New difficulty: 23844670038 +20.86% - Sucks!

[DrG]

You said it was going to be 11% last jump and it was over 20% like I said.  You're guessing 13-15 this jump, I say 20-25 since it's already on track for a 23% jump.

Maybe people are underestimating the winter miners down south.  Vegemite miners... I'm looking at you Organ Of Corti

26.5B on the nose is my punt for the next leap.

Seeing as how I don't have OoC's weekly pool stats yet I'm going to guess a good 30 billion.  I think the network has been having bad luck looking at Ghash.   I can't tell from DF's stats and they passed ghash in power.

[-ck]

Didn't know you were down there too.  Tilt the planet back this way, it's been hot as hell here in CA and I have a feeling our "winter" is going to be hotter than everybody else's summer.  My new S3s don't like it.

Well it's certainly been a lot quieter around here the last few months thanks to winter but mining is no less doomed here even at cold temperatures.

[philipma1957]

You said it was going to be 11% last jump and it was over 20% like I said.  You're guessing 13-15 this jump, I say 20-25 since it's already on track for a 23% jump.

Maybe people are underestimating the winter miners down south.  Vegemite miners... I'm looking at you Organ Of Corti

Well I was wrong but I do not see the asic builders reasons for adding huge asic power.

 if they can build .8 watt per hash  machines they no longer need us.  all they need to do is sit in a room and add hashpower very slowly.  

it is in their best interest to limit growth under 10%  and mine more then sell.

[seriouscoin]

Well I was wrong but I do not see the asic builders reasons for adding huge asic power.

 if they can build .8 watt per hash  machines they no longer need us.  all they need to do is sit in a room and add hashpower very slowly.  

it is in their best interest to limit growth under 10%  and mine more then sell.

Holy cow, the garbage spilled from your mouth.


Spend your btc for better education will ya?

[philipma1957]

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

Frankly I no  longer can see why asic manufacturers would want to sell gear.

When building and mining makes a profit not selling them to miners seems like a  smart option to me.

But what do I know.

[ScaryHash]

Just don't worry.

Keep mining.

One difficulty adjustment isn't gonna kill anybody. In case you haven't noticed, difficulty adjustments happen on a regular basis.

What's so different about 20% this time and these??

Nov 05 2013    510,929,738    30.70%    3,657,378 GH/s
Oct 26 2013    390,928,788    46.02%    2,798,377 GH/s
Oct 16 2013    267,731,249    41.45%    1,916,495 GH/s

Those were MUCH worse, yet people are still mining.

If one difficulty adjustment ruins your ROI, you're doing something wrong.

[notlist3d]

Just don't worry.

Keep mining.

One difficulty adjustment isn't gonna kill anybody. In case you haven't noticed, difficulty adjustments happen on a regular basis.

What's so different about 20% this time and these??

Nov 05 2013    510,929,738    30.70%    3,657,378 GH/s
Oct 26 2013    390,928,788    46.02%    2,798,377 GH/s
Oct 16 2013    267,731,249    41.45%    1,916,495 GH/s

Those were MUCH worse, yet people are still mining.

If one difficulty adjustment ruins your ROI, you're doing something wrong.

I agree some I'm not happy with 20 but it could be worse.  I am lucky to have cheap electricity and space.  I'm in it for the long haul with my asics.  GPU/CPU is dead for me, but asic will be alive hopefully for a while.

[SMB-2525]

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

Frankly I no  longer can see why asic manufacturers would want to sell gear.

When building and mining makes a profit not selling them to miners seems like a  smart option to me.

But what do I know.

Diversify risk: sales are guaranteed return. Mining is uncertain return.  For example, an S3 going into production today might produce 0.76 BTC before flatlining. Selling it for 0.66 BTC and not having to put it into production yourself is a good comparative return.

[joust]

Difficulty has been on a slow but sure downward trend, and spikes have been around since it started. A simple graph of BCW's raw data shows pretty much everything you need.



On a 5th polynomial trend line (the blue dahsed line) it's still downwards, and that's hardly surprising as the last 4 changes have averaged at 9.33% compared to the previous 4 before that at 17.5%, the previous 4 to that at 15.39%

Even if the next one is 15% then the 8 week comparison goes to 12.3% verses 13.74% verses 14.4%.

So on 8 weeks cycles we are still far better off than we have been for many many months now, and in %age terms, far better off from the September 13 to Dec-13 when the 8 week averages were 25/Sept:30.8%, Nov5:36.4%, 21Dec:23.4%.

But then it depends if you are looking at this long term, or 'quick buck'.

J

[philipma1957]

Difficulty has been on a slow but sure downward trend, and spikes have been around since it started. A simple graph of BCW's raw data shows pretty much everything you need.



On a 5th polynomial trend line (the blue dahsed line) it's still downwards, and that's hardly surprising as the last 4 changes have averaged at 9.33% compared to the previous 4 before that at 17.5%, the previous 4 to that at 15.39%

Even if the next one is 15% then the 8 week comparison goes to 12.3% verses 13.74% verses 14.4%.

So on 8 weeks cycles we are still far better off than we have been for many many months now, and in %age terms, far better off from the September 13 to Dec-13 when the 8 week averages were 25/Sept:30.8%, Nov5:36.4%, 21Dec:23.4%.

But then it depends if you are looking at this long term, or 'quick buck'.

