We should have a humongous party in December to celebrate block #210,000

[FreeMoney]

Celebrate a major drop in profits to all the miners, in the same way we celebrate the darkest and dreariest days of the year with Yuletide/Christmas/New Years? Sounds reasonable 

Well now that all depends on if the price of bitcoin is plumetting, staying stable, or skyrocketing huh......future will tell us this while you keep staring in your picture...

If it's plummeting, that'll only be more reason to party harder.
It's too bad a block party will only last an average of 10 minutes.

Didn't you hear? Everyone will be done mining when the reward drops and we'll live at block 210000 forever.

[1715093288]

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[Ente]

Blockparty? Great!
Or is it a halfing-party?
Or an instant-deflationary party?

Either way, I will try to be at any of those parties or start one here! :-)

Ente

[Vandroiy]

Great IDea ! I will anounce a Block Party in Munich @ the local meetups Location !

Guess I wan't there early enough for that yesterday?

I've been thinking the same thing since New Years, but got too little time... the "Munich Minting Cut Party" would be awesome!

[Tuxavant]

The interesting thing about this is that it will happen everywhere around the globe at exactly the same time... Many people will get cock blocked by their time zone/routine.

If nothing else, I'll be in #bitcoin celebrating.

[Ente]

[..]Many people will get cock blocked by their time zone/routine.[..]

Titcoin? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=64404.0

SCNR

Ente

[runeks]

The interesting thing about this is that it will happen everywhere around the globe at exactly the same time... Many people will get cock blocked by their time zone/routine.

If nothing else, I'll be in #bitcoin celebrating.

My current estimate (which doesn't take account for rising difficulty at all) tells me a time of 2012-12-09 11:16:15 GMT+1. So that's a late morning party for us Europeans at least.

(here's the Python code for anyone interested)

Code:

#!/usr/bin/python
import subprocess, time, datetime, urllib2, sys

get_blockcount_command = "bitcoind getblockcount"
COIN = 100000000

def floatstrip(x):
    if x == int(x):
        return str(int(x))
    else:
        return str(x)

def get_block_count():
   #first try with bitcoind
   try:
       return int(subprocess.Popen(get_blockcount_command.split(), stderr=subprocess.STDOUT, stdout=subprocess.PIPE).communicate()[0].rstrip('\n'))
   except ValueError:
      #if that didn't work, then with bitcoinexplorer.com
      try:
         req = urllib2.Request("http://blockexplorer.com/q/getblockcount")
         url = urllib2.urlopen(req)
         return int(url.read())
      except urllib2.HTTPError, e:
         print "Error getting block count from blockexplorer.com: " + str(e.code)
         print "couldn't get current block count :("
         sys.exit()

block_count = get_block_count()

print "Block count is:", block_count, "(only %d blocks to go!)" % (210000-(block_count % 210000))

subsidy = 50 * COIN
print "First %s BTC block will probably be mined at:" % (floatstrip((subsidy >> ((block_count / 210000)+1))/COIN)), datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(time.time()+((210000-(block_count % 210000))*60*10)).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')

[notme]

The interesting thing about this is that it will happen everywhere around the globe at exactly the same time... Many people will get cock blocked by their time zone/routine.

If nothing else, I'll be in #bitcoin celebrating.

My current estimate (which doesn't take account for rising difficulty at all) tells me a time of 2012-12-09 11:16:15 GMT+1. So that's a late morning party for us Europeans at least.

(here's the Python code for anyone interested)

Code:

#!/usr/bin/python
import subprocess, time, datetime, urllib2, sys

get_blockcount_command = "bitcoind getblockcount"
COIN = 100000000

def floatstrip(x):
    if x == int(x):
        return str(int(x))
    else:
        return str(x)

def get_block_count():
   #first try with bitcoind
   try:
       return int(subprocess.Popen(get_blockcount_command.split(), stderr=subprocess.STDOUT, stdout=subprocess.PIPE).communicate()[0].rstrip('\n'))
   except ValueError:
      #if that didn't work, then with bitcoinexplorer.com
      try:
         req = urllib2.Request("http://blockexplorer.com/q/getblockcount")
         url = urllib2.urlopen(req)
         return int(url.read())
      except urllib2.HTTPError, e:
         print "Error getting block count from blockexplorer.com: " + str(e.code)
         print "couldn't get current block count :("
         sys.exit()

block_count = get_block_count()

print "Block count is:", block_count, "(only %d blocks to go!)" % (210000-(block_count % 210000))

subsidy = 50 * COIN
print "First %s BTC block will probably be mined at:" % (floatstrip((subsidy >> ((block_count / 210000)+1))/COIN)), datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(time.time()+((210000-(block_count % 210000))*60*10)).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')

Meh... way too much variance to even pin it down to a day at this point.

[runeks]

I think I'll start tracking the predictions on a daily basis, just to see how much they fluctuate.

[Red Emerald]

Meh... way too much variance to even pin it down to a day at this point.

I thought we were only like 2 days off from expected if you count from the genesis block.

