2023 Diff thread now opened.

[joker_josue]

This means mining at home and using a nicehash account to do it makes sense even if you lose money mining you see a lot on fees.


So for instance you and I have been dickering about an s19 2 board unit.

it will earn 6 or 7 bucks a day. and burn 48 kwatts your power is 15 cents. or 7.20


so you wants to earn 6 or 7 a day when you burn 7.2 in power.

you do since if you run the unit at nicehash you get easy peasy access to an LN network and can grow the LN wallet by 6 or 7 a day.

the one send above you mentioned was 50 bucks.

So in a way I see an opportunity for a small 1 s19 miner to easily maintain an LN use wallet.

Without a doubt, this can be a strategy to obtain balance for LN. I admit I hadn't thought about that.
If my current BTC balance was the result of mining I did in 2013, getting a BTC balance on LN with mining doesn't shock me.

Even so, I don't think this is a viable medium-term solution for the majority of users, especially those who may join in the future.

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[mikeywith]

So my nicehash account is kyc and shows about 1000-2000 a month income which sits as btc.

Using nicehash wallet for LN payments is a great idea, except for the fact that they require KYC which is a big no-no for many people including myself, I still think nicehash are "hard to trust" with money, let alone personal identity, I would be careful using them to be honest, I hope that other services would offer the same services without KYC.


Current diff status

Latest Block:   822010  (15 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   106.0090%  (1499 / 1414.03 expected, 84.97 ahead)
Previous Difficulty:   67957790298897.88                           
Current Difficulty:   67305906902031.39                           
Next Difficulty:   between 71191491601169 and 71481990238286
Next Difficulty Change:   between +5.7730% and +6.2046%
Previous Retarget:   December 10, 2023 at 5:31 AM  (-0.9592%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Saturday at 10:28 AM  (in 3d 9h 16m 56s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Saturday at 11:43 AM  (in 3d 10h 32m 5s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 4h 57m 15s and 13d 6h 12m 24s

Looks like we are going to get a huge jump.

@stompix, you see now why we celebrate any negative adjustments? it's because when they don't show, you are likely to be slapped with an increase like this one.

[stompix]

@stompix, you see now why we celebrate any negative adjustments? it's because when they don't show, you are likely to be slapped with an increase like this one.

But that would end with a life full of no celebration in fear of the inevitable 
Gonna say it and nothing is going to change my mind, the last negative was a fluke, it never supposed to happen.

But this new jump, well, I guess it puts a fork in other theories also, sorry phillip
- we're at the end of the epoch and we're seeing 158 blocks per 24h,  so there is no back throttling in the last days, there is no throttling down to increase the fees either, we have 14 extra blocks, that's 10% increase in capacity for the last 24h and we're still looking at 512sat/vb last block fee as I type.

Again, this is just my opinion but all those schemes pools might try are nothing compared to FOMO.
There are less than 20vMB till under 100sat/vb,  no major fee wall, weekend in sight , xmas period close, the ones paying up are clearly not looking at the money, those are not manipulated by a few blocks missing (which is not happening) or by walls, it's FOMO. Less of a tech explanation but unfortunately I think closer to reality.

[philipma1957]

@stompix, you see now why we celebrate any negative adjustments? it's because when they don't show, you are likely to be slapped with an increase like this one.

But that would end with a life full of no celebration in fear of the inevitable  
Gonna say it and nothing is going to change my mind, the last negative was a fluke, it never supposed to happen.

But this new jump, well, I guess it puts a fork in other theories also, sorry phillip
- we're at the end of the epoch and we're seeing 158 blocks per 24h,  so there is no back throttling in the last days, there is no throttling down to increase the fees either, we have 14 extra blocks, that's 10% increase in capacity for the last 24h and we're still looking at 512sat/vb last block fee as I type.

Again, this is just my opinion but all those schemes pools might try are nothing compared to FOMO.
There are less than 20vMB till under 100sat/vb,  no major fee wall, weekend in sight , xmas period close, the ones paying up are clearly not looking at the money, those are not manipulated by a few blocks missing (which is not happening) or by walls, it's FOMO. Less of a tech explanation but unfortunately I think closer to reality.

they (foundry)  throttled back for 5 days we were -1% at day 5.  They jammed the mempool.  They are overclocking like mad for last 8 days of the pool grabbing 8 coin blocks over and over.


Just count foundry over last 3 days they should do 48 x 3 they did a ton more.

12 of last 30 is 40% not 33% 822097 to 822126  I will look for more


822074 to 822 096. 8 blocks of 23 which is more normal

82200 to 822073 30 of 73 way higher  than say 24

so 50 of the last 136 they do 48 in a day  out of 144 so they are over the pace.

which follows they are now over clocked racking up blocks from a crowded mempool.

