Does miners hash rate remain constant?

[Nheer]

I have a question that I am bit confused about so I need a little explanation.
When mining a block do miners' hash rates varies as blocks are produced, or do they remain constant.

Furthermore, I discovered that encryption can offer strong protection when keeping our private keys and other sensitive data to prevent hacks. I looked through the forum but was unable to locate an understandable tutorial on how to encrypt a message. I need a little guidance on how to encrypt a message.

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[pooya87]

When mining a block do miners' hash rates varies as blocks are produced, or do they remain constant.

Miners compute hashes using their hardware, that means as long as their hardware is constant (eg. the miner has 10 ASICs) the number of hashes they can compute per second (aka hashrate) is also constant.

Don't confuse that with the total hashrate, that is not constant since the number of miners is never constant. They always come and go, upgrade their equipment to newer hardware, add more hardware, etc.

Furthermore, I discovered that encryption can offer strong protection when keeping our private keys and other sensitive data to prevent hacks.

There isn't any tutorials because the only popular method is for single private keys[1] and single private keys aren't popular anymore since majority of users use deterministic wallets with a seed phrase and there is no proposal for their encryption.

[1] https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0038.mediawiki

I looked through the forum but was unable to locate an understandable tutorial on how to encrypt a message. I need a little guidance on how to encrypt a message.

Encrypting a message is slightly different from encrypting your private key(s) since it is a broader concept that could cover for example encrypting a message using someone's public key (eg. ECIES algorithm).

[PrimeNumber7]

When an ASIC is performing work, there will be some variance in the number of hashes it performs per unit of time. A general rule of thumb is that short-term averages may deviate 10% or so from the long-term average when measuring the hashes per unit of time.

[Charles-Tim]

Furthermore, I discovered that encryption can offer strong protection when keeping our private keys and other sensitive data to prevent hacks. I looked through the forum but was unable to locate an understandable tutorial on how to encrypt a message. I need a little guidance on how to encrypt a message.

There is nothing different about encrypting your wallet, to backup your wallet file using password, you encrypt it with the password. If you want to recover back the wallet from the file, you will need the password to decrypt it. You can see this on wallets that support it as an alternative to seed phrase backup. But you should know that the file can go corrupt.

But it is advised to backup your seed phrase instead. Far more reliable.

Also you can encrypt a disc or memory card or flash drive on airgapped computer which you used to generate your wallet. That can be seen on a computer if you insert the disc, memory card or flash drive after you go to the external device and right click. Some people can go for this option to encrypt what is stored on the disc or card with password. But we should know that this can go corrupt, I mean the disc or card used for it.

I looked through the forum but was unable to locate an understandable tutorial on how to encrypt a message. I need a little guidance on how to encrypt a message.

This guide should help, with PGP message encryption.:

[Eng: Tutorial] PGP Signature - Encrypt/Decrypt message - Fingerprint

Message encryption is different from encrypting wallet file that is in my first paragraph.

Mr A has a private key, and a public key. Mr A disclosed the public key to the public. Anyone can use the public to encrypt a message and only Mr A can be able to use his private key to decrypt the message that people send to him. That is an example of message encryption and decryption.

[hZti]

I think you need First to understand how mining works. A miner can submit an X amount of hashes per second. Each one of those hashes can potentially solve a block and pay out the block reward. So the mining hashrate does indeed vary, but to solve the block you need only one single hash and that does never change.

[odolvlobo]

I have a question that I am bit confused about so I need a little explanation.
When mining a block do miners' hash rates varies as blocks are produced, or do they remain constant.

The reason that the hash rate graphs vary so much is not due to the hash rate changing. The reason is that there is no direct way to measure total hash rate, so hash rate is estimated using the time between blocks. The time between blocks is random, so the graph looks random, even when the total hash rate is constant.

[Synchronice]

I have a question that I am bit confused about so I need a little explanation.
When mining a block do miners' hash rates varies as blocks are produced, or do they remain constant.

I don't exactly understand the question but I think I've got the point. New block is be generated in every 10 minutes, so, if overall hashrate for example is 400M TH/s and you join the game with 50 TH/S, mining difficulty will increase and old equipment will become unprofitable while the competition will increase so much that it may become hard for a lot of miners generate profit via mining, or, depends on their equipment, even with free electricity some may not profit. But when total hashrate increases and mining becomes unprofitable, either people shut down their miners and companies with advanced tech and free or very cheap electricity stay in the game or usually bitcoin price increases to balance the situation. If people shut down their miners, difficulty will decrease and mining will become profitable or if they stay, bitcoin price has to rise.

