29 / 34.25 expected, 5.25 behind)

Previous Difficulty:   19932791027262.74                            
Current Difficulty:   14363025673659.96                            
Next Difficulty:   between 12491858051445 and 14301835741496
Next Difficulty Change:   between -13.0277% and -0.4260%
Previous Retarget:   Today at 2:25 AM  (-27.9427%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   July 17, 2021 at 4:09 AM  (in 13d 20h 1m 46s)
Next Retarget (latest):   July 19, 2021 at 3:16 PM  (in 16d 7h 8m 42s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 14d 1h 44m 17s and 16d 12h 51m 14s

 
...

drop from 19.93 to 14.36

next drop may be  over 10%? to 12.49. this is very concerning.

viabtc went from


0.00665 btc a ph to

0.00929 btc a ph

if these very low number this jump stay we will go over 0.01 a ph next jump which will be 17 days.

Obvious it is way early so keep clocking these numbers.

A new drop of over 10% if it happens is a bit nerve wracking.



if you mine all your btc to cash.

a diff of 25.3 and a price of 64k

vs

a diff of 14.4 and a price of 34k


means  14.3/25.3 x 64k = 36170   to be exactly equal income as cash.

So for a BTC miner the price drop from 64k to 34k is not very hurtful unless you hodl like mad
your daily income as cash is only down  5 or 6%

[DaveF]

I wonder if the new countries will allow them to stay.

A lot would probably depend on the amount of spare power they have.

That is the issue in a lot of places. You can get a lot of clean renewable energy BUT it's in remote areas that are never going to be "built up" AND it's not always simple or even remotely cost effective to build power lines to where it's needed. So you have a lot of power and nothing to do with it. Mining solves that as it needs a lot of power but not a lot of space or infrastructure beyond that.

-Dave

[philipma1957]

I wonder if the new countries will allow them to stay.

A lot would probably depend on the amount of spare power they have.

That is the issue in a lot of places. You can get a lot of clean renewable energy BUT it's in remote areas that are never going to be "built up" AND it's not always simple or even remotely cost effective to build power lines to where it's needed. So you have a lot of power and nothing to do with it. Mining solves that as it needs a lot of power but not a lot of space or infrastructure beyond that.

-Dave

Well it is early and I expect a 5% drop for this jump but we are down over 10%.

We all know gear is shut off.
We do not know is more gear going off line. 

do we drop to a diff of 12.5
do we drop to 75eh

And since

a ton of gear is off line

What comes back online and where.

[rifleman74]

Give it another 36 hours before declaring a bigly drop again. 

[philipma1957]

Give it another 36 hours before declaring a bigly drop again. 

I agree I have to think 10-12 is not going to happen.

More like -5

[kano]

Directly related to diff, something that some may not realise that when a negative diff change happens:

1) that is good for solo miners and miners on pools since their 'expected' return per day is now higher.

2) if you rent miners, you gain nothing by any diff change, since the rental fees will adjust to the diff change,
though you may lose more if the rental sites adjust it more than the diff change
(in this case you should start the rental just before the diff drop, as long as they don't enforce a new fee on running/incomplete rentals after the diff change)

[philipma1957]

Directly related to diff, something that some may not realise that when a negative diff change happens:

1) that is good for solo miners and miners on pools since their 'expected' return per day is now higher.

2) if you rent miners, you gain nothing by any diff change, since the rental fees will adjust to the diff change,
though you may lose more if the rental sites adjust it more than the diff change
(in this case you should start the rental just before the diff drop, as long as they don't enforce a new fee on running/incomplete rentals after the diff change)

It is true and a very good point.



If you rent from nicehash. the cost per ph moves up when diff drops.

last jump I rented as cheap as 0.0065 a ph for some of the rental



this diff  jump/fall  rentals are about 0.0093 a ph

payout on viabtc is about 0.00922 a ph

so the key is rent as close to that 0.00922 a ph number.

a rental on nicehash at 0.0091-0.0093 is good
a rental on nicehash at  lower then that is great
and of course higher than that is bad

[stompix]

Give it another 36 hours before declaring a bigly drop again. 

24 hous later... 

Latest Block:   689632  (12 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   86.8345%  (161 / 185.41 expected, 24.41 behind)

Comparing to what Phil had posted is a slight tick upwards from 84.6659% to 86.8345%.
That said, I don't think that the numbers would be that low either, who might be still shutting down, I would understand if it weren't just past the end of the month, so you could assume some people have got extra permission to mine till the full month is over before dismantling and packing but that's not the case. And gear is being shipped, bitmain might have stopped normal customer deliveries but they are forced by contracts like the ones with Mara and Riot to send miners out,  there is gear relocating around the world, I doubt we will even see a drop by the end of this period. Not with BTC prices finally going up a bit!

But still, I've been wrong so many times I wouldn't be amazed to see this epoch ending with another 10% down, predicting this stuff is out of my league it seems, at least if I get this wrong I get some extra $ so it's not as painful as before to completely miss stuff

And one more thing, we might have another player or a lot of individual mining farms getting blocks, Btc.com shows spike to 10% of unknown blocks in the last 3 days compared to 3% over the last 3 months.

[philipma1957]

Give it another 36 hours before declaring a bigly drop again. 

24 hous later... 