[mikeywith]

There are less than 20vMB till under 100sat/vb,  no major fee wall,

This reminds me of the other discussion we had on the other part of the forum about where did that wall of 10 sat go, I said they could be preparing for a new wall, we now have a very similar wall at 2x the fee of that wall.

Just count foundry over last 3 days they should do 48 x 3 they did a ton more.

12 of last 40 is 40% not 33% 822097 to 822126  I will look for more

Foundry mined 35 blocks on 13, and the same on 14 dec, and then 50 blocks on 19 dec, you might be onto something here, but it's too early to judge if this is the result of intentionally downclocking gears to jam the network and then overclock to get the big blocks, this could work but needs some serious math.

So pretend I have 50% of the network hashrate, fees are 0.5 BTC/ block, I run S19 at 5 cents kWh

My daily expense for power is  3.6$ , I net 8$ (assuming fees are low and are only 0.5 btc or 8% of the block)

Now let's say I underclock my gear 30% down, I spend 2.52$ on power and net 5.6$, I need 2.4$ more profit for this to breakeven, % wise I need blocks to go from 6.75 btc to 8.775 BTC to break even.

Actually, at this point I am beyond break even, because there are other factors that I didn't take into consideration such as

1- I spend less on cooling
2- I actually net more than the above calcs given that my S19 would run more effienct at 70% than 100% (which I didn't do above because it's not simple and not worth the efforts) 
3- I increase the service life of my gears since now they run at a lower clock

But ya, let's just say I am at break-even, didn't gain anything if I manage to keep block fees at 8.775BTC

When fees go even higher, and blocks are now 10BTC a block, I go nuts and overclock gears, so that I get 60% of the network share, but then, 60% doesn't mean i am up 10% from my previous hashrate due to more cooling needed and less efficiency so let's say it's 5% more

so at stock settings my S19 now that blocks are 10 BTC would make 12.16$ (vs the previous 8$), with my overclocking I could end up making 14$ on it, which 75% more profit than without this whole game.

Of course, I could point to a few things that would make such plans fail, but we shall get to it later after hearing fellow miner's thoughts.

[philipma1957]

There are less than 20vMB till under 100sat/vb,  no major fee wall,

This reminds me of the other discussion we had on the other part of the forum about where did that wall of 10 sat go, I said they could be preparing for a new wall, we now have a very similar wall at 2x the fee of that wall.

Just count foundry over last 3 days they should do 48 x 3 they did a ton more.

12 of last 40 is 40% not 33% 822097 to 822126  I will look for more

Foundry mined 35 blocks on 13, and the same on 14 dec, and then 50 blocks on 19 dec, you might be onto something here, but it's too early to judge if this is the result of intentionally downclocking gears to jam the network and then overclock to get the big blocks, this could work but needs some serious math.

So pretend I have 50% of the network hashrate, fees are 0.5 BTC/ block, I run S19 at 5 cents kWh

My daily expense for power is  3.6$ , I net 8$ (assuming fees are low and are only 0.5 btc or 8% of the block)

Now let's say I underclock my gear 30% down, I spend 2.52$ on power and net 5.6$, I need 2.4$ more profit for this to breakeven, % wise I need blocks to go from 6.75 btc to 8.775 BTC to break even.

Actually, at this point I am beyond break even, because there are other factors that I didn't take into consideration such as

1- I spend less on cooling
2- I actually net more than the above calcs given that my S19 would run more effienct at 70% than 100% (which I didn't do above because it's not simple and not worth the efforts)  
3- I increase the service life of my gears since now they run at a lower clock

But ya, let's just say I am at break-even, didn't gain anything if I manage to keep block fees at 8.775BTC

When fees go even higher, and blocks are now 10BTC a block, I go nuts and overclock gears, so that I get 60% of the network share, but then, 60% doesn't mean i am up 10% from my previous hashrate due to more cooling needed and less efficiency so let's say it's 5% more

so at stock settings my S19 now that blocks are 10 BTC would make 12.16$ (vs the previous 8$), with my overclocking I could end up making 14$ on it, which 75% more profit than without this whole game.

Of course, I could point to a few things that would make such plans fail, but we shall get to it later after hearing fellow miner's thoughts.

Well it is not just foundry..  with down clock for 5 days and overclock for nine.

Junk sends to mempool are cheap if they never get confirmed.

all the fees from 1 to 10 sats are  5 btc and change
all the fees from 1 to 20 sats are 16 btc and change

So spend 16 btc which most is never spent and you have nicely clogged the mempool at very little cost.

