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

[philipma1957]

We are now well past the 3/4 mark in this epoch. BTC price is: $61,808.

Latest Block:   705161  (2 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   100.7164%  (1578 / 1566.78 expected, 11.22 ahead)
Previous Difficulty:   18997641161758.95                           
Current Difficulty:   19893045048575.13                           
Next Difficulty:   between 20038695818619 and 20045967003609
Next Difficulty Change:   between +0.7322% and +0.7687%
Previous Retarget:   October 4, 2021 at 6:27 PM  (+4.7132%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Monday at 4:03 PM  (in 3d 0h 28m 50s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Monday at 4:10 PM  (in 3d 0h 35m 36s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 21h 36m 35s and 13d 21h 43m 22s

Looks like it will most likely be a SMALL increase. I haven't seen any big positive projections yet, nor any serious decreases either. BTC price has obviously improved quite a bit since the last adjustment. I don't think I've seen $62K yet today, but clearly we are well into $60K range. It' not hard to imagine a new ATH yet this month.  Good time if you have actual hardware to run.

I could see a strong up tick happening and we do +2-3%

Then next jump first 2-3 days we are up 5-10%
The we taper to 1-2% middle 10 days
then a rise to 2-3% last day

Simply based on the idea a big player (bitmain) can mine just like that

[mikeywith]

Simply based on the idea a big player (bitmain) can mine just like that

That's an interesting theory, however, I don't think the math checks out for anyone to do so, I could see miners putting a timestamp into the future to try and "exploit" the difficulty, but given the "MAX_FUTURE_BLOCK_TIME" rule -- they are limited to a maximum of 2 hours/2weeks which is roughly 0.6% assuming all miners are doing the same thing.

But shutting down profitable miners just for the sake of trying to keep the difficulty low isn't something I see them do, after all, Bitmain can sell the bitcoin they mine today for 62k, nobody knows if they can sell it for the same price in the next epoch.

[alh]

While I may not have this quite right, I think Phil's point is that Bitmain can and will shift what kind of coins it mines (e.g. Etherium versus Bitcoin) to fit within a fixed power budget. If I am understanding and stating it correctly, they might well shut down profitable BTC miners if there is MORE profit in using the electricity to mine Etherium as an example. I can't do that nor do many folks on this forum have the necessary hardware to implement this kind of strategy. I'd swear that Phil mentioned recently that he had some L3 miners planned to arrive in November.

If I am correct, then specific BTC changes wouldn't necessarily change this kind of behavior.

[mikeywith]

While I may not have this quite right, I think Phil's point is that Bitmain can and will shift what kind of coins it mines (e.g. Etherium versus Bitcoin) to fit within a fixed power budget. If I am understanding and stating it correctly, they might well shut down profitable BTC miners if there is MORE profit in using the electricity to mine Etherium as an example. 

If bitmain has that many gears sitting on the sideline they could just sell it, to be able to have any considerable impact on difficulty, we are talking EHs worth of power, which means thousands of mining gears, the question remains, why wouldn't they just sell those miners instead of having them sit on the shelf for some period of time? after all, these gears are so expensive and they hardly ROI in a year running 24/7, having to shut them down every now and then only extends the ROI period.

The second problem is, does Bitmain really have any mining gears online? unless they have mining farms outside of China the once in China probably went offline, Bitmain won't risk mining in the dark, I know they have partnered with Enegix in Kazakhstan in a 100+ MW facility, but being just a partner, I don't think they will operate in this style, I could be wrong tho, nobody really knows.

Also, as everyone knows, Bitcoin has been outperforming all other minable coins the past 2 weeks, if anything, miners would want to be mining Bitmain not the other coins since the profitability of the other coins hasn't gone up as Bitcoin did recently.

[philipma1957]

While I may not have this quite right, I think Phil's point is that Bitmain can and will shift what kind of coins it mines (e.g. Etherium versus Bitcoin) to fit within a fixed power budget. If I am understanding and stating it correctly, they might well shut down profitable BTC miners if there is MORE profit in using the electricity to mine Etherium as an example. 

