2025 Difficulty thread. Planning to make 2025 the last one I do.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Are US citizens available to do this type of work? Is the production/labor cost worth it, even with the fees? I don't know the labor reality in the US, but I don't think anyone would want to do that kind of work for less than $100k/year. And maybe I'm saying a very low average value. Perhaps this value is the cost of all labor in a factory in China.

In the US most electronics production line techs will start at around $25-30 per hour + benefits or around $60k/year. There are plenty of folks here that would love to make that.

The training needed is a different story but it usually just takes few weeks hands-on to learn the skills needed. Problem is the lack of said previously trained folks to teach the new hires. Same goes for the production Engineers - no real lack of them who know the basics, problem is getting them up to speed on the actual line equipment. TSMC has already been addressing that with their plants being built in Arizona - initially over 1/2 the workforce in them will be Taiwanese until enough US workers are trained to work in them.

Oh, per TSMC the cost to 'make in the US' is 50% more than 'made in Taiwan'. China mfg costs is only about 15% lower than Taiwan.

[philipma1957]

Are US citizens available to do this type of work? Is the production/labor cost worth it, even with the fees? I don't know the labor reality in the US, but I don't think anyone would want to do that kind of work for less than $100k/year. And maybe I'm saying a very low average value. Perhaps this value is the cost of all labor in a factory in China.

In the US most electronics production line techs will start at around $25-30 per hour + benefits or around $60k/year. There are plenty of folks here that would love to make that.

The training needed is a different story but it usually just takes few weeks hands-on to learn the skills needed. Problem is the lack of said previously trained folks to teach the new hires. Same goes for the production Engineers - no real lack of them who know the basics, problem is getting them up to speed on the actual line equipment.

agreed look my engineer work is self taught and in a garage yet my simple mods turn a 3000 dollar miner into the equal of a 4000 dollar miner.

us companies would need to riff on these ideas.  so many people in American use and electric space heater it is crazy that they are not usa built miners.

[joker_josue]

my testing clearly shows bitmain makes the gear too dense and pushes it too hard.

This comes to my other issue, which is that I continue to think that the large mining manufacturing companies are not making major developments. They don't make the equipment more efficient, just with more load.

[philipma1957]

my testing clearly shows bitmain makes the gear too dense and pushes it too hard.

This comes to my other issue, which is that I continue to think that the large mining manufacturing companies are not making major developments. They don't make the equipment more efficient, just with more load.

yeah the issue is mining is being taken from home miners.

if you own a home you can’t get cheap power and effectively mine.

even if you some how can find a justification ie you need a space heater only one company makes on canaan and it is made with issues.

the ones I made above are better but you need 240 volt power for them.

that knocks out most americans.

and in my case come may 1 i get summer power rates 28 cents a kwatt = no mining from may to oct 1

not much smaller miners can do

even the larger mine in clifton ran into issues and we broke it up not because it lost money it always made money and still makes money now.

but its about 85 miners that clear 3 dollars a day or 255 for the 85 of them tht is 7650 a month.

split 4 ways it is not practical not enough profit.

[joker_josue]

yeah the issue is mining is being taken from home miners.

if you own a home you can’t get cheap power and effectively mine.

even if you some how can find a justification ie you need a space heater only one company makes on canaan and it is made with issues.

the ones I made above are better but you need 240 volt power for them.

that knocks out most americans.

Well, most of them have 120v!?
In Europe we work with 220-230v. Which didn't make it a problem.

However, the fact that they are not concerned with the domestic market means that the efficiency of the equipment is not improved. Still, I think they should go this route instead of just adding more hash to the new versions. Everyone would win if equipment became truly more efficient.

[mikeywith]

Oh, per TSMC the cost to 'make in the US' is 50% more than 'made in Taiwan'. China mfg costs is only about 15% lower than Taiwan.

Wow, I didn't know it was only 15% lower in China compared to Taiwan. But correct me if I’m wrong—this is based on the per-usable-chip cost for a certain generation or two, right?

I also think a huge part of the cost, when it comes to these chips, is the know-how. China is still lagging in that area, so a major chunk of the cost likely comes from things like fine-tuning materials, equipment calibration, and software. Taiwan is pretty advanced here, especially with access to Western software and equipment, while the Chinese are pouring a lot of money into catching up.

Which means, eventually—and given that China has a lot more room for improvement—the cost gap will likely keep rising, especially for older generations. Not too long ago, SMIC dropped their selling price for a 28nm wafer to $1.5K, compared to $3K from TSMC. I don’t have the exact cost data, but judging by the selling price, that’s a 50% difference.

[philipma1957]

yeah the issue is mining is being taken from home miners.

if you own a home you can’t get cheap power and effectively mine.

even if you some how can find a justification ie you need a space heater only one company makes on canaan and it is made with issues.

the ones I made above are better but you need 240 volt power for them.

that knocks out most americans.

