Difficulty slowdown: Is this turning into a long-term trend? [Discussion Thread]

[armedmilitia]

There's a pretty massive difficulty stagnation going on, because of the recent overall price drop. Looks like the big-time miners have stopped expanding for now. Personally, I think it's going to average ~5% increases for the forseeable future because of everyone's reluctance to expand. Thoughts?   

[philipma1957]

To be clear you believe in diff decreases of 3-5%?  or increases under 5% say 3 to 5

My thoughts are as long as price is in the    300 to 425 usd a coin range we will continue to see very small diff increases.

I also think that unless an asic builder comes up with a really big power improvement   say a drop from the  .6-.8  watt per  watt machine to a .1-.2 watt machine  diff will stay the same range of 5 to 7 percent .

you also need to understand most mining is by the big builders.

 ASICMINER
 BFL
 BITFURY
 BITMAINTECH
 KNC
 
yeah bfl has a lot of gear mining
as do the others above.

You want to add in
 DRAGON MINERS 1.5th in chinese data centers
 Spondollies 10, 20 ,30, 35 hosted here and there.

I think most of us home miners are lucky to add up to 50ph world wide  more likely 30ph in gear.

So the big builder is making money right now and really can only f up by building up his mining ops too quickly.

[wilth1]

because of the recent overall price drop ... everyone's reluctance to expand.

The rate has broken retail calculators, too. Less free money for farm expansion. I agree that there will be a diff plateau as long as the price doesn't spike to and sustain ~500+.

[xstr8guy]

because of the recent overall price drop ... everyone's reluctance to expand.

The rate has broken retail calculators, too. Less free money for farm expansion. I agree that there will be a diff plateau as long as the price doesn't spike to and sustain ~500+.

I'd much rather have a significant BTC price increase than to have lower difficulty adjustments. It's too late to make any money with home mining anyways. Although while I'm still mining, I do like the lower difficulty adjustments, lol.

[BTCish]

I am mining too, just for hoping that price will be back on in normal profitable range again.

[xstr8guy]

I am mining too, just for hoping that price will be back on in normal profitable range again.

Here's hoping for $1100 BTC for Thanksgiving again this year!   

[RoadStress]

I am mining too, just for hoping that price will be back on in normal profitable range again.

Here's hoping for $1100 BTC for Thanksgiving again this year!   

I want $11000 so we can have back last year's action.

[philipma1957]

I am mining too, just for hoping that price will be back on in normal profitable range again.

Here's hoping for $1100 BTC for Thanksgiving again this year!   

I want $11000 so we can have back last year's action.

well it went from about 75 usd in sept  2013 after silk road to 1152 around thanksgiving  2013 or about 15.36x

if it goes from 278 usd in oct 2014 15x  to 4270 usd  by Hanukkah Dec 16th  It will be a Merry Christmas for us all.

Pardon me for using religious holidays  but the dates fit better then Thanksgiving since the low was in Oct this year not Sept.

[SMB-2525]

IMHO, the pipeline for new ultramodern ASICs is thin. That is why capacity increases have slowed. Those who have the chips will make more selling them to home miners than mining themselves if difficulty increases resume their 10% bumps. The recent drop in BTC is making the manufacturers think twice about new investment. So it is possible the days of big increases are behind us until someone comes up with breakthrough technology (quantum computer?)

[xstr8guy]

IMHO, the pipeline for new ultramodern ASICs is thin. That is why capacity increases have slowed. Those who have the chips will make more selling them to home miners than mining themselves if difficulty increases resume their 10% bumps. The recent drop in BTC is making the manufacturers think twice about new investment. So it is possible the days of big increases are behind us until someone comes up with breakthrough technology (quantum computer?)

Oh don't worry about ever getting to buy the next gen ASICs, lol. Bitfury is working on their 28nm .3w/GHs chips. When they're ready, watch out! Because the difficulty will explode once again. And no, they won't be selling them to home miners either. They already have their 55nm MK2 chip running at .62w/GHs...

http://www.bitfury.org/products

[Klubknuckle]

IMHO, the pipeline for new ultramodern ASICs is thin. That is why capacity increases have slowed. Those who have the chips will make more selling them to home miners than mining themselves if difficulty increases resume their 10% bumps. The recent drop in BTC is making the manufacturers think twice about new investment. So it is possible the days of big increases are behind us until someone comes up with breakthrough technology (quantum computer?)

Oh don't worry about ever getting to buy the next gen ASICs, lol. Bitfury is working on their 28nm .3w/GHs chips. When they're ready, watch out! Because the difficulty will explode once again. And no, they won't be selling them to home miners either. They already have their 55nm MK2 chip running at .62w/GHs...

http://www.bitfury.org/products

Never know 28nm can be that efficient, so that means 16nm is going to double the efficiency..

[xstr8guy]

IMHO, the pipeline for new ultramodern ASICs is thin. That is why capacity increases have slowed. Those who have the chips will make more selling them to home miners than mining themselves if difficulty increases resume their 10% bumps. The recent drop in BTC is making the manufacturers think twice about new investment. So it is possible the days of big increases are behind us until someone comes up with breakthrough technology (quantum computer?)

