2022 Diff thread.

[philipma1957]

Hello, I'm a small miner on Slushpool and I noticed that Slushpool hashrate fell from 10.02 EH/s to 8.7 EH/s early this morning, which is ~ -13%. But yea, that's a small pool and could be result of BTC price drop.

yeah that could be true as a mine in Kazah??    with 1-2 eh could have been shut off.

but the entire network drop made .2% or less the last day or 2.

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

Latest Block:   717441  (9 minutes ago)

Current Pace:   100.3523%  (1762 / 1755.81 expected, 6.19 ahead)

Previous Difficulty:   24195286980613.62                           
Current Difficulty:   24272331996979.97                           
Next Difficulty:   between 24365126072495 and 24366628660309
Next Difficulty Change:   between +0.3823% and +0.3885%
Previous Retarget:   December 25, 2021 at 3:56 AM  (+0.3184%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Saturday at 2:46 AM  (in 1d 18h 11m 5s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Saturday at 2:47 AM  (in 1d 18h 12m 12s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 22h 49m 13s and 13d 22h 50m 21s

note we are + 6.19  blocks. with 254 left if a 10 percent drop is legit

we will drop 25 blocks in the next 2 days and go to -16 to -20 blocks on the pace.

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[stompix]

Hello, I'm a small miner on Slushpool and I noticed that Slushpool hashrate fell from 10.02 EH/s to 8.7 EH/s early this morning, which is ~ -13%. But yea, that's a small pool and could be result of BTC price drop.

Just the fact that the percentage of that drop would be the same as the global claim, meaning that Slushpool would have an exact distribution of worldwide miners make me think it's more of a coincidence and that it's the other way around, the drop happened for a number of reasons (including something in Kazakhstan, and a drop in price) but poeple are starting the other way around, taking a drop from a few pools and then extrapolating it to make it look like all of that was hashrate that was cut out of the network.

Unless I'm going to see 125 blocks in 24h I'm not buying this 13%, the current pace is -4% and it's already been 26 hours since the blackout happened (at 5 pm local time on Wednesday).

[philipma1957]

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


Latest Block:   717577  (3 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   100.7423%  (1898 / 1884.02 expected, 13.98 ahead)
Previous Difficulty:   24195286980613.62                            
Current Difficulty:   24272331996979.97                            
Next Difficulty:   between 24460074221543 and 24460724640463
Next Difficulty Change:   between +0.7735% and +0.7762%
Previous Retarget:   December 25, 2021 at 3:56 AM  (+0.3184%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Tomorrow at 1:28 AM  (in 0d 19h 31m 18s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Tomorrow at 1:28 AM  (in 0d 19h 31m 48s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 21h 31m 27s and 13d 21h 31m 58s...

so we are plus 13.98 blocks or 14 blocks up


and 22 hours ago we were about +6 blocks

so hash rate did not drop the so called 13% it rose a tiny bit.

oh price is 42k  I think a bear may be waking up.

The only thing saving the day is +0.77% jump is not a big deal.

But I have to think it is more like a 2 or 3 % jump as high power cost gear may be squeezed at the moment.

[stompix]

Yeah, the pace is picking up, in the last 24h (ending now)  147 blocks, that 2%.
Of course, one might argue that this is because of luck but at when that could be said for the previous so-called catastrophic drop.

Since I saw the graph that might have triggered this avalanche of news :
https://btc.com/btc/insights-pools
one can see that
- first, there is a reported delay of four hours between the drop of some pools and others, like BTC.com(which I know has a lot of hashrate coming from (KAZ)
- BTC.com makes a recovery almost immediately while Slush who was affected at the same time doesn't
- again Slush is the only one recovering hashrate while others don't, F2P making the move 3 hours later..

The total hashrate reported for the top pools was 170exa on the 4th, now it's 150 exa, those 20exa should have definitely had an impact far more serious and that should be seen now, common we can't blame everything on luck right now.
Besides, the internet has been restored yesterday, why would the hashrate still be down and why would a lower hashrate generate more blocks. In my opinion, there is only one possibility, that the "reported" hashrate is not accurate at all and the estimated one is far more reliable.

