2024 Diff thread happy New Years.

[mikeywith]

But 625 miners with S19 are 2000KW at 62,5 Peta, while you need only 312 miners with S21 for the same rate at 1100KW, and that's not the s21pro numbers..
If we had had the same gear and nothing new on the horizon I would have also said something 25-30 at least, but with improvement in hash/watts, I think that it will account for the rest.

The economics are still the same, gear efficiency only affects the numbers but not the ratio, it makes 10 become 20, or 50 become 25, but it's still a 100% increase and a 50% drop, but while we are at it, let's evaluate this from a different standpoint.

Let's look at the 2020 halving

Price= 10k (50% down from ATH)
total difficulty drop = - 45.6%  (from 25 to 13.6) this took from 11th May to 16 July,  or let's say 2 months or an average of 4 epochs.

When we climbed again to ATH in mid-November, difficulty climbed back to 21.7T, which is a 13% decrease, I would imagine the lowest difficulty drop we can ever get would be a 13% if the halving happens while BTC price is 70k, any lower than that would contribute to more drop in hashrate.

So, I will double down on this, I see the hashrate at the end of Q2 higher than the week before the halving!

It's pretty much going to be determined by the price of BTC by then, but I would say you are most likely to be wrong, the end of Q2 is going to be 2 months and 10 days post-halving, my guess, that period will mark the lowest hashrate for this year and many years to come, it would be like July 2020 after all the dust have settled and all those mining at a loss or no good profit or the YOLO guys will understand it's actually them who need to shut down

The above theory could be further observed by looking at what happens during the halving epoch itself, we went from ATH of 23.6T to 25T, so right around the halving people were hammering the network for those last large gains before the halving, probably dozen trying solo, those planning to shutdown go full blast overclocking their gears, and then the interesting part is that it took nearly 2 months to reach that drop.

I think what explains the 2-month period to reach a new equilibrium is "hope and uncertainty", most miners would be in a dilemma, an one of three scenarios will happen to them.

1- Other people will shutdown first > difficulty will drop > I will be mining at profit again
2- Bitcoin Price will increase > I will be mining at profit again
3- I turn out to be the weakest player in the game > I will shut down

It took 2 months for the dust to settle, it could take as long or even longer this time, but it can't take forever, you may survive a month of mining at break-even or even a loss, maybe 2 months, maybe 3, but you can't keep going forever and at some point you will come to realize that others have a longer breath and it's your time to go, this is a very common psychological fact that nearly all miners have.

[1714466138]

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[1714466138]

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[joker_josue]

1- Other people will shutdown first > difficulty will drop > I will be mining at profit again
2- Bitcoin Price will increase > I will be mining at profit again
3- I turn out to be the weakest player in the game > I will shut down

In your opinion, what is the most likely scenario?
Or is this a totally new situation, never faced before, and we are going to enter a new phase in Bitcoin mining?

What impact will there be for Bitcoin if the 3rd scenario is the most common?

[philipma1957]

1- Other people will shutdown first > difficulty will drop > I will be mining at profit again
2- Bitcoin Price will increase > I will be mining at profit again
3- I turn out to be the weakest player in the game > I will shut down

In your opinion, what is the most likely scenario?
Or is this a totally new situation, never faced before, and we are going to enter a new phase in Bitcoin mining?

What impact will there be for Bitcoin if the 3rd scenario is the most common?

All 3 will happen.  The percentage of all above is debatable able.

But 4 and 5 also exist

4) I am selling all my gear and mining later on which is what I will likely do as I prepped and my gear has value and is being sold.

5) some are fully prepped and loaded with 5 cent power and s21's they mine on.

[mikeywith]

In your opinion, what is the most likely scenario?
Or is this a totally new situation, never faced before, and we are going to enter a new phase in Bitcoin mining?

What impact will there be for Bitcoin if the 3rd scenario is the most common?

As Phill pointed out, all three scenarios will happen to different people, someone who runs at 5 cents / kWh and has M60s or S21s will most likely be in category 1, someone with 7 cents and S17s or M20s will be in category 3, it all depends on the profit margin for every individual miner, be it a small miner or a large corporation, we don't have much info to determine what percentage is going to go offline, but we know the profit margin for everyone will go down, the income will be cut by half so;

If you make $100 a day and spend $50 on electricity, maintenance, employees, rent, etc, after the halving you will be making only $50 a day, meaning, if you don't cut down on your operational cost you will be facing some serious issues, and mining is somewhat different from running other business because the power bill makes the majority of your expenses unlike other businesses, the importance of skills or cutting-edge technology is very small, all you do is convert power to BTC, so if you can't cut your power bills, you are in deep shit.