Well, most of them have 120v!?
In Europe we work with 220-230v. Which didn't make it a problem.

However, the fact that they are not concerned with the domestic market means that the efficiency of the equipment is not improved. Still, I think they should go this route instead of just adding more hash to the new versions. Everyone would win if equipment became truly more efficient.

but effectively if you run this in a home

2 t21 boards at 240 volts it is only okay if you need heat




or an American version 1 s19xp board at 120 volt




these are only okay if they are space heaters.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Wow, I didn't know it was only 15% lower in China compared to Taiwan. But correct me if I’m wrong—this is based on the per-usable-chip cost for a certain generation or two, right?

I'm pretty sure that the 15% difference only applies to device assembly costs. With companies like Foxconn aka Hon Hai, Lenovo and several others there who run MASSIVE assembly operations there to make just about any consumer device imaginable, China is hard to beat for lowest cost. One Foxconn operation that made news a several years ago following several employee suicides employs over 300k people at just that 1 campus...

re: wafer & node prices, not having any access to EUV tech means the best China can do is 7nm and even that is at horrible cost & yields. For many years China has been targeting the larger nodes knowing that chips using 16 & 28nm and higher make up perhaps 90% or more of chips being used world-wide. Hell, many things still use double & triple digit micron size gates. Think general purpose controllers, AV systems, car electronics, remote controls, IoT devices, etc. - most things have no need for bleeding-edge node size. Equipment used for producing the larger sizes is not restricted in any way and more to the point, is easily built by China.

While TSMC et al do still have plants producing some larger node chips up to at least the 28nm size, for the most part they have passed the torch for those commodity chips to other companies including SMIC. Given that fact of life I can see those chips being dirt cheap compared to TSMC pricing.

[Blueswiss]

So On Jan 1 we are at

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

Latest Block:   877280  (4 minutes ago)

Current Pace:   96.3782%  (321 / 333.06 expected, 12.06 behind)

Previous Difficulty:   108522647629298.2                            
Current Difficulty:   109782075598905.2                            
Next Difficulty:   between 106232297455655 and 108717299668762
Next Difficulty Change:   between -3.2335% and -0.9699%
Previous Retarget:   last Sunday at 4:42 PM  (+1.1605%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   January 12, 2025 at 8:24 PM  (in 11d 20h 11m 25s)
Next Retarget (latest):   January 13, 2025 at 5:19 AM  (in 12d 5h 6m 58s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 14d 3h 42m 3s and 14d 12h 37m 35s

So 109.78t

My guess for Jan 1 2026 is

139.98t

but I would like to be wrong.

one of the problems is the s21xp is so much better than a s21 or a s19xp 270th 12-14 watts a th true beast

almost 2x the hash rate of the s19xp


270 at 3700 watts vs 141 at 3100 watts a big improvement for top of the line s19 series to s21 series.

If you go back to Jan 1 last year we were at 72th

I could see 144th if all gear running on jan1 2024 turned into s21xp  by jan 1 2026

so 139-144t in a year.

for now lets see how we do.

While we speculate the difficulty of 2025 we are hoping that the best should be triggered.

[philipma1957]

at blueswiss what do you mean?

Never answered me. oh well

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


Latest Block:   894916  (3 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   95.5424%  (1829 / 1914.33 expected, 85.33 behind)
Previous Difficulty:   121507793131898.1                            
Current Difficulty:   123234387977050.9                            
Next Difficulty:   between 117775629227937 and 117820533238348
Next Difficulty Change:   between -4.4296% and -4.3931%
Previous Retarget:   April 19, 2025 at 5:08 AM  (+1.4210%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Tomorrow at 8:40 PM  (in 1d 8h 29m 9s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Tomorrow at 8:48 PM  (in 1d 8h 37m 14s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 14d 15h 32m 29s and 14d 15h 40m 34s

This drop will help miners and the 97k price is good.

but mining needs a price boost to about 125k and fast.

[alh]

.........

This drop will help miners and the 97k price is good.

but mining needs a price boost to about 125k and fast.

While BTC price is moving in the direction that you suggest, it's still well short at $102K.

[joker_josue]

It looks like the difficulty will go back to what it was before.
Despite Trump's fees, and low transaction fee revenue, miners are not slowing down.

Latest Block:   895924  (28 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   105.3719%  (821 / 779.14 expected, 41.86 ahead)
Previous Difficulty:   123234387977050.9                           
Current Difficulty:   119116256505723.5                           
Next Difficulty:   between 123286094326258 and 125669121836438
Next Difficulty Change:   between +3.5006% and +5.5012%
Previous Retarget:   last Saturday at 9:50 PM  (-3.3417%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   May 17, 2025 at 4:42 AM  (in 7d 21h 0m 46s)
Next Retarget (latest):   May 17, 2025 at 10:44 AM  (in 8d 3h 1m 54s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 6h 52m 13s and 13d 12h 53m 21s

[philipma1957]

It looks like the difficulty will go back to what it was before.
Despite Trump's fees, and low transaction fee revenue, miners are not slowing down.

