Difficulty going down

[im0rtel]

take a look at this guys :

Bitcoin Difficulty:    40,300,030,328
Estimated Next Difficulty:    39,867,730,520 (-1.07%)
Adjust time:    After 1682 Blocks, About 11.8 days


https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty


what could this mean for the future of bitcoin ?

[raskul]

it won't happen. there are batches of miners shipping out this week. I'd reckon we'll see ~5% increase next turn.

[redsn0w]

take a look at this guys :

Bitcoin Difficulty:    40,300,030,328
Estimated Next Difficulty:    39,867,730,520 (-1.07%)
Adjust time:    After 1682 Blocks, About 11.8 days


https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty


what could this mean for the future of bitcoin ?

Nothing , only : some people have turn off their mining hardware because the price of bitcoin has dropped.

[im0rtel]

it won't happen.

hypoteticaly speaking ... what if it does happen ?

[raskul]

it won't happen.

hypoteticaly speaking ... what if it does happen ?

i earn slightly more BTC next round than I did last. i'd have thought that would be the obvious outcome.

[devphp]

it won't happen.

hypoteticaly speaking ... what if it does happen ?

It's just another indication of the bear market, which started at the beginning of 2014 and in all likelihood will go on for another 11-12 months.

[raskul]

it won't happen.

hypoteticaly speaking ... what if it does happen ?

It's just another indication of the bear market, which started at the beginning of 2014 and in all likelihood will go on for another 11-12 months.

a bear trap caused by hardware manufacturers? probably.

[RyNinDaCleM]

take a look at this guys :

Bitcoin Difficulty:    40,300,030,328
Estimated Next Difficulty:    39,867,730,520 (-1.07%)
Adjust time:    After 1682 Blocks, About 11.8 days


https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty


what could this mean for the future of bitcoin ?

Just barely 2 days into this retarget and you trust the numbers? Those numbers are based on averages and as we move through the blocks, that average gets more accurate. Being ~2 days in means we are only 300 blocks of the 2016 block period. Give it some time to average out.

The difficulty may drop at any time, and becomes more likely to happen, the longer/deeper this bear market goes. Difficulty has no bearing on price, so nothing will happen except maybe inefficient miners who want Bitcoins will start buying instead of mining.

[raskul]

take a look at this guys :

Bitcoin Difficulty:    40,300,030,328
Estimated Next Difficulty:    39,867,730,520 (-1.07%)
Adjust time:    After 1682 Blocks, About 11.8 days


https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty


what could this mean for the future of bitcoin ?

Just barely 2 days into this retarget and you trust the numbers? Those numbers are based on averages and as we move through the blocks, that average gets more accurate. Being ~2 days in means we are only 300 blocks of the 2016 block period. Give it some time to average out.

The difficulty may drop at any time, and becomes more likely to happen, the longer/deeper this bear market goes. Difficulty has no bearing on price, so nothing will happen except maybe inefficient miners who want Bitcoins will start buying instead of mining.

i bet to differ. a difficulty drop will entice more miners to switch on redundant rigs, putting more BTC into the market, thus, having effect on price.
BTC price is largely commanded by market demand, and with lower difficulty, market demand to purchase BTC goes down - as does price.

difficulty has many unseen influences on price, it is ignorant to think otherwise.

[1Referee]

Even if the difficulty indeed does decrease, it will be for very short time. It would be a welcome change, though.

People will just fire up their miners and we end up with again a raising difficulty.

[raid_n]

i bet to differ. a difficulty drop will entice more miners to switch on redundant rigs, putting more BTC into the market, thus, having effect on price.

A difficulty drop means miners were already shut off to begin with. The only way more bitcoin come into the market than expected is if the hashrate increases again (as the difficulty re-target will lag behind)
(you are assuming the difficulty adjustment overshoots but it may be accurate enough that no new miners enter)

BTC price is largely commanded by market demand, and with lower difficulty, market demand to purchase BTC goes down - as does price.

I would not subscribe to that generalization.
When mining profitability goes up a lot demand to purchase BTC should go down. Difficulty can drop and yet still mining may remain unprofitable enough for demand to be mostly unaffected.
[edit] just to be clear, that is one factor in a complex system. When mining profitability goes up it will most likely be to external factors that also strongly influence demand

[cr1776]

take a look at this guys :

Bitcoin Difficulty:    40,300,030,328
Estimated Next Difficulty:    39,867,730,520 (-1.07%)
Adjust time:    After 1682 Blocks, About 11.8 days


https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty


what could this mean for the future of bitcoin ?