If bitmain has that many gears sitting on the sideline they could just sell it, to be able to have any considerable impact on difficulty, we are talking EHs worth of power, which means thousands of mining gears, the question remains, why wouldn't they just sell those miners instead of having them sit on the shelf for some period of time? after all, these gears are so expensive and they hardly ROI in a year running 24/7, having to shut them down every now and then only extends the ROI period.

The second problem is, does Bitmain really have any mining gears online? unless they have mining farms outside of China the once in China probably went offline, Bitmain won't risk mining in the dark, I know they have partnered with Enegix in Kazakhstan in a 100+ MW facility, but being just a partner, I don't think they will operate in this style, I could be wrong tho, nobody really knows.

Also, as everyone knows, Bitcoin has been outperforming all other minable coins the past 2 weeks, if anything, miners would want to be mining Bitmain not the other coins since the profitability of the other coins hasn't gone up as Bitcoin did recently.

No no no no .

selling it makes competition.

it hurts their mining bottom line.

they simply shift from eth to btc to ltc/doge. using the excess gear.


all true due to lack of chips and the inalbilty to build tons and tons and ton and tons of gear.


if i have five s19s and 5 L7 plus and 5 eth asics.

and noone else has them they have

s9 ,l3+,gpu

and this is all the gear in the world

I am better off rotating the s19 the l7 the eth asic.

then selling one or two of them.


now if i could build and sell hundreds you point is correct.

I not think they have the ability to build tons of them.


my hihg end above the range samsung convection/ microwave died.

It was a custom kitchen and very few convection microwaves will fit.

at the moment samsung is out of stock in all of the usa for this high end product. If i order one I wait til Feb. 7

If samsung cant get chips I am thinking bitmain can not get them.

I do think mikeywith you would be fully correct if chips were in stock.

[PrimeNumber7]

Bitmains profitability per miner is the same regardless of if they sell 1 or 10,000 miners, provided the cost/machine is the same. Miners have a limited shelf life, so if they are sitting idle, they are losing potential revenue. If someone has more miners than they do electricity, they are going to want to quickly either obtain more electricity capacity, or move the machines to a location with sufficient reliable electricity.

It might not be unreasonable to expect a miner to move equipment to mine a more profitable altcoin with the same algorithm, but it would be very unlikely that a miner acting rationally would turn off a profitable, working miner.

[philipma1957]

Bitmains profitability per miner is the same regardless of if they sell 1 or 10,000 miners, provided the cost/machine is the same. Miners have a limited shelf life, so if they are sitting idle, they are losing potential revenue. If someone has more miners than they do electricity, they are going to want to quickly either obtain more electricity capacity, or move the machines to a location with sufficient reliable electricity.

It might not be unreasonable to expect a miner to move equipment to mine a more profitable altcoin with the same algorithm, but it would be very unlikely that a miner acting rationally would turn off a profitable, working miner.

Your assumption would be true if they had a lot of miners and a lot of extra power.

My assumption is they are short power and cant produce huge amounts of gear at moment.

[kano]

...
It might not be unreasonable to expect a miner to move equipment to mine a more profitable altcoin with the same algorithm,
...

This doesn't happen for any reasonable amount of BTC hash rate, it's easy to see it is unreasonable

e.g. if only 2% of BTC hash rate moved to Bitchcoin, it would more than double the Bitchcoin high hash rate.
Bitchcoin over the past month has been between 1EH and 2EH.
Adding just 2% of BTC (2.8EH) to it would be quite noticeable.

Over the past month, the switching would be less than 1% of BTC if that hash rate change, up and down from 1EH to 2EH, all came from BTC
i.e. 1EH is 0.7% of current BTC

[mikeywith]

they simply shift from eth to btc to ltc/doge. using the excess gear.

Ok, your theory now is more solid than before after you have explained it a bit further, one missing point which I'd like to know. Are you suggesting:

1- They run the most profitable gear at any given time regardless of everything else.

or

2- They try to suppress the difficulty regardless of point no.1?

[DaveF]

they simply shift from eth to btc to ltc/doge. using the excess gear.

Ok, your theory now is more solid than before after you have explained it a bit further, one missing point which I'd like to know. Are you suggesting:

1- They run the most profitable gear at any given time regardless of everything else.

or

2- They try to suppress the difficulty regardless of point no.1?

I have been saying that on and off for months.