[philipma1957]

https://newhedge.io/terminal/bitcoin/difficulty-estimator


Latest Block:   822519  (a few seconds ago)

Current Pace:   106.7520%  (2008 / 1881.00 expected, 127 ahead)

Previous Difficulty:   67957790298897.88                           
Current Difficulty:   67305906902031.39                           
Next Difficulty:   between 71949968207257 and 71950046384725
Next Difficulty Change:   between +6.8999% and +6.9000%
Previous Retarget:   December 9, 2023 at 10:31 PM  (-0.9592%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Today at 1:16 AM  (in 0d 1h 14m 56s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Today at 1:16 AM  (in 0d 1h 14m 57s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 2h 44m 53s and 13d 2h 44m 54s

so maybe 6.7 to 7%

and with a holiday weekend a perfect way to slow mining down and clog the memory pool.

Lets see what happens next few days.

Maybe nothing much at all as tx could be real slow this weekend due to holiday.

[joker_josue]

so maybe 6.7 to 7%

and with a holiday weekend a perfect way to slow mining down and clog the memory pool.

Lets see what happens next few days.

Maybe nothing much at all as tx could be real slow this weekend due to holiday.

Well, not only was there an increase of +6%, with the next increase expected to be of the same value.
But, of course, it is still too early to understand this, because things have not yet gotten used to this new cycle. Now it seems that it will be difficult for the network to become less congested.

Latest Block:   822539  (15 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   114.1255%  (12 / 10.51 expected, 1.49 ahead)
Previous Difficulty:   67305906902031.39                           
Current Difficulty:   72006146478567.1                             
Next Difficulty:   between 72132687686513 and 84494394517603
Next Difficulty Change:   between +0.1757% and +17.3433%
Previous Retarget:   Today at 6:01 AM  (+6.9834%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   January 4, 2024 at 12:26 PM  (in 12d 4h 39m 36s)
Next Retarget (latest):   January 6, 2024 at 5:31 AM  (in 13d 21h 45m 14s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 12d 6h 24m 45s and 13d 23h 30m 22s

[stompix]

Now this one is weird, I know it's just one day and a half but:

Current Pace:   109.5857%  (245 / 223.57 expected, 21.43 ahead)
Previous Retarget:   Yesterday at 8:01 AM  (+6.9834%)

21 blocks ahead is just too much for just luck after a 6.9%, something big turned on in the middle of the last period and this is probably the effect of the adjustment not really matching the growth and a ton of luck on top of it, blockchair says 164 blocks in the last 24h, a full 20 blocks variance is, ....too much to just call it variance.
That again, who is pushing gear online during the holiday? 

Rethorical question:

Hive got 7,000  Bitmain S21 Antminer
Cipher Mining revealed its acquisition of 7.1 exahash per second (EH/s) from Bitmain
Riot Secures 66,560 Microbt ASIC Miners to Boost Hashrate by 18 EH/s
Bitcoin Miner DMG Acquires 4,550 T21 Antminers for $12.1 Million

These are all at most one week old PR.

Which reminds me of

U.S money is just crazy, it is hard to understand.

Yup, and this is just one tiny fraction on what those guys can throw at something, the amount of wealth waiting on the sideline to bet on every possible opportunity is just mind blowing.
If it weren't for the halving I would say zettahash incoming!

[philipma1957]

Now this one is weird, I know it's just one day and a half but:

Current Pace:   109.5857%  (245 / 223.57 expected, 21.43 ahead)
Previous Retarget:   Yesterday at 8:01 AM  (+6.9834%)

21 blocks ahead is just too much for just luck after a 6.9%, something big turned on in the middle of the last period and this is probably the effect of the adjustment not really matching the growth and a ton of luck on top of it, blockchair says 164 blocks in the last 24h, a full 20 blocks variance is, ....too much to just call it variance.
That again, who is pushing gear online during the holiday? 

Rethorical question:

Hive got 7,000  Bitmain S21 Antminer
Cipher Mining revealed its acquisition of 7.1 exahash per second (EH/s) from Bitmain
Riot Secures 66,560 Microbt ASIC Miners to Boost Hashrate by 18 EH/s
Bitcoin Miner DMG Acquires 4,550 T21 Antminers for $12.1 Million

These are all at most one week old PR.

Which reminds me of

U.S money is just crazy, it is hard to understand.

