2023 Diff thread now opened.

[mikeywith]

mikeywith pledged his winning to talkimage

Yes, please send it to Talkimage donation address, also I won another price prediction contest in the German section (I asked for the prize to be sent to Talkimage/joker_josue to help maintain the great service).

Thank you again Phill for yet another fun round.


Current difficulty status for the new epoch

Latest Block:   816493  (10 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   114.4001%  (14 / 12.24 expected, 1.76 ahead)
Previous Difficulty:   62463471666732.73                           
Current Difficulty:   64678587803496.61                           
Next Difficulty:   between 64801627837008 and 74962206742950
Next Difficulty Change:   between +0.1902% and +15.8996%
Previous Retarget:   Today at 6:22 PM  (+3.5463%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   November 25, 2023 at 12:05 AM  (in 12d 3h 39m 59s)
Next Retarget (latest):   November 26, 2023 at 5:47 PM  (in 13d 21h 22m 29s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 12d 5h 42m 22s and 13d 23h 24m 52s

[1714243706]

1714243706

[1714243706]

1714243706

[philipma1957]

sent the 0.001 btc and fees are nuts I am playing around trying to see how long it will take to show.


e5912b8219c010d1ecc2340f36967d853a59027b5c9f884f21aeea0dc0e2b4c5

use 12 sats as I am testing viabtc acceleration service out.


I will be passing on the game for a few rounds as sending prizes may be too hard to do for a while.



So that was rejected by viabtc's tool

c81fa2789ab0984a999e1e83bf6c98e796e952ee1e37939ca946fc48bcf28668


this was accepted.  it appears they altered the rules enough that  your fee is at least 0.0001 and must be under 500 bytes

so this will get through at about 69 sats/b  and about  0.000101 btc total fee

which is a lot for a 37 dollar send.

I did not mind doing this high fee as I was trying to understand the new viabtc rules for free accelerator.

I am still not sure I did the lowest I could have. I will play with it later.

to be sure I fully understand the rules.

So it confirmed quickly but I am still not sure exactly how new rules work for free tool use.

12 sats per b was too small

71 sats per b was good.


the send was  figured a bit weird but I think I understand

I did 71 sat per vb as set on my trezor

that comes to 44.9 sat per b

so I could do about 35 sat per vb and it would work .

I will play some per with it.

[joker_josue]

Yes, please send it to Talkimage donation address, also I won another price prediction contest in the German section (I asked for the prize to be sent to Talkimage/joker_josue to help maintain the great service).

Thank you again Phill for yet another fun round.

Thank you for your support! It was much appreciated, and will certainly be very useful.

use 12 sats as I am testing viabtc acceleration service out.

What service is this? Is it just for miners in the pool or for anyone?

[paid2]

Yes, please send it to Talkimage donation address, also I won another price prediction contest in the German section (I asked for the prize to be sent to Talkimage/joker_josue to help maintain the great service).

Thank you again Phill for yet another fun round.

I'm glad to see it didn't fall on an empty slot! Congrats mikeywith 

And thank you again philipma!

[philipma1957]

Yes, please send it to Talkimage donation address, also I won another price prediction contest in the German section (I asked for the prize to be sent to Talkimage/joker_josue to help maintain the great service).

Thank you again Phill for yet another fun round.

Thank you for your support! It was much appreciated, and will certainly be very useful.

use 12 sats as I am testing viabtc acceleration service out.

What service is this? Is it just for miners in the pool or for anyone?

it is a free service with some limits.

the tx needs to be 1 or 2 combined thus under 500bytes

and the fee needs to be large enough  about 22 sats /vb or 11 sats / b

this is why it is good to consolidate when fees are low.

if you do 8 into 1 at 3 sats  you may be able to do an important send later at 22/sats I just help a guy out with it.

wait for link

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5473862.msg63148440#msg63148440

[stompix]

mikeywith has won with number 11) 3.31 to 3.63

What a surprise!  As a surprise as in it has taken three weeks to win it!
Bit late to the congratulations party but congrats mikeywith!

Latest Block:   816855  (18 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   96.3620%  (376 / 390.20 expected, 14.2 behind)
Next Difficulty Change:   between -3.5988% and -1.2469%

Negative, negative, negative! 

