New Diff thread Mar 8 to Mar 22.

[MegaFall]

268 usd will slow mining in its tracks. I am thinking a solid drop to  240 would help lower diff more.

down to 255 on coinbase

It has been one disappointing day to say the least.   The BTC price keeps dropping and difficulty is not dropping anywhere near as fast.

Did I miss anything on news for the sudden drop i price?

UK is also going to regulate BTC. Probably more significantly than the US.

[notlist3d]

268 usd will slow mining in its tracks. I am thinking a solid drop to  240 would help lower diff more.

down to 255 on coinbase

It has been one disappointing day to say the least.   The BTC price keeps dropping and difficulty is not dropping anywhere near as fast.

Did I miss anything on news for the sudden drop i price?

UK is also going to regulate BTC. Probably more significantly than the US.

Thank you very much appears your exactly right guess I had not read news today: http://www.coindesk.com/breaking-uk-treasury-issues-landmark-digital-currencies-report/

[adaseb]

I don't think the difficulty will drop or rise either but remain flat.

Rememember how I kept posting "why isn't the difficulty rising" a few pages back? BTC went from $220 to $300 and difficulty didn't bulge.

On the way down, it won't bulge either unless we maybe go below $200.

[philipma1957]

I don't think the difficulty will drop or rise either but remain flat.

Rememember how I kept posting "why isn't the difficulty rising" a few pages back? BTC went from $220 to $300 and difficulty didn't bulge.

On the way down, it won't bulge either unless we maybe go below $200.

well it remains to be seen but a price drop to 198 still works for a lot of miners. The assumption with that 198 price is diff stays under 50.

here is   1 sp20e downclock to 1000th run at 510 watts  

  

 here is a pair of s-3's at 10 cents coins at 198 usd and diff at 50 runs at 800 watts


So in both cases if you are not paying to cool off your miners you can run them  at 198 usd a coin

[adaseb]

Well I agree with your SP20 but not really worth having 2 S3+ run just to make $1 a month. Most will just turn those off.

[notlist3d]

Well I agree with your SP20 but not really worth having 2 S3+ run just to make $1 a month. Most will just turn those off.

If low price continues chances are most would sell it to someone with lower priced electricity.

With price dropping too a 250 it hurt small miners a decent amount today.

[philipma1957]

Well I agree with your SP20 but not really worth having 2 S3+ run just to make $1 a month. Most will just turn those off.

not true until the heat of the summer comes. then you need to cool the gear off.

Right now it is 33F in NJ and a lot of the mining world is still getting heat benefit from the miners.
A big guy with a lot of miners like the s-3 will be looking to sell them off to someone with cheap power. But the case for now is the price is holding at 252 not 198 so the rates of diff and hash do not get greatly reduced.

https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty  (-1.67%) BTC/USD: 255


https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qmF2knc5rSrJLESgQJYBz8mPzpKihmSzPPQUGH7pT8g/edit#gid=204080645

(-1.51%)     

maybe the 240 usd mark will scare off more new money or more expansion

maybe under 200 for about 1 entire adjustment  period will do a big drop.

right now about 490 blocks are left. numbers still work.   and the crazy growth of 10 % 15% 20 % 25 % jump after jump after jump seems to be done for now.

[notlist3d]

Well I agree with your SP20 but not really worth having 2 S3+ run just to make $1 a month. Most will just turn those off.

not true until the heat of the summer comes. then you need to cool the gear off.

Right now it is 33F in NJ and a lot of the mining world is still getting heat benefit from the miners.
A big guy with a lot of miners like the s-3 will be looking to sell them off to someone with cheap power. But the case for now is the price is holding at 252 not 198 so the rates of diff and hash do not get greatly reduced.

https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty  (-1.67%) BTC/USD: 255


https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qmF2knc5rSrJLESgQJYBz8mPzpKihmSzPPQUGH7pT8g/edit#gid=204080645

(-1.51%)     

maybe the 240 usd mark will scare off more new money or more expansion

maybe under 200 for about 1 entire adjustment  period will do a big drop.

right now about 490 blocks are left. numbers still work.   and the crazy growth of 10 % 15% 20 % 25 % jump after jump after jump seems to be done for now.