Yup, and this is just one tiny fraction on what those guys can throw at something, the amount of wealth waiting on the sideline to bet on every possible opportunity is just mind blowing.
If it weren't for the halving I would say zettahash incoming!

no one simple down clock or upclock the gear is all online.

an s19xp can go from 100th to 140th.
and whatsminer can up or down clock very quickly.

picture this with 200 whatsminers they can go up and or down 20% with 3 or 4 clicks of a key board.

[mikeywith]

Yup, and this is just one tiny fraction on what those guys can throw at something, the amount of wealth waiting on the sideline to bet on every possible opportunity is just mind blowing.
If it weren't for the halving I would say zettahash incoming!

I strongly believe that this is the main driving factor for difficulty. It's easy to forget how things were a few months ago when you look at the current profitability. With fees still higher than average despite the huge drop and BTC at around 43k, the increases now may make sense. They didn't a few months ago, but they kept on adding gears.

I think where the U.S differs from other countries is that to a small group of the elite, money is literally printed out of thin air, and it's money that counts ($$$) unlike most other countries' money  . It's too easy to make a few million dollars just by circling around the right politicians. I sure don't doubt the business skills of fellow Americans; I know they have great entrepreneurship. I am talking about the person whose uncle is in the decision-making/cooking room, invited to an expensive dinner by some defense contractor offering him 10M to convince his uncle to sign a firearm deal with some country somewhere on the other side of the planet.

Such a person doesn't understand anything about business, or BTC. He meets someone from Foundry—they offer him a great business deal where he could invest 2M in mining gears and hit ROI in a few months. The foundry person gets his 0.5% referral, and the money spins in.

There is no doubt that many of these multi-billion corporations will take a massive hit after the halving. I can't, for the sake of me, think that all this money they invest is the result of a rational study on the market where risks are taken into consideration before "potential profits." To me, it seems like a bunch of rich folks who got rich by accident being "scammed" by mining companies for temporary gains.

[alh]

Would this qualify as FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)?

[philipma1957]

Would this qualify as FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)?

Sure why not?

https://newhedge.io/terminal/bitcoin/difficulty-estimator


Latest Block:   822869  (a minute ago)

Current Pace:   107.1064%  (342 / 319.31 expected, 22.69 ahead)

Previous Difficulty:   67305906902031.39                            
Current Difficulty:   72006146478567.1                            
Next Difficulty:   between 73540467974029 and 77192903969491
Next Difficulty Change:   between +2.1308% and +7.2032%
Previous Retarget:   last Saturday at 1:01 AM  (+6.9834%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   January 5, 2024 at 2:43 AM  (in 10d 20h 29m 18s)
Next Retarget (latest):   January 5, 2024 at 6:06 PM  (in 11d 11h 51m 34s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 1h 42m 24s and 13d 17h 4m 39s

Latest Block:   823179  (5 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   102.5534%  (652 / 635.77 expected, 16.23 ahead)
Previous Difficulty:   67305906902031.39                           
Current Difficulty:   72006146478567.1                             
Next Difficulty:   between 73009331752375 and 73878277747559
Next Difficulty Change:   between +1.3932% and +2.6000%
Previous Retarget:   last Saturday at 1:01 AM  (+6.9834%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   January 5, 2024 at 4:39 PM  (in 9d 5h 40m 23s)
Next Retarget (latest):   January 5, 2024 at 8:29 PM  (in 9d 9h 30m 9s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 15h 38m 2s and 13d 19h 27m 49s


so over the last 310 blocks made we should have done 316 only a 2% variance so hard to say we are see a down clock from big players.


last ten blocks:


1.76
1.75
0.00  ant pool is going to get sued over this.
1.55
2.22
1.94
1.98
2.66
2.17
2.63


viabtc is paying 120%. so if you mine there it is like 1 btc is 1.2 x 43000 = 51,600 not 43,000

[joker_josue]

Would this qualify as FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)?

Sure why not?

https://newhedge.io/terminal/bitcoin/difficulty-estimator


Latest Block:   822869  (a minute ago)

Current Pace:   107.1064%  (342 / 319.31 expected, 22.69 ahead)

Previous Difficulty:   67305906902031.39                           
Current Difficulty:   72006146478567.1                             
Next Difficulty:   between 73540467974029 and 77192903969491
Next Difficulty Change:   between +2.1308% and +7.2032%
Previous Retarget:   last Saturday at 1:01 AM  (+6.9834%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   January 5, 2024 at 2:43 AM  (in 10d 20h 29m 18s)
Next Retarget (latest):   January 5, 2024 at 6:06 PM  (in 11d 11h 51m 34s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 1h 42m 24s and 13d 17h 4m 39s

If it really becomes difficult to adjust these possible 7%, can we expect a next cycle with even higher rates, as there will be fewer machines mining!?