If you take these two miners and do small compassion between them, things start to get clear, according to Sec fillings it costs Cathedra roughly 28k to mine one BTC, that is the direct cost of mining Bitcoin, in other words, power bill only, it would cost them double that (assuming no price change or hashrate drop) after the halving, so that puts them at roughly 56k per BTC mined, they would hardly survive that if the price doesn't spike soon enough, on the other hand, Iris energy according to Sec fillings as well, spend only 12K per BTC, so post halving will be 24k which means they still have a lot of room for profit.

However, the power bill isn't all there is to it when it comes to these large players, they have interest payments and operational costs, which also affect the overall result, because according to the same source, for IRIS, the interest payment + operational cost would be 16k, which puts the overall cost per BTC at 40k not just 24k.

There are a lot of factors here, the most important would be the price of BTC for the following months after the halving.

[philipma1957]

In your opinion, what is the most likely scenario?
Or is this a totally new situation, never faced before, and we are going to enter a new phase in Bitcoin mining?

What impact will there be for Bitcoin if the 3rd scenario is the most common?

As Phill pointed out, all three scenarios will happen to different people, someone who runs at 5 cents / kWh and has M60s or S21s will most likely be in category 1, someone with 7 cents and S17s or M20s will be in category 3, it all depends on the profit margin for every individual miner, be it a small miner or a large corporation, we don't have much info to determine what percentage is going to go offline, but we know the profit margin for everyone will go down, the income will be cut by half so;

If you make $100 a day and spend $50 on electricity, maintenance, employees, rent, etc, after the halving you will be making only $50 a day, meaning, if you don't cut down on your operational cost you will be facing some serious issues, and mining is somewhat different from running other business because the power bill makes the majority of your expenses unlike other businesses, the importance of skills or cutting-edge technology is very small, all you do is convert power to BTC, so if you can't cut your power bills, you are in deep shit.

If you take these two miners and do small compassion between them, things start to get clear, according to Sec fillings it costs Cathedra roughly 28k to mine one BTC, that is the direct cost of mining Bitcoin, in other words, power bill only, it would cost them double that (assuming no price change or hashrate drop) after the halving, so that puts them at roughly 56k per BTC mined, they would hardly survive that if the price doesn't spike soon enough, on the other hand, Iris energy according to Sec fillings as well, spend only 12K per BTC, so post halving will be 24k which means they still have a lot of room for profit.

However, the power bill isn't all there is to it when it comes to these large players, they have interest payments and operational costs, which also affect the overall result, because according to the same source, for IRIS, the interest payment + operational cost would be 16k, which puts the overall cost per BTC at 40k not just 24k.

There are a lot of factors here, the most important would be the price of BTC for the following months after the halving.

I know a lot of miners will hang in at small loss numbers. For a month or two or three.
But I know price could drop to 50k and fees suck which will push miners out.

I have 70kwatts at clifton. and in 2 weeks everyone mines at a loss. with the exception of the two gpu miners we have going.

[joker_josue]

I know it will be difficult. But, will mining change to being done only by small miners, who mine for the love of the sweater, and not by big miners?

Today, we have this scenario, which is not very favorable for miners in general, and the cost of energy is not expected to fall much further in the coming years. In 4 years we will have another cut in block mining.

[philipma1957]

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

Latest Block:   838341  (a minute ago)

Current Pace:   103.9644%  (1702 / 1637.10 expected, 64.9 ahead)

Previous Difficulty:   83947913181361.55                            
Current Difficulty:   83126997340024.61                            
Next Difficulty:   between 86358653755094 and 86442204964986
Next Difficulty Change:   between +3.8876% and +3.9881%
Previous Retarget:   March 28, 2024 at 5:47 AM  (-0.9779%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Wednesday at 4:58 PM  (in 2d 2h 20m 15s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Wednesday at 5:17 PM  (in 2d 2h 38m 54s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 11h 11m 15s and 13d 11h 29m 54s

big big shift +3.96%

quote

Latest Block:   838489  (34 minutes ago)

Current Pace:   103.8188%  (1850 / 1781.95 expected, 68.05 ahead)

Previous Difficulty:   83947913181361.55                            
Current Difficulty:   83126997340024.61                            
Next Difficulty:   between 86297103606697 and 86319575037317
Next Difficulty Change:   between +3.8136% and +3.8406%
Previous Retarget:   March 28, 2024 at 5:47 AM  (-0.9779%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Tomorrow at 5:25 PM  (in 1d 2h 38m 56s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Tomorrow at 5:30 PM  (in 1d 2h 43m 58s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 11h 38m 26s and 13d 11h 43m 28s




still near +3.8%

this is the last jump before 1/2 ing


plus 4.1%

Latest Block:   838645  (2 minutes ago)