Nothing.  It has happened before.  And in all likelihood this is just a poor estimate since the last retargeting.

[im0rtel]

hmm so the price is droping , difficulty is droping. all this means nothing for the future of bitcoin? people turning off their miners , people losing faith in the "bitcoin to the moon " dream . all this means nothing ?
it has hapened before and it looks like this is going to happen again. this time the effects might be more severe.
the estimate difficulty drop this morning was 1.07 % and now is at 1.31 %. now i dont see where that recovery is . to me the dificulty is sliding down as time passes.

 

[Biodom]

hmm so the price is droping , difficulty is droping. all this means nothing for the future of bitcoin? people turning off their miners , people losing faith in the "bitcoin to the moon " dream . all this means nothing ?
it has hapened before and it looks like this is going to happen again. this time the effects might be more severe.
the estimate difficulty drop this morning was 1.07 % and now is at 1.31 %. now i dont see where that recovery is . to me the dificulty is sliding down as time passes.

 

Difficulty might drop 50% if BTC goes to $100-150. That size difficulty drop was what marked Nov 2011 bottom.
History rhymes?

[zimmah]

it won't happen.

hypoteticaly speaking ... what if it does happen ?

It's just another indication of the bear market, which started at the beginning of 2014 and in all likelihood will go on for another 11-12 months.

Why would the bear market take another year? I don't think any bear market lasted almost 2 full years in bitcoin, why would this one?

[devphp]

It's just another indication of the bear market, which started at the beginning of 2014 and in all likelihood will go on for another 11-12 months.

Why would the bear market take another year? I don't think any bear market lasted almost 2 full years in bitcoin, why would this one?

Basically, the bigger the bubble of the bull market, the longer it takes for the bear market to return to the fair value price.

[piramida]

It's just another indication of the bear market, which started at the beginning of 2014 and in all likelihood will go on for another 11-12 months.

Why would the bear market take another year? I don't think any bear market lasted almost 2 full years in bitcoin, why would this one?

Basically, the bigger the bubble of the bull market, the longer it takes for the bear market to return to the fair value price.

And by bigger you mean exactly what? The biggest bubble so far was in 2011, when the price grown about 30x in a couple of months and retracted to 2x in a year. That last one was only 12x and retracted to 3x in a year, so it should've been over by now.

I guess it just never repeats any patterns. The bull of 2013 was a run of 15x which retracted to 4x in half a year, so it is not at all predictable.

[freedomno1]

it won't happen.

hypoteticaly speaking ... what if it does happen ?

It just means it finally balanced out
It's been a giant rollercoaster for quite some time
Seeing it in a normal range is normal for most cases 

It's just were used to hyper growth of difficulty for miners it means stable ROI lol.

[devphp]

It's just another indication of the bear market, which started at the beginning of 2014 and in all likelihood will go on for another 11-12 months.

Why would the bear market take another year? I don't think any bear market lasted almost 2 full years in bitcoin, why would this one?

Basically, the bigger the bubble of the bull market, the longer it takes for the bear market to return to the fair value price.

And by bigger you mean exactly what? The biggest bubble so far was in 2011, when the price grown about 30x in a couple of months and retracted to 2x in a year. That last one was only 12x and retracted to 3x in a year, so it should've been over by now.

I guess it just never repeats any patterns. The bull of 2013 was a run of 15x which retracted to 4x in half a year, so it is not at all predictable.

Not the relative price rise, but the absolute price rise has been massive in 2013, this takes time to purge and shake out weak hands.

[im0rtel]

It just means it finally balanced out

bitcoin balancing out ? i dont think so sir.

maybe this is a small window of relaxation in the bitcoin network.  

but balancing out ? come on , this is bitcoin you are talking about .  volatilily is its middle name.

balance would be something highly desired but this is only a mirage...

it will either plumet to the ground in price and difficulty or skyrocket to the moon in price and difficulty.

[inca]

it won't happen.

hypoteticaly speaking ... what if it does happen ?

It's just another indication of the bear market, which started at the beginning of 2014 and in all likelihood will go on for another 11-12 months.

Why would the bear market take another year? I don't think any bear market lasted almost 2 full years in bitcoin, why would this one?

So he can buy in lower of course.

[POM]

Is it time to fire up my Jalapeno again guys? 

