Topic: The next difficulty level will make mining unprofitable. (Read 8868 times)

As I have indicated, since my purchase of the 6970 for gaming and mining, it will lock up 100% of the time if you try to run a video of any kind while mining.  This if true with stock settings and 70 degrees C.  Latest drivers give me enough time to kill a browser if I navigate to a page that starts ui play a video ... probably because I am pushing the card a little harder now giving me done time while the video tries to initialize.  I understand they used to have the same issue with the 58xx and 5970 when they first came out.

No such problems with NVidia ever under any circumstances even with the latest hardware.  Games often have trouble themselves, but that is rarely a driver problem (manufacturers often make tweeks for some games or bugs found from games and also create profiles to help use the card the best for the game).  I have been using gaming cards since before the first TNT cards and used the extra 3Dfx cards and have never seen lockups so predictably and easily as the drivers for the 6970 allow when mining, at least since windows 2000 was released.

ATI is STILL shipping poor drivers, if you're doing anything with OpenGL. Now GPGPU stuff like mining is great.

totally offtopic

Yes, and no doubt due to the latency between ordering hardware (when mining appeared more profitable) and getting it online.  Judging by the prices at the usual places I would have to say that such expansion is likely coming to an end for now (maybe another week or two of latency some orders, but I suspect new hardware purchases are dropping dramatically for now).  So, hopefully the next difficulty increases will be relatively moderate and maybe even some retrenchment in a few weeks.  Depends in part on the price of the BTC.  If I were AMD, I would be buying coins to push the price and excite orders and them when they are ready, dump them leaving many stuck with too much hardware, wait for the correction and a new product release and repeat. 

A far as AMD, you have been warned!

The previous difficulty was not 224k. It was 244139. That is a 78% increase.

The last 50 blocks take about 4 times as long on average.

I was wondering, what could happen if when there are 50 blocks remaining for the next dificulty rise the 70% of the bitcoin network stops mining?

Sorry, but according to my math 224k -> 434k = about 100% increase [to be precise 94% something something]. Or, are maths in various countries that different?
Now, who's estimate was closer -.-

You absolutely were wrong. The increase was estimated around 72% when you made your 100% prediction and it ended up being closer to 75%. Not 100%.

There are people out there, who for various reasons (most because of lack of forethought, but not all) will mine at a loss [meaning hardware maintenance and energy costs will exceed BTC revenue] and it is those people who make it difficult for the smaller miner.  The more there are, the worse the problem for the small guy.  So yes, there is a doom and gloom scenario, but the question is really to what extent it will become or stay a problem.

Great points up until you apparently took a hit of the crack pipe prior to that last paragraph.  Even the kids who popularized the whole "ATI has no drivers!" nonsense have stopped trolling with that by now.

Admittedly, there was a time when ATI was shipping poor drivers but, it's ancient history by now and they certainly never released anything quite as outright dangerous as the 196.75 house fire update.

Furthermore, ATI cards have only been overpriced in recent years due to a complete lack of competitive product from Nvidia. That's supply and demand, not ATI's fault.

Some people believe that mining will not be profitable, others believe it will. Only time will tell.

For the record, I agree with you.

Alright, so I'm a relative noob to the BTC world, but I keep seeing these doom and gloom predictions that mining will become unprofitable and I don't get it.  Yes, the network will increase in difficulty and yes, your rig may not be making as many bitcoins as it once used to, but considering bitcoins will become scarcer, their value should go up and keep it profitable.

I could be completely off base, but you can see the same thing happening in the real world.  Oil, gold, etc., as it get's harder to 'mine' something and you need ever more expensive equipment to do it, the item will be worth more when you do get it.

I know this is an overly simplistic view of things, but at some point, you will need to buy more expensive equipment to mine bitcoins.  I'm sure there's a lot of folks that used to CPU mine that had to move to GPU's, and at some point GPU's will be surpassed by the next big jump in mining power, but theoretically, the coins should be worth more, so it should be a wash.

In the future, hobbyists will have more powerful computers, so I think it will be true for a long time that hobbyist mining is profitable, just not as profitable as professional mining.

Actually, it could hover around net neutral and only if people mine based on pure logic [mine only because it is profitable].  Many people may mine when it isn't profitable for them, because they think it is cool, they didn't bother to calculate their true costs or anticipate a long term appreciation of their minted coins. 

I think [and hope] what this will do is stop people from recklessly buying hardware to mine as it simple increases the difficulty and in a relatively short amount of time neutralizes their investment.  Those at the bottom of the hash rate contribution will probably be forced out due to a lack of any return at all due to people like this [meaning they didn't think it through and destroyed it for others while not making anything more than short term gains on their investment that probably requires long-term to payoff].

I have seen posts here for people wiling to drop $10K on multiple rigs with no real idea how the bitcoin economy works or how they are going to earn that money back.  These people are who I fear most as it takes mining out of reach of the smaller miner just using a single GPU [even a high quality one] to make any significant profit at all.  The same people that cause this will themselves lose as difficulty adjusts.  In the end, the economy will win and BTC/hr will hover around 6 and those monster rigs are going to be energy hungry machines, often accumulating interest owed on their credit cards.  There will always be big miners and and small miners as it should be [until all the coins are minted anyway].  I just fear that those with big pocket books and in some cases, lack of forethought may take the fun of this venture away from the average miner.

In case it isn't obvious, but once a new piece of hardware comes out that significantly increases MH/s [per watt], there will be another run on difficulty even if it levels out for a time.  Further, it will make the newer leading edge GPUs out of reach in cost for gamers as long as AMD GPUs are the mining hardware of choice.  The sad thing is that I like to game, but I prefer NVidia gaming hardware for it's stability, features, and, perhaps most of all, their high quality drivers [I still can't watch a video of any kind while mining on this machine until they fix the driver .... worked just fine with latest generation NVidia hardware drivers].  I let ATI (AMD) go in 2007 for these reasons and the fact that the hardware just didn't perform as well and was over priced .... and bitcoin has not done much to change that and a lot to hurt that.

And no other way to effectively export that energy to Europe where it's really needed.

True. Iceland could so own this mining market if they wanted to. Cheap and plentiful geothermal energy!

Mining will always be profitable, if you have already paid for your hardware and need to heat your space anyway.  Once again, anyone who lives in Iceland probably cannot be undercut by any miner who lives in Florida.

then please stop mining

Even assuming that miners behave in a purely rational profit-seeking way, this statement is only true in a weak sense. What you should write is, "Mining will always be profitable, given that you possess hardware near the current top of the line in terms of mining efficiency." It's certainly not obvious that mining with a GPU will always be profitable, and even less obvious that buying a GPU to mine will always be profitable.

If you're trying to imply that current hobbyist miners have nothing to worry about, you're off the mark.