Current Pace:   104.0996%  (2006 / 1927.00 expected, 79 ahead)

Previous Difficulty:   83947913181361.55                           
Current Difficulty:   83126997340024.61                           
Next Difficulty:   between 86551522690517 and 86551610423537
Next Difficulty Change:   between +4.1196% and +4.1197%
Previous Retarget:   March 28, 2024 at 5:47 AM  (-0.9779%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Today at 4:33 PM  (in 0d 1h 36m 3s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Today at 4:33 PM  (in 0d 1h 36m 4s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 10h 46m 4s and 13d 10h 46m 5s

[mikeywith]

So the current difficulty is 86388558925171.02 (86.1T), it's the week before the halving, so for @stompix to be correct in his double down bid, we need to be at > 86.1T by the end of June, I think that was a bit too far stretched for stompy and he is going be to be wrong yet again .

Anyway, this epoch is going to drag a little longer than average, the halving takes place at block 840,000, we are at block 838,822 so 1,178 blocks away from halving and 1,849 blocks away from diff change, the remaining 671 blocks are probably going to take at least 20% more time to finish, in other words, 12 minutes on average, so far the pace is -10%, we are roughly 8 days away from the fireworks.

I believe fees are picking up because

1- the current pace is slow
2- people expect it will keep getting worse as we move further to the halving
3- diff change is going to drag and the remaining days post-halving before diff drops would make the block intervals even higher which would bring fees to higher levels.

Seems like everyone is trying to outsmart everyone else..

[joker_josue]

Seems like everyone is trying to outsmart everyone else..

So with this Ordenals trend, everyone wants to record the first block after the halving.

This can be advantageous for miners, as they end up making more money before the cut. Perhaps this allows some miners to obtain a financial cushion that allows them to bear the brunt of the reward reduction.


One thing is certain, the network is getting clogged, and we already have a negative forecast of almost 10% in the next difficulty adjustment.

Latest Block:   838835  (35 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   89.1477%  (180 / 201.91 expected, 21.91 behind)
Previous Difficulty:   83126997340024.61                           
Current Difficulty:   86388558925171.02                           
Next Difficulty:   between 77304402617038 and 84690729823373
Next Difficulty Change:   between -10.5155% and -1.9653%
Previous Retarget:   last Wednesday at 10:09 PM  (+3.9236%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   April 25, 2024 at 5:08 AM  (in 12d 21h 19m 33s)
Next Retarget (latest):   April 26, 2024 at 3:04 PM  (in 14d 7h 15m 1s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 14d 6h 58m 40s and 15d 16h 54m 9s

[philipma1957]

fees have run at about 1 btc for the last 100 blocks.

So the new ½ ing  would mean 3.125 + 1 = 4.125 which is not exactly a ½ ing

evidence shows they know how to clog the mempool and that 2023 to now has been the most clogged ever

[joker_josue]

evidence shows they know how to clog the mempool and that 2023 to now has been the most clogged ever

They who?
It's difficult to find out who is really clogging up the mempool. Whether the Ordinals crowd or the pools crowd.

[NeuroticFish]

They who?
It's difficult to find out who is really clogging up the mempool. Whether the Ordinals crowd or the pools crowd.

I'll guess that he's referring to big miners. The Ordinals crowd has no benefit from clogged mempool nor the tools for doing this systematically.

[philipma1957]

They who?
It's difficult to find out who is really clogging up the mempool. Whether the Ordinals crowd or the pools crowd.

I'll guess that he's referring to big miners. The Ordinals crowd has no benefit from clogged mempool nor the tools for doing this systematically.

the miners have enough power to toy with the diff.

the foundry pool has a minimum 20ph amount for miners 200 s19j pros or 100 s21 units

they run 190eh as a pool.

 They can simply back off  hash rate like this adjustment so far. Then clog the pool with your own transactions, make lots  of txs at 8 sats and white list them.
then on the back end of the jump mine  the fat blocks like mad.

Best of all the difficulty stays fairly flat each jump by the time you are done.

[joker_josue]

Best of all the difficulty stays fairly flat each jump by the time you are done.

Well... that's what I think too.
The best for miners outside of these large pools. Because for the network, everything ends up getting messed up.

Why maybe they don't do this in every cycle? In recent cycles, the network has not been clogged.

[stompix]

So we had a +3.9% and we're looking at +1.9% while the price is going right now at -13% on the week.

And this means income per th/s is down to 9.88, we get 4.94 cents after halving.
This is going to hurt a bit, but I still think it will be temporary, I'm still standing on my Q2 gamble, although that last almost 4% jump was a bit of an unexpected move.