[raskul]

Is it time to fire up my Jalapeno again guys? 

i've got everything running except my garden blades, for winter.
don't care about difficulty or price, all I want is a warm house, the btc dust is a bonus 

[yayayo]

Difficulty going down means that we're approaching miners' break even point.

It won't be profitable for most miners to generate bitcoin below the current price level. So I think it will support price in the mid- / longterm.

But maybe the price will head lower temporarily due to the winter heating season...

ya.ya.yo!

[FUR11]

This is an interesting, and to a certain extent even scary, thing to happen! This hasn't happened for almost 2 years now. But it is essentially due to the price going down and no next-generation hardware coming online at the moment. The difficulty, like Bitcoin in general, is self-regulating, so there shouldn't be anything too bad coming out of this!

[raskul]

This is an interesting, and to a certain extent even scary, thing to happen! This hasn't happened for almost 2 years now. But it is essentially due to the price going down and no next-generation hardware coming online at the moment. The difficulty, like Bitcoin in general, is self-regulating, so there shouldn't be anything too bad coming out of this!

no it's not the first time in 2 years for difficulty to drop to a minus in the first few days of a new difficulty. it happened in october and i very much doubt that we will see a drop in difficulty this turn. but hey, carry on with your wankfest if that's what thrills you.

[FUR11]

This is an interesting, and to a certain extent even scary, thing to happen! This hasn't happened for almost 2 years now. But it is essentially due to the price going down and no next-generation hardware coming online at the moment. The difficulty, like Bitcoin in general, is self-regulating, so there shouldn't be anything too bad coming out of this!

no it's not the first time in 2 years for difficulty to drop to a minus in the first few days of a new difficulty. it happened in october and i very much doubt that we will see a drop in difficulty this turn. but hey, carry on with your wankfest if that's what thrills you.

I gotta ask... how is this a 'wankfest' But to elaborate: If the projected difficulty goes down after an adjustment, it doesn't mean anything for the actual difficulty that is in place. It's just a projection. So yeah, the difficulty hasn't gone down a single time since at least April 30 2013: https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty (too lazy to find a longer history, but you get the gist, I hope)

[opossum]

This is an interesting, and to a certain extent even scary, thing to happen! This hasn't happened for almost 2 years now. But it is essentially due to the price going down and no next-generation hardware coming online at the moment. The difficulty, like Bitcoin in general, is self-regulating, so there shouldn't be anything too bad coming out of this!

The difficulty actually went down twice in late 2013 (I believe it was around the time the price had crashed).

It would however be the first time it declined in 2014.

I would say a difficulty decline would certainly be good for all the miners, especially the cloud mased miners

[notme]

What it means is that we can finally find our price bottom.  That doesn't happen until difficulty tapers and the inefficient miners are flushed out.

[spazzdla]

it won't happen.

hypoteticaly speaking ... what if it does happen ?

I'll mine more coins and that is about it.

[raskul]

it won't happen.

hypoteticaly speaking ... what if it does happen ?

I'll mine more coins and that is about it.

of course, i could be wrong it could happen.
And... it would be nice to see a few drops in difficulty, because it would mean that all those ponzi 'cloud mining' operations will have to pay more to their victims.
a few serious drops in difficulty and we will soon see which of those are legitimately mining and which are only in it to run with the bulk of profit and disappear into oblivion.

[opossum]

it won't happen.

hypoteticaly speaking ... what if it does happen ?

I'll mine more coins and that is about it.

of course, i could be wrong it could happen.
And... it would be nice to see a few drops in difficulty, because it would mean that all those ponzi 'cloud mining' operations will have to pay more to their victims.
a few serious drops in difficulty and we will soon see which of those are legitimately mining and which are only in it to run with the bulk of profit and disappear into oblivion.

I don't think we will ever see any serious drops in difficulty as there are too many miners who are just barely unprofitable so when the difficulty would drop the owners of such miners would bring them back online.

The only exception to this would be when we get much closer to when the block subsidy halves again

[thezerg]

Are we feeling the pain yet? 


This is what I think; its total speculation.  Miners have been holding a significant portion of their supply hoping for an upwards bounce.  But those coins eventually needed to be sold to make ends meet.  Essentially you can think of it like these miners were leveraged long (borrowing $ from their own bills that must be paid).  As the price slowly dropped, we approached the line where certain miners had to sell to make sure they could keep the electricity on.  This became a cascading effect, driving a rapid price descent.

