Topic: Most accurate difficulty projection? & questions about calculator site. (Read 2415 times)

this will stop after about june 2014 as the generation of asics past 28nm will not nearly be a step as big as the step from GPU to FPGA and the step from FPGA to ASICs and not even the step from first generation ASICs to next generation ASICs.

Once 28/20nm ASICs are commonly used mining hardware, the difficulty will rise more gradually again.

ASIC was a disruptive technology and the jumps were huge when they first launched, trend I am seeing in recent jumps seems to be leveling off (relatively, prior ~6 month window). I think we will see a steady rise but the massive breakpoint-type jumps earlier in 2013 was due to disruption. The new miners don't offer price or technology innovation that I am aware of, it's more like the evolution/refinement of what we already have rather than another event of creative destruction. Am I right on that?

Another way to think about it: ASICs almost immediately made GPU mining completely inefficient. This type of evolution is referred to as creative destruction. Good example is the transportation industry in the 20th century: horses>automobiles>railway>air travel. My understanding is existing ASICs can still produce the same hash rates as the new stuff if you actually have enough space for them all. Things eventually flatten out; people can still get from A to B in their 1960 Chevy, not so much with a horse, eh, maybe a poor example...

Anyways, in that sense, there's no creative destruction or introduction of a new disruptive technology happening, it's just maturation and refinement of what exists today. I have only glanced at the new gear, but since it's not available yet I have not invested any real time researching. At a cursory glance I'm viewing the new products the same way as I view new iPhones; sure they come out and offer greater efficiency and handle more complicated tasks with ease, but it was the introduction of the smartphone that disrupted the market and even spilled over to steal dollars from GPS companies etc etc... The ASIC introduction spiked difficulty and rendered existing technology (at the time) immediately obsolete, but this new stuff does not seem to be offering un-achievable hashing speeds or anything that can't be done with a shit-ton of blades. New products are great, but not every new thing will have the same impact as the first round of ASICs did. My $0.02 based on what I know so far, FWIW.

I've found this calculator:
http://coinplorer.com/Hardware/Simulate

I find it more interesting, because most other calculators tend to either assume constant difficulty, or make simple linear projection (each month, N more GHash/sec that the month before).
The current progress seems rather exponential (with each passing months, a bigger quantity of ASIC hardware is shipped and put into production, and these machines are each more powerful than past models).

well last to batches from knc make 120mil difficulty jump.
I'ts not all knc but it is good part of it.
 

Thanks for the info...

So about something like KNC, I mean how likely is it they will release large quantities in the November batch? Did they say how many units? From what I've seen the demand for new hardware is usually so much greater than the supply that the first run of something new usually ends up being rather small-batch. The lucky ones that get one will have a good few weeks or months, but my understanding is these units will be hard to obtain for a while, or not many people will have them. Either way, should be interesting...

there is no "reliable diff projection"

row #4 means how much you will earn in this difficulty period or till next diff jump!
row #2 is telling you ow much will you earn in 7 days on this diff.

next diff jump of 25% is correct assumption if you consider hardware power added to the network in the last couple of days. knc is delivering November batch!
also take a look at the diff graph here!
http://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

Is this the best place to view projected difficulty?

http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator

I've seen other sites with much lower projections and just wondering what the most reliable is.

Also, after inputting hash speed on the link above, what does row #4 in column #1 mean "this diff (est)"; I don't understand what this is referring to when row #2 is labeled "per Week", and both are contained under the header "This Difficulty". Clarification on this would be great...

I haven't paid close attention to the difficulty jumps, but this site seems to over-estimate from what I remember on the last increase.