Oh don't worry about ever getting to buy the next gen ASICs, lol. Bitfury is working on their 28nm .3w/GHs chips. When they're ready, watch out! Because the difficulty will explode once again. And no, they won't be selling them to home miners either. They already have their 55nm MK2 chip running at .62w/GHs...

http://www.bitfury.org/products

Never know 28nm can be that efficient, so that means 16nm is going to double the efficiency..

You can't extrapolate what Bitfury is doing with their ASIC designs to any other manufacturer. They work on cheaper process nodes (larger die sizes) than other companies but their ASIC design is fully custom and much more efficient because of that. They're so far ahead of everyone else, it's scary. And they don't sell retail to home miners.

[RoadStress]

You can't extrapolate what Bitfury is doing with their ASIC designs to any other manufacturer. They work on cheaper process nodes (larger die sizes) than other companies but their ASIC design is fully custom and much more efficient because of that. They're so far ahead of everyone else, it's scary. And they don't sell retail to home miners.

They worked with cheaper process nodes. They are working on their 28nm chip right now.

[Kimowa]

16nm is coming, no more difficulty slowdown..

[philipma1957]

16nm is coming, no more difficulty slowdown..

16nm does not do the trick  bitfury and the like have no reason to produce it. 

2 caveats if

16nm allows .1watts a gh
if btc price jumps.


right now we are in an equilibrium  of btc price and power cost.    A large builder with a big farm such as bitmaintech has no use for more hashing.

If they truly have a 20mw setup  and they get .6watts a gh .  their best interest is 0 btc change and 0 diff jumps do the math.

20mw can do close to 30ph  if they get .6watts   by now they paid the gear off if it was built back in aug.

so 20mw at 8 cents a kwatt is 1600 usd a day.  30 ph earns 460 coins a day.

460 coins is more then 160,000 usd    so 160000 usd income for  1600 power cost. 

even if they make a 16nm and they drop power 3 fold   to 6 fold.  they only need to pull the power hungry gear offline.  they don't need to grow much at all.  due to the 380 usd price and 2% diff numbers.

This is a new btc world and smart large companies don't need to expand much at all if they have a proper data center setup.

[Rival]

If you are mining now and are still making more in btc than you are spending in electricity you are dancing in the streets. The lifetime of your miners just got increased, as did your profit. No one realistically bought miners expecting less than 5% increases when the did the calculations. The longer it stays subdued the more gravy gets poured on the current miners.

[philipma1957]

If you are mining now and are still making more in btc than you are spending in electricity you are dancing in the streets. The lifetime of your miners just got increased, as did your profit. No one realistically bought miners expecting less than 5% increases when the did the calculations. The longer it stays subdued the more gravy gets poured on the current miners.

yep and all the big boys need to do is stand pat and do their best to limit  network growth under 3%.
 
Just do some 1% 2% 3% growth in jumps on bitcoinwisdom's calculator's and mining look good.  So basically the big boys so not need to expand much.

 Oh they can replace a 1 watt miner with a .8 watt miner then a .6 watt miner but they are building there own so they do not need to sell much just a little bit at a time.

[toptek]

Sady its not gonna stop any time soon unless the hard ware slows downs in how fast its made and what it can do .

I'm seeing more and more every day no more bitcoin  home mining unless its scrypt or alt coins  mining till that's start rollin then the big guys will fuck us again or  alt coins will  become the home miming way which i have np with . .

right now  alt con or script mining  its not to bad I'm doing pretty good but if i do just Bitcoins  forget it.it is gone for the home miner unless you have  23 PH In your home .23 PH is a example of my point to make a profit at home doingBTC mining.


 i really enjoy doing it but don't want to waste my time on paying either when i have better things to use that money on .

[toptek]

To be clear you believe in diff decreases of 3-5%?  or increases under 5% say 3 to 5

My thoughts are as long as price is in the    300 to 425 usd a coin range we will continue to see very small diff increases.

I also think that unless an asic builder comes up with a really big power improvement   say a drop from the  .6-.8  watt per  watt machine to a .1-.2 watt machine  diff will stay the same range of 5 to 7 percent .

you also need to understand most mining is by the big builders.

 ASICMINER
 BFL
 BITFURY
 BITMAINTECH
 KNC
 
yeah bfl has a lot of gear mining
as do the others above.

You want to add in
 DRAGON MINERS 1.5th in chinese data centers
 Spondollies 10, 20 ,30, 35 hosted here and there.

I think most of us home miners are lucky to add up to 50ph world wide  more likely 30ph in gear.

So the big builder is making money right now and really can only f up by building up his mining ops too quickly.

Like PC's are now i remember way back when how much it cost for one stick of 1 MB  memory that was lot of memory to have then   if you had a 120 MB not GB hard drive  you were top dog those were the days .

I don't doubt they don't all ready  have the hard ware they  just won't sell it for the above reasons in this post not what i said .

[xstr8guy]

You can't extrapolate what Bitfury is doing with their ASIC designs to any other manufacturer. They work on cheaper process nodes (larger die sizes) than other companies but their ASIC design is fully custom and much more efficient because of that. They're so far ahead of everyone else, it's scary. And they don't sell retail to home miners.

They worked with cheaper process nodes. They are working on their 28nm chip right now.

28nm is the cheaper process node if everyone else is moving to 16nm and less.