So, we had a scare for absolutely nothing...as usual.

[alh]

I read an article on my phone that said that in Kazakhstan there was a shutdown of the internet because of political unrest there. Many miners had moved there from China because of geographic proximity and favorable coal fired electricity. As I recall, Internet access was restored, even though the political unrest continued. As we all know reliable Internet is every bit as important as Electricity. Another article mentioned that this disruption was handled quite by the current BTC network and praised it's resilience.

The price is still a bummer at $41,687.   

[philipma1957]

35-36 blocks  to go and we are +0.5%

[mikeywith]

Since I saw the graph that might have triggered this avalanche

No Altcoins discussion please  

one possibility, that the "reported" hashrate is not accurate at all and the estimated one is far more reliable.

This is likely the case, I would take the data shown on Btc.com with a grain of salt, since the hashrate that they show there isn't the "reported" hashrate but rather "block-based" estimate, it can be very inaccurate especially if you are looking at the 24h data, a pool that is supposed to hit say 10 blocks and ends up hitting only 7 in that span of 24 hours will show a 30% loss in their hashrate.

I believe looking at the reported hashrate from the pool's page itself (assuming it's honest) could be somehow more accurate, since only they know how many shares and at what difficulty they are getting, so lucky and unlucky days should have little to no impact on those figures, but well, you never know if they are honest and thus could be far from accurate too.

This leaves us to the only accurate way and that is the total network block finding, which is only affected by luck and some global incidents like miners shutting down or internet issues at some part of the world.

I have not been following much lately because I have to take care of my daughter, she has been sick for a while, but my view on the difficulty topic has not changed much, we are only going to to go up, the small guys that pay over 10c/kWh and don't have the most effienct gears are soon going to be forced to shut down, giants that keep buying  <30w/th gears will keep coming in and they have plenty of room for a price drop unless we fall to numbers that nobody is talking about (like 5k or 10k BTC), nothing is going to change.

An interesting read regarding Spain and Bitcoin mining > https://u.today/spanish-lawmaker-proposes-turning-spain-into-bitcoin-mining-hub

[NotFuzzyWarm]

The price is still a bummer at $41,687.

Can't say I'd call it a bummer -- Once again, I bought (at $42k) during this dip and when prices goes back to 'normal' or of course preferably a lot more than end of last year then sell some of the gains that should pay for the A12 I recently bought

[philipma1957]

oh jump was  under 1%

price is 40K

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

...

Latest Block:   717763  (7 minutes ago)

Current Pace:   99.7992%  (68 / 68.14 expected, 0.14 behind)

Previous Difficulty:   24272331996979.97                            
Current Difficulty:   24371874614345.62                            
Next Difficulty:   between 24379638925793 and 24489470892736
Next Difficulty Change:   between +0.0319% and +0.4825%
Previous Retarget:   Today at 2:40 AM  (+0.4101%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   January 22, 2022 at 2:43 AM  (in 13d 12h 41m 19s)
Next Retarget (latest):   January 22, 2022 at 3:21 AM  (in 13d 13h 19m 11s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 14d 0h 2m 41s and 14d 0h 40m 33s ...

[NotFuzzyWarm]

oh jump was  under 1%
price is 40K

Of course it is, I bought a bit at 42k. Seems to be how that goes each time I buy
Of course it doesn't change that fact that BTC will recover but it is always bothersome knowing I could have a gotten a bit more if I were more aggressive on the buy trigger price. cest' la vie

[philipma1957]

oh jump was  under 1%
price is 40K

Of course it is, I bought a bit at 42k. Seems to be how that goes each time I buy
Of course it doesn't change that fact that BTC will recover but it is always bothersome knowing I could have a gotten a bit more if I were more aggressive on the buy trigger price. cest' la vie

$50 daily buy has been in since late Nov.

Will continue it for a while.

Slight off topic but here goes

I hate Eth but I mine it cash it for cash and trade it for btc.