Oh, and almost forgot, if the ordinal spam goes away, then there is an extra 8% off from the fees earned, so make that let's say...9.40 cents?

[philipma1957]

So we had a +3.9% and we're looking at +1.9% while the price is going right now at -13% on the week.

And this means income per th/s is down to 9.88, we get 4.94 cents after halving.
This is going to hurt a bit, but I still think it will be temporary, I'm still standing on my Q2 gamble, although that last almost 4% jump was a bit of an unexpected move.

Oh, and almost forgot, if the ordinal spam goes away, then there is an extra 8% off from the fees earned, so make that let's say...9.40 cents?

so in 2-3 days we go to 4.7 cents

an s21 does 200th or $9.40 earnings

burns 87 kwatts  make it 90kwatts


the is 9.90 dollars   with 11 cent power
this is 9.00 dollars   with 10 cent power
this is 8.10 dollars   with 9 cent power
this is 7.20 dollars   with 8 cent power


so the s21 will be okay for low power miners.
the     t21 is $8.93  EARNED

SO IT IS OKAY at 8 cents
even 9 cents

but all s19's are hurting like mad.

s19 xp earns  6.58 burns 80kwatts  it will work with 7 cent power.

so far things are shaky

[NotATether]

Oh, and almost forgot, if the ordinal spam goes away, then there is an extra 8% off from the fees earned, so make that let's say...9.40 cents?

I don't think Ordinals spam is going anywhere actually, even with Runes, because you know, BRC-20 still exists and a lot of weird exchanges for it are being made and their creators aren't going to just close shop like that.

What's more likely to happen is that the mempool will become more of a swamp. Double so now that the halving is literally happening in days and there will naturally be way more transactions by then.

[philipma1957]

Oh, and almost forgot, if the ordinal spam goes away, then there is an extra 8% off from the fees earned, so make that let's say...9.40 cents?

I don't think Ordinals spam is going anywhere actually, even with Runes, because you know, BRC-20 still exists and a lot of weird exchanges for it are being made and their creators aren't going to just close shop like that.

What's more likely to happen is that the mempool will become more of a swamp. Double so now that the halving is literally happening in days and there will naturally be way more transactions by then.

I so agree with this.  I post a photo showing the last 7 years of the mempool over and over as it is clearly showing the spam is here to stay and slowly growing.

[joker_josue]

I don't think Ordinals spam is going anywhere actually, even with Runes, because you know, BRC-20 still exists and a lot of weird exchanges for it are being made and their creators aren't going to just close shop like that.

What's more likely to happen is that the mempool will become more of a swamp. Double so now that the halving is literally happening in days and there will naturally be way more transactions by then.

I so agree with this.  I post a photo showing the last 7 years of the mempool over and over as it is clearly showing the spam is here to stay and slowly growing.

Looking at this graph, it can be seen that since the beginning of 2023, rates have risen significantly compared to other periods, and are not as low as before.

Perhaps it is an increase in transaction movements, and the coincidence with the emergence of Ordinals, is just that coincidence. But, I have my doubts.

[stompix]

Oh, and almost forgot, if the ordinal spam goes away, then there is an extra 8% off from the fees earned, so make that let's say...9.40 cents?

I don't think Ordinals spam is going anywhere actually, even with Runes, because you know, BRC-20 still exists and a lot of weird exchanges for it are being made and their creators aren't going to just close shop like that.
What's more likely to happen is that the mempool will become more of a swamp. Double so now that the halving is literally happening in days and there will naturally be way more transactions by then.

Well my bad, sometimes I really forget that I need to add extra details when talking about something, In my mind I know I've said it before so I assume that everyone knows what I'm talking about!

I don't think ordinals will ever go away! EVER!
I think that as long as 1sat/vb will mean every guy in this universe with 4-5k to spare might want to inscribe his name to be there forever in one full block will be able to do it, and pretty cheaply considering the amount of people spend for shit around! So the spam will keep going at 1sat/vb, but I don't think it will manage to keep going for long at rates of 100sat/vb, since this will no longer imply some maniacs but an actual industry to support 1.5 mils and over a day.

Much like expensive wine, you do have a few clients for 50k bottles but no way Walmart is going to sell only bottles above 1000.

Also, real life is full of surprises, back in September I opened this topic:
When are we going to see the mempool empty again and 1sat/b confirmations?
most were saying never, a long time, bla bla..
It hit 1sat on October 03, 2023.

Dif is still at 1.7%, halving in a day and a bit, price back up a bit.
Time to get the popcorn ready, place a few bets, and enjoy the shitshow