When bitcoin halving happens, blocks generate 50% less bitcoins and miners get 50% less reward, that's why price increases after the halving.

I think you need First to understand how mining works. A miner can submit an X amount of hashes per second. Each one of those hashes can potentially solve a block and pay out the block reward. So the mining hashrate does indeed vary, but to solve the block you need only one single hash and that does never change.

Are you referring to solo mining? I may hit a block reward with my GPU but the probability is so enormously low that solo mining doesn't worth, it doesn't even worth with the latest antminer, unless, you are as lucky as this guy: Tiny Bitcoin miner defies massive odds to solve a valid block.

[pooya87]

When bitcoin halving happens, blocks generate 50% less bitcoins and miners get 50% less reward, that's why price increases after the halving.

That's not exactly correct.
Price goes up because of adoption not because of supply (it is called supply AND demand after all). In other words as more people buy more bitcoin, the price goes up. If it were anything else the altcoins that also have halvings should have gone up in price instead of getting dumped and in some cases die.

[Synchronice]

When bitcoin halving happens, blocks generate 50% less bitcoins and miners get 50% less reward, that's why price increases after the halving.

That's not exactly correct.
Price goes up because of adoption not because of supply (it is called supply AND demand after all). In other words as more people buy more bitcoin, the price goes up. If it were anything else the altcoins that also have halvings should have gone up in price instead of getting dumped and in some cases die.

So, do you say that a lot of companies adopt bitcoin on or after halving day? Does that make sense?
Definitely bitcoin adoption plays role but here is a fact, bitcoin's price significantly increases after halving and that's because even if the demand stays the same, reward is half.
Let me clarify: Imagine, there is a company that produces 100 gallons of milk per week and has 100 buyers every week. Once in a while, company halves the number of milk it produces, i.e. after halving company started to produce 50 gallons of milk per week while it still has 100 buyers ew. So, even if the demand stays the same or slightly decreases, price will still rise, so to say roughly and shortly, halving increases price.

I think altcoins are different subject in this case, they are called altcoins because they are alternatives of the OG bitcoin. They are different scenario.

[odolvlobo]

So, do you say that a lot of companies adopt bitcoin on or after halving day? Does that make sense?
Definitely bitcoin adoption plays role but here is a fact, bitcoin's price significantly increases after halving and that's because even if the demand stays the same, reward is half.
Let me clarify: Imagine, there is a company that produces 100 gallons of milk per week and has 100 buyers every week. Once in a while, company halves the number of milk it produces, i.e. after halving company started to produce 50 gallons of milk per week while it still has 100 buyers ew. So, even if the demand stays the same or slightly decreases, price will still rise, so to say roughly and shortly, halving increases price.

The flaw in your comparison is that milk is consumed and bitcoins are not, and that unlike milk, the supply in the market does not come only from the producers. You are confusing production with supply. Do you believe that no bitcoins will be available when all the bitcoins are mined? Compare the number of bitcoins produced each day to the total number sold. Miners are a very small portion of the market.

[kano]

When an ASIC is performing work, there will be some variance in the number of hashes it performs per unit of time. A general rule of thumb is that short-term averages may deviate 10% or so from the long-term average when measuring the hashes per unit of time.

Miners and pools do not count hashes.

Hash rates are a calculation based on the statistical concept called Proof of Work.

e.g. what happens on a pool: "over 60 seconds I submitted 18 shares valued at 10k diff each"

alas a hash rate is only a calculation based on those numbers:

(10^4) * (2^32) * 18 / 60 = 12.8849 TH/s

A >10k diff share is considered proof that you did (10^4) * (2^32) hashes.
The more 10k diff shares you produce, the lower the variance between the calculation and the actual work the miner did.

Inside the miner, it also calculates the hash rate based on the nonces returned from the chips, not the 'number of hashes done'

Thus there will be variance due to the fact it is Proof of Work, not hashes done.

[Godlovesyou]

I have a question that I am bit confused about so I need a little explanation.
When mining a block do miners' hash rates varies as blocks are produced, or do they remain constant.

The reason that the hash rate graphs vary so much is not due to the hash rate changing. The reason is that there is no direct way to measure total hash rate, so hash rate is estimated using the time between blocks. The time between blocks is random, so the graph looks random, even when the total hash rate is constant.

I totally agree with you, the hash rate graphs are dimensional whether anything occurs during the rating or not. Is significant to also note that is not usually to estimates if the blocks are random or constants because of the changes that occurs while hashing.