I'm waiting for the hash rate graph to flinch.  This will indicate that some miners are shutting off units, which will tell me that we are approaching the marginal cost to produce a coin.  Shutting off miners will reduce supply, and likely indicate a bottom since utility (as measured by metrics like transactions to new addresses) is still increasing.

[STT]

it won't happen.

hypoteticaly speaking ... what if it does happen ?

It's just another indication of the bear market, which started at the beginning of 2014 and in all likelihood will go on for another 11-12 months.

Deflation can occur while growth in market takes place which would mean bitcoin is rising in total value.   Price alone doesnt tell us even though personally we might prefer the price to rise so that we naturally can hold and gain.  This doesnt mean that bitcoin overall is not going to do better at a lower price, thats why the free market is superior to anything manipulated, often individual bias is not conclusive to growth.   In the end we all want bitcoin to be stronger and more widely used, if lower price is what is needed then great; mostly the greater worry is that its not going to be used at all

I agree difficulty is unlikely to go down, that was more often with a majority of personal small mining was the case

[Thylacine]

OP's link now shows a small difficulty increase for next adjustment

[raskul]

OP's link now shows a small difficulty increase for next adjustment

i knew that it had to be too good to be true

Not Til Block Halving™

[sgbett]

Spending time to get $0.06 worth of bitcoins on "Win free bitcoins every hour' ?

What could this mean to the credibility of the OP's suggestion that bitcoin is doomed? The OP is still scraping the barrel for the tiniest amount of BTC?

People have posted that they think bitcoin is fail before whilst still buying and holding? Perhaps this time it could be no different?

Could writing what I believe in the form of questions, really hide that fact its just what I think?

Could the OP be suffering from massive brainfarts?

Could I be hungry? Could it be that I might go have a bite to eat? Could eating satisfy hunger?

Could all these interesting facts and more be found in this newsworthy and insightful thread? Could this actually be a total wast of time?

Could the difficulty go down a little bit following an exponential growth curve beyond the likes of what anyone could have considered possible?

Could some people who are no longer earning BTC with legacy hardware turn off their miners, to cut their electricity bills?

What could this all possibly mean, do I have no idea?

[raskul]

worry thee not my friend. i have no idea either 

[im0rtel]

sgbett , where do you see me in this thread sugesting that bitcoin is doomed and what does that have to do with this thread?
your offtopic has no place here . do you like trolling ? go somewere else .

on topic : after 10 days the dificulty has slightly recovered . still watching.

[Nagle]

At 2 days to go, the next difficulty change looks like it's going to be very close to zero.

[freedomno1]

At 2 days to go, the next difficulty change looks like it's going to be very close to zero.

It's a tough call I'm thinking it might go negative
But at present it is streaming just a smidge above that in the positive increases, still could go either way
A farm going offline for a day to do maintenance etc could push it negative.

[Nagle]

At 5 hours to go, the next difficulty change is going to be very close to zero. The current prediction is -0.44%.

[1Referee]

At 5 hours to go, the next difficulty change is going to be very close to zero. The current prediction is -0.44%.

Let's see if we will see a difficulty decrease today, few days ago it was over -2%.

Currently with around 2,5 hours left it's at -0.62 but I think it will end up just over 0%.

[raskul]

i reckon -0.78%

[1Referee]

I missed it, did the difficulty increase or decrease?

It shows now +0.92% estimated for next difficulty.

[cr1776]

I missed it, did the difficulty increase or decrease?

It shows now +0.92% estimated for next difficulty.

Down slightly.

From
40,300,030,328
 to
40,007,470,271

The next estimate is up:  40,373,823,121 (+0.92%)
(Although given it has only been a few hours, that is highly unreliable.)

[1Referee]

I missed it, did the difficulty increase or decrease?

It shows now +0.92% estimated for next difficulty.

Down slightly.

From
40,300,030,328
 to
40,007,470,271

The next estimate is up:  40,373,823,121 (+0.92%)
(Although given it has only been a few hours, that is highly unreliable.)

That's nice, lot's of people are happy right now.

I think just before the end of this year the difficulty will be at least 10% higher than current level.

[GreenCoin22]

it means few and few people are mining?

[dropt]

it means few and few people are mining?

No, it just means that either:

a) Very little new HW is being added to the network; or
b) Old HW being taken off the network is more-or-less equivalent to the power of new HW being added to the network.

One should not infer as to whether it is a change in number of participants.

[im0rtel]

this is a historical moment . difficulty actually droped for real and it looks like it will drop again in two weeks.