But I wonder how realistic the chances are with the price It looks like it has no serious intention of restarting and is more like knocking at the 40k.
Still, I stand with my other prediction against the consecutive positive adjustments, let's see if the reports and the weather will take my side:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/11/08/power-grid-blackouts-texas/


Oh and a bit off-topic but since everyone was talking about, viabtc really killed its service with the size limit, I was able to accelerate a tx for somebody earlier this morning at 10 minutes past the hour there were still 70 spots left, back in 2021 you had no chance to get a spot after one minute.

[mikeywith]

Latest Block:   816856  (3 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   96.5053%  (377 / 390.65 expected, 13.65 behind)
Previous Difficulty:   62463471666732.73                           
Current Difficulty:   64678587803496.61                           
Next Difficulty:   between 62443548787909 and 63903113826634
Next Difficulty Change:   between -3.4556% and -1.1990%
Previous Retarget:   last Sunday at 6:22 PM  (+3.5463%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   November 26, 2023 at 10:30 PM  (in 11d 11h 0m 59s)
Next Retarget (latest):   November 27, 2023 at 6:33 AM  (in 11d 19h 3m 31s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 14d 4h 7m 30s and 14d 12h 10m 3s

What exactly is going on with this epoch? almost 400 blocks in and we are at -4.5 %, I don't recall seeing such a start for a very long time, it also looks like Antpool took the lead from Foundry USA by looking at the 7-day average.

The 1-Year average is 30,11% for Foundry and 22,01% for Antpool
The 6-month average is 29,83% for Foundry and 23,62% for Antpool
The 3-month average is 29,08% for Foundry and 24,84% for Antpool
The 1-month average is 28,28% for Foundry and 26,97% for Antpool

But I wonder how realistic the chances are with the price It looks like it has no serious intention of restarting and is more like knocking at the 40k.
Still, I stand with my other prediction against the consecutive positive adjustments, let's see if the reports and the weather will take my side:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/11/08/power-grid-blackouts-texas/

I want nothing more than finding out that you were right lol.

So what does that article read? they want me to sign up to washingtonpost, imagine having to go through the trouble of typing an email address and verifying it, and then pay $4 every month just to sign up to fake news .

[stompix]

I want nothing more than finding out that you were right lol.

So what does that article read? they want me to sign up to washingtonpost, imagine having to go through the trouble of typing an email address and verifying it, and then pay $4 every month just to sign up to fake news .

TLDR
The grid is in shambles, expect power cuts, doom is near, and this winter will be ten times worse
Of course, I started from the assumption that 90% of the article is bs but even the tiniest how do they call them, "voluntarily paid shutdown" ?, of one of the big guys would probably be enough to put a dent in the growth, temporarily, as we saw it in summer.

What exactly is going on with this epoch? almost 400 blocks in and we are at -4.5 %, I don't recall seeing such a start for a very long time, it also looks like Antpool took the lead from Foundry USA by looking at the 7-day average.

I would bet it on Bitmain "testing" gear before shipping

Oh and btw, Antpool is at 33% for the last 24h, 27% for 1 week and 24% for 1 month, so...we can start pointing fingers.

[philipma1957]

I want nothing more than finding out that you were right lol.

So what does that article read? they want me to sign up to washingtonpost, imagine having to go through the trouble of typing an email address and verifying it, and then pay $4 every month just to sign up to fake news .

TLDR
The grid is in shambles, expect power cuts, doom is near, and this winter will be ten times worse
Of course, I started from the assumption that 90% of the article is bs but even the tiniest how do they call them, "voluntarily paid shutdown" ?, of one of the big guys would probably be enough to put a dent in the growth, temporarily, as we saw it in summer.

What exactly is going on with this epoch? almost 400 blocks in and we are at -4.5 %, I don't recall seeing such a start for a very long time, it also looks like Antpool took the lead from Foundry USA by looking at the 7-day average.

