For the last year, difficulty has grown at almost exactly 4%/day on average. This corresponds with the growth in computing horsepower joined to the network.
see
http://bitcoin.sipa.be/ for the graphs.
Topic: : - page 3. (Read 13245 times)
Wow, this thread was very insightful, thank you for the numbers. I was shocked by the degree of the increase today but I didn't realize that the difficulty could potentially ramp up THAT much in just two weeks to a month. I had to revise the calculations I made of my new rig's probable output at 1.0 GHash/sec... geez, only a third of a coin a day at 3 million+ difficulty! 
The price will stay below $22 for the next week, followed by a slow creep up to 28-30 in two weeks. Use those numbers and tell me what happens 
I'm also very curious to see if total tera-hash/sec capacity increases, or if outright buy-and-hold does. Perhaps in the absence of large sell blocks, we can look forward to a bit of a plateau?
Appreciate the numbers as always, chodpaba!
Median Difficulty forecast for block 131040: 847013
Actual Difficulty re-target for block 131040: 877227
Variance: 3.6%
Actual Difficulty re-target for block 131040: 877227
Variance: 3.6%
When the difficulty gets to 2Million mark price for BTC will have to be $120 / coin to maintain mining profitibility..
Wouldn't that be dandy?
Only, $120 at Difficulty 2,000,000 is completely meaningless as a data point of itself. Mining may be profitable at that point, but a mining operation is something that happens over an extended period of time through many levels of Difficulty and price points.
I think that many miners are making a fundamental mistake by valuing the profitability of their operations in terms of Dollars. If you believe that the value of Bitcoin will increase over time and that the value of the Dollar will decrease over time it is completely irrational for the cost basis of your accounting to be in Dollars. Sure, a mining operation may be able to net you some Dollars, but unless you are able to demonstrate that it will net you more Bitcoins than some other method (like buying Bitcoin on an exchange) the cost of that lost opportunity means that you lose Bitcoins. Take a look at what it cost to build your rig, in Bitcoin, at the time you purchased the parts vs. how many Bitcoin it has actually delivered for you. Then figure out if you actually ended up with more Bitcoin than you could have purchased on an exchange at that time...
You may be surprised!
When the difficulty gets to 2Million mark price for BTC will have to be $120 / coin to maintain mining profitibility..
Take a look at what it cost to build your rig, in Bitcoin, at the time you purchased the parts vs. how many Bitcoin it has actually delivered for you. Then figure out if you actually ended up with more Bitcoin than you could have purchased on an exchange at that time...
You may be surprised!
You make it seem like purchasing BTC on the exchange is easy. It's been a whole week now, and I still haven't successfully transferred any $$$ into a exchange.
When the difficulty gets to 2Million mark price for BTC will have to be $120 / coin to maintain mining profitibility..
To remain profitable, it just has to be high enough to exceed electricity and depreciation. Right now, that is ~$6 for me. At 2 million it will be only ~$20. In other words, the difficulty/price ratio must be below 100000. Anyone with cheaper electricity than me (a lot of people), or a more efficient setup (more than one graphics card, not an overclocked quad core CPU) can profit on even less.
When the difficulty gets to 2Million mark price for BTC will have to be $120 / coin to maintain mining profitibility..
Actually, it will only have to be enough to offset electricity - as most miners in this stage of the game have already paid off their rigs. And in some cases, some don't even have to worry about that! I think your statement may be more true for someone just purchasing a $1,000 rig, given the reduction in payout. Otherwise, its pretty much full profit for the early-adopting miners.
Hmmmn. To come about, those numbers would have to be met by a surge in ATI card production (surely they know us and what we want by now), coupled with a constant and steady rise in the value of the BTC, but as no one can really predict either of those things, it's nice to have a worst case scenario charted out. Thanks.
mining is over 
Mining 10000 btc is over with the actual $/btc rate. Mining, however, is not over AT ALL.
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