[mb300sd]

Maybe the Dec 21, 2012 thing isn't referring to the 21st day, but to the 210,000th block! Could it possibly be on the same day? The block reward halving is going to end the world!

[runeks]

Meh... way too much variance to even pin it down to a day at this point.

I thought we were only like 2 days off from expected if you count from the genesis block.

Current projections say it'll happen like 24 days earlier than genesis block plus four years.

I'm currently making projections daily, and they look like they're decreasing by a couple of hours every day. So maybe it'll be a whole month before Jan 3rd.

Block count is: 171665 (only 38335 blocks to go!)
First 25 BTC block will probably be mined at: 2012-12-09 11:17:57
Block count is: 171800 (only 38200 blocks to go!)
First 25 BTC block will probably be mined at: 2012-12-09 08:19:55
Block count is: 171988 (only 38012 blocks to go!)
First 25 BTC block will probably be mined at: 2012-12-09 07:22:11
Block count is: 172168 (only 37832 blocks to go!)
First 25 BTC block will probably be mined at: 2012-12-09 05:02:38
Block count is: 172253 (only 37747 blocks to go!)
First 25 BTC block will probably be mined at: 2012-12-09 03:50:53

[marcus_of_augustus]

Happy Satoshi Day .... only comes around every 4 years.

Edit: the random count from 10 blocks out will be interesting ... 10 ....9-8,.... 7 ... wait for it 6 ...5-4-3 ...

[Rassah]

I'm currently making projections daily, and they look like they're decreasing by a couple of hours every day

I am guessing that the date will decrease until the next difficulty change (more miners returning time per block), then jump forward as difficulty increases (takes longer to find the block), and decrease again until the next difficulty change. If Bitcoin price goes way up, many more miners will suddenly join, bringing the date way down (I suspect last June was the reason it's happening a month early), and opposite if the price crashes.
Will be interesting to see what happens to the date fluctuations after the next difficulty change.

[runeks]

^ As far as I can figure out, the moment of a difficulty adjustment shouldn't affect the date I predict. All I'm doing is this:

time_to_block210000 = blocks_left*10min

nothing more. Every day, the prediction moves about an hour or two closer. Seems to me this is because we are solving blocks quicker than than one per ten minutes. bitcoincharts.com says 6.26 per hour currently, so this actually agrees with the ~1 hour prediction time reduction per day (circa 4% faster, 4% = 0.96 hours per day).

If we assume hashing power is increasing slowly but steadily, the difference between prediction times should change the most right before a difficulty adjustment, be zero right after an adjustment and then begin rising slowly again until the next difficulty adjustment. The further we get away from a difficulty adjustment, the less accurate the 10-minutes-per-block figure will be, and so, consecutive predictions using this equation will differ the most. Here's the most recent list: we've moved into December 8th:

Code:

Block count is: 171665 (only 38335 blocks to go!)
First 25 BTC block will probably be mined at: 2012-12-09 11:17:57
Block count is: 171800 (only 38200 blocks to go!)
First 25 BTC block will probably be mined at: 2012-12-09 08:19:55
Block count is: 171988 (only 38012 blocks to go!)
First 25 BTC block will probably be mined at: 2012-12-09 07:22:11
Block count is: 172168 (only 37832 blocks to go!)
First 25 BTC block will probably be mined at: 2012-12-09 05:02:38
Block count is: 172253 (only 37747 blocks to go!)
First 25 BTC block will probably be mined at: 2012-12-09 03:50:53
Block count is: 172477 (only 37523 blocks to go!)
First 25 BTC block will probably be mined at: 2012-12-09 04:10:39
Block count is: 172653 (only 37347 blocks to go!)
First 25 BTC block will probably be mined at: 2012-12-09 00:10:36
Block count is: 172821 (only 37179 blocks to go!)
First 25 BTC block will probably be mined at: 2012-12-08 20:01:07

The next difficulty adjustment should take place in about 3.5 days and result in a ~5.9% difficulty increase.

[jCole]

No thanks i will not celebrate 25 coins per block 

[FreeMoney]

No thanks i will not celebrate 25 coins per block 

If you aren't excited for the drop you should keep more coins until you are.

[runeks]

I'm certainly going to watch it live if I remember it. It's quite an interesting change if you ask me: to see all the thousands of computers running Bitcoin agreeing on what to do now.

[LightRider]

I'll be celebrating. It's like marking the transition between the age of pi to the enlightened era of tau.

[marcus_of_augustus]

I'll be celebrating. It's like marking the transition between the age of pi to the enlightened era of tau.

Good one ... http://tauday.com/



We can have a second party on genesis block anniversary ... Jan. 03, 2013 (3:1:13) just for good measure, 2 is better than one

[Red Emerald]

I'll be celebrating. It's like marking the transition between the age of pi to the enlightened era of tau.

Good one ... http://tauday.com/



We can have a second party on genesis block anniversary ... Jan. 03, 2013 (3:1:13) just for good measure, 2 is better than one

Wow. Geometry and trig would have made so much more sense if I had read that back in High School.