And just to make it more interesting, LTC dropped 4.9% yesterday and although it's still early, it looks like another 5% drop in a couple of days.
A few others are dropping a bit too.
Really starting to look like wherever the big mines have been moving to are a bit more power constrained then space constrained and they can have them all ready to go, but only a certain % running at any given time.

-Dave

Beyond that touching on what kano said if a large amount of mining moved to just one coin (big miner) we would notice. But it does make me wonder how many small home miners have moved away from BTC mining to something else. There are many SHA256 coins out there [ https://www.coinlore.com/coins/sha256 ] and although BTC has risen a lot this year I am sure there are hobby / small miners BTC that say have a couple of S17 or S19 that are trying their luck with some oddball coins. Since it's more likely a $0.05 coin is going to go to $0.10 in a short time from now then BTC is going to go to $125,000 in a short time from now.

More or less for mining most of them the profit is all the same. There is some equilibrium at this point. A few 100TH here and a few 100TH there and it does add up.

-Dave

[PrimeNumber7]

they simply shift from eth to btc to ltc/doge. using the excess gear.

Ok, your theory now is more solid than before after you have explained it a bit further, one missing point which I'd like to know. Are you suggesting:

1- They run the most profitable gear at any given time regardless of everything else.

or

2- They try to suppress the difficulty regardless of point no.1?

...
It might not be unreasonable to expect a miner to move equipment to mine a more profitable altcoin with the same algorithm,
...

This doesn't happen for any reasonable amount of BTC hash rate, it's easy to see it is unreasonable

e.g. if only 2% of BTC hash rate moved to Bitchcoin, it would more than double the Bitchcoin high hash rate.
Bitchcoin over the past month has been between 1EH and 2EH.
Adding just 2% of BTC (2.8EH) to it would be quite noticeable.

Over the past month, the switching would be less than 1% of BTC if that hash rate change, up and down from 1EH to 2EH, all came from BTC
i.e. 1EH is 0.7% of current BTC

I don’t think there is the opportunity for this to happen currently. This happened when bcash first forked from bitcoin due to limitations in how much difficulty adjusted. This is reflected in the fact that (to my knowledge) most miners mine bcash at a loss and is horribly centralized.

Ultimately, any coin that has a small minority of the hashrate of a given algorithm will see its mining operations centralized by a few players.

Supporters of bcash and BSV can make arguments regarding the technical specs of their respective coins, but I don’t think they can reasonably argue in favor of using the same mining algorithm as bitcoin. Sharing bitcoins mining algorithm will ultimately mean it’s mining is centralized, which will negate any (potential) superiority in technical specs the coin has over bitcoin. I happen to disagree that bcash and BSV has superior technical aspects over bitcoin, but I think some others disagree with me.

[philipma1957]

they simply shift from eth to btc to ltc/doge. using the excess gear.

Ok, your theory now is more solid than before after you have explained it a bit further, one missing point which I'd like to know. Are you suggesting:

1- They run the most profitable gear at any given time regardless of everything else.

or

2- They try to suppress the difficulty regardless of point no.1?

Both.

I don't have chips

So I can't flood the markets with s19 at 6k
Or the L7 at 6k
or the E9 at 6k


I have 10000 of each they all burn 3.3kwatts they sit in a farm that can do 33 megawatts   so I juggle them . Since I can't run all of them. Selling them with no chips to make more means I lose on earnings.

Dave F and I have been discussing arbitrage of the 3 algos since Jan or Feb.

It is tough since this is BTC only I do not want to get deeply into it. But If I discuss it in alt coins many there don't give a fuck about BTC at all.

So I push this to the surface every once in a while.

Oh on the subject of chips

I ordered this microwave today

https://www.lowes.com/pd/ZLINE-KITCHEN-BATH-ZLINE-Over-the-Range-Microwave-Oven-in-Stainless-Steel-with-Modern-Handle/5000207249


it will replace this one.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-1-7-cu-ft-over-the-range-convection-microwave-with-wifi-fingerprint-resistant-black-stainless-steel/6419339.p?skuId=6419339

I had a kitchen with all samsung parts.

Fridge
Stove
Microwave

Samsung is out of stock  lack of chips. Now it is not a miner but it is samsung chip related and it means even samsung itself is short chips.

Thus they delay the less profitable item for sale.

Samsung does not run a McDonalds and cook with microwaves .


Bitmain does not sell the gear

they mine with it since  they suffer the same chip issue.

Their bottom line is $$$ and if they do the idea Dave and I talk about it makes money.

Samsung does not mine for profit or in my example cook with their microwaves for profit so they simply slow that sale.

Maybe samsung pushs ssd sales more or flat screens.

Hoping this is not deleted as it was about chips as it relates to BTC chips and lack of them which means no gear for sale or sell a few at stupid high prices.


https://shop.bitmain.com/product/detail?pid=00020211013151246531XlGe1yl406A0  = $10.5k or 1/6 of a btc.  seems bad.

but it was that in April and if you had 100th mining from April 30 till now you would have been happy to have purchased it.

The diff tanks from 25 to 13 that gear mined tons of coin and now coins are back over 62k

oh Diff is looking to go to +1%

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

Latest Block:   705483  (5 minutes ago)

Current Pace:   100.6389%  (1900 / 1887.94 expected, 12.06 ahead)

Previous Difficulty:   18997641161758.95                           
Current Difficulty:   19893045048575.13                           
Next Difficulty:   between 20028322158718 and 20028774589981
Next Difficulty Change:   between +0.6800% and +0.6823%
Previous Retarget:   October 4, 2021 at 7:27 PM  (+4.7132%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Tomorrow at 5:19 PM  (in 0d 19h 12m 38s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Tomorrow at 5:19 PM  (in 0d 19h 13m 3s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 21h 52m 0s and 13d 21h 52m 26s

mine them and stack them guys and girls

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Hoping this is not deleted as it was about chips as it relates to BTC chips and lack of them which means no gear for sale or sell a few at stupid high prices.

To date nothing has been deleted from this thread. My thanks to all who never pushed the boundaries too hard  

The goods shortages is not all due to chip shortages. In fact, the various Foundries are almost back up to speed across all nodes. For quite a while now the major blockage has been shipping delays and the lack of containers & ground based transport. ref the Great Pacific Parking Lot stories and this one from a shipping news organization

[philipma1957]

Hoping this is not deleted as it was about chips as it relates to BTC chips and lack of them which means no gear for sale or sell a few at stupid high prices.

To date nothing has been deleted from this thread. Thanks to all who never pushed the boundaries too hard  

The good shortages is not all due to chip shortages. In fact, the various Foundries are almost back up to speed across all nodes. For quite a while now the major blockage has been shipping delays and the lack of containers & ground based transport. ref the Great Pacific Parking Lot stories and this one from a shipping news organization

yeah the ships 🚢 off LA are super backed up.

So a lot of delays are happening.

Oh Jack Ma has resurfaced I wonder if this means the asic builders will be releasing gear ⚙️.

Sure has been a wild year.


edit all below is newer.
well diff was up 🆙

+0.95% to just over 20.08


price went from about 50k to about 62k


would be nice to see 1% for diff and 20% for price this jump.

[mikeywith]

So +0.9522%, I can't complain.

Hoping this is not deleted as it was about chips as it relates to BTC chips and lack of them which means no gear for sale or sell a few at stupid high prices.

To date nothing has been deleted from this thread. My thanks to all who never pushed the boundaries too hard  

The goods shortages is not all due to chip shortages. In fact, the various Foundries are almost back up to speed across all nodes. For quite a while now the major blockage has been shipping delays and the lack of containers & ground based transport. ref the Great Pacific Parking Lot stories and this one from a shipping news organization

That, plus

Shortages of domestic coal have driven fuel prices for Chinese power generators higher, causing the unprofitable companies to ration power to industrial users. That has forced some factories in the world's largest economy to suspend production, disrupting global supply chains.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-power-woes-may-worsen-demand-surges-amid-coal-supply-lag-2021-10-18/

Chinese manufacturers have been asked to reduce their power consumption, almost everything has slowed down in China, People are working fewer hours now than they did back then, Coal prices went up from like $55 a year ago to nearly 250$ a few days ago, it now sits at a massive $237,  I believe this affects every country in the world since Gas and Oil prices have also been climbing, this is all nothing but good news as far as the difficulty is concerned.

Speaking of prices, what is everybody's plan if the power company decides to increase power prices? where I live, that isn't doable by any stretch of the imagination, which is a relief.

[philipma1957]

So +0.9522%, I can't complain.

Hoping this is not deleted as it was about chips as it relates to BTC chips and lack of them which means no gear for sale or sell a few at stupid high prices.

To date nothing has been deleted from this thread. My thanks to all who never pushed the boundaries too hard  

The goods shortages is not all due to chip shortages. In fact, the various Foundries are almost back up to speed across all nodes. For quite a while now the major blockage has been shipping delays and the lack of containers & ground based transport. ref the Great Pacific Parking Lot stories and this one from a shipping news organization

That, plus

Shortages of domestic coal have driven fuel prices for Chinese power generators higher, causing the unprofitable companies to ration power to industrial users. That has forced some factories in the world's largest economy to suspend production, disrupting global supply chains.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-power-woes-may-worsen-demand-surges-amid-coal-supply-lag-2021-10-18/

Chinese manufacturers have been asked to reduce their power consumption, almost everything has slowed down in China, People are working fewer hours now than they did back then, Coal prices went up from like $55 a year ago to nearly 250$ a few days ago, it now sits at a massive $237,  I believe this affects every country in the world since Gas and Oil prices have also been climbing, this is all nothing but good news as far as the difficulty is concerned.

Speaking of prices, what is everybody's plan if the power company decides to increase power prices? where I live, that isn't doable by any stretch of the imagination, which is a relief.

I wonder how short the coal is china.

[mikeywith]

I wonder how short the coal is china.

Couldn't really find an exact figure, however this article >https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202110/1235752.shtml reads;

In order to meet local demand, the State Grid Heilongjiang Hongxinglong Electric Power Bureau has increased electricity supply from Russia. From October 1, the bureau increased the operation time of the Heihe converter station that connects power transmission from Amur, Russia, and Heihe, Heilongjiang Province, from 5 hours to 16 hours a day.

So it seems like the shortage is serious and the demand is pretty serious, also according to Reuters Coal imports in China increased by 76% this year compared to the last year, also given the fact that the rainy season in China is over -- it impacts power supply by a good margin.

[stompix]

Speaking of prices, what is everybody's plan if the power company decides to increase power prices? where I live, that isn't doable by any stretch of the imagination, which is a relief.

Shut down miners, open telegram group, pack them, call DHL guy,  enjoy the difficulty topic as before with no pressure. 
I'm in no danger till the end of the contract as it's a clear one both on price and duration and unlike residential plans, this one is backed by the governments since we're meeting some crazy standards on cogeneration.
But if this is canceled I think we'll be facing something around 18 to maybe worse at 25 cents (American, to make things easy) so with gear pieces that high up it's simply not worth taking the risks in my opinion if I could unload them at 6 months of future profit.

As for China, they dug their own hole by banning Australian coal, they didn't realize how bad it will be and now they have to live with the consequences, and things are very tricky. Australia as an exporter can ship that coal anywhere there is demand, China has to import from guys who are not used to large exports and don't have the logistics for it.
I see the situation improving only during the start of the next year where consumption will drop because of both eastern and western worlds holidays coming one after other and they can force the mining industry to stay open during that time.

Latest Block:   705696  (32 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   90.9357%  (97 / 106.67 expected, 9.67 behind)
Next Difficulty Change:   between -8.9989% and -0.9202%

I know it's too early but those numbers.. Imagine ending the period like this! ,<insert smiley with $ in their eyes here>

[eectechnology]

I know this might sound like a conspiracy, but has anyone thought that the mining companies and the rig manufacturers are actively colluding to keep the difficulty as low as possible? Such a scenario might suit all parties if the status quo is maintained, cartels are nothing new!

[NotFuzzyWarm]

I know this might sound like a conspiracy, but has anyone thought that the mining companies and the rig manufacturers are actively colluding to keep the difficulty as low as possible? Such a scenario might suit all parties if the status quo is maintained, cartels are nothing new!

Of course they are colluding - Bitmain and other miner mfgrs also own several large mining pools... As to them actively working to keep diff low - doubtful but if they are, works for me!