[mikeywith]

If it really becomes difficult to adjust these possible 7%, can we expect a next cycle with even higher rates, as there will be fewer machines mining!?

Your question is not clear, please elaborate.

[paid2]

If it really becomes difficult to adjust these possible 7%, can we expect a next cycle with even higher rates, as there will be fewer machines mining!?

Your question is not clear, please elaborate.

I guess joker_josue is talking about the next halving (?).

Of course, with a block reward of 3,125 BTC, probably some people will need to switch off their ASICs or to move them in a different place (cheaper electricity or taxes for example). Especially if the fees does not stay crazy high like they are now (20% of the total reward per block)

Or are you talking about the current cycle?

[joker_josue]

If it really becomes difficult to adjust these possible 7%, can we expect a next cycle with even higher rates, as there will be fewer machines mining!?

Your question is not clear, please elaborate.

I was referring to the difficulty adjustment. With such a high adjustment we can expect even higher fees for transactions.

I believe what the halving could cause is an increase in the value of Bitcoin, as miners will want to settle with higher values so as not to spend as much BTC.

[philipma1957]

If it really becomes difficult to adjust these possible 7%, can we expect a next cycle with even higher rates, as there will be fewer machines mining!?

Your question is not clear, please elaborate.

I was referring to the difficulty adjustment. With such a high adjustment we can expect even higher fees for transactions.

I believe what the halving could cause is an increase in the value of Bitcoin, as miners will want to settle with higher values so as not to spend as much BTC.

hard to tell.

  first off. smaller block counts and or higher block counts in first 500 blocks move a lot.
big pools can fuck around with 10-20% hash rate by over or under clocking.

right now they could be overclocking as they are still getting good fees.

and the next 7 days they can back off.

Foundry makes 48 blocks they can up or down say 40 or 48 or edit 54 not 64 we can not see what they do. zero stats a full black box with 33% of the hash.

[mikeywith]

I was referring to the difficulty adjustment. With such a high adjustment we can expect even higher fees for transactions.

Ok, I see your point now, and I think it is based on this assumption you made in the first post

as there will be fewer machines mining!?

You base your assumption on what seems to be rational actions, whereby, with profits this tight, you would expect higher difficulty would drive some miners away, but mining is far from rational.

Look at the previous epoch, we had 7% increase, does it seem like there are fewer miners today? Nop, in fact, it seems there are 6% more hashrate, so we are finding 6% more blocks than what we should, there is no guarantee the next diff would be any different.

As I said in my previous post, it is crazy American money, you can not predict anything, large corps could be mining at a loss and still manage to get investors to fund them, i see no end to this madness, the halving will stop some of it, but not all.

[philipma1957]

I was referring to the difficulty adjustment. With such a high adjustment we can expect even higher fees for transactions.

Ok, I see your point now, and I think it is based on this assumption you made in the first post

as there will be fewer machines mining!?

You base your assumption on what seems to be rational actions, whereby, with profits this tight, you would expect higher difficulty would drive some miners away, but minimg is far from rational.

Look at the previous epcoch, we had 7% increase, does it seem like there are fewer miners today? Nop, in fact it seems there are 6% more hashrate, so we finding 6% more blocks than what we should, there is no guarantee the next diff would be any different.

As i said in my previous post, it is crazy American money, you can not predict anything, large corps could be mining at a loss and still manage to get investors to fund them, i see no end to this madness, the halving will stop some of it, but not all.

Many of us have endless tax write offs and Jan 1 is a cut off date.

So dec means spend spend spend.

lots of other angles. I went to college for accounting I got my degree in 1989. I have three hundred not three plus books on tax law. Just the federal tax laws. Never mind that the states have a ton of laws on taxes. write offs and angles to play are next to endless.

https://newhedge.io/terminal/bitcoin/difficulty-estimator

Latest Block:   822965  (5 minutes ago)

Current Pace:   106.7437%  (438 / 410.33 expected, 27.67 ahead)

Previous Difficulty:   67305906902031.39                           
Current Difficulty:   72006146478567.1                             
Next Difficulty:   between 73831608656786 and 76916091001213
Next Difficulty Change:   between +2.5351% and +6.8188%
Previous Retarget:   last Saturday at 1:01 AM  (+6.9834%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   January 5, 2024 at 3:47 AM  (in 10d 6h 23m 4s)
Next Retarget (latest):   January 5, 2024 at 4:48 PM  (in 10d 19h 23m 24s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 2h 46m 21s and 13d 15h 46m 41s