[Nheer]

Miners compute hashes using their hardware, that means as long as their hardware is constant (eg. the miner has 10 ASICs) the number of hashes they can compute per second (aka hashrate) is also constant.

Don't confuse that with the total hashrate, that is not constant since the number of miners is never constant. They always come and go, upgrade their equipment to newer hardware, add more hardware, etc.

Okay so, do you mean hashrate differs from the total hashrate and total hashrate is calculated for all miner on the network and since miners are joining and leaving the network the total hashrate is not constant. But then the hashrate for a miner is constant provided their hardware is constant.

This guide should help, with PGP message encryption.:

[Eng: Tutorial] PGP Signature - Encrypt/Decrypt message - Fingerprint

Message encryption is different from encrypting wallet file that is in my first paragraph.

Mr A has a private key, and a public key. Mr A disclosed the public key to the public. Anyone can use the public to encrypt a message and only Mr A can be able to use his private key to decrypt the message that people send to him. That is an example of message encryption and decryption.

I appreciate the thorough explanation of how to encrypt a message and a wallet's file, as well as the risk involved with encryption and the recommendation to backup the seed phrase instead. Additionally, I appreciate you giving me a guide. I haven't studied it yet, but I will once I have some free time and have resolved some things.
I appreciate everyone’s efforts and contributions i have really learned a lot.

[Synchronice]

So, do you say that a lot of companies adopt bitcoin on or after halving day? Does that make sense?
Definitely bitcoin adoption plays role but here is a fact, bitcoin's price significantly increases after halving and that's because even if the demand stays the same, reward is half.
Let me clarify: Imagine, there is a company that produces 100 gallons of milk per week and has 100 buyers every week. Once in a while, company halves the number of milk it produces, i.e. after halving company started to produce 50 gallons of milk per week while it still has 100 buyers ew. So, even if the demand stays the same or slightly decreases, price will still rise, so to say roughly and shortly, halving increases price.

The flaw in your comparison is that milk is consumed and bitcoins are not, and that unlike milk, the supply in the market does not come only from the producers. You are confusing production with supply. Do you believe that no bitcoins will be available when all the bitcoins are mined? Compare the number of bitcoins produced each day to the total number sold. Miners are a very small portion of the market.

Okay, why does price increase after halving? Does everyone comes out of nowhere and thinks like hey, it's May 11, 2020, let's adopt Bitcoin. No! If it has nothing to do with reduced reward, then why does price increase after that event?

Also, please explain, why doesn't bitcoin goes to it's old price after halving? Bitcoin was $600 pre halving in 2016, it went up to 20K and never went down to $600 or even $1000. It was $9300 in 2020 but we haven't seen it lower than 16 or 15K after halving. It never returns to its pre-halving price. It isn't only because of demand, it has to do thing with reduced block reward too.

When the mining becomes unprofitable, miners demand more for their bitcoins but one of the major factor that contributes increased price of bitcoin is that actually, there is a proposal that everyone has heard and has seen results of 'Bitcoin halving leads to increased bitcoin price'.  Then doesn't matter demand/supply, people pay higher and higher prices because there exist this expectation among everyone, it's like an invisible hand.

[Pmalek]

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As odolvlobo mentioned, it's not just miners that sell bitcoin's on the market. But yeah, they impact the price the same way you and me affect it if we submit buy and sell orders. It's obvious that miners who sell their block rewards want to keep earning the same or more when they dump their coins on the market. If they earn $30k today, they aren't going to be happy earning $15k after the next halving. The solution: They request higher prices from those buying their coins. But all other market participants have to play ball and also ask more.

But it only works if there is enough demand and people are interested in paying more. So, it's a combination of supply and demand, the fact that miners earn less for the same amount of work, more interest and adoption, bitcoin getting some positive media attention due to the halving, which results in new investors coming in, etc. 

[pooya87]

Also, please explain, why doesn't bitcoin goes to it's old price after halving? Bitcoin was $600 pre halving in 2016, it went up to 20K and never went down to $600 or even $1000.

To be fair the adoption grew by a lot during 2017 where price reached $20k. But I get your point, if we see the block reward as the sell pressure where the newly generated coins enter circulation and some are sold on the market, after halving that sell pressure is significantly reduced  hence making it easier for the price to rise.
So we could see halving as something that paves the way for the bigger rises.

[odolvlobo]

... [miners] aren't going to be happy earning $15k after the next halving. The solution: They request higher prices from those buying their coins. But all other market participants have to play ball and also ask more.  

