Woah

[IlbiStarz]

The hash rate doubled to like 4thash/s right after the diffuculty change...deepbit is only 1/4 now o.o
What the...

[davout]

Funny how every time there's a diff jump the hashrate calculation approximation has to be re-explained

[clonedone]

Funny how every time there's a diff jump the hashrate calculation approximation has to be re-explained

lolol

[goatpig]

Funny how every time there's a diff jump the hashrate calculation approximation has to be re-explained

Go ahead, I know you're burning to explain it!

[mario]

Please explain

[casascius]

Funny how every time there's a diff jump the hashrate calculation approximation has to be re-explained

Why do we laugh at new people for asking legitimate questions?  Were they supposed to have read the forums a thousand feet deep and figured this out on their own?

They should be laughing at us for having a 50 million dollar "economy" around a website that still doesn't have SSL after all this time, and a program whose user interface is so dinky and devoid of help that it wouldn't even make the Apple App Store as a free app just for its complete lack of intuitiveness alone.

[k]

The hash rate doubled to like 4thash/s right after the diffuculty change...deepbit is only 1/4 now o.o
What the...

i think this is a miscalculation of the hashing rate right after the difficulty has changed.
it seems to happen each time the difficulty adjusts (at least from what I've seen).

i'm not an expert. someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I think when the difficulty changes the hashrate is re-calculated. it is expected that a new block will be discovered ~every 10 mins. At the start of the difficulty level if some blocks are found faster than that then the calculated hashrate is higher than it is in reality. When more blocks are mined at this difficulty level the time to mine them will average out to a more representative period for the real hash rate.

[casascius]

The hash rate doubled to like 4thash/s right after the diffuculty change...deepbit is only 1/4 now o.o
What the...

I will explain this,

When the difficulty changes, the calculation will be grossly inaccurate because it is a calculation based on averages and very few numbers are being averaged.

How you can know if the difficulty "just changed" is if there are more than about 1900 blocks left before next change.  (Each change, this number resets to 2016 and counts down).  When it is still close to 2016, the algorithm has little data to work with, and the numbers can be way off.

Ideally, the site should be more intuitive and just blank or ****** out this number until it can be believed accurate.  Perhaps ****** with a mouseover that gives the hash rate just before the block change, and explain that it might be a bit stale.

[goatpig]

Funny how every time there's a diff jump the hashrate calculation approximation has to be re-explained

Why do we laugh at new people for asking legitimate questions?  Were they supposed to have read the forums a thousand feet deep and figured this out on their own?

They should be laughing at us for having a 50 million dollar "economy" around a website that still doesn't have SSL after all this time, and a program whose user interface is so dinky and devoid of help that it wouldn't even make the Apple App Store as a free app just for its complete lack of intuitiveness alone.

It's funny because that question is answered every time the difficulty changes. Maybe these people could use the search function once in a while, you know...

i'm not an expert. someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I think when the difficulty changes the hashrate is re-calculated. it is expected that a new block will be discovered ~every 10 mins. At the start of the difficulty level if some blocks are found faster than that then the calculated hashrate is higher than it is in reality. When more blocks are mined at this difficulty level the time to mine them will average out to a more representative period for the real hash rate.

More or less. The network hashrate is established by comparing block resolution speed with difficulty. It's simply an estimate. The block resolution speed is an average taken on whatever period of time. The thing is, when the difficulty jumps up, the average used is still the one established on data from the previous difficulty. Until that sample time spans entirely into blocks found at new difficulty, the estimate will be corrupt.

[mario]

Thank you

[Nythain]

It's funny because that question is answered every time the difficulty changes. Maybe these people could use the search function once in a while, you know...

So every new user is supposed to search for something they dont know happens or exists using their mighty psychic powers of past and future knowledge?

[davout]

Why do we laugh at new people for asking legitimate questions?  Were they supposed to have read the forums a thousand feet deep and figured this out on their own?

Heh, didn't mean to make fun of the OP, I just opened this thread, read the post and was like "holy shit, that's a lot of mining power ki-- oh wait a minute, dammit"

[mario]

The next difficulty jump is estimated to be 639946. Is this normal? To my new eyes it seems very big.

[davout]

The next difficulty jump is estimated to be 639946. Is this normal? To my new eyes it seems very big.

This again is an estimate that is based on data samples (avg. interval between blocks), you might want to wait a little bit for a larger sample to get more accurate projections.

[goatpig]

The next difficulty jump is estimated to be 639946. Is this normal? To my new eyes it seems very big.

That estimate too is based on estimate network hashrate estimate. First corruption implies second corruption of estimate.

So every new user is supposed to search for something they dont know happens or exists using their mighty psychic powers of past and future knowledge?

When I see something odd, I search the forums first. Then if I can't find, I'll post. Just sayin

[BitterTea]

The next difficulty jump is estimated to be 639946. Is this normal? To my new eyes it seems very big.

The next difficulty is estimated based on the current hash rate. Since the hash rate is off, so is the next difficulty.

[mario]

Thank you all.

[twobitcoins]

I can't for the life of me figure out why the tools are written this way.  It is quite easy to avoid the problem.

The core task is to estimate the hash rate by looking at recent blocks (either the last n blocks or all blocks in a fixed window of time).  The number of hashes that it took to calculate each block can be estimated based on the difficulty in effect for that block.  Add those hash counts and divide by the total time, and you get an estimated hash rate.  It works regardless of changes in the difficulty.  Then use the hash rate to calculate other things like when the difficulty will change and what the new difficulty will be.

[NghtRppr]

It's funny because that question is answered every time the difficulty changes. Maybe these people could use the search function once in a while, you know...

Have you tried it?

Challenge:

Give me a search phrase that can answer this question without browsing beyond the 3rd page of results.

[davout]

Give me a search phrase that can answer this question without browsing beyond the 3rd page of results.

"woah". Any further questions ?