Author

Topic: Will difficulty jump over 200 billion at block halving? (Read 3750 times)

sr. member
Activity: 329
Merit: 251
I think we can let this thread dies a natural death since we are approaching 6 months after the halving, and difficulty is more than 286 Billion.

Crossed 300 billion today...

https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty
alh
legendary
Activity: 1846
Merit: 1052
I think we can let this thread dies a natural death since we are approaching 6 months after the halving, and difficulty is more than 286 Billion.
member
Activity: 169
Merit: 10
Global Risk Exchange - gref.io
Revisited this thread after a long time. Difficulty jumped over 200 billion at block halving. Interestingly, within a few months, difficulty is now on the verge of kissing 300 billion...

https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

There is no slowing it down anytime soon, with mines with access to very little electricity costs they will just keep beefing up.  Wonder when it will actually slow down though?
But, this would ultimately lead to more mining centralization, which is not good.
legendary
Activity: 3752
Merit: 1415
Revisited this thread after a long time. Difficulty jumped over 200 billion at block halving. Interestingly, within a few months, difficulty is now on the verge of kissing 300 billion...

https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

There is no slowing it down anytime soon, with mines with access to very little electricity costs they will just keep beefing up.  Wonder when it will actually slow down though?
legendary
Activity: 1662
Merit: 1050
Revisited this thread after a long time. Difficulty jumped over 200 billion at block halving. Interestingly, within a few months, difficulty is now on the verge of kissing 300 billion...

https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty
jr. member
Activity: 95
Merit: 9
Devil's Advocate
Difficulty will decrease after the halving. If diff increases it's due to newer hardware and btc price rising instead.

I don't understand, lots of people are saying that the halving will increase mining difficulty. Now you are saying it will decrease, precisely what determines the mining difficulty?


How many of us fools willing to run miners Grin



It depends on how many miners in China are running with near zero electricity cost.
legendary
Activity: 4256
Merit: 8551
'The right to privacy matters'
Difficulty will decrease after the halving. If diff increases it's due to newer hardware and btc price rising instead.

I don't understand, lots of people are saying that the halving will increase mining difficulty. Now you are saying it will decrease, precisely what determines the mining difficulty?


How many of us fools willing to run miners Grin


legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1756
Verified Bernie Bro - Feel The Bern!
Difficulty will decrease after the halving. If diff increases it's due to newer hardware and btc price rising instead.

I don't understand, lots of people are saying that the halving will increase mining difficulty. Now you are saying it will decrease, precisely what determines the mining difficulty?

Global Hashrate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin
sr. member
Activity: 294
Merit: 250
Minter
Difficulty will decrease after the halving. If diff increases it's due to newer hardware and btc price rising instead.

I don't understand, lots of people are saying that the halving will increase mining difficulty. Now you are saying it will decrease, precisely what determines the mining difficulty?
legendary
Activity: 4256
Merit: 8551
'The right to privacy matters'
I should also point out that before the last halving, the global hashrate went up for a while while people brought back online old inefficient hardware for the last few blocks on the chance they'd get one of the last 50BTC blocks before retiring that old hardware forever as a complete loss. I expect something similar will happen this time too.
In that case, difficulty might go above 200 billion and go down in next adjustment.
So, ultimately it settled above 200 billion. Smiley

https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

Bitcoin Difficulty:   213,398,925,331

Estimated Next Difficulty:   212,371,195,830 (-0.48%) <<<<< dropping a bit  so we could go south of 200 in the future
Adjust time:   After 539 Blocks, About 3.8 days