I would agree with crazy growth done for now.   Once the next gen chips are out will be interesting if some of the big companies bring back crazy growth.

[ezeminer]

Well I agree with your SP20 but not really worth having 2 S3+ run just to make $1 a month. Most will just turn those off.

not true until the heat of the summer comes. then you need to cool the gear off.

Right now it is 33F in NJ and a lot of the mining world is still getting heat benefit from the miners.
A big guy with a lot of miners like the s-3 will be looking to sell them off to someone with cheap power. But the case for now is the price is holding at 252 not 198 so the rates of diff and hash do not get greatly reduced.

https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty  (-1.67%) BTC/USD: 255


https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qmF2knc5rSrJLESgQJYBz8mPzpKihmSzPPQUGH7pT8g/edit#gid=204080645

(-1.51%)     

maybe the 240 usd mark will scare off more new money or more expansion

maybe under 200 for about 1 entire adjustment  period will do a big drop.

right now about 490 blocks are left. numbers still work.   and the crazy growth of 10 % 15% 20 % 25 % jump after jump after jump seems to be done for now.

I would agree with crazy growth done for now.   Once the next gen chips are out will be interesting if some of the big companies bring back crazy growth.

Since chips have reached a pretty small manufacturing process, I would assume that there won't be large difficulty hikes. Maybe if 20nm or 16nm actually get tested, and work will we see a huge hike. Other than that the only thing that'll affect mining is prices, to cover for electricity, and older hardware dying off.

[tlhIlwI]

I keep a spreadsheet to determine the optimum underclock to use on my 4x SP20 rig to maximize the amount of BTC left after taking out to cover the power cost (before the price drop I could do max 0.72V, so lots of headroom left-- more than I expected right now).  At the current difficulty a price of $315 is where efficiency becomes relevant (voltage lowering begins) and a price of $250 is where lower voltages become significant.  The span between those prices results in about a BTC0.39 difference after power.  It takes a difficulty increase of 21% for an equivalent after power difference in earnings as that $65 price span.  I can run at a highly reduced voltage with a price as low as $100 (at current diff) before the numbers go negative, but it really is hardly worth it under $150.  Above $315 things look very nice very fast.  So, at the moment price appears to hurt me more than difficulty (but both hurt).  Of course this is specific to my rig, power rate (0.0875/kWh), etc. and will be very different as conditions change in the future. 

I almost cashed out extra at $296 to cover the April power bill (March projected usage) in advance.  Instead, I opted to hold a bit longer since that bill was still nearly a month away.  With the drop to $248 I probably made the wrong call since the price will probably not make it back before I'm required to cover April.  I'm still keeping my settings at 0.72V for now optimistically hoping for enough return in price that combined with the diff reduction will be close enough (though my spreadsheet says I really should drop to 0.705).

If the price or difficulty do not get me, eventually the weather is going to force a settings reduction.  I had one 70F day already in which I had to open the garage door since the temps were rising into the high 90Fs in the garage.  There is no way I'll be able to run these settings when 80Fs hit.  I wonder how much the weather is going to affect global hash rate (most mining is northern hemisphere) and thus diff in the next couple months?

[notlist3d]

I keep a spreadsheet to determine the optimum underclock to use on my 4x SP20 rig to maximize the amount of BTC left after taking out to cover the power cost (before the price drop I could do max 0.72V, so lots of headroom left-- more than I expected right now).  At the current difficulty a price of $315 is where efficiency becomes relevant (voltage lowering begins) and a price of $250 is where lower voltages become significant.  The span between those prices results in about a BTC0.39 difference after power.  It takes a difficulty increase of 21% for an equivalent after power difference in earnings as that $65 price span.  I can run at a highly reduced voltage with a price as low as $100 (at current diff) before the numbers go negative, but it really is hardly worth it under $150.  Above $315 things look very nice very fast.  So, at the moment price appears to hurt me more than difficulty (but both hurt).  Of course this is specific to my rig, power rate (0.0875/kWh), etc. and will be very different as conditions change in the future. 

