Growth of Bitcoin Mining Network slows to 0.5% per day.

[ASICSPACE]

Behind the roaring growth of Bitcoin mining is the unassuming ASIC, or application specific integrated circuit. Since ASICs were first introduced to mine Bitcoin in 2013, we have seen the difficulty of Bitcoin mining take leaps forward as chips have become more powerful and more efficient.

A single ASIC-based miner today can pack more hash-power than the entire Bitcoin network had before ASICs were first introduced. To date in 2014 we have seen ASICs turbocharge the network difficulty forward nearly thirty times from the 1.4 billion it stood on January 5th, to the 40 billion at which it stands today.

In light of the tremendous growth Bitcoin mining has had behind it, this November marks a new milestone: the monthly daily average growth of the bitcoin network has dipped below half a percentage a day.

Check out this graph, complied by bitcoin.seba.be, which shows the average daily growth rate of the Bitcoin network slowly but surely cool down from a blistering 2% (every day!) to a more moderated 0.5% growth per day that we see now.


This is good news for miners wanting to predict how much their miners will make, as earlier this year, the network would grow more than 40% in a month (meaning in one-month, you'd earn 40% less Bitcoin per day) while now it's projected to grow 9% or less monthly.

If you want to see for yourself, check out Coinplorer's profit simulator. I suggest testing out the $800 Antminer S4 which runs at 2000 Gh/s at 1400 W.

So what does all this mean? Bitcoin mining is maturing, it has been transformed from a get-rick-quick gamble to a predictable enterprise albeit with lower margins.

Petamine, a mining co-op which was vigorous as late as this summer is sputtering in the face of increased competition. The Belgium-based mine gets its electricity from expensive wind and solar, and since it’s published its numbers, it has been revealed that 90% of its profits are now being used to cover its costs.

Clearly, miners who have access to cheap power in places like Iceland, Venezuela, Kuwait, and Washington are growing at the expense of miners established in places where they’re paying more than 10 cents/kwh for power, the cost of which is increasingly seen as prohibitive.

Are these new changes in the ecosystem permanent?

While the Bitcoin mining network may be snoozing right now, over $100M in venture funding has poured into Bitcoin-related startups which are working to develop applications that make it easy enough that your grandmother could use Bitcoin.

Also, on the horizon, in Q2/Q3 2015 there is yet another batch of more efficient ASICs due to ship which will send the Bitcoin mining difficulty spiraling to new heights.

Source: http://www.asicspace.com/blog/2014/11/26/14-day-difficulty-growth-of-bitcoin-mining-network-cools-to-mere-05-growth-per-day

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[GigaBit]

Well, miners are packing up and leaving... little to no profit makes miners poor, not fun anymore more for most.

Right now, it's set for a reversal in difficulty next update, according to Bitcoin Wisdom.

There's a saying in Gold mining:

When it starts to feel like a job, get out of mining.

Many are leaving the game like many leave the Gold mining game; miners are now machine tenders for energy companies.

Easy job but not the best paying.

In Gold mining, the advantage is to have a high amount of Gold per yard, in Bitcoin, it's free power.

Fail to plan, plan to fail.

[brontosaurus]

I haven't heard of any new miners being ready for a Q2 release, is this speculation or known?

Well, some of it is known as asic manufacturers are busy announcing new devices in 16nm for 2015, but their expectations of performance are mostly pure fantasy. However, that won't stop the network hashrate growing rapidly as more capital is put into building bigger and bigger farms.

Trust me on this, there are monsters lurking in the wings; expect network hashrate of 1200PH by June 2015, even with Btc at $350.

[erre]

I haven't heard of any new miners being ready for a Q2 release, is this speculation or known?

Well, some of it is known as asic manufacturers are busy announcing new devices in 16nm for 2015, but their expectations of performance are mostly pure fantasy. However, that won't stop the network hashrate growing rapidly as more capital is put into building bigger and bigger farms.

Trust me on this, there are monsters lurking in the wings; expect network hashrate of 1200PH by June 2015, even with Btc at $350.

Intel is also developing 14nm...

[philipma1957]

I haven't heard of any new miners being ready for a Q2 release, is this speculation or known?

Well, some of it is known as asic manufacturers are busy announcing new devices in 16nm for 2015, but their expectations of performance are mostly pure fantasy. However, that won't stop the network hashrate growing rapidly as more capital is put into building bigger and bigger farms.

Trust me on this, there are monsters lurking in the wings; expect network hashrate of 1200PH by June 2015, even with Btc at $350.

well I wish those monsters the best of luck.  we are at 300 ph  so you think the monsters can add 900ph and still profit at the price of 350 a coin.