Hashrate(?):   1,426,783,548 GH/s
Block Generation Time(?):   
1 block: 10.1 minutes
3 blocks: 30.2 minutes
6 blocks: 1.0 hours
Updated:   
full member
Activity: 128
Merit: 100
I should also point out that before the last halving, the global hashrate went up for a while while people brought back online old inefficient hardware for the last few blocks on the chance they'd get one of the last 50BTC blocks before retiring that old hardware forever as a complete loss. I expect something similar will happen this time too.
In that case, difficulty might go above 200 billion and go down in next adjustment.
So, ultimately it settled above 200 billion. Smiley
legendary
Activity: 1662
Merit: 1050
I should also point out that before the last halving, the global hashrate went up for a while while people brought back online old inefficient hardware for the last few blocks on the chance they'd get one of the last 50BTC blocks before retiring that old hardware forever as a complete loss. I expect something similar will happen this time too.
In that case, difficulty might go above 200 billion and go down in next adjustment.
legendary
Activity: 1624
Merit: 1130
Bitcoin FTW!
I should also point out that before the last halving, the global hashrate went up for a while while people brought back online old inefficient hardware for the last few blocks on the chance they'd get one of the last 50BTC blocks before retiring that old hardware forever as a complete loss. I expect something similar will happen this time too.
That's pretty interesting. I'll look at it, but it definitely could happen. We're capped at difficulty right now, and the new S9's have almost no effect on the network. Either there's too few of them to do something like that (like bitmain mentioned, limited stock) or there's enough, but the S9's are replacing older miners fast enough that the network hashrate isn't dropping. Difficulty is dropping, though, so if it continues to go down, hashrate might spike like you said.
copper member
Activity: 2898
Merit: 1465
Clueless!
My concern on halving is 'sideways' so to speak..what I mean is no clue what this may mean for LTC price

I'm mining LTC to BTC and wondering if LTC will continue to plug along at 0.007- 0.010 ltc to btc after halving or get much better or much worse...

or

If the halving has NO effect and LTC just plugs along in the usual ratio rise it sorta has been of about 0.008 to 0.001 ratio of ltc to btc ie have no real effect on my process of LTC to BTC


anyway with Titan Scrypt miners I may be able to keep up with this for more then a bit. Smiley
-ck
legendary
Activity: 4088
Merit: 1631
Ruu \o/
I should also point out that before the last halving, the global hashrate went up for a while while people brought back online old inefficient hardware for the last few blocks on the chance they'd get one of the last 50BTC blocks before retiring that old hardware forever as a complete loss. I expect something similar will happen this time too.
legendary
Activity: 1498
Merit: 1030
Do keep in mind how MANY S5/S7/SP20 generation miners are out there - the S7s might keep mining after the halfing, with the recent Bitcoin price runup they should still be profitable - but that's a LOT of S5/SP20 generation gear that probably WILL become unprofitable.

 I'm not guessing a 30% hashrate drop due to the halfing, but I AM guessing more than 10% and perhaps 20% ballpark short-term.

 30% would need a significant number of S7/A6/B11 units to be taken offline - and I don't see that happening right around the halfing.

legendary
Activity: 1624
Merit: 1130
Bitcoin FTW!
And 2012 we were a mostly gpu network coins were around 8 to 12 usd.

So a small drop 10 to 15 % in 2012 is not surprising.

This 1/2 ing I see 18 to 30 percent drop.

But it will recover in August and September .

it is probably price-dependent.
at btc $450 you are probably right (18-30%)
at btc 677 maybe 10-15%
at btc 800 5% or less.

incidentally, in 2012 difficulty dropped not AT block size change, but 4 weeks later.
If the network drops 30% I'm basically all in at that point. It will usually take some time for people to know and accept that mining won't be profitable at their electricity rate and hardware anymore. So until then I only see it going up with the price.
It's not likely it'll drop THAT much, as one s9 replaces (in hashrate)about 4 S7s and 12 S5s... don't even make me go on. A few S9's can replace the hashrate of an entire mining farm, and we'll probably only see a small dip in the difficulty and hashrate, so don't get too excited. My guess is around 15% or less will drop out, but I'm being pretty generous and it could be much less since the S7s and avalon 6's will keep mining past the halving at this btc price.
legendary
Activity: 1498
Merit: 1030
Difficulty should show a drop after the halfing - older miners going unprofitable and being taken offline - but with the S9 and quite likely other 14/16nm full custom gen miners showing up around that time or shortly after, we'll most likely have a difficulty that IS higher than right at the halfing before October 2016.
hero member
Activity: 966
Merit: 546
And 2012 we were a mostly gpu network coins were around 8 to 12 usd.

So a small drop 10 to 15 % in 2012 is not surprising.

This 1/2 ing I see 18 to 30 percent drop.

But it will recover in August and September .

it is probably price-dependent.
at btc $450 you are probably right (18-30%)
at btc 677 maybe 10-15%
at btc 800 5% or less.

incidentally, in 2012 difficulty dropped not AT block size change, but 4 weeks later.
If the network drops 30% I'm basically all in at that point. It will usually take some time for people to know and accept that mining won't be profitable at their electricity rate and hardware anymore. So until then I only see it going up with the price.