I almost cashed out extra at $296 to cover the April power bill (March projected usage) in advance.  Instead, I opted to hold a bit longer since that bill was still nearly a month away.  With the drop to $248 I probably made the wrong call since the price will probably not make it back before I'm required to cover April.  I'm still keeping my settings at 0.72V for now optimistically hoping for enough return in price that combined with the diff reduction will be close enough (though my spreadsheet says I really should drop to 0.705).

If the price or difficulty do not get me, eventually the weather is going to force a settings reduction.  I had one 70F day already in which I had to open the garage door since the temps were rising into the high 90Fs in the garage.  There is no way I'll be able to run these settings when 80Fs hit.  I wonder how much the weather is going to affect global hash rate (most mining is northern hemisphere) and thus diff in the next couple months?

You are not alone on not cashing out.  Wish I would of for electricity aswell.  But can not go back in time.

[TheAnalogKid]

I would agree with crazy growth done for now.   Once the next gen chips are out will be interesting if some of the big companies bring back crazy growth.

Personally I'm thinking BTC price will affect more the crazy growth than the next gen chips.  I don't doubt there will be growth spurts, probably 2 or 3 mid-teens adjustments are likely, but I think it will be more measured.

For giggles, let's assume next gen chips are still 28nm, just more efficient, able to hit say .35w/gh which would be a 30% gain on the best existing chips (.5w/gh).  Let's assume also a June/July delivery timeframe.

I would believe that the largest adoption of those rigs would be with mining farms running on older hardware, say anything that's >6months and over .8w/gh.  For those miners, they've been running the older gear longer, probably at or close to positive ROI where upgrading will benefit them in the long run because of reduced power expenditure.

The mining farms who are spinning up now on the last bits of stock from SPTech and BMTech wouldn't (well, I should say "shouldn't") be in a position to drop large chunks on buying brand new hardware when the ones they just spun up are barely 2 months old.  I honestly don't think they'd be able to match the same 30% difference in the price of selling the old hardware (in other words, they would get 30% positive gain from the new chips for power consumption, but would be selling their hardware for more than a 30% loss, thus equating to a negative total ROI).

The first group, if that happens, will then start a cascade effect for smaller miners, where they can now also replace the higher wattage gear they're running with much cheaper use equipment (say those running S1's for sure, and some S3's will now pick up used S5's on the cheap).  IT'll turn into a sine wave of diff adjustments, dip while old hardware is turned off and sold, then an uptick as the hardware reaches the next set of miners and gets powered on, and then lather, rinse, repeat down the chain.

But, the whole thing with this is the price of BTC.  If it stays low, then even the large farms aren't turning as much of a profit, and that should result in the ability to purchase and deploy less hardware than they could if BTC were higher.  If BTC goes up considerably, then these same places could deploy much larger amounts of hardware, which would drive difficulty through the roof, quickly, much like was seen from middle through late last year (June - November).

If hardware isn't being bought at a rapid pace, that leads manufacturers to not have as much revenue and on-hand capital to push forward on newer, more dense chips like 20nm and 16nm.

Then again, we can speculate till we're blue in the face... who the hell really knows what will happen...

[philipma1957]

...

Then again, we can speculate till we're blue in the face... who the hell really knows what will happen...

 That's why they call it a spec thread. We get to spec all we want plus we get a shot at a  free prize.

LOL

[notlist3d]

I wish BTC would drop like LTC difficulty.  Thought some in here might find intresting just as miners don't mean to go to off topic.

But:

Litecoin Difficulty:    40,766
Estimated Next Difficulty:    35,077 (-13.95%)
Adjust time:    After 24 Blocks, About 1.3 hours

LTC to be losing around 14 percent hash.  I just hope it's not hosting/data centers switching to BTC mining gear.

[alh]

A small update from bitcoinwisdom:

Bitcoin Difficulty:    47,427,554,951
Estimated Next Difficulty:    46,640,444,220 (-1.66%)
Adjust time:    After 337 Blocks, About 2.4 days
Hashrate(?):    331,044,027 GH/s
Block Generation Time(?):    
1 block: 10.3 minutes
3 blocks: 30.8 minutes
6 blocks: 1.0 hours
   
Updated:    10:25 (4.2 minutes ago)

Looks like it's almost certain to be a difficulty decrease this time around.

[TheAnalogKid]

The spreadsheet is saying -1.75%... come on, just .. need .. .01 more % ...