I could go into long details of why they won't do that. but come june 2015 we will see if the monsters do it.

[opossum]

I haven't heard of any new miners being ready for a Q2 release, is this speculation or known?

Well, some of it is known as asic manufacturers are busy announcing new devices in 16nm for 2015, but their expectations of performance are mostly pure fantasy. However, that won't stop the network hashrate growing rapidly as more capital is put into building bigger and bigger farms.

Trust me on this, there are monsters lurking in the wings; expect network hashrate of 1200PH by June 2015, even with Btc at $350.

It doesn't matter if the performance/efficiency expectations are met as long as the devices can achieve greater efficiency then the overall network the difficulty will rise.

A hashrate of 1200 PHs would only represent ~a 4x increase from where we are now. I believe it was early this year when the difficulty was under a billion and it is now over 40 billion (or a 40x increase in the hashrate/difficulty). If your prediction turns out to be true then the difficulty will have slowed substantially between now and June 2015

[brontosaurus]

I haven't heard of any new miners being ready for a Q2 release, is this speculation or known?

Well, some of it is known as asic manufacturers are busy announcing new devices in 16nm for 2015, but their expectations of performance are mostly pure fantasy. However, that won't stop the network hashrate growing rapidly as more capital is put into building bigger and bigger farms.

Trust me on this, there are monsters lurking in the wings; expect network hashrate of 1200PH by June 2015, even with Btc at $350.

It doesn't matter if the performance/efficiency expectations are met as long as the devices can achieve greater efficiency then the overall network the difficulty will rise.

A hashrate of 1200 PHs would only represent ~a 4x increase from where we are now. I believe it was early this year when the difficulty was under a billion and it is now over 40 billion (or a 40x increase in the hashrate/difficulty). If your prediction turns out to be true then the difficulty will have slowed substantially between now and June 2015

In historic terms you're absolutely right but for a miner, home or professional, to simply stay the same means that they would need 4x as much hashing power at the same electricity cost. 16nm won't deliver anywhere near that, against a 28nm design at best it'll give twice the density at 50% power reduction, ie a performance gain of 2. Trouble is, the silicon costs 2.5 times as much and the NRE/development costs are about 4 times as much and someone has to pay them.

[BTCish]

This could be a good time to enter the mining game.

[ajw7989]

This could be a good time to enter the mining game.

Its an excellent time to enter the mining game since you can do easier predictions with a plateau difficulty. I dont think we will see greater than 5%+ increase in diff anymore at least until bitcoin goes to 450+

[MarketTime]

This could be a good time to enter the mining game.

If everyone think the same way then we are doomed.. So no!! its not a good time to enter the mining game or to buy any hardware...

[Mabsark]

ASICMINER are expecting their 4th gen 28nm samples back around the 16th December.

Update

Some details of BE300:

Process: tsmc 28nm hpc

Package: fclga (5mm x 5mm)

Normal Mode:
    0.7v vdd
    6gh/s per chip
    8gh/s-12gh/s per chip for mass production
    0.343w/g on chip
    ~0.3w/g on chip for mass production

Low Power Mode:
    0.55v vdd
    4.5gh/s per chip
    6gh/s-9gh/s per chip for mass production
    0.225w/g on chip
    ~0.2w/g on chip for mass production

The schedule of BE300 producing: First batch production will be done next Feb.

Spondoolies have also said that their 3rd gen 28nm ASIC should be available late Q1 2015 and should have be around 0.2 J/Gh. BitFury have also said their next gen ASIC will also be around 0.2 J/Gh but I haven't heard any time frame for them. KNC's claims seem like fantasy to me as well.

The ASIC manufacturers will all be providing cloud mining services next year as well, with both ASICMiner, Bitmain and KNC already doing so, and Spondoolies saying they'll likely do so too.

[SMB-2525]

In historic terms you're absolutely right but for a miner, home or professional, to simply stay the same means that they would need 4x as much hashing power at the same electricity cost. 16nm won't deliver anywhere near that, against a 28nm design at best it'll give twice the density at 50% power reduction, ie a performance gain of 2. Trouble is, the silicon costs 2.5 times as much and the NRE/development costs are about 4 times as much and someone has to pay them.

Right, so at sub $400 BTC price and a halving coming in 2016, large investments coming online in 2015 have major uncertainty tied to them. If people must mine BTC to sell right away, then it will be very hard for the BTC price to increase.

[Nagle]

0.5% per day is 6x a year after compounding. That's huge.

It's not likely to be maintained. The last difficulty adjustment was negative.

[spazzdla]

This could be a good time to enter the mining game.

Wait for the Bitmain S5.

[mavericklm]

Wait for the Bitmain S5.

Is already mining!