I think some gear will come off.  I still think there are a lot of old machines running at cheap electricity.   But if we keep going up in USD value it might be less of a drop then I was expecting.   I was thinking it would be a pretty massive drop off of old gear and tons of good deals on older gear.   But price keeps skyrocketing.

Currently at 693 on coinbase and rising slowly.  If this keeps up it's hard to say what will be profitable still in a month.   I just hope it does not drop off.
Yeah it has the potential for price drop. But think of it as price drops the people mining also drops. As price rises more people can mine for profit. So in a sense it doesn't matter that much as long as there is some sort of market stability so we can calculate our ROI and stay on that path without adding months and months to it.
legendary
Activity: 1456
Merit: 1000
And 2012 we were a mostly gpu network coins were around 8 to 12 usd.

So a small drop 10 to 15 % in 2012 is not surprising.

This 1/2 ing I see 18 to 30 percent drop.

But it will recover in August and September .

it is probably price-dependent.
at btc $450 you are probably right (18-30%)
at btc 677 maybe 10-15%
at btc 800 5% or less.

incidentally, in 2012 difficulty dropped not AT block size change, but 4 weeks later.
If the network drops 30% I'm basically all in at that point. It will usually take some time for people to know and accept that mining won't be profitable at their electricity rate and hardware anymore. So until then I only see it going up with the price.

I think some gear will come off.  I still think there are a lot of old machines running at cheap electricity.   But if we keep going up in USD value it might be less of a drop then I was expecting.   I was thinking it would be a pretty massive drop off of old gear and tons of good deals on older gear.   But price keeps skyrocketing.

Currently at 693 on coinbase and rising slowly.  If this keeps up it's hard to say what will be profitable still in a month.   I just hope it does not drop off.
hero member
Activity: 966
Merit: 546
And 2012 we were a mostly gpu network coins were around 8 to 12 usd.

So a small drop 10 to 15 % in 2012 is not surprising.

This 1/2 ing I see 18 to 30 percent drop.

But it will recover in August and September .

it is probably price-dependent.
at btc $450 you are probably right (18-30%)
at btc 677 maybe 10-15%
at btc 800 5% or less.

incidentally, in 2012 difficulty dropped not AT block size change, but 4 weeks later.
If the network drops 30% I'm basically all in at that point. It will usually take some time for people to know and accept that mining won't be profitable at their electricity rate and hardware anymore. So until then I only see it going up with the price.
-ck
legendary
Activity: 4088
Merit: 1631
Ruu \o/
Correct. There's definitely lag time before those who mine below profit margins come to grips with it and slowly turn off their hardware. The rise in bitcoin value at the moment may alleviate and even offset it entirely though this time around since btc is on the up and up.
legendary
Activity: 3892
Merit: 4331
And 2012 we were a mostly gpu network coins were around 8 to 12 usd.

So a small drop 10 to 15 % in 2012 is not surprising.

This 1/2 ing I see 18 to 30 percent drop.

But it will recover in August and September .

it is probably price-dependent.
at btc $450 you are probably right (18-30%)
at btc 677 maybe 10-15%
at btc 800 5% or less.

incidentally, in 2012 difficulty dropped not AT block size change, but 4 weeks later.
legendary
Activity: 4256
Merit: 8551
'The right to privacy matters'
Difficulty will decrease after the halving. If diff increases it's due to newer hardware and btc price rising instead.
Did difficulty decrease after the last halving in 2012?
A lot.

10-11%
http://www.coindesk.com/data/bitcoin-mining-difficulty-time/

drag sliders from the left and from the right to 'focus' around November 2012-Jan 2013
It did slide around Christmas while block change occured in November, almost exactly one month earlier.
In another 6 weeks it was back.


And 2012 we were a mostly gpu network coins were around 8 to 12 usd.

So a small drop 10 to 15 % in 2012 is not surprising.

This 1/2 ing I see 18 to 30 percent drop.

But it will recover in August and September .
legendary
Activity: 3892
Merit: 4331
Difficulty will decrease after the halving. If diff increases it's due to newer hardware and btc price rising instead.
Did difficulty decrease after the last halving in 2012?
A lot.

