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Topic: Bitcoin mining difficulty drops 6% in largest fall since bear market lows (Read 34 times)

legendary
Activity: 3458
Merit: 6231
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Has nothing to do with the lows are more to due with the havling and contracts.
There were (are) a lot of miners in data centers that are under contract to be there. And....wait for it....they pay no matter what.
So you can either pay a lot and run the miners at a loss or pay a lot and get 0.
I am sure many of them timed their contracts to end around now. April 1 or April 15 or May 1 or May 15 kind of thing.

So we may see another drop as the last of them are shutdown and retired.

*With my own eyes I saw 300 Amps of gear being taken out this last weekend since their contract ran thought the May 1 (last Wed)

-Dave
jr. member
Activity: 29
Merit: 3
Could you at least be precise on which area? If companies are diving into the business of mining coins at a cheaper rate, it's because they perceive it to be profitable.. That has nothing to do with decentralization.

I mean it like only the big companies surviving and we have the same thing in mining as we do for example with gas stations or super stores, where independent miners will just mine a few blocks a day, then those companies could choose to not include some transactions if they feel like they are paying to little and artificially drive up fees as well as blocking transactions they think are illegal or are ordered by the government to.

I assume having just one major CEX that has 90% volume is bad because it can influence the price with fake volume, so the same would be possible for a mining pool or an alliance of miners that hold 90% of the hash rate.
hero member
Activity: 714
Merit: 1004
Goodnight, ohh Leo!!! 🦅
This is exactly the same thing I pondered so hard about... If my memories can serve me well, I think I wrote alot of about it already.
Most independent miners quit as it becomes impossible to make profits - especially after every Bitcoin halving. Just imagine going back to the usual 25sat/Vbyte and a ton of electricity consumption and expenses, roughly beating down the general revenue....  Just appalling!
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Are home miners going to get wiped out by huge companies that have access to investors capital and cheap electricity? Would that be a danger of centralization?
Not totally! I guess the companies would have the upper hand now.
Decentralization? Could you at least be precise on which area? If companies are diving into the business of mining coins at a cheaper rate, it's because they perceive it to be profitable.. That has nothing to do with decentralization.
jr. member
Activity: 29
Merit: 3
I guess you meant danger to decentralisation,

Sorry for that , I wanted to say a danger of centralization with huge companies that have the money and influence needed to acquire cheap energy and cheap miners dominating the mining industry and with that trying to introduce just like in every industry lobbyists that would protect their interest but affect ours.
sr. member
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Merit: 311
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Do you think this downtrend will continue as income per unit of hash is still lower than anything previously and cheaper and cheaper energy is needed to keep older units profitable with new units at residential area cost seem to have over 24 months of ROI?  And as I asked before
Now the difficulty has reduced, computational power to mine a block will reduced if the Bitcoin price doesn't drop significantly, i don't think there will be a downtrend.

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Are home miners going to get wiped out by huge companies that have access to investors capital and cheap electricity? Would that be a danger to centralization?
I guess you meant danger to decentralisation, I still doubt that because even if the big company do have a greater hash rate than others the probability of them being able to act maliciously is still low.
jr. member
Activity: 29
Merit: 3
Bitcoin mining difficulty drops 6% in largest fall since bear market lows
https://www.theblock.co/post/293426/bitcoin-mining-difficulty-adjustment-largest-drop-since-bear-market-lows

Two weeks ago I opened a topic about this:
    
With fees no longer compensating are some miners shuting down?
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/with-fees-no-longer-compensating-are-some-miners-shuting-down-5493786

I was wrong at the time because of the high fees that kept income up for miners but as those dropped and the revenue per unit of hash dropped to the lowest in 3 years the other assumption I was making proved to be right at least short time.

Do you think this downtrend will continue as income per unit of hash is still lower than anything previously and cheaper and cheaper energy is needed to keep older units profitable with new units at residential area cost seem to have over 24 months of ROI?  And as I asked before

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Are home miners going to get wiped out by huge companies that have access to investors capital and cheap electricity? Would that be a danger of centralization?

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