I had a source for

Nvidia A2000

sold out from Jan 2 to Jan 3 gone


Nvidia A4000

4 day wait is now 4 month wait



Nvidia A5000

 they are all sold out. From Jan 2 to Jan 6

This was a major seller they sold 1000's of them in under a week.

and Eth hashrate grows bigger and bigger so they really sold gear.

Well bitmain offers  a 104th s19 for weeks not sold out and the net work is not growing much.

https://shop.bitmain.com/product/detail?pid=00020211108151254046rPQ0VCqe069D


Not sure what's up with this all of the above would take a long time to roi but the gpu's and the eth network keeps growing.

Maybe it is just tha NVIDIA has a ton of chips and bitmain does not

[stompix]

Not sure what's up with this all of the above would take a long time to roi but the gpu's and the eth network keeps growing.

Revenue for ETH per GH/s has dropped like a rock too, it's almost 33% of what it was in the last peak in August and will drop more, there are a lot of poeple who've bought both gear and card and they will mine with them even if its for pennies.
Almost the same with BTC but the curve it's way smaller here because of the entering price for gear and the power requirements.

Despite the whole madness with Kazakhstan seems like the hashrate is almost flat and no change on the horizon, + 0.32 % on Xmas, + 0.41 % a few days ago,

Latest Block:   718078  (a few seconds ago)
Current Pace:   99.6884%  (383 / 384.20 expected, 1.2 behind)
Next Difficulty Change:   between -0.1912% and -0.0658%

and this now. One fast block and we're at 0!
At 21 cents per TH/s that S19j Bitmain offers needs one full year of this flat diff and zero cents per kWh to ROI.

[philipma1957]

Not sure what's up with this all of the above would take a long time to roi but the gpu's and the eth network keeps growing.

Revenue for ETH per GH/s has dropped like a rock too, it's almost 33% of what it was in the last peak in August and will drop more, there are a lot of poeple who've bought both gear and card and they will mine with them even if its for pennies.
Almost the same with BTC but the curve it's way smaller here because of the entering price for gear and the power requirements.

Despite the whole madness with Kazakhstan seems like the hashrate is almost flat and no change on the horizon, + 0.32 % on Xmas, + 0.41 % a few days ago,

Latest Block:   718078  (a few seconds ago)
Current Pace:   99.6884%  (383 / 384.20 expected, 1.2 behind)
Next Difficulty Change:   between -0.1912% and -0.0658%

and this now. One fast block and we're at 0!
At 21 cents per TH/s that S19j Bitmain offers needs one full year of this flat diff and zero cents per kWh to ROI.

That's why I have all old asic gear and do not buy it.

Roi is over a year on any new gear and warranties are short.

ON gpus roi of say 18 months but a legit 3 year warranty.
on gpus gear rarely breaks.

Since Jan 1 2020 over 200 gpus 2 broke got rmas and I had to replace a few fans on two other gpus.

so 196-2-2

on asics

60-30-15

60 work 30 died 15 needed fans.

no one fixes the gear. (well fix rate is poor)

[stompix]

Roi is over a year on any new gear and warranties are short.

That's my biggest fear, is something breaks probably I will come here or on telegram and sell the gear if it is salvageable rather than trying to fix it.
My biggest concern is the PSU, haven't checked the market lately but those were in short supply last time, wonder if something has changed for the better.

And speaking of difficulty, "Houston we have a liftoff!!!", or should I say Rockdale? 

Latest Block:   718666  (a minute ago)
Current Pace:   105.3614%  (971 / 921.59 expected, 49.41 ahead)
Next Difficulty Change:   between +3.9028% and +5.4144%

Might be another temporary thing as we had 168 blocks in the last 24 but even without this we're still above the usual 0-1%.

And there is a new layer in the industry, initially, I thought there is a mistake from google but indeed the name is Rhodium Enterprises, and they don't mine Rhodium they mine bitcoin and they plan a 100 million IPO.
From the SEC filing:

Our infrastructure platform provides an integrated, connected system for bitcoin mining operations. As of September 30, 2021, we owned and operated an infrastructure platform supported by approximately 80 MW of power capacity with the capability to power more than 22,600 miners at our “initial Texas site,” with a total combined hash rate capacity of approximately 1.8 EH/s. Based on our expected delivery of miners as of September 30, 2021, we expect to bring an additional 45 MW of power online at our initial Texas site by the end of 2021, which will increase our total hash rate capacity to approximately 2.7 EH/s. We have procured sustainable and low-cost power for our sites through long-term, fixed-cost energy contracts for an aggregate of 310 MW, with an additional 40 MW under a letter of intent.