J

pretty much my conclusion that diff % will trend down not up.

and at this moment :

https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

says 23,844 to 27, 456  which is 15.15%

and http://bitcoincharts.com/

has  23,844 to 25, 198 or 5.67%

These are more in line with my guess for next diff  still more then 4 or 5 days out. So who really knows.

[joust]

That difference between BCW and BCC is just different views on how they calculate the next change based on history.

Currently the network is solving 6 blocks in 55.3 minutes, so 8.5% quicker than it should, and the block solve rate has dropped significantly over the last few days (the grey line is under the blue line https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty).

Somewhere around 10% is therefore highly likely and 13.5% is the current trend line (dotted blue in my graph) so anything under 13.5% will continue the downward trend.

Again, 10-15% is good compared to what we were dealing with late 13 / early 14. It's far more stable and predictable now.

J
www.megamine.com

[Cluster2k]

I turned my miners back on recently.  I'm losing money on every bitcoin created, but it's nothing compared to the profits made in 2013.  The higher the hash rate the stronger the network.  Plus pumping it higher encourages miners not to sell in hopes of getting a better price tomorrow.

[cloverme]

About a month ago difficulty drove me to a fork in the road, I sold off about 80% of my SHA256 miners and moved to scrypt and altcoins for mining. Since then, my profits are back up to the late 2013 / early 2014 era of mining. While the future of the altcoin market is hotly debated (especially since nearly everyone trades it in for bitcoin anyway), I am nonetheless back to making money mining.

As the difficulty continues to rise, I'm more inclined to dump the remaining 20% of my bitcoin-concentrated miners.

[melds39]

Had someone say they were going to invest $ 50k on mining because he thought mining difficulty would increase at a rate of 10% max... Hope he didn't invest hah.

[SMB-2525]

it is in their best interest to limit growth under 10%  and mine more then sell.

This makes sense in way. The problem is in whose interest is it for a person with a miner to not use it in order to keep the hash rate down?  Every miner except the one idling a valuable asset.

None of the big players are going to slow down their deployment of their existing investments to reduce difficulty increases. The investment depreciates too rapidly. The question I have is will the changing difficulty picture make new investment in next generation mining rigs infeasible? Are they willing to gamble on increasing BTC value?   

[philipma1957]

it is in their best interest to limit growth under 10%  and mine more then sell.

This makes sense in way. The problem is in whose interest is it for a person with a miner to not use it in order to keep the hash rate down?  Every miner except the one idling a valuable asset.

None of the big players are going to slow down their deployment of their existing investments to reduce difficulty increases. The investment depreciates too rapidly. The question I have is will the changing difficulty picture make new investment in next generation mining rigs infeasible? Are they willing to gamble on increasing BTC value?  

yeah If aisc's flatten out at .4 or  .5 watts    the incentive to build them after a lot of research and development costs is not really there.

Heck I could argue in an empty cold country like Greenland, Canada, Russia building a cheaper power plant makes more sense then building a better chip.

If you can make a 2 cent a kwatt power plant/Data Center combo  for 1 cent a kwatt  over 5 years…..  

your power price for the next 5 years is 3 cents a kwatt.   That plant would be really valuable for miners   it may be easier  to build cheap  20-50 mega watt Data Centers instead of building

.1watt chips.

The next king of mining maybe the super DC/hosting service.  They only do the hosting and at the right price safely.

 Lee from this thread   is making a move at a super center

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=514758.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=514758.msg8548073#msg8548073


but he has had a lot of issues getting it on line.

this type of mining may be what we get to do.  I would hope he can get it to work well.

[BTCmaster3]

I believe the difficulty would increase by at least 20% moving forward, too many manufacturer .

[Easy2Mine]

Difficulty has been slowing down, but the percentage of your electricity bill compared to your mining earnings has increased a lot.
Back to the old days with GPU, where after the electricity fee there is only a small amount profit left.
But this time it is different, risks have become greater than in the GPU days.
If BTC stay to long at a lower level and you don't have power less than 10 cents, you can get into financial trouble quickly if you depend on mine and sell BTC to cover your electricity bill.

[philipma1957]

I believe the difficulty would increase by at least 20% moving forward, too many manufacturer .

no not enough  cheap power plants in the world for constant 20%  growth.

barring a new magic .05 watt chip.

20 % for 24 months  that can't happen . do the math  


oh current predications

 https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

Bitcoin Difficulty:   23,844,670,039

Estimated Next Difficulty:   27,061,375,299 (+13.49%)

Adjust time:   After 785 Blocks, About 5.0 days

http://bitcoincharts.com/

Difficulty   23844670039

Estimated   25580501467 in 785 blks

7.2%


So as of right now   7.2% to 13.49 %

These numbers are more in line with my thoughts on diff.

For asic builders keeping network growth between 5% - 10% is in their best interests.

[joust]

I love the talk of "it's going to continue at >20%".



Red is a rolling 4 difficulty change average (~8 weeks), blue a rolling 8 difficulty changes (~16 weeks)

It's relatively easy to calculate on a constant BTC:$ rate where the whole network becomes unprofitable even using 20nm kit. [hint, it's not that far off].
It's also relatively easy to work out that eventually the electricity bill becomes greater than the market cap of Bitcoin. [hint, it's not that much longer]

Those two things show that either.

a) Miners will just lose money
b) BTC:$ has to change
c) Difficulty changes have to slow down even further than they already have been for the last 12 changes (24 weeks).

Of course the 'trick' is to know which, or all, of those are going to happen

J