I would bet it on Bitmain "testing" gear before shipping

Oh and btw, Antpool is at 33% for the last 24h, 27% for 1 week and 24% for 1 month, so...we can start pointing fingers.

bitmain has been using that gear for quite a while.

now that they are selling it Bitmain is likely taking it off line and getting to ready to ship to riot/foundry.

still down 3% oh we are back near 37.5k

[NotFuzzyWarm]

now that they are selling it Bitmain is likely taking it off line and getting to ready to ship to riot/foundry.

Yesterday I read that Hive bought 4,800 S19's and are expecting delivery within 30 days. So ja, methinks it was BM running a burn-in of them before packing them up and putting them on the boat to here. That has to be several containers worth I'd think...

edit: It sounds like when they come back online at Hive there won't be to much change in their total hash rate as the article states that the new gear is slated to replace older gear that sucks much more power.

[mikeywith]

TLDR
The grid is in shambles, expect power cuts, doom is near, and this winter will be ten times worse
Of course, I started from the assumption that 90% of the article is bs but even the tiniest how do they call them, "voluntarily paid shutdown" ?, of one of the big guys would probably be enough to put a dent in the growth, temporarily, as we saw it in summer.

There is something not right about this winter, today I had to turn the AC on (on cold) because it was a bit hot, usually around this time of the year it's actually pretty cold, not too cold whereby you need to run AC on hot, but you would need to at least where long sleeves and use a blanket at night, looks like we are going to have a warm winter, not sure how things are on the other side of the planet.

I would bet it on Bitmain "testing" gear before shipping

So ja, methinks it was BM running a burn-in of them before packing them up and putting them on the boat to here. That has to be several containers worth I'd think...

I see I don't claim Bitmain won't do such a thing, they are dirty enough to sell used gears as new, and this "theory" has been there for many years, however, I find it technically difficult to implement, am sure the two of you as everyone else in this section have had brand new gears before, brand new gears are just different, heck, even the smell is different before they start running for the first time.

I mean, running gear for a while and then selling it as brand new to someone who knows a lot about miners isn't going to be an easy task, I have a habit of disassembling some brand new gear when I first receive them (because I know I can't send them back for warranty claim if they arrive DOA), and those gears look sparkling new, running them for a few days will most certainly put a mark on them.

Not saying it's impossible, but if they do it, then they need to run those gears in a super clean environment, like server room grade, but then again they need to add that "fresh plastic/solder" smell.

Have there been any incidents where someone reported receiving gears that they at least "doubt" the brand-new claim? since the lawsuit against bitmain for having their pool by default in all brand new miners (I think around 2018-2019) all of their miners come without a default pool, out of the millions of gears they have sold ever since, have they not missed removing the trails of at least a few miners? 

Or maybe they have a way of using the hashboards before assembling them in the miner, like a huge hashboard-rack where they can abuse the hashboards before going into the final assembly? that way they can clean them and put them in fresh miners with brand new fans where everything including the screws would look as if they have not been used before?

[philipma1957]

TLDR
The grid is in shambles, expect power cuts, doom is near, and this winter will be ten times worse
Of course, I started from the assumption that 90% of the article is bs but even the tiniest how do they call them, "voluntarily paid shutdown" ?, of one of the big guys would probably be enough to put a dent in the growth, temporarily, as we saw it in summer.

There is something not right about this winter, today I had to turn the AC on (on cold) because it was a bit hot, usually around this time of the year it's actually pretty cold, not too cold whereby you need to run AC on hot, but you would need to at least where long sleeves and use a blanket at night, looks like we are going to have a warm winter, not sure how things are on the other side of the planet.

I would bet it on Bitmain "testing" gear before shipping

So ja, methinks it was BM running a burn-in of them before packing them up and putting them on the boat to here. That has to be several containers worth I'd think...

I see I don't claim Bitmain won't do such a thing, they are dirty enough to sell used gears as new, and this "theory" has been there for many years, however, I find it technically difficult to implement, am sure the two of you as everyone else in this section have had brand new gears before, brand new gears are just different, heck, even the smell is different before they start running for the first time.

I mean, running gear for a while and then selling it as brand new to someone who knows a lot about miners isn't going to be an easy task, I have a habit of disassembling some brand new gear when I first receive them (because I know I can't send them back for warranty claim if they arrive DOA), and those gears look sparkling new, running them for a few days will most certainly put a mark on them.