10-11%
http://www.coindesk.com/data/bitcoin-mining-difficulty-time/

drag sliders from the left and from the right to 'focus' around November 2012-Jan 2013
It did slide around Christmas while block change occured in November, almost exactly one month earlier.
In another 6 weeks it was back.
-ck
legendary
Activity: 4088
Merit: 1631
Ruu \o/
Difficulty will decrease after the halving. If diff increases it's due to newer hardware and btc price rising instead.
Did difficulty decrease after the last halving in 2012?
A lot.
legendary
Activity: 1456
Merit: 1175
Always remember the cause!
It's almost guaranteed at this point. We will be over 200 Billion in diff BEFORE the block halving.

maybe maybe not.

you need realize bitmaintech  has enough gear  to move diff 10 to 20%  by turning power on and off.


they are truly moving the diff rate where they want it to be.

they can influence price but that costs  them more to do.

they can move diff around a lot much more cheaply.

They are so big it is not about putting all you have in a farm and mining.

   It is about putting the right amount on line to get the best bang for the buck.
Like a queen  sacrifice in a chess game seems dumb short term but long term it wins the game.
below are various moves.

1)Bitmaintech would like to see price at 900 and then sell  s-9's slowly all summer and fall.
all the while mining with only s-9's and making big bucks  $$

2) Bitmaintech would like to see price going up up up up to 1500 or more and sell s-9's like mad. While mining with only s-9's and making bigger bucks $$$

3) bitmiantech know they have .10 watt gear  and will sell slow to keep diff lower.  then tweak their design to mine in house with .08 watt gear.  in this case price could be under 500 they still do well.

4)  I can give 10 more ways they can play it.

5) until other companies clearly show they are mining with .1 watt gear bitmaintech is king.
I missed this post! what a great post!

A lot of knowledge and vision about how things go in the bitcoin world.

congrats man. The thing is we people don't read or we don't understand when we occasionally read something and in the very rare moments of understanding we just can't believe in what we have understood, we just like 'no , it isn't true! can't be! I am wrong!' ...

but what you are talking about man, bitcoin being almost dominated by a king, yeah it is true man ...  it is a bloody absolute true picture of the situation and somewhat disappointing if not totally disgusting(yet).
full member
Activity: 252
Merit: 100
I think it is inevitable because of the new mining hardware. They'll keep selling out for a ton of batches and as the price gets higher more miners get put online.
legendary
Activity: 1456
Merit: 1175
Always remember the cause!
though halving can happen sooner or even later in bitcoin world everything depends on the network hash rate.
More hash power = more difficulty and sooner halving.
Actually halving is not affected by difficulty and/or hash rate, the way you imply. halving is going to happen at block #420001 which  (hash rate or difficulty whatever to be) it is going to be mined on July 10.

Hash rate and difficulty being in an equilibrium guaranteed by the protocol (almost) make this happen on July 10.


could be a day in either direction  with super low or high hashing days.

Ie many days (6 or 7)  of 120 blocks  would move us to July 11

or many days  (6 or 7) of 168 blocks would  move us to July 9

but July 10 will be close.


we are block 415983  

420001
415983
_______
4018 left

if we do

4018/154  =  26 days and   2 hours and 10 minutes  if  we keep at + 6.9% for a 154 a day avg   July 8th



4018/144 = 27 days and 21 hours and 40 minutes   if we keep at    0%          for a 144 a day avg   July 10th


4018/134 = 29 days and  23 hours and 39 minutes  if we keep at -6.9%        for a 134 a day avg  July 12th


so July 8th to July 12th is likely


good calculations, we should keep it at 0 though.  dude is totally confused, hashing power being up or down has more sever consequences than what it can do with  halving on July 10 +/- 1 day