And this:

Our infrastructure platform allows us to mine bitcoin at a significantly lower cost compared to the industry average. For the period from July 1, 2021 to September 30, 2021, our average electricity cost to produce one bitcoin was approximately $2,145.

That would be roughly 2.5 cents/kwh...damn!

[eectechnology]

[quote)And there is a new layer in the industry, initially, I thought there is a mistake from google but indeed the name is Rhodium Enterprises, and they don't mine Rhodium they mine bitcoin and they plan a 100 million IPO.
From the SEC filing:

Our infrastructure platform provides an integrated, connected system for bitcoin mining operations. As of September 30, 2021, we owned and operated an infrastructure platform supported by approximately 80 MW of power capacity with the capability to power more than 22,600 miners at our “initial Texas site,” with a total combined hash rate capacity of approximately 1.8 EH/s. Based on our expected delivery of miners as of September 30, 2021, we expect to bring an additional 45 MW of power online at our initial Texas site by the end of 2021, which will increase our total hash rate capacity to approximately 2.7 EH/s. We have procured sustainable and low-cost power for our sites through long-term, fixed-cost energy contracts for an aggregate of 310 MW, with an additional 40 MW under a letter of intent.

And this:

Our infrastructure platform allows us to mine bitcoin at a significantly lower cost compared to the industry average. For the period from July 1, 2021 to September 30, 2021, our average electricity cost to produce one bitcoin was approximately $2,145.

That would be roughly 2.5 cents/kwh...damn!
[/quote]

They are not going to be the only new companies mining BTC, it's just too good a deal to ignore - if you have access to lots of other people's money, and an IPO is a sure way to get it. Look at the success of a relatively smaller player like HUT 8. (incidentally, I do have shares in them but it bugs me that they've never declared a dividend).

Has anyone on this forum ever tried to make some kind of community-based-funded organisation that could also do the same kind of thing?

[mikeywith]

That would be roughly 2.5 cents/kwh...damn!

How on earth do they manage to get this rate? if this is actually true and they can acquire more power at this rate, they will be the ones setting the new average, so anyone with say 5c or more will be at risk pretty soon, unlike what the majority of us now think, 2.5 cents/kWh is like finding a glitch in an online game.

Has anyone on this forum ever tried to make some kind of community-based-funded organisation that could also do the same kind of thing?

It won't work, this business has grown way too large for any community to handle, we are now at an enterprise level, and it all boils down to how cheap you can buy electricity, which IMO takes a lot more than just collecting money, you need to know the right people and the right resources if you manage to get 2.5c Khw rate, be sure as hell that you will get all the funds you want, but how on planet earth one can secure 350MW at 2.5c, it's like magic in today's world.

[stompix]

How on earth do they manage to get this rate? if this is actually true and they can acquire more power at this rate, they will be the ones setting the new average, so anyone with say 5c or more will be at risk pretty soon, unlike what the majority of us now think, 2.5 cents/kWh is like finding a glitch in an online game.

Old powerplants that have been put out of business since the new environmental movement as they couldn't find clients anymore, everyone wanting green energy. But the US has a lot of cheap coal, a lot of mines that lack the infrastructure and logistics for exports and that can supply only the nearby power plant. That's the case of Marathon cheap power in Montana, same as this ~2.5c
Add gas flaring, add some gas powerplants, one-two smelters, wouldn't be surprised if more manage under 5c rates.

EIA says 128GW of installed power and 473Twh production, so there might be some more plants left that can be turned on, and that's just Texas.
If all this is not just assumptions but even half-real, we're ...

[philipma1957]

Well we are mostly remoras and not great white sharks.

most of us are 100kwatt to 3 or 4 megawatt

They don't like us, but squeezing us out is not that easy.