Not saying it's impossible, but if they do it, then they need to run those gears in a super clean environment, like server room grade, but then again they need to add that "fresh plastic/solder" smell.

Have there been any incidents where someone reported receiving gears that they at least "doubt" the brand-new claim? since the lawsuit against bitmain for having their pool by default in all brand new miners (I think around 2018-2019) all of their miners come without a default pool, out of the millions of gears they have sold ever since, have they not missed removing the trails of at least a few miners?  

Or maybe they have a way of using the hashboards before assembling them in the miner, like a huge hashboard-rack where they can abuse the hashboards before going into the final assembly? that way they can clean them and put them in fresh miners with brand new fans where everything including the screws would look as if they have not been used before?

They could have 9 slot controllers

check out an old manual on the s5

https://bitmain-usa.com/storage/2023/08/Antminer-S5-user-guide1.pdf


can do 9 boards.

So yeah they can burn test the boards for a month.


The dip the boards in some cleaners. then pack in new 3 board cases.

[mikeywith]

They could have 9 slot controllers
check out an old manual on the s5

It could be, but I don't know, I think the cost for such a setup would be pretty high, especially with the new hash boards that use busbars that need to click-tight to obtain proper voltage, the hash boards can't be just hanging in free air, so the rack/mount that holds them needs to carefully designed, but ya, Bitmain folks are smart, am sure they would have figure a way to safely abused new gears and still sell them as brand new, I just highly doubt it's as simple as many people think, as in, they don't just put the whole miner as is and then dust it off and send it, they would have been caught a long time ago if they did that.

[philipma1957]

They could have 9 slot controllers
check out an old manual on the s5

It could be, but I don't know, I think the cost for such a setup would be pretty high, especially with the new hash boards that use busbars that need to click-tight to obtain proper voltage, the hash boards can't be just hanging in free air, so the rack/mount that holds them needs to carefully designed, but ya, Bitmain folks are smart, am sure they would have figure a way to safely abused new gears and still sell them as brand new, I just highly doubt it's as simple as many people think, as in, they don't just put the whole miner as is and then dust it off and send it, they would have been caught a long time ago if they did that.

I have seen what vms built to run air s19's in liquid coolers. Special racks to slide in boards   no fans special psu. Special controller it did 3 boards.

Very nice design which I agreed not to describe much or photo.

You could easy peasy have an s19 put in this clever cooler setup. unit for 2 months pull it out  dip clean it and then move the boards into the oem shell of the s19.

or in the case we are talking about do this with s21's .

what is the labor to pull 3 boards and put into the new cooler a kid with fast hands and good eyes could do it in 20 min.  two months later clean it dry and set it up to ship in 40 min

So 1 hour maybe 90 minutes over a 2 month time slot.

If Bitmain sold 10000 pieces to a big farm they may know this and prefer since the gear won't be a dud.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Ja, take the Bitfury tank immersion route using a Novec fluid like this which boils at 61C - perfect chip temp - and they are home free. When burn in for large customers is done or even as part final hash board QC just disconnect the boards, pull `em, run through a final low temp oven to dry off any remaining fluid and ship the pristene boards to final packaging dept.

A good description is here  and here for their 1st implementation in HK in 2012 they can do up to 250kw per-tank...

[joker_josue]

I have seen what vms built to run air s19's in liquid coolers. Special racks to slide in boards   no fans special psu. Special controller it did 3 boards.

Very nice design which I agreed not to describe much or photo.

You could easy peasy have an s19 put in this clever cooler setup. unit for 2 months pull it out  dip clean it and then move the boards into the oem shell of the s19.

or in the case we are talking about do this with s21's .

what is the labor to pull 3 boards and put into the new cooler a kid with fast hands and good eyes could do it in 20 min.  two months later clean it dry and set it up to ship in 40 min

So 1 hour maybe 90 minutes over a 2 month time slot.

If Bitmain sold 10000 pieces to a big farm they may know this and prefer since the gear won't be a dud.

It is true that this has been a practice since the first day that ASIC miner manufacturers appeared.