P.S.
to be clear about why we "should keep it at 0":  we will have 2 difficulty adjustments before halving block arrives so network is capable of regulating its target state (the 0 state), making it the most acceptable estimation.
legendary
Activity: 1662
Merit: 1050
Difficulty will decrease after the halving. If diff increases it's due to newer hardware and btc price rising instead.
Did difficulty decrease after the last halving in 2012?
legendary
Activity: 1624
Merit: 1130
Bitcoin FTW!
What's most likely is a fluctuation of high hash days and low hash days as people try other methods of mining. You'll probably see a very wide fluctuation of hashrate and difficulty in the weeks after the halving, with the general direction of difficulty going either down or up. Keep in mind that while gear is being deactivated, the high-hashrate S9 will also be activated worldwide, and overall, hashrate will probably go up. it could go either way at this point, depending if Bitfury releases their new chips (if at all) to a miner maker, if S9 sales go well, if new miners are created. It's very hard to predict anything during and past the halving, and this is no exception. It also depends where the price of bitcoin is, as if it goes above a certain price point, hashrate could spike, but if it only peaks at a lower price point, miners will not create as much hashrate.
legendary
Activity: 4256
Merit: 8551
'The right to privacy matters'
though halving can happen sooner or even later in bitcoin world everything depends on the network hash rate.
More hash power = more difficulty and sooner halving.
Actually halving is not affected by difficulty and/or hash rate, the way you imply. halving is going to happen at block #420001 which  (hash rate or difficulty whatever to be) it is going to be mined on July 10.

Hash rate and difficulty being in an equilibrium guaranteed by the protocol (almost) make this happen on July 10.


could be a day in either direction  with super low or high hashing days.

Ie many days (6 or 7)  of 120 blocks  would move us to July 11

or many days  (6 or 7) of 168 blocks would  move us to July 9

but July 10 will be close.


we are block 415983  

420001
415983
_______
4018 left

if we do

4018/154  =  26 days and   2 hours and 10 minutes  if  we keep at + 6.9% for a 154 a day avg   July 8th



4018/144 = 27 days and 21 hours and 40 minutes   if we keep at    0%          for a 144 a day avg   July 10th


4018/134 = 29 days and  23 hours and 39 minutes  if we keep at -6.9%        for a 134 a day avg  July 12th


so July 8th to July 12th is likely

legendary
Activity: 1456
Merit: 1175
Always remember the cause!
though halving can happen sooner or even later in bitcoin world everything depends on the network hash rate.
More hash power = more difficulty and sooner halving.
Actually halving is not affected by difficulty and/or hash rate, the way you imply. halving is going to happen at block #420001 which  (hash rate or difficulty whatever to be) it is going to be mined on July 10.

Hash rate and difficulty being in an equilibrium guaranteed by the protocol (almost) make this happen on July 10.
legendary
Activity: 4256
Merit: 8551
'The right to privacy matters'
It's almost guaranteed at this point. We will be over 200 Billion in diff BEFORE the block halving.

maybe maybe not.

you need realize bitmaintech  has enough gear  to move diff 10 to 20%  by turning power on and off.


they are truly moving the diff rate where they want it to be.

they can influence price but that costs  them more to do.

they can move diff around a lot much more cheaply.

They are so big it is not about putting all you have in a farm and mining.

   It is about putting the right amount on line to get the best bang for the buck.
Like a queen  sacrifice in a chess game seems dumb short term but long term it wins the game.
below are various moves.

1)Bitmaintech would like to see price at 900 and then sell  s-9's slowly all summer and fall.
all the while mining with only s-9's and making big bucks  $$

2) Bitmaintech would like to see price going up up up up to 1500 or more and sell s-9's like mad. While mining with only s-9's and making bigger bucks $$$

3) bitmiantech know they have .10 watt gear  and will sell slow to keep diff lower.  then tweak their design to mine in house with .08 watt gear.  in this case price could be under 500 they still do well.

4)  I can give 10 more ways they can play it.

5) until other companies clearly show they are mining with .1 watt gear bitmaintech is king.
legendary
Activity: 1036
Merit: 1000
It's almost guaranteed at this point. We will be over 200 Billion in diff BEFORE the block halving.
hero member
Activity: 924
Merit: 506
though halving can happen sooner or even later in bitcoin world everything depends on the network hash rate.
More hash power = more difficulty and sooner halving.
full member
Activity: 182
Merit: 100
★YoBit.Net★ 350+ Coins Exchange & Dice
With bitcoin dif adjust each 2k+ blocks Yes it's gonna jump for sure higher than 200K but soon after this We gonna se difficulty going down as well. A lot of miners gonna shut down after halving cuz it will be non profitable for them * i mean small miners
-ck
legendary
Activity: 4088
Merit: 1631
Ruu \o/
Difficulty will decrease after the halving. If diff increases it's due to newer hardware and btc price rising instead.
sr. member
Activity: 434
Merit: 250
Young but I'm not that bold
maybe it will reach this number even before halving because when the price rises, more people try to join mining to get some expensive coins and this will increase the difficulty
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