Latest Block:   895924  (28 minutes ago)
Current Pace:   105.3719%  (821 / 779.14 expected, 41.86 ahead)
Previous Difficulty:   123234387977050.9                           
Current Difficulty:   119116256505723.5                           
Next Difficulty:   between 123286094326258 and 125669121836438
Next Difficulty Change:   between +3.5006% and +5.5012%
Previous Retarget:   last Saturday at 9:50 PM  (-3.3417%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   May 17, 2025 at 4:42 AM  (in 7d 21h 0m 46s)
Next Retarget (latest):   May 17, 2025 at 10:44 AM  (in 8d 3h 1m 54s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 6h 52m 13s and 13d 12h 53m 21s

Well it could mean a lot of confidence in the future price of BTC.

Pretty soon we will be leaving EH and going to next letters

I started at 21 th for the whole world network
and we will be passing 1000Eh  this summer we have already passed 1000 EH on some good days

1095eh on highest day which is 4,000,000 s21 xp units

that is 28 billion retail price for the gear.

[joker_josue]

1095eh on highest day which is 4,000,000 s21 xp units

What is the explanation for these spikes?
Where are these 200EH that appeared punctually?

Wouldn't the logic be that the values ​​would always go up, or even with the variations, the values ​​wouldn't make such a big difference?

[philipma1957]

1095eh on highest day which is 4,000,000 s21 xp units

What is the explanation for these spikes?
Where are these 200EH that appeared punctually?

Wouldn't the logic be that the values ​​would always go up, or even with the variations, the values ​​wouldn't make such a big difference?

One reason is a hydro plant may run from 9 at nite to 6 in the morning for a  mine

Then run from 6 in the morning to 9 at nite for a city.

Think of all the power that the water makes. when there is no demand from city workers.

[joker_josue]

One reason is a hydro plant may run from 9 at nite to 6 in the morning for a  mine

Then run from 6 in the morning to 9 at nite for a city.

Think of all the power that the water makes. when there is no demand from city workers.

Yes, it makes sense, miners turn on more ASICs at night, hence the hash rate spikes.

By the way, I've heard of big mining companies buying old plants. Do you know of any such cases?

[philipma1957]

One reason is a hydro plant may run from 9 at nite to 6 in the morning for a  mine

Then run from 6 in the morning to 9 at nite for a city.

Think of all the power that the water makes. when there is no demand from city workers.

Yes, it makes sense, miners turn on more ASICs at night, hence the hash rate spikes.

By the way, I've heard of big mining companies buying old plants. Do you know of any such cases?

Yes there are at lease 1 or 2 in New York State.

and then the state wrote a law banning more of them.


fucking corruption at its best. let your buddy in the door then close it lock it and guard it with the law.


I think marathon has a piece of a plant in Texas they have 350 containers and about 350 megawatts of gear there.

[joker_josue]

Yes there are at lease 1 or 2 in New York State.

and then the state wrote a law banning more of them.


fucking corruption at its best. let your buddy in the door then close it lock it and guard it with the law.


I think marathon has a piece of a plant in Texas they have 350 containers and about 350 megawatts of gear there.

This situation is really shameful.

This makes everything different in mining, doesn't it? Energy costs are reduced to a minimum, thus obtaining large profit margins.

[philipma1957]

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

Latest Block:   896422  (7 minutes ago)

Current Pace:   104.5346%  (1319 / 1261.78 expected, 57.22 ahead)

Previous Difficulty:   123234387977050.9                           
Current Difficulty:   119116256505723.5                           
Next Difficulty:   between 123928563251711 and 124612023375395
Next Difficulty Change:   between +4.0400% and +4.6138%
Previous Retarget:   May 3, 2025 at 4:50 PM  (-3.3417%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Saturday at 2:16 AM  (in 4d 15h 7m 38s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Saturday at 4:00 AM  (in 4d 16h 52m 10s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 9h 25m 28s and 13d 11h 10m 0s

So looks like a retool or upgrade with s21xps replacing s21s is mostly done.

As for marathon.

they provide a service for power leveling. Ie they use excess power in the fall and winter.

they shut down in the hot summer and get paid to not mine at all while homes need ac

it is estimated they are under 3 cent power cost. due to that deal.

[joker_josue]

they shut down in the hot summer and get paid to not mine at all while homes need ac

it is estimated they are under 3 cent power cost. due to that deal.

One day I would also like to be paid not to work.. 

But I even understand this agreement, because if the structure does not support all this consumption, good energy management must be done.

Now, most of the big miners in the U.S. don't stop in the summer, do they?