But, in my opinion, this is not ethically correct, mainly because the information is given as new equipment. And in reality, these are pieces of equipment that have been used for months.

[stompix]

There is something not right about this winter, today I had to turn the AC on (on cold) because it was a bit hot, usually around this time of the year it's actually pretty cold, not too cold whereby you need to run AC on hot, but you would need to at least where long sleeves and use a blanket at night, looks like we are going to have a warm winter, not sure how things are on the other side of the planet.

Europe is colder than last year, not by much and not during the day but during the morning, but nowhere near the temperature when I was young when we already had a few blankets of snow everywhere over 1000m.

For Texas is the same as you if I go by the weather websites way hotter than last year:



So no cold snap, maybe we will still get that record positive strike.

Or maybe they have a way of using the hashboards before assembling them in the miner, like a huge hashboard-rack where they can abuse the hashboards before going into the final assembly? that way they can clean them and put them in fresh miners with brand new fans where everything including the screws would look as if they have not been used before?

I would lean towards testing only the boards, indeed the miners I got shown no such thing and mines were shipped when it made a lot more sense to mine for a few days than right now, but I've never disassembled them, and for packaging, I don't know.

I returned an oven after one use because of faulty temperature alarms and when I got it back it did look like new, it still had the standard new packaging and all this after being disassembled and worked on in a repair shop, not the factory, they even put all the protective plastic and brand new foam cases, it was even wiped out so there were no fingers stains on a perfectly black surface, so if this shop could do it if Bitmain would find it cost-effective to do so I guess they could, but it would be a matter of $.

And S21 would bring 30$ a day, assuming they pay something at around 2-3 cents it would be a bit more over $150 for a week of running, would it cover the costs for all the maintenance, don't know! For the board, if they have the gear needed in place, I think it would!

But I guess the most reasonable thing would be Bitmain actually mining with those and never planning on selling them in the first place!

Latest Block:   817141  (22 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   98.1625%  (662 / 674.39 expected, 12.39 behind)

Pace is picking up again, if it keeps so it will turn positive in two days.


                    

[mikeywith]

But I guess the most reasonable thing would be Bitmain actually mining with those and never planning on selling them in the first place!

          

Exactly, so what is the point? None of the ideas mentioned above is cheap,Novec fluids are expensive, the whole immersion setup is super expensive, makes no sense for it to be a temporary set up that does not run 24/7, besides, if these gears were more profitable to mine with last night what has changed today?

Besides, mining in China is officially illegal, no way Bitmain would get to mine with that much gear in secret, so what, send them overseas to mine then ship them back for final assembly?

If Bitmain makes more money mining than selling then they would have kept all the new gen gears, if selling gets them more money why bother risk running them in house?

[joker_josue]

Besides, mining in China is officially illegal, no way Bitmain would get to mine with that much gear in secret, so what, send them overseas to mine then ship them back for final assembly?

If Bitmain makes more money mining than selling then they would have kept all the new gen gears, if selling gets them more money why bother risk running them in house?

Well, if they have their own energy source, it won't be that complicated to mine. Furthermore, they can always claim that they are testing the equipment. In turn, this is a factory, so energy consumption is always high, which easily ignores this analysis.

Personally, I have serious doubts that they don't put new machines into mining for a good few weeks, before selling them, despite these legal restrictions.

In terms of yielding more, it all depends on the analysis you make. For example, imagine that for every machine they sell for $15k, they earn by mining $5k. In the end, this machine made $20k. Or imagine that mining yields enough to cover production costs, making the sale a 100% profit. There are many ways to analyze the profitability of a business.

[mikeywith]

 

Well, if they have their own energy source, it won't be that complicated to mine. Furthermore, they can always claim that they are testing the equipment. In turn, this is a factory, so energy consumption is always high, which easily ignores this analysis.

It is nearly impossible to hide a large mining operation, we are talking dozen Megawatts 24/7.

Personally, I have serious doubts that they don't put new machines into mining for a good few weeks, before selling them, despite these legal restrictions.

For Altcoins it makes sense, since some batches are big enough to double the hashrate, i.e with very low power consumption they make a lot of $$, but with Bitcoin, the math does not add up.