[Brewins]

Not really a surprise.

It still profitable for those that already have mining hardware, but it is not worth to buy new hardware to mine BTC at current difficult

[raskul]

Not really a surprise.

It still profitable for those that already have mining hardware, but it is not worth to buy new hardware to mine BTC at current difficult

i beg to differ. if all you can see if the current price of BTC, then you really should have gotten out of mining at this time last year.

[sandy47bt]

Lol, i never heard bitcoin difficult is going down
Expect mining bitcoin is not profitable anymore 

But, i think now difficult is raise very slowly because mining is not too profitable 

[lyth0s]

Difficulty dropped by -0.73%, first time in a LONG time.

Dec 02 2014    40,007,470,271    -0.73%    286,384,627 GH/s
Nov 18 2014    40,300,030,328    1.76%    288,478,854 GH/s

[FUR11]

Man, this is crazy! I really didn't think I'd ever see this happening. It feels rather strange. But all the other metrics are still fine in my books. Even the price isn't doing that bad these days! I guess the 'real' cost of mining a coin is still quite a bit lower, since miners are optimistic people, and a lot of them mine for fun. Why would they turn their gear off?

[raskul]

may i just intervene into this wankfest

-0.73 is fuck-all.

 

[Eastwind]

It will keep on rising, maybe slower than past.

[im0rtel]

i doubt it will rise . looks to me like btc diff wants to get on a descending trend.

[devphp]

i doubt it will rise . looks to me like btc diff wants to get on a descending trend.

The difficulty will follow the price, there is no other way.

Sure there is a lag between those, but sooner or later bank loans taken to buy ASIC equipment have to be paid back.

[v0yager]

Does it mean some miners dropped out ? I don't this is a good thing to Bitcoin,it should be keep going up.
The value of Bitcoin now is lower than before ,it's believe that there's not much profit for miner to keep the machine running,especially for personal miner.

[raskul]

Does it mean some miners dropped out ? I don't this is a good thing to Bitcoin,it should be keep going up.
The value of Bitcoin now is lower than before ,it's believe that there's not much profit for miner to keep the machine running,especially for personal miner.

if there is not much profit for the personal miner, then the large mining farms are bound to be powering down.
Where the personal miner can sustain costs in 'prospecting' a large farm still has it's massive overheads to pay.

I welcome a drop in price.

[im0rtel]

today :

Bitcoin Difficulty:    40,007,470,271
Estimated Next Difficulty:    39,218,790,077 (-1.97%)

[Eastwind]

It will be down about 1% this time.

[raskul]

It will be down about 1% this time.

no shit sherlock.

[Eastwind]

It will be down about 1% this time.

no shit sherlock.

You can see the prediction:
https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

[raskul]

It will be down about 1% this time.

no shit sherlock.

You can see the prediction:
https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

sorry, didn't mean to be rude. sometimes i just can't help myself.
I reckon it'll be as close to 0% as the manipulators can make it. again.

[mlferro]

I will keep an eye on difficulty. If it fall again, I will call again the S3 to make a daily test

[fewcoins]

Only 1% 
This means some people don't get profit from mining

And this case will happen if when bitcoin mining reward decrease & bitcoin price never went up

A lot of people hope the mining reward decreases soon but they don't understand BTC would be destroyed if the price is kept at $300 or less...
That is what they are trying to do to destroy this asset once and for all. We will return to fair price even if you bulls don't believe it

[cellard]

Theres people waiting to start a mining monopoly when some people start giving up just like there's people waiting to enter the market big big time when Bitcoin gets even cheaper so success is always guaranteed in the long term.

[NotLambchop]

Theres people waiting to start a mining monopoly when some people start giving up just like there's people waiting to enter the market big big time when Bitcoin gets even cheaper so success is always guaranteed in the long term.

>mining monopoly
>good news

Sarcasm?

[jaredboice]

NotLambchop: "This user is currently ignored." 

Don't put up with the trolls people.  Just throw them on the ignore list

[NotLambchop]

NotLambchop: "This user is currently ignored." 

Don't put up with the trolls people.  Just throw them on the ignore list

If you continue spamming, you will be reported.  Your most recent posts:

[indiemax]

NotLambchop: "This user is currently ignored." 

Don't put up with the trolls people.  Just throw them on the ignore list

If you continue spamming, you will be reported.  Your most recent posts:

Got to agree NotLampChop,the poster clearly likes his coolaid