Latest Block:   689632  (12 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   86.8345%  (161 / 185.41 expected, 24.41 behind)

Comparing to what Phil had posted is a slight tick upwards from 84.6659% to 86.8345%.
That said, I don't think that the numbers would be that low either, who might be still shutting down, I would understand if it weren't just past the end of the month, so you could assume some people have got extra permission to mine till the full month is over before dismantling and packing but that's not the case. And gear is being shipped, bitmain might have stopped normal customer deliveries but they are forced by contracts like the ones with Mara and Riot to send miners out,  there is gear relocating around the world, I doubt we will even see a drop by the end of this period. Not with BTC prices finally going up a bit!

But still, I've been wrong so many times I wouldn't be amazed to see this epoch ending with another 10% down, predicting this stuff is out of my league it seems, at least if I get this wrong I get some extra $ so it's not as painful as before to completely miss stuff

And one more thing, we might have another player or a lot of individual mining farms getting blocks, Btc.com shows spike to 10% of unknown blocks in the last 3 days compared to 3% over the last 3 months.

Well you are bitmain.  you have 3 huge big could companies and a huge amount of hash you are running for cloud miners.

you also have 10% of the old network or 17eh. 2 months ago you mined 17,000 x 0.0045 = 76.50 coins. a day

this 17eh farm is not in china.

You close down all your cloud mines in china

you now have 17eh all yours mining 17,000 x 0.0092 = 156.4 coins a day..

did this happen ?

well read this cloud mine
https://support.viabtc.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402753997721-Announcement-on-the-Termination-of-ViaBTC-cloud-mining-service

this was in partnership with bitmain
bitdeer is open

https://www.bitdeer.com/pricing
https://www.hashnest.com/ is out of stock

all three have direct deals with bitmain


I do not know all details but

1 is down  and out

and 1 is sold out

and 1 is up. so it looks like the killed the viabtc one to boost  bitdeer but what do I know.

[DaveF]

...

Or as discussed they are relocating miners for other coins 1st.

Since mid June LTC has had drops of 3%, 10%, 10%, 23%, 8% yesterday it went up 15% and it looks like it's going to be up 10%+ in a couple of days.
So there is a lot of gear that went off and then on again. Figure its just a bit of time until the SHA miners come back online.

Depending on how production / sales are going on miners. They might just be getting boxed up and prepped for shipment to other places that were waiting for hardware.

-Dave

[philipma1957]

well the ltc/doge is growing back faster since it is 2 or 3 times the profit per watt.

edit

actually more like 5x



and  btc is still dropping in hash maybe 10-11%

[DaveF]

Would be interesting to know if the new locations are space constrained or power constrained.
If power is the issue but not space you load up all the miners but only run the ones that generate the best profit. If the profit point switches it's just flipping one set of miners off and the other one on.
If space is the issue, you would have to plug in the more profitable ones now and hope for the best.

Wonder if we will ever know how they are running them.

-Dave

[philipma1957]

Would be interesting to know if the new locations are space constrained or power constrained.
If power is the issue but not space you load up all the miners but only run the ones that generate the best profit. If the profit point switches it's just flipping one set of miners off and the other one on.
If space is the issue, you would have to plug in the more profitable ones now and hope for the best.

Wonder if we will ever know how they are running them.

-Dave

well so far they simply are choosing to bump the gear that pays 5x per watt.

Ie L7 I have almost exactly the same amount of l3+ that hash what 1 L7 does.

they earn 600 doge and .3 ltc that is about 150+40= 190 usd in a day.

and 1 s19pro earns 38 usd a day.

they both burn 3300 watts.

It is complex to figure what or how much they are going to fire 🔥.

But if they increase ltc/doge hash up 25% and keep all those coins. It is certainly the most productive thing to do.

Hell eth and ltc/doge stopped shrinking their hash and btc,bch,bsv,bha all dropped their hash.

Fascinating move by bitmain.
Shut all sales down.
Shut down the cloud mining ⛏ (well at least viabtc) turn you best gear back on.

It bullish in a way. Have to watch this play out for 30-60 days. Maybe til october.

[mikeywith]

Would be interesting to know if the new locations are space constrained or power constrained.

Probably a combination of both, but "there's more to this than meets the eye", I spoke to one Chinese miner the other day, one of the biggest obstacles they seem to be having is "regulations", the Chinese have the money and the manpower but they don't like to operate outside of their region especially when they are not backed by the government.

Just imagine you own 20k gears in your hometown and you now have to take them elsewhere, think of how difficult it's going to be to manage it, you will need a ton of money, someone in a different country you can trust, a country where you can mine without having to worry about being forced to move out right after you set up everything, and of course, the power cost, it's a ton of work, to be honest.

It's easy to google countries with cheap power rates but moving there is not, even the so-called crypto-mining-friendly countries will not be as friendly when thousands of gears move there, more regulations will hit every country that has a large share of mining, mining will be a lot more difficult next year than it's now, the Chinese know that and they are being very skeptical, so when I see someone say "oh it's only 3GW worth of power, any small country can host those gears - it will happen next month", I can't help but laugh.

Some of them have already found a new home and it's only a matter of time before they go past space and power issues, but most gears are still in China, it will take a long time for these gears to settle somewhere else, and many old gears will simply not come back online.