If miners could make more simply by "requesting higher prices", then why don't they do it now? And, if miners can make more, then why don't all sellers  "request higher prices" and make more right now? The answer is that everyone already sells at the highest prices they can get. And after the halving, they will continue to sell at the highest prices they can get, whether they are happy with those prices or not.

The idea that miners somehow dictate prices is ridiculous. The total BTC volume on exchanges is something like 500,000 BTC per day and miners sell only 900 BTC per day.

All other market participants do not "have to play ball and also ask more". Other participants will sell at whatever prices they can get, even if it is less than what miners offer.

...if we see the block reward as the sell pressure where the newly generated coins enter circulation and some are sold on the market, after halving that sell pressure is significantly reduced  hence making it easier for the price to rise.

The "sell pressure" of new bitcoins (aka inflation) is low. After, the halving, it will drop by 0.8%. A 0.8% drop can hardly be considered "significant". Even if you consider 75% of the coins to be off-the-market, the change in "sell pressure" is still tiny.

Again, it is a mistake to give so much weight to the production of only 900 BTC per day compared to the 19,330,000 already in existence and the 500,000 traded per day.

[Pmalek]

If miners could make more simply by "requesting higher prices", then why don't they do it now? And, if miners can make more, then why don't all sellers  "request higher prices" and make more right now?

Because we don't live in a dreamland where all your wishes come true. You can only sell your bitcoin at xx/coin if someone is willing to pay xx per coin. If buyers are only willing to purchase at x/coin, you either sell at those rates or continue dreaming and expecting more.

I didn't say that miners have a huge impact on the prices. But all sellers (including miners) contribute slightly and only if the other side is in agreement.   

[pooya87]

The "sell pressure" of new bitcoins (aka inflation) is low. After, the halving, it will drop by 0.8%. A 0.8% drop can hardly be considered "significant". Even if you consider 75% of the coins to be off-the-market, the change in "sell pressure" is still tiny.

Again, it is a mistake to give so much weight to the production of only 900 BTC per day compared to the 19,330,000 already in existence and the 500,000 traded per day.

You are looking at trading volume, that's misleading.
The number that CMC and similar sites report (like 500k per day) is total trading volume and it is usually trading volume of all pairs involving bitcoin not bitcoin against fiat only. Bitcoin/Fiat pair has the most effect on price, Bitcoin/StableShitcoins has less effect and Bitcoin/Altcoins has no effect. As an example the volume on Coinbase in the past 24 hours and was about 18k bitcoins.

Trading volume also doesn't completely show demand so it is not the most accurate thing to look at when analyzing "new sell pressure". For example people buying and selling the same coins in a tight price space makes up a lot of volume but they can not and will not resist sell pressures.

900BTC sold per day may not be significant but it is in no way negligible. It indeed has an effect on the market. After all we are talking about $24 million per day, in other words on average people have to inject NEW $24 million into the market every day, and that's just to keep the price the same as before.

[sha420hashcollision]

I have a question that I am bit confused about so I need a little explanation.
When mining a block do miners' hash rates varies as blocks are produced, or do they remain constant.

Furthermore, I discovered that encryption can offer strong protection when keeping our private keys and other sensitive data to prevent hacks. I looked through the forum but was unable to locate an understandable tutorial on how to encrypt a message. I need a little guidance on how to encrypt a message.

Hashrate is the rate at which a computer of some sort can find solutions to the current puzzle. This rate is ALWAYS estimated because there is always a possibility of the current solution being found earlier or later than expected.

That being said different hardware can produce different results in computational speed so the generic results can be used to estimate real time hash rate, just not 100% accurately ever ( see: https://www.makeuseof.com/silicon-lottery-why-no-two-processors-are-the-same/ ).

Thus yes, hashrate will ALWAYS vary no matter the algorithm. Not to mention that the propagation of Blocks happens asynchronously of mining entirely.

As for encryption, the Bitcoin network is optimized for payment security. It is not optimized to hold on to strong ciphers for encryption, ElGamal for example requires 2048 bit ciphers or higher to guarantee some level of long term discrete log hardness. (see: https://www.di-mgt.com.au/public-key-crypto-discrete-logs-3-elgamal.html | https://arxiv.org/pdf/1405.0914.pdf )

You do not want to save your cipher-texts on the blockchain forever because this means eventually they may be deciphered by some attacker who now has free storage of the attack surface. Instead maybe just include a reference to a hash of the cipher-text if you really need something like that synced to the blockchain. Similarly if you publish them online make sure you can remove the data completely from all public channels once they are not needed anymore. Don't leave obvious trails of encrypted data. (Not to mention a small 2048 bit ElGamal ciphertext would not even fit in a block)