[philipma1957]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qmF2knc5rSrJLESgQJYBz8mPzpKihmSzPPQUGH7pT8g/edit#gid=204080645

reads (-1.72%)

https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty  reads (-1.76%)


328 blocks to go

price is 255 to 262 usd


No one is really pushing truly new more efficient gear.

So we kind of stay in a stable clam area for the time being.

[notlist3d]

Interesting time in mining.  It looks like we lose around the difficulty we gained on Mar 8th.

I just hope BTC goes back to 300's in a reasonable timeframe.

[philipma1957]

Interesting time in mining.  It looks like we lose around the difficulty we gained on Mar 8th.

I just hope BTC goes back to 300's in a reasonable timeframe.

I still think the big guys are holding back from dropping 3 or 4 million on a new chip super farm.

Basically Bitfury made a lot of money and then shut down gear.
While they can make a .25 watt /gh machine
I think they are afraid to commit the 3-6 million need to make a 20-40ph farm at the current btc price level.

This is a good thing. I am hoping for 11-18 months between gear.

the s-1 was nov-dec 2013----------------------------- 2 watt gear
the s-3 was june- july 2014--------------------------- 0.8 watt gear
the s-5 was nov-dec   2014--------------------------- 0.5 watt gear

the s-6 or  s-7 has been mentioned for  later then june 2015 I read this  here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=902305.msg10826237#msg10826237


So say the s-6 comes out in July and is 0.38 or 0.4 watt gear
Then in sept the s-7 comes out at .3 watts
We are seeing a mature asic industry unfold.

This reminds me of the intel cpu's once sandy bridge arrived pc's are so good  the next two gen's pushed us into little mini pc's
Anyone with an i7 2600 cpu in a desktop has no need for an i7 4790 desktop.(90% true not 100%)

So to drive sales the pc industry is pushing tablets and mobile gear over desktops.

So if you have a .4 watt asic replace a .5 watt asic  what is your gain?
I do wonder how this plays out.

 I would not mind rocket to the moon on btc to 2000usd. It would wake everyone  up.

 I think we wander around in the 200-300 price slot and in the 44-49 diff range for months to come. I can live with that.

[valkir]

Interesting time in mining.  It looks like we lose around the difficulty we gained on Mar 8th.

I just hope BTC goes back to 300's in a reasonable timeframe.

I still think the big guys are holding back from dropping 3 or 4 million on a new chip super farm.

Basically Bitfury made a lot of money and then shut down gear.
While they can make a .25 watt /gh machine
I think they are afraid to commit the 3-6 million need to make a 20-40ph farm at the current btc price level.

This is a good thing. I am hoping for 11-18 months between gear.

the s-1 was nov-dec 2013----------------------------- 2 watt gear
the s-3 was june- july 2014--------------------------- 0.8 watt gear
the s-5 was nov-dec   2014--------------------------- 0.5 watt gear

the s-6 or  s-7 has been mentioned for  later then june 2015 I read this  here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=902305.msg10826237#msg10826237


So say the s-6 comes out in July and is 0.38 or 0.4 watt gear
Then in sept the s-7 comes out at .3 watts
We are seeing a mature asic industry unfold.

This reminds me of the intel cpu's once sandy bridge arrived pc's are so good  the next two gen's pushed us into little mini pc's
Anyone with an i7 2600 cpu in a desktop has no need for an i7 4790 desktop.(90% true not 100%)

So to drive sales the pc industry is pushing tablets and mobile gear over desktops.

So if you have a .4 watt asic replace a .5 watt asic  what is your gain?
I do wonder how this plays out.

 I would not mind rocket to the moon on btc to 2000usd. It would wake everyone  up.

 I think we wander around in the 200-300 price slot and in the 44-49 diff range for months to come. I can live with that.

Well said Philip like always.

Im pretty sure right now the company are waiting to see the next 2 or 3 difficulty jump to see if they want to invest more or not.
I will be more than happy if we can stay between 44 and 49. That will give us a break and use our miner a little bit more.
The last 2 years was a race to buy, mine, sell the newest miners.

As for the price, if we stay at this diff, I think we could see a stable grown. Less fluctuation will also help people to get in Bitcoin.

Will see but right now, Im happy with the -1%