We have our  3 solar setups and they are cheaper  than anything they have.

Since we paid two off and third will be paid off soon.

They all have 15 to 25 years of life in them. So people with the right power deals will hang in there.

But the guy with a 6 cent deal or an 8 cent deal will struggle.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Old powerplants that have been put out of business since the new environmental movement as they couldn't find clients anymore, everyone wanting green energy. But the US has a lot of cheap coal, a lot of mines that lack the infrastructure and logistics for exports and that can supply only the nearby power plant. That's the case of Marathon cheap power in Montana, same as this ~2.5c
Add gas flaring, add some gas powerplants, one-two smelters, wouldn't be surprised if more manage under 5c rates.

EIA says 128GW of installed power and 473Twh production, so there might be some more plants left that can be turned on, and that's just Texas.
If all this is not just assumptions but even half-real, we're ...

Good summary of the situation here in the US though it should be said that a good part of the 'new found' power in Texas and other states is coming from natural gas powered plants that were normally used as peak/reserve plants. In the past 2-3 years it has finally occurred to the operators that they can put that reserve capacity to work mining crypto whenever the plant is not being called on to do what it was designed for. Even with gas turbines it takes a fair bit of time to ramp up from the normally low baseline output to whatever max capacity the plant can produce. Technically the power plants are 'losing' money when the plants are idling.

Having the ability to keep the plants running much closer to full capacity while reaping large profits from mining farms is a win-win for all involved. The plants run at much higher efficiencies and because there is usually a fairly short run between the power plants and the farms, very low infra cost to deliver the power. The one catch is to have the needed agreements in place so when needed, mining loads can be shed so the plant can fulfill its design purpose: provide power to the grid when required. Once grid loads subside the miners restart. The various Texas power utilities did that last year with the farms located there and in fact paid the farms a fair % of lost revenues during the power outages for them to stay off line until the Public Needs were fully covered.

That peak loads plant located in upstate NY that made headlines for 'heating up the lake' last year is another example though in their case the mine is actually located on the plants property and is directly ran by the power company so there is no paying someone else to throttle back when needed. For them it's now part of normal operations balancing capacity to grid load. Their now being able to redirect 10's to 100's of MW within minutes by switching miners off and then later back on vs well over an hour slowly ramping up the power sources and generators then the same to bring them back down to idle status is a Godsend.

As for coal-fired plants still being viable despite the carbon emissions... Thank 'Inconvenient Truth' Al Gore for that. He and his family advisors are the ones who came up with the idea of carbon credits: the buying and selling of industrial carbon footprints and offsets to them. That and that alone is why there is a lot less hue and cry about coal plants in the US vs other countries. Coal fired plants here per legal definitions and standards of accounting can have a relatively 'low' total footprint because they are paying for others to Go Green. The carbon footprint reductions other companies are 'saving' is subtracted from what the high emission industries produce when said industries purchase carbon credits. Yes there is a gov regulated market for that in the US. Normally high carbon footprint industries still have to reduce actual emissions as much as is economically feasible but being able to buy their way out certainly helps the accounting...

To bring us back on track with the main topic the end result of all the 'new found' cheap power in the US means that should be an interesting year for Diff as more and more farms start up here with new equipment coming online.

[alh]

We are now well past the half way point of the current epoch:

Latest Block:   718763  (12 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   106.9774%  (1068 / 998.34 expected, 69.66 ahead)
Previous Difficulty:   24272331996979.97                           
Current Difficulty:   24371874614345.62                           
Next Difficulty:   between 25685396291493 and 26084511465111
Next Difficulty Change:   between +5.3895% and +7.0271%
Previous Retarget:   January 8, 2022 at 1:40 AM  (+0.4101%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Friday at 3:46 AM  (in 6d 3h 41m 40s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Friday at 8:36 AM  (in 6d 8h 32m 26s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 2h 5m 5s and 13d 6h 55m 51s

So it's trending towards a noticeable increase at the end of the week.

Current BTC price: $42,964. Looks like Mr.s